There are a lot of smart people who think Trump has a plan. For example, that he’s deliberately reducing America to a regional power to avoid full Imperial collapse. Or that he’s using tariffs to rebuild American industry.
No.
Trump isn’t the type, he doesn’t have a master plan. Trump is driven by the idea that other countries are taking advantage of America: by a sense of grievance. He wants good deals, by which he always means that the US gets more than it gives, and he’s willing to end a deal if he thinks it isn’t good.
Trump has virtues (not all virtues are moral virtues.) Yeah, he started rich, thanks to Daddy, but he shits into a gold toilet, got a lot of good looking women, and became the President of the United States. He has a weird sort of charisma and tons of energy, as long as what he’s doing gets him attention of the right kind.
But he’s not a deep thinker. He doesn’t know much about the political economy, and he doesn’t make and execute policy plans. His purge of the “deep state” is driven by grievance: they went after him during Biden’s reign, so he’s going after them.
His tariffs are driven by looking at trade balances and feeling they’re unfair: Europe has about a 235 billion trade surplus with America, for example. That, to Trump is unfair. (The balance of payments is about 40 to 60 billion, which is far less.) Canada has a trade surplus, so that’s Canada taking advantage of the US to Trump, never mind that the US actually sells more goods to Canada than vice-versa and the surplus is essentially all energy trade.
If his tariffs were part of a master plan to re-industrialize he wouldn’t have gutted Biden’s industrial policy, which was actually working, and he wouldn’t be waffling back and forth on them. He’d institute them. (The smartest way would be to set a goal, and increase the tariffs by 1% every month or two to give companies time to reshore.)
Likewise his attack on NATO is primarily driven by this sense of grievance: the US is paying much more than everyone else and other NATO nations haven’t met their promise of spending 2% of GDP. (Which is fair enough, they did say they would, and they haven’t.) In the case of Europe there’s something there: the Euros are terrified of Russia and if they think Russia is really a threat (I don’t) they should be willing to spend on their military.
There are certainly people in Trump’s administration or outside planners with influence who do have master plans related to tariffs, reindustrialization, and ending the America Empire, but Trump? No. He’s too undisciplined a thinker and trying to work thru him must be endlessly frustrating to them.
Trump is also self-defeating in his fickleness. It’s impossible to make a deal with him, because you can’t be sure he’ll stick to it. Take his pressure on Egypt (which has massive fiscal issues caused by the Houthi blockade and Ukrainian war, since they got much of their grain from Ukraine, and thus is in a bad position to resist pressure) to take Palestinian refugees. To make it worthwhile he needs to not just offer the stick (we’ll end subsidies) but also a carrot—increased subsidies.
But Sisi has to figure that Trump might cut those subsidies off in a few months or a year or too, after he’s got 700K Palestinians refugees in his territory.
Now, even without a plan, Trump may wind up reducing America to a regional power. I’d say he probably will as a result of what he’s doing. But that he’s deliberately doing as part of a master plan based on a sound understanding of global political economics?
Seems unlikely.
And that matters, because there are smart ways to do things, and stupid ones, and stumbling into the end of America as the global hegemon will have some fairly serious costs like a crash on American arms sales, countries likely refusing to enforce American copyright and patents, national ownership laws taking much of America’s overseas ownership of land and industry, and so on. Plus, if you want to reindustrialize, the clumsy attack on universities and research is exactly the wrong thing to do when China is ahead in 80% of fields. (To be clear, American research needs to be fixed, but you don’t do it by defunding it massively all at once: you slowly change how funding is done so that there aren’t mass layoffs of scientists who then leave the US or stop being scientists.)
Trump isn’t some great statesman who has looked carefully at America’s position and come up with a brilliant master plan, he’s a deeply flawed man whose primary skill is self-promotion and who is driven by a negative sum view of the world based on the idea that if he’s winning someone else has to be losing, a deep sense of grievance at the idea anyone is taking advantage of him (because he takes advantage of others all the time) and who needs attention, adulation and ass kissing.
Too many people are reading into Trump want they want to see, not seeing what is actually there—and not there.
