To a vastly greater degree than most executives and national leaders, Trump has surrounded himself with toadies and sycophants. But what happens when even their efforts to keep telling Trump what he so badly wants to hear, that he is still a colossus astride the world and the prime mover of events, can no longer be maintained? As we’ll explain in due course, Trump already defaults to solving nearly all problems by trying to exert dominance. We can see how that’s already failing on the world stage ex with vassal states. What happens when Trump is met with more resistance from those he can’t successfully bully?
One of his measures of the success of his Liberation Day tariffs was the way other nations were supposedly eager to prostrate themselves to get “a deal”:
But as we recounted yesterday, at least for the moment, US courts have taken away Trump’s retaliatory tariffs weapon. Alligator Alcatraz is being closed. Trump, who very much does not want to be tarred with losing Ukraine, may be able to escape that in the self-serving information bubble he has around him, but not with the broader public or history. The spectacle of the Alaska summit with Putin accomplished little save perhaps extending Zelensky’s sell-by date as European leaders rallied around him. That was admittedly enabled by Trump in talking up a bilateral Putin-Zelensky or trilateral, with Trump in the mix. The Trump spin apparatus also tried to depict Putin as the source of the dead on arrival land swaps idea, and has made another error in not shutting down the UK and Europeans coming back to another non-starter, that of peacekeepers from some NATO members in Ukraine. It has now hit the point where the Russians, who have made a point of not contradicting Trump, are now feeling compelled to do so:
The Trump team seems to be beside itself over its inability to influence Russia either directly or through economic partners. Not only had Indian prime minister Modi refused to knuckle under to Trump’s additional 25% tariffs imposed as a sanction for buying Russian oil, but Modi has also rejected at least four Trump attempts to speak to Modi.1 The Trump team is now trying to get the EU to stop buying Indian and presumably also Turkiye petroleum products made from Russian oil. As Alexander Mercouris pointed out, the alternative sources would either be the US or the Middle East, and the level of demand would likely increase oil prices, something Trump does not want. Recall that one of India’s beefs about Trump’s campaign against its Russian oil buys was that the Biden Administration encourage India to make them, so as to reduce pressure on oil prices.
Another problem primed to get only worse for Trump is Israel. Not only is global opinion hardening even more against the ethnosupremacist state, but more nations are staring to take action, and not just the feel-good of recognizing Palestine as a state. Belgium is set to impose sanctions. More dockworkers on the Mediterranean are refusing to service ships from and to Israel, and I have yet to detect official pressure on them to handle these cargos. Yet many experts see Israel as gearing up to attack Iran again, likely this fall, when it is hard to imagine that Israel will do better, ex nukes, than it did in its surprise cyber attack/decapitation strike. And Iran has strengthened its defenses.
But Trump’s biggest vulnerability, and one he will also find hardest to deny, is the economy. Trump’s desperation to fire Powell or otherwise get control of rate policy is an admission that he sees conditions as weak and wants a monetary goosing. But the Trump deficits are massively stimulative. What more does he want? Both the fiscal spending and now the impact of the tariffs will keep inflation alive, if not increase it. Unless the US has a financial crisis, such as an AI bubble unwind which would whack confidence and spending, stagflation looks baked in.
And that’s before getting to the flawed thinking about lowering rates: not only do they not stimulate economic activity, except by leveraged speculators, but with investors correctly seeing Trump’s policies as too-inflation-prone, lowering short term rates will have little if any effect on longer maturities. So the Treasury won’t get interest expense relief, save by continuing to fund at the short end of the curve, and the housing market will not get much of a boost, since mortgage rates are typically set in relation to five to seven year bond yields.
Polls are already turning against Trump even before these dodgy dynamics get worse. Trump’s overall marks are falling, per this August 31 account:
Donald Trump’s approval ratings has taken another blow, a new poll shows. The US President’s ratings slipped to a record low in his second term, as per the Quinnipiac University poll.
The poll, released earlier this week, saw Trump take a three-point drop in his approval rating in just a month’s time. His decision to deploy the National Guard to Washington DC – in an effort to reduce crime – has also seen a 56-41 percent opposition.