Poul
In agreements between states trust is core. There are no one who can enforce a broken agreement if the US breaks their word. Trump’s style of leadership is not conducive of trust.
Iran is in that position. If they yield on their civilian nuclear program and shut everything down they have to trust the US/Trump not to attack them next year.
Good luck with that.
sbt42
Back in December ’24, I came up with the hypothesis that the guy really didn’t want to be President again, or at least for very long. He’d be setting up favorable deals for him and the rest of his cronies via executive order and such, then abdicate the seat, leaving Vance in charge. All this would happen by the end of March 2025.
…Well, I still have a little less than a week before I have it totally wrong.
EGrise
That’s why I don’t get the desire to do away with Social Security and Medicare. It’s not part of the “Deep State” and ending it would make him the most hated man in America, and it would harm many of his own supporters the most. Is it just spite? Is it the goal of Musk or one of his other sycophants and Trump’s just letting it happen because he doesn’t give enough of a damn to lift a finger to stop it? No idea.
Mary Bennet
We have seen this movie, heard this noise every time a Republican gets elected to the White House. Us hillbillies can so do complicated foreign policy, so there you librul wimps! Except they can’t because emotion and bluster doesn’t impress the rest of the world.
Here is Scott Ritter, who is, so far as I can determine, no liberal and no friend, to put it mildly, of former president Biden. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn3Bm1SgbmM
bruce wilder
Trump in a cracked, bizzaro way is more realistic and adaptive than much of the establishments he contends against. I don’t think there is any strategic master plan, but I am not sure there could be much more effective tactics for dealing with political elites at home and abroad lost in the mass delusions of end-stage neoliberalism. It would be futile to try to earnestly negotiate with or persuade a great many American or European “leaders”. They believe things that are simply incompatible with deliberation or adaptive negotiation.
They say in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I would not even claim Trump has one eye, but I marvel that he seems so well-adapted to his political environment / moment.
I think it is natural to wish, in defiance of the bitter evidence, for a wise leader in confusing times when the old shibboleths are becoming obsolete cliches. Trump is like a slap across the face received during a deep, dreamy slumber. The important realization is not that some clown has slapped the world, it is that the world has been asleep and dreaming.
Soredemos
Reminder that Trump almost certainly never intended to win in 2016. It was a PR gimmick so he could add ‘former presidential candidate’ to his resume.
He just made the mistake of running against a uniquely unlikeable smug idiot, while tapping into a zeitgeist of (mostly legitimate) discontent.
someofparts
“I don’t know how much more of a favor you can do for someone than tell the future in advance, other than forgive them when they don’t believe you.”
I think Ian said everything that can be said about Trump and I have nothing to add.
Instead I offer the attached link because it is beautiful and makes me think of the work Ian does at this site.
https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/the-confluence?r=5teob&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
GlassHammer
“whose primary skill is self-promotion and who is driven by a negative sum view of the world based on the idea that if he’s winning someone else has to be losing, a deep sense of grievance at the idea anyone is taking advantage of him (because he takes advantage of others all the time) and who needs attention, adulation and ass kissing.” – Ian
Two things, 1.) The above is a synopsis the character of a huge portion of the American electorate and 2.) Its forbidden to say point 1,) so the media has “Sanewash” all leaders into “having a plan” so that the voters/viewers are framed as “wanting a plan”.
The honest to God answer is its petty grievances from the top to the bottom.
Revelo
I’m in agreement with what I think Bruce Wilder is saying. Namely, that if Trump acted deliberately and coherently, he would be immediately undermined by the existing corrupt narrative control system. If you engage with this narrative rationally, your words immediately get twisted out of recognition. So Trump is engaging irrationally and the narrative control cannot cope. For example, no one can talk about pulling back on USA empire lest they be branded a pacifist or leftist nutcase. But Trump can break the USA foreign policy machine and this force pull back.
Behind Trump are Republican oligarchs and their hired guns like Vance. Unlike Trump, they are rational. These Republicans recognize that the USA is over extended and has gotten fat and lazy with financialization and deindustrialization. Some of these Republicans would be content to retrench completely back into North America and enjoy being rentier oligarchs of an impregnable fortress continent. Others want to retrench less and rejuvenate the USA, which will mean clipping the wings of the FIRE sector, bursting the asset bubbles, breaking monopolies, reducing the standard of living of the middle class to pay for investment spending, and other politically difficult and painful actions. These factions are in conflict, but they both need Trump to run interference with the so-called “deep state” faction that wants to preserve the system as is: meaning imperial over reach, continued financialization and deindustrialization and deficit spending, descent to Brazilianized third-rate military power and middle income resource economy lorded over by plutocracy.
In my opinion, Trump is aware that he is incompetent in many ways but equally aware that his incompetence doesn’t matter. USA leadership is no longer punished or even called out for incompetence. And Trump is supremely competent at the one thing which matters, which is wrecking the narrative control system. Trump knows the other Republicans respect his talent at being an indispensable and irreplaceable battering ram and so they will not try to attack him. Rather they will take advantage of the Trump battering to get what they want, whether of not this has anything to do with what is coming out of Trump’s mouth, and then somehow reward Trump with a farewell gift when all is done (such as letting him do a monster rug pull with his crypto businesses).
It is also my view that Trump is ultimately better for the Palestinians than anyone else would be. He is giving Israel a long rope to hang itself with, which is the one weapon that will work against Israel long term. Palestinians who survive exile to Egypt or Syria can eventually return, a few decades into the future, whereas those who stay in Gaza or the West Bank will be exterminated, so no future for them.
Tallifer
I think Trump feels that being a regional Great Power with untrammeled economic exploitation and political domination of the Western hemisphere is worth any side effects elsewhere in the world. It will not matter if Russia dominates Europe, China dominates Africa and Asia including Taiwan and Korea, and the Middle East dissolves into chaos.
Tallifer
Furthermore, Trump does need a plan. His ideological supporters like Vance have all the evil plans necessary. Project 2025, for example.
Tallifer
err “does not need a plan” I meant to write
Mark Level
I certainly agree with the overall thesis. He has no plan, but as you point out, he has a couple of things that constitute an M.O., a “Method of Operation” to use a term from criminology. This MO is formed from certain deeply-embedded, core psychological pathologies. (A spiritually-aligned person might call these “inner demons”.)
The 2 greatest are, it seems to me, the sense of grievance that you identify, and in addition a massive (we could say Ozymandian) sense of insecurity and the attendant need for attention, whether positive or negative.
So the grievances form his driving energy, which, as you point out, is impressive relative to most, even compared to others who’ve been “the most powerful man in the world.” (A false claim, there are powers behind the throne, as JFK learned by trying to be an actual Chief Executive.) Trump plays the iconoclast at times (running to Hillary’s left on US Empire, not difficult to do) but that’s just a tactical feint, he subscribes to the core tenets of Right-wing ideology: Male superiority & patriarchy, White Supremacy, legitimate use of violence by cops and the military on behalf of TPTB, Romney’s “Ownership Class.”
He was “a Democrat” strategically for decades, due to being based in NYC. He was attracted to (R) ideas, however, certainly with regard to the Market, also with regard to Race. He actually criticized Pat Buchanan as a knuckle-dragger when Pat was fighting for the nomination (just as JD Vance called Trump a “moron”, etc. when he was still a Lib hero for his condescending, idiotic book “Hillbilly Elegy”), but he was clearly attracted to Buchanan’s racial hierarchic theories and ran on them in 2016. Recently he’s vented on “Why does Islam hate us? They seem not to like Americans?” a central theme alongside hating the brown people on “our” Southern border in his first term. Of course, being near totally ignorant in history, he has no ability to form a rational judgment around “problems” like this– but he gets hangers-on like Stephen Miller to flesh out the details on who is to be persecuted. “SM” in the recent War Texting meeting is known as “the Trump Whisperer”, who knows the great man’s true desires. Miller is uniquely psychologically suited to this role. He’s a homely pipsqueak, bald (he once sported painted-on “hair”, dropped it after wide ridicule) who grew up in tony, liberal SoCal, rebelled against his liberal family by virulently hating Hispanics, blacks, women, gays, etc. etc. Trump can at least simulate an actual “winner”, Miller cannot– he can only be a Hater, who deep down knows he is a Loser in the “genetic lottery”. But access to Power, which brings the ability to hurt others, provides some comfort.