Trump is now scoring badly on his once prime issue, immigration:
Pollster: Take a look at Trump's net approval rating on immigration. A lot of focus on Gallup at -27. That's horrible. Quinnipiac University, -16. That's awful. Marist is bad at -9. Ipsos is -8. Fox at -7. Bad. Bad to just downright terrible. The American people have turned… pic.twitter.com/XgPPcAPrQN
— FactPost (@factpostnews) July 14, 2025
And on tariffs:
New analysis: Compiling our Strength In Numbers/Verasight polls from May to July, Trump is underwater on trade/tariffs in 40 of 50 states (also DC). In key swing states, approval of his trade policy is 10-15 points lower than his vote share in the 2024 election (20-30 on margin). pic.twitter.com/qgIO3fQDdw
— G Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) August 8, 2025
And it’s not getting better:
Yet another poll showing that Americans hate @oren_cass's "populist" tariff agenda.
There are many unpopular aspects of the Trump admin, but tariffs consistently poll as his least-popular issue & are the major factor in tanking his approval ratings. pic.twitter.com/jNFRFLwH9x
— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) August 15, 2025
After this long set-up, let’s turn to the question of what happens as it becomes more and more difficult for Trump to deny his failures. John Helmer has more than once pointed out Russians officials view Trump as having a strong preference for the use of violence to get his way. Examples abound, such as ICE chief Tom Homans’ threats against blue cities, the aggressive show of the ICE raids, the way Trump is destroying US leadership in science to bend US universities to his will and Trump’s show of force in US cities via gratuitous and likely illegal deployments of the National Guard. Other evidence comes in Trump, after his pretense of being a peace president, now wanting to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War and praising going on the offense militarily (a development that Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis described with alarm) and strategically ineffective shows of brutality. This is savagery masquerading as potency:
So the US Navy just apparently decided to murder a bunch of alleged and non-positively identified drug smugglers in international waters when they had half a dozen warships with helicopters available nearby to intercept – and then brag about it.
Moral collapse in action. https://t.co/BTyjW8Rh2r
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) September 2, 2025
Let us not forget that Trump also relishes his self-assigned role as arms merchant in chief.
Top investor Ray Dialo has spoken out against Trump’s authoritarianism in a fresh interview in the Financial Times. From US sliding towards 1930s-style autocracy, warns Ray Dalio:
Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio has warned Donald Trump’s America is drifting into 1930s-style autocratic politics — and said other investors are too scared of the president to speak up….
The veteran investor also took aim at a rising impulse towards state control under Trump. Dalio resisted calling the president’s model authoritarian or socialist, but described the mechanics bluntly: “Governments increasingly take control of what is done by central banks and businesses.”
Asked about Trump’s Intel stake and export tariffs imposed on Nvidia and AMD, Dalio referred to his own concept of “the big cycle”, when during periods of great conflicts and risks countries’ leaders are more controlling of the markets and the economy.
“Classically, increased wealth and value gaps lead to increased populism of the right and populism of the left and irreconcilable differences between them that can’t be resolved through the democratic process. So democracies weaken and more autocratic leadership increases as a large percentage of the population wants government leaders to get control of the system to make things work well for them.”
Predictably, Dalio is worried about the liberties of capitalists as opposed to ordinary people. But on the other end of the food chain, consider that Trump, in his blizzard of initial executive orders, asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and DHS chief Kristi Noem to recommend whether Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the purported border crisis. They demurred because border crossings had dropped markedly from the Biden era to the early days of the Trump Administration. The deployment of the Insurrection Act would represent a huge threat to civil liberties. I personally know an activist who has helped organize anti-Trump protests who is securing citizenship in an EU state and plans an immediate exit from the US if the Insurrection Act were invoked. While this reaction may seem extreme, recall that Trump is fabricating a crime crisis in US cities to justify more Federal involvement in policing.
While yours truly is leery of armchair psychoanalysis, IM Doc, who has similar views, nevertheless said there was so much long-standing video evidence of Biden’s cognitive decline that it was evident he was suffering from dementia years before the 2024 election. Experts have found that 60% to 70% of communication is gossip, which is both information sharing/speculation and discussion of motives and behavior. So it’s not as if people to do routinely psychologize, even if they don’t go as far as resorting to references to clinical conditions.
It should not be controversial to depict Trump as an extreme narcissist. Some like to depict his even out-of-bounds conduct (even more flagrant lying and flip flops than in his past) as the result of mental deterioration. But it seems just as likely to be due to “acquired situational narcissism,” aka power going to someone’s head. Even though this is Trump’s second term, in his first he was considerably hamstrung by Russiagate and having many key staffers who were not just not loyal, but even actively working against him, like John Bolton. Having made a point of packing key positions with stooges, Trump has looks to be intoxicated his vastly increased room to maneuver.
But even so, Trump is not only self-sabotagingly fixated on dominating in encounters at the expense of the larger stakes, but his wilder and wilder behavior suggests on some level that he recognizes his trouble managing the contradictions to needed preserve a thin patina of success. With India alone, he’s tried been flailing to cover for the highly visible tariffs backfire. Recall Modi has not only refused to capitulate to the demand not to buy Russian oil, but is downgrading its once-key relationship with the US to strengthen ties with China. Trump has been trying to sell the howler that India offered a zero tariffs deal, when Modi isn’t even willing to take Trump’s repeated calls. Similarly, after his court setback on tariffs, Trump made the ludicrous claim that his tariffs had raised “trillions” in revenue. And he tried reasserting his manhood by threatening to impose 200% tariffs on pharma imports…a move that would make him hated across much of the US were he to go there.
But even before his reality TV days, Trump was obsessed with his image over his substance. See these extracts from a Barbara Walters interview when Trump was hawking a new book, Surviving at the Top (you can see the full segment here):
I miss the days when we had journalists like Barbara Walters, who could look trump in the face, expose his lies and tell him that he's full of shit.
This is 🔥🔥🔥pic.twitter.com/dj7Q6yO4HX
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) August 25, 2025
As you can infer, Trump had been through difficult negotiations to try to preserve his sinking empire, so one might imagine he was at a bravura low. You can see him here maintain that his purchase of the Plaza Hotel was a great deal and he would not have to sell it; in fact, he did, at a loss of $83 million in 1995.2 In the full segment, Trump maintained he would not dispose of the Trump Shuttle. He did, in 1992.
What I found striking is how, in the edited section above, Trump’s face gets hard when Walters suggests that the title of his book ought to be Failing at the Top. H was quick to attack Walters by depicting the press generally as dishonest. She hits that back over the net calmly and Trump tries changing tactics to discrediting her sources and other types of deflection. Perhaps I am reading overmuch into this, but it looked like Trump was having to contain considerable anger. And more important, that anger was his reflexive response when his position was challenged.
Today, it’s easy to see how often Trump defaults to anger. Just look at his Truth Social posts, not just his frequent use of all caps and demonization, but also his apparent need to lash out when he encounters opposition.
How do narcissists react to defeat? What happens, say, if there is a market crash and Trump policies are cited a major cause? Or as Russia keeps rolling through Ukraine, that even the conservative press depicts Trump as having lost the wor?
It’s not pretty. Psychology Today sets forth some of the typical responses of narcissists to failure. A gander through search results suggests that its list is representative (although I am leery of the phrase “malignant narcissist” as unhelpfully judgmental and therefore rhetorically at odds with an effort to make a clinical description of behavior). Some highlights:
When things begin to sour for the narcissist, here is what we can expect:
They will falsely claim that everything is fine and that there is nothing wrong. They will try to first misdirect us or claim there is nothing to the allegations or circumstances.
If evidence is presented, they will seek to have it invalidated or claim that it is false, fake, or a product of vague conspiracies, but most certainly not true.
Any evidence presented, and those that present it will be attacked aggressively and vindictively…The narcissist will engage supporters or enablers to simultaneously attack those who offer proof or evidence, even if it embarrassingly exposes their poodle-like behavior as that of spineless sycophants…
As they lash out with vindictiveness, the malignant narcissist will continue to talk about themselves in glowing terms…being revered rather than reviled…
As circumstances become dire, the narcissist will not take any responsibility—ever. Anything that has gone wrong is the responsibility of others…
In the process of casting blame, even the most loyal and stalwart will be discarded and denigrated…. Lies are and always will be the number one tool of the malignant narcissist. The only difference now is that in facing failure or public ridicule, the lies must increase in frequency and audacity to the point of incredulity….