This leads to bringing up Trumps lifelong relationship to Jews, and his simultaneous & schizophrenic anti-Semitism countered by surface Philo-Semitism. One of the very few things I admire about Trump is his rejection of organized religion, metaphysics, etc. I think that comes from the same instincts Ted Turner once expressed as a “self-made man”, when he noted that most Christians are “losers”, and generally beneath contempt. He’ll let his CHUD followers portray him as Jesus’ 2nd Coming, or the Golden Idol of the “Trump Gaza” AI video, but he doesn’t spend much time in the world of “faith.” Okay, a brush with death at a campaign rally caused him to say God chose to spare him for a “reason”, American Greatness, obviously. This is straight from the (R) playbook, however, just as Katherine Harris in 2000 justified working with Jeb to steal the Florida election for Bush Jr., quoted as saying “God intends George W. Bush to be President.”
But back to “the Jewish question.” Everyone knows Trump’s biggest mentor as a youth, beyond dad, was the foul, despicable, gangster-ish, very connected Roy Cohn, a legend who came up with the powerful Joseph McCarthy. Trump respects Jews in the business & legal sector (until they turn on him, like his former lawyer Michael Cohen did) but at the same time hates and resents them as an “alien” race. He tweeted anti-Semitic tropes like a Star of David with a dollar at the center of it, perhaps that was mere ignorance but perhaps not.
Let’s go to Trump’s family now (something he values) and combine with the Jewish question. It is clear Trump divides humanity into 2 groups (as so many do, the DC crowd imagine there are only D’s and R’s, one good and one evil, depending on partisanship, though they do the same Masters’ bidding), “Winners” and “Losers.” Donald clearly puts his 2 sons Don Jr. and Eric in the “Losers” category, along with “fat” Tiffany, etc. He seems to actually love only Ivanka, and to have strategically allied with son-in-law Jared, sired in a connected Clan much like the Trumps, except for being Jewish. Remember how Trump babbled, c. 2015, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, I’d probably be dating her”, open with his incestuous desires. I cannot prove this but strongly suspect he was fine with Ivanka’s choosing a non-Aryan husband whereas he might’ve been threatened if a blonde gentile like himself was chosen. Shallow as Trump’s understanding of history is, certainly he understands Noble families intermarrying and thus forming business alliances, so Jared was just perfect. Jared is a remarkably bland and bloodless individual, he looks like a walking, mewling department store mannikin, but he has connections in DJT’s Real Estate world, so is a good choice.
I agree with bruce wilder’s point about Trump’s adaptability, as a Gemini Shape-Shifter, he can flip on a dime. I disagree with Sorodemos’ “he didn’t expect to win” theory. Again, he is extremely needy of external validation, though admittedly his past aspirations to be PotUS were whetted by Obama’s ridiculing him at an Elite event. (I’m sure we can all picture his reaction: “How dare that N—–r!! I’ll show him!”) But his constant hyperbolic fantasies that his Midas-like touch means everything he does is “exceptional”, “yuuuuge”, “the best ever”, “never seen before”, “so much winning” tends to suggest he at heart thought he deserved the spot and would (& did) win it.
Poul’s opening insight is 100% correct, but everyone knew that much earlier, at least in the Actual (not curated) International Community. Obama made promises to Putin that the Deep State overruled once he was back home. Biden’s loser crew didn’t even attempt to do diplomacy– they refused any (but one) dialogue with Russia once the SMO began. Li’l Antony the Blinkered went to China and made demands, was laughed at and told to leave. When Biden met with Xi, Xi called him a liar to his face (correctly), despite the usual Chinese subtlety and caution. But Donald flips at any moment, “Did I call Zelensky a dictator? I don’t remember that.”