And while lies will increase, so too will be the need to devalue others in order to further value themselves. They will attack everyone and anyone in the most vicious and vindictive ways…They will dip down into a bottomless cauldron of antipathy and like an arterial spurt, will spew this toxic brew far and wide with metronomic regularity.
The malignant narcissist, lacking guilt or a conscience, is only concerned with respect and not being publicly shamed. Any kind of public embarrassment will cause them further anger, further rage, further attacks, further unethical comportment, and unprecedented incivility.
If the narcissist is going to be brought down, they will also seek to bring everyone else around them down to vindictively make them suffer. How the narcissist vilifies, lashes out, or destroys others (spouse, friends, business partners, workmates, the general public) is up to the morbid creativity and depravity of the malignant narcissist, the viable tools they have available, and of course how dire or desperate the situation.
The tone above is unduly melodramatic although the intent may be to spur those in close proximity to an extreme narcissist to get the hell away as quickly as possible. However, a key point is that if a narcissist enters a spiral of failure, he will seek to pull those around him down into his whirlpool. And he’ll do so with great determination and “creativity”.
Now of course, the complicating fact with Trump’s emotional self-defenses is that he has been persecuted, first by Russiagate, then with lawfare, and then an assassination attempt. So his view of himself as unfairly pilloried is not made from whole cloth. But Trump has clearly decided on revenge as part of his response (see John Bolton) both for its own sake and to cow anyone who might try to cross him.
But the general point still holds. If Trump faces persistent and well-founded criticism for his actions, he’s likely to react with a ferocity that dwarfs anything we have seen from him so far.
______
1 Tariffs were not the sole reason for the unraveling:
Inside Trump-Modi’s 35-Minute Call That Shattered Years of US-India Friendship
A single phone call. Just 35 minutes long. That’s all it took for U.S.–India relations to shift from warm friendship to icy tension. Insiders say Donald Trump’s conversation with Prime Minister… pic.twitter.com/sTWoZPdXTN
— Augadh (@AugadhBhudeva) August 11, 2025
See also Modi’s refusal to back Trump’s Nobel Prize push soured India-US ties: Report reveals explosive phone call Mint
2 The New York real estate market started to turn only as of about 1994, While I can’t prove it, Trump may have gotten his creditors to accept holding off on the Plaza sale, either to hit a minimum price or until the general distress had abated.
Everyone has two ‘faces’, these being the Inner Face which is how you see yourself and the Outer Face which you present to others. In narcissists there is a disconnect between the two; the narcissist loathes the inner face and constructs a fantasy outer face.
In normal people if there is a large factual gap between the two ‘faces’ then usually people will comment on it and the normal reaction to this is chagrin, embarrassment and a readjustment of how you present yourself.
In a Narcissist you are admitting you can see the inner, loathed face. Their reaction to this is anger; they try and destroy the observer to maintain the fantasy outer face. Most people have encountered this at some time or another.
Of course those narcissists you encountered did not have a huge military and police state to enact their anger.
I’m not sure about the value of the inner and outer face. If there’s one thing you can assume about a narcissist, it is they are completely incapable of empathy; and this includes Trump. Just think of his comments on Gaza as a real estate investment or peace which is merely a means to glorify himself with a Nobel Prize. Trump is a severely damaged soul, potentially very dangerous, and nothing can be done to change him.
Narcissism is also exactly as you said although to be honest there is no one single mental illness, there’s just regions of symptoms. Narcissism is in everyone, it’s part of our make up but psychological narcissism is an compelling exaggeration of this and so is a neurosis. Extreme Narcissism is when it gets to a pathological level.
As you have mentioned narcissists have no empathy but it’s worse than that. They see others only as sources of ‘Social Products’ and this is why the can be charming (although this is something I’ve never seen in Mr Trump).
A Social Product* are things like attention, affection, reputation and so on. The narcissist doesn’t know that a person is an individual human but rather a source of these the same way a lake is the source of water. It is the most extreme form of selfishness where one considers humanity to be purely composed of oneself and oneself alone. This is why the can undertake staggeringly selfish actions; others simply aren’t even the same species. Imagine a person who can milk a cow for self confidence, would they care that cow disliked being milked? It’s like that.
(*I don’t think this is the correct term anymore)
Has anyone thought of the term “sociopath” to describe some of Trump’s behavior? In my opinion, it fits him and his sycophant/backers.
To better understand Trump, we highly recommend reading “The Making of Donald Trump” by David Cay Johnston. A journalist who keep close “tabs” on legal suits against Trump and how he got around all that.
Johnston provides us a background understanding of New York State/NYC in the 1980s-2000s. He notes a kind of American Mafioso of powerful Union leaders, judges who were bought off by Big Money, and hiring poor Polish workers to construct Trump hotels, casinos, and large apartment buildings. All “done” on the cheap.
After reading that book, it provides you the ability see how Trump was all part of those swindles. It’s no wonder, his current presidency is seen as vindictive, making demands of countries; all to save himself and many of his Billionaire pals who are concerned about the value of the US$$ hegemon.
‘Everyone has two ‘faces’’
I’m pretty sure that countries like Iran will agree that Trump is two-faced. Just sayin’.
But if a normal US President has two faces….does Donny have 3 or 4?
Put is this way. With Trump, ‘Would YOU buy a used car from this man?’
https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/14gbw3d/would_you_buy_a_used_car_from_this_man_kennedy/
Over/under on the serious gen-x fascists getting rid of him…..9 months?
Jokes aside I have more experience than I would wish with narcissists (privately and professionally) and I think your analysis is sound.
The anger will increase as the failure increases. There’s no off-ramp as his ego needs to avoid failure desperately.
The world must burn because otherwise Donald hears his father’s voice too loudly.
His task is to carry the can for the collapse.
So, 7/10 so far.
The sooner it happens, the sooner his backers buy up distressed assets.
Then the Plastic Man takes over.
I don’t think that Trump is getting a reality check from anybody in his circle. Those that try to do so are punished and excluded like what happened with Tulsi Gabbard. The other day I saw a video clip that showed how bad it is getting. He was having a Cabinet meeting and even Witkoff was sucking up to him something chronic and he is supposed to be a friend. As time goes by, I expect to see a Fuhrer Bunker mentality take effect and any messengers with bad news will be summarily shot. But he does have a preference to using military force when frustrated such as bombing the Sudan or those poor suckers in that speedboat and he has even done so against Russia. Better get some popcorn in for the midterms as they are going to be wild. He will have to show some fantastic results to take to those elections to prove how great he is but it looks like he will have bupkis.
“Mr President I understand that Elon calling you a ‘little loser’ merits a firm response, but we do not have the capacity to ‘nuke the f*** out of Mars’….
…However there is good news – we’ve located the commenters from that Marxist-Hamas blog, and we have despatched the drones as you ordered”
I have been wondering about the inner circle of billionaire sycophants. They are in hotel California, and can not leave the administration w/o incurring the wrath and fury of the president, even as he gets more erratic. How does that resolve?
You’re assuming there will be midterms. Or at least, midterms in fact as well as name. There’s no reason that escalating violence can’t encompass steps to take care of that little inconvenience as well. There’s a reason he promised followers in 2024 that if they voted for him, they’d “never have to vote again.”
I haven’t heard mention of how many pounds of drugs were confiscated by the US Navy along with the 11 dead bodies? Does anyone have a link that shows?
Seems like a really small boat to go the 2,300 miles from Venezuela to USA. And with 11 people on board. Maybe it was just some kids out with dad’s boat ?
We had a tweet with a video clip in Links.
Footnote 2 leaves off in mid-sentence.
Fixing. The thought was complete but I had leftover editing garbage in the partial sentence.
“But Trump’s biggest vulnerability, and one he will also find hardest to deny, is the economy. Trump’s desperation to fire Powell or otherwise get control of rate policy is an admission that he sees conditions as weak and wants a monetary goosing.”
Powell’s term as chair expires in May 2026.
Until then, there doesn’t seem to be any lagging or half-wit economic indicators that couldn’t be managed or manipulated.