This latter will lead to further failures of an already failing ancien regime. (Ironically, whomever taught Trump about William McKinley may have located the actual origin of the US Global, as opposed to Hemispheric, Empire.) Trump’s had many victories by bullying and threats in the first few months of admin #47. But as his abuse continues, many targets may refuse him or fight back. America lacks both the economic and political muscle to dominate the rising East and Global South, as this site has adequately proved. Trump is just writing checks (or extortion demands) with his mouth that his ass can’t keep.
Will he even bumble along for 2 years without a major war or economic Crash? I really doubt it. It’s not the 1980s or 90s, and as Pepe Escobar observed, Trump is “All Hat, No Cattle.” And we’ve barely touched on the incompetence and psychosis of his Court, nutcases like the alcoholic, battering white Supremacist Hegseth. This will not end well, and yes, the Trump Cult will be among those hurt the most, though the damage will be nearly universal at some point.
j
> That’s why I don’t get the desire to do away with Social Security and Medicare.
Whether he really thinks that he is reshoring manufacturing or not, he is still a neoliberal at heart like the rest of them, running mostly the standard neoliberal playbook. The most important part of that being opening up of any state function and institution for looting by business interests.
Remember Trump gave the rich the biggest tax break ever on his first term. He had no need to do that, other than class loyalty. This time when business interests have lined up behind him, and are a big part of his power base, he is obviously going to do all he can for them. This is the POTUS, and US politics in general, modus operandi after all, sell out the country for a fat retirement fund.
Nobody in power in the US cares about harm to the people. Or, by Lambert’s law, 1) because markets 2) go die. In a set up where there is no consequences to one’s actions, the worst people will rise to the top. Social security and Medicare are a huge parts of the budget tho, and cutting them means being able to cut taxes to big business, and funnily enough, support from all the freedumb “taxation is theft” voters. In lieu of the cut institutions, private sector “innovation” is going to step in, offering the same services, but obviously at triple the price and half the quality.
Or, to put it in other words, the social side of the budget was going to end up on the chopping block sooner or later anyway, this is what the party donors want. The only question was when and how fast this was going to happen. My guess is Musk is the one who called for the shock therapy, it actually worked for him at Twitter as we recall. Let’s not forget “move fast and break things” Zuck either, who is also in team Trump now. Democrats are not really against any of it either, mouthing complaints or not, they also have the same donors who want the same thing. But even if they were against it, they are by now so incompetent that it’s all moot anyway.
Feral Finster
Yves Smith said that Trump is motivated, not by greed or even power, but by vanity. The need to be seen as “dominant”, “tough” and “winning” at all times, in all interactions.
This makes him eminently easy to manipulate.
Anyway, it was obvious about a month into Trump’s first term that there was no 11-D chess, no master plan, just a series of ad hoc reactions and poorly considered and clumsy examples of lashing out. Everything else was just excuses.
Something similar could be said for Obama. For eight years, we were treated to his cult making excuse after excuse for him. They still lay on the excuses. Now we get to watch the Trump cult do the exact same thing.
Jessica
sbt42, I had the same idea that Trump didn’t really want to be president again. He just wants to go out a winner and he wants revenge. (His enemies did go after him in ways not used before against a fellow member of the ruling class so understandable.)
But I gave him a year to hand things over to Vance and become president emeritus. Though if he does do this, it is not hard to picture him breaking with Vance after a while, like Teddy Roosevelt did with Taft.
different clue
Here’s a cartoon about the archetypical core Trump supporter.
https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1jl76tb/alpha/
different clue
Here’s an article with graphs and stuff about how DOGE preferentially cancelled grants and contracts in counties which were found to have voted for Harris.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1jl3own/doge_preferentially_cancelled_grants_and/
The Republican Party, the Project 2025 community, DOGE, etc. don’t need for Trump to have a plan. They came in under Trumpian cover with plans of their own, all written out and ready to go.
And I note with interest that Yves Smith over at NaCap is still pretending that Project 2025 was merely a disjointed bunch of Republicanservative wishes and grievances with no relevant plans, goals or anything else. She and Lambert Strether wrote loud and long about how people who were totally wrong about something ( they were thinking of Iraq at the time) should not be taken seriously about any of their political judgements going forward. Yet Yves Smith ( Lambert Strether not-so-much now that he is retired?) still wants and expects to be taken seriously in her political judgements
after being so very wrong about Project 2025 and so very wrong about the beneficial effects of getting Harris defeated.
ella
Yeh, so easy to see what motivates this creature and what he wants out of money and power. He’s very forthright about it; don’t know why so many people avert their eyes.
His followers admire Trump because he gets away with what they would so much like to get away with themselves. Sorry, gotta be born on third base before you even get a chance to loot and ruin an entire country. Elon Musk knows all about it.
Oakchair
Biden’s dementia laid bare that it’s not the President in charge. Thinking that Trump is solely in charge is starting with a false premise. There are others in charge, making decisions, planning, and so on along with the President. The correct question isn’t does Trump have plans. It is does the Trump administration have plans.
They do have a plan to transfer more wealth and power to the rich and powerful. You know the plan republicans have had since memorable history. Tariffs fit this in that they tax the middle and poor and allow for more tax cuts for the rich.
Likewise, cuts to Medicaid/care, SS, education, etc fit this as they allow for financial room to reduce taxes for the rich. They also reduce options and security for the poor and middle making them —at least in the eyes of the powerful— less likely to dissent.
The purpose of getting rid of the state and it’s functions isn’t to unleash an economic miracle. It’s to weaken institutions that could —if they choose— counter the power of the capitalists. The capitalists have every material good they could dream of. They do not give a shit if a depression occurs; what they want is control and subservience. Remember they don’t come for the weak first; first they take out those who could counter them. Then they come for the weak and scapegoats.
miss jennings
I believe there is a master plan. Or at least a general plan they work from.
We want the world and we want it NOW. Or as soon as possible.
The general/master plan at this point in time is controlled chaos within which ends may be achieved.
But Sisi has to figure that Trump might cut those subsidies off in a few months or a year or too, after he’s got 700K Palestinians refugees in his territory.
I was just reading lyman alpha blob’s comment over at NC:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03/links-3-27-2025.html#comment-4195903
I loved this:
“Elizabeth Warren is not going to save you. The Democratic Party is not going to save you,” Kayali shouted to the huge crowd. “They did not save Rumeysa. She is detained. They did not save hundreds of thousands of my people murdered by U.S. bombs. This whole damn system has to go.”
I watched the video and lyman alpha blob is correct: the response to Palestinian activist Lea Kayali is tepid.
But I’m more interested in Lea Kayali herself. Who is she? Why doesn’t she mention Israeli bombs and intel? Why doesn’t she mention Israel at all?
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=Lea+Kayali&ia=web
It emerges that Kayali is a lifelong activist who evidently wanted to enter into interntional relations since she was in grade school. That’s strikes me as a little bizarre, but whatever.
‘Many people experience racism. Few actually do something about it. Recent Shaker Heights High School grad Lea Kayali is one of the exceptions. Winner of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage’s Stop the Hate: Youth Speak Out essay contest, she’s an activist who knows more about international relations than your typical teen working a summer mall job at American Eagle.’
https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland-guides/the-voice-of-reason-lea-kayali-4610232
I know a lot of teens who worked mall jobs because they had to and they’ve turned out alright. I mean, there can only be so many winners of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage ‘Stop the Hate: Youth Speak Out’ essay contests.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Maltz+Museum+of+Jewish+Heritage+israel&t=lm&ia=web
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Maltz+Museum+of+Jewish+Heritage+palestine&t=lm&ia=web
‘In 1948, when Israel was declared the first Jewish state, it gave the Jewish people an opportunity to create a home for themselves and their children — what would come of this land, the people, and a culture?
Take a look back and imagine what’s ahead during this world premiere special exhibition that combines milestone moments, historic images, interactive media, and film to explore Israel: Then & Now.’
https://www.maltzmuseum.org/isr/
Kayali – if she is for real and I very much doubt that – Kayali ought to be calling out the ideology of Zionism.
So, a ‘Palestinian Activist’ receives an award from an entity that supports the wholesale annhilation of her people.
Fascinating.
mago
Nobody’s right if everybody wrong. . .
Yeah, right. Sometimes ya gotta laugh, although that wasn’t my first reaction to some comments here, sincere and well considered as they may be. Doesn’t matter anyway. (What I think.)
I actually knew a cook or two who tried throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it stuck, thus determining if the pasta was done. Get outta here. Man, if you can’t tell by looking and intuition, you don’t belong in a professional kitchen.
However, if you’re the DT, you can toss all you want, and snort, laugh and fart when everyone follows your every move. Shit, man. You can do what you want including calling in air strikes from the golf course and killing some brown thread heads over there in the sands, someplace you don’t even know where it is or care.
Power baby, it’s the greatest aphrodisiac ever. Although I doubt the Trumpster can get it up anymore without some vitamin V. Same with his colleagues in the contemporary kill club.
Masters of delusions, stainless killers they’ve got multitudes of fan boys and girls all around the world.
It’s the Wizard of Oz, but where’s Toto when you need him?
Mark Level
I equally cringed and laughed at the “Tallifer” donations to this thread . . . I am overdue asking this, but hey, T– it is an obvious (& belated) question given your “contributions” to threads here: what is your position on Palestine? You have claimed the moral high ground on Russia vs. (fascist, Banderite) Ukraine– Israel recently killed 430+ Palestinians on a single day, has “evil Putin” ever done that– any evidence? We all know there is zero. Can you respond? (I expect crickets– surprise me, please. I guess to you, Establishment Lib that you are, Palestinians are subhumans just as Russians are?)
I appreciate the next Ian thread on Canadians (& everyone else) avoiding visiting the US!! I thought this would take time . . . Due Dissidence covered exactly the same ground today. Not just Canada, but Germany, France, UK etc. Imagine how much Bush Junior made the US hated internationally! Trump is “winning” relative to that. Talk about Pyrrich victories!! To be continued . . . (& yeah, I know Tallifer won’t respond.)
someofparts
This belongs here even though it’s probably too late to be part of the conversation. Be sure to read to the end because the last few paragraphs are the interesting part.
https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/we-need-to-talk-about-trump-the-twin
someofparts
B Wilder and Revelo – I think your insights short-circuit the Dunning-Kruger loop that a lot of us get stuck in when trying to understand Trump. Now I’m seeing him as like some odd life form you would find deep in the ocean – weird looking to us because it thrives in conditions that kill most living things.
different clue
We mere citizens of the US have very little individual power over much. If enough individuals focused their little bit of power on the same targets, we might have some perceptible additive power.
Picture a million people with a million personal laser pointers. If they all understood the principle of ” getting a million laser pointer beams focused on the same one spot”, they could burn holes in things. How to get those million people to even believe that they could even do that?
A power we have is to craft and propagate the kind of mortal insults which could further destabilize the already unstable minds of creatures like Trump and Musk. But only if those mortal insults flooded the meme-osphere so ubiquitously that Trump and Musk could not get away from them. Maybe it would be like firing neutrons into the highly unstable brains of Trump and Musk in order to get those brains to go critical and melt down inside the skulls.
Here is one such insult. I have no clear idea how to tape it indelibly onto the front of Musk and Trump’s eyeballs. If someone could figure it out, they might be able to get Musk and/or Trump to decompensate so violently in public that the wielders of armed force might feel forced to get them removed.
Here it is.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/1jljs8o/and_whats_even_worse_is_that_our_entire_country/
Z
Bibi the Butcher’s Butler’s plan … call it a “master” one or not … is to blowup the global financial system so as the epicenter of the explosion is a foreign country. Then he can sweep in with his magic $ making machine to save it and then use that as a bs argument as to why the US has so much debt … we’re always stuck bailing out the world in this crazy, unsustainable financial system … and place the US at the head of the table in the negotiations on a new Bretton-Woods agreement. He wants a big f’ing deal … a Trump-Xi-Putin agreement (in the infamous words of the Uncrowned Queen of Ukraine Victoria Kagan-Nuland: Fuck the EU!) … and that would certainly be one. I’d imagine he’d want to write off all US debt in the process.
Along those lines, the ECB are beginning to get concerned that Bibi the Butcher’s Butler might pressure the Fed into not providing dollar funding to them in times of financial stress so they do have their concerns about the US bullying the ramifications of global financial stress onto their shores (https://www.reuters.com/markets/some-european-officials-weigh-if-they-can-rely-fed-dollars-under-trump-2025-03-22/).
Bibi’s the Butcher’s Butler doesn’t care as much as he claims to about the US supposedly being taken advantage of in trade agreements and whatnot. Why would he take that particularly personal? It’s no skin off of his fat ass. Now, he certainly takes the Deep State and their Russiagate shenanigans personal because the ramifications of it personally cost him money and a lot of time and aggravation, but his tariffs are partly gristle to feed his MAGA base to wash down with a Pabst that are being used for a larger purpose: damage the economies of foreign countries that don’t have the Kingda currency to float their debt. If the countries give in and give him the trade agreements that he wants, then fine, good for the US economy. If they don’t, he will just load more on until one of the countries’ economy gives and they cry Uncle Sam.
So, he has a plan, probably not a thoroughly thought out one, mind you, but he has a plan. Everyone has some sort of plan, even the Lead Stiff of Weekend at Biden’s … by the way, has anyone done a pulse check on him lately? … has a plan with some contingencies in it:
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Also, threatening to make Canada the 51st state, talking smack about taking over Greenland from Denmark, bullying Panama to switch ownership rights over the Panama Canal to Larry’s and Stanley’s Asset Inflation Factory Blackrock, and using the CIA to bring Mexico’s drug lords to heal all point towards him aiming to retrench US power more towards US shores. Though, of course, Miriam Adelson’s Personal Pedicurist’s “Israel First” policy complicates that movement.
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Off topic: has anyone heard if Speed Queen Nancy P’s plan to have the Lead Stiff’s empty mug placed on Mt. Rushmore has gained any traction? Last I heard she was calling for sculptures to chisel off Teddy Roosevelt’s glasses, part of his hairline, his mustache, and glasses, taking a bit off his nose and adding a some steeliness to his eyes and calling it Joe. I’m guessing that DOGE may have put the kibosh on it all though …
Z
different clue
@someofparts,
Don’t miss “President from the Black Lagoon”, coming soon to a White House near you.
( reference to an old monster movie . . . ” Creature from the Black Lagoon”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_from_the_Black_Lagoon )
different clue
I see that the site I got the “mortal insult” from has deleted that post. I will paraphrase it to get as close to the actual quote as I can. Something like: ” Trump and Musk and DOGE are a group of crack addicts stripping the copper wiring out of the walls in a desperate attempt to find the Woke Machine that prevents beautiful women from wanting to fuck them.”
different clue
I remember seeing Roy Cohn being interviewed on TV once. He died a few months later.
I remember at the time thinking he looked like he had already been dead and decomposing for weeks. I hope he was feeling even worse than he was looking.
Mark Andrew Oglesby
Trump does have one plan, the continued movement of the nation’s wealth upward to the wealth-class.
different clue
Moving the nation’s wealth upward to the wealth-class is not a “plan”. It is a “goal”. And yes, it is Trump’s Prime Directive Goal, same a for Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush Jr. , Clinton before this Trump term.
Can the poor and near-poor national majority understand what “wealth” is and what the “plans” are well enough to begin inferfering with them in various ways? It is worth the effort.
I wonder if Tony Wikrent could be considered to be thinking about aspects of that basic problem . . . . how to sabotage the wealth class’s ongoing redistribution of national wealth upward to the wealth class.
“Brain war” words might have a place in the effort. Would it clarify lower class thinking to refer to undertaxation as an upperclass way to redistribute wealth from the lower class to the upper class? If we could brand the current undertaxation as “redistribution”, then we could brand proper New-Dealish taxation as “reverse-redistribution”. Could that be placing caltrops inside the heads of various right wingers?