I’m more inclined to think the desperation has to do with some insider’s speculative bet on rate cuts.
One thing not taken into account in this article: there are groups and people that Trump is beholden to. There are the people (with the money and connections that matter) who put forth such a creature in politics for the purpose of destruction and profit. That is his true base…the ones who would hang out at a future exclusive Gaza resort.
If they are not stopped or held to account, the series of mentally demented representatives continues to be all that is put forth.
Huh? I covered the runup to 2008. There was plenty of denialism. Reality prevailed in terms of rising defaults which resulted in the collapse of CDS prices, which crashed asset-backed securities CDOs and with them, the global financial system that took a massive rescue operation to reverse.
Ray Dalio effectively said Trump is fucking with very rich investors, who in theory are a constituency of Trump’s.
As Trump’s erraticness and “all tactics, no strategy” delivers only failure, his backers will turn on him.
The looters overestimate their ability to extract anything of value, particularly in a US full of guns.
It doesn’t matter if his backers turn on him.
“If they are not stopped or held to account, the series of mentally demented representatives continues to be all that is put forth.”
You miss how many Silicon Valley and PE players are very very hard wired into the spook/intel state.
i say both/and,lol.
“They” will continue to put forth credentialed bootlickers for us to rally behind, and if that ever fails, “They”‘ll bring the whole thing out in the open.
it will be a simple matter of cutting off federal funding to “problem areas”…i know for certain that my far place is utterly dependent on federal funds…a lot funneled through the state of texas…to function at anything like what we’ve become accustomed to….as well as, if necessary, sending in the Praetorians.
Ice has already been through here…way out here!…
local sheriff called them when they pulled over a guy for erratic driving(not drunk, it turns out, jess messin w his fondleslab)…and he was only here for his greencarded relative’s grand opening of their lil cafe, serving Comida de Jalisco.
and “My Mexicans” tell me that they know a whole lot of people who are saying “fuck it, aint worth it anymore”, and heading home…more opportunity in Queretero, these days…what with AMLO and Gloria impersonating FDR, and all.
add in the remittance tax, gestapo/stasi, etc and Mexico starts looking pretty good.
I don’t see where the denialism in this economy ever stopped.
And lowering interest rates isn’t the fix anyway. That’s “the hair of the dog that bit you” fix…so to speak
You have a selective memory.,
The recovery after the crisis was slow. Economists whinged for the better part of a decade about secular stagnation.
Some of them. The it all depends on how much setting the stage for the next crisis can be considered “recovery”.
No, most. I read them. Did you?
Who the administrations listen to seems to be the big picture problem.
No disagreement there.
Just like the FT to offer its pages to a genius money-bags like Dalio. Where was this oracle when Glass-Steagall was repealed and the hammer blow of the financial oligarchs fell on the industrial oligarchs? He was probably writing draft statutes that would allow him to more easily rub two nickels together to make a quarter and doubtless easing his low-tax burden. His last paragraph on the rise of populism and the decline of democracy are classic ruling-class apologetics.
i still pay attention to him because:
1. its an insight into the minds of that class…and he is often self-depreciating…ie: he wears his guilt somewhat visibly, when almost all the rest have none.
and
2. he is vocally aware that there may be consequences for “Them” shitting in their very well appointed nests.
ie: picthforks and lamp posts and even Liberty’s Razor, at some point.
still, i would relish the opportunity to feed him to the local po folks i know…which are the most demographically growing class around here, at least(and here, its easier to tell, due to small population, and everybody knowing everybody…that chick i saw today, once aspired to bougiehood, but her muffler is tied up with baling wire,lol…still getting her fancy latte, tho.)
Are the Trump deficits that stimulative?
Tax cuts are targeted to the upper end of the income distribution who are net savers, and tariffs are effectively a consumption tax.
There are massive spending cuts to a lot of programs that distribute funds, such as school counselors, NASA science, and food stamps.
Yes they are. We have run quite a few posts on how the groaf in the economy has been nearly all the result of spending by upper income cohorts. The fact that they are not the most efficient stimulus does not make them non-stimulative. 7% to 8% of GDP is a massive deficit and even more so in an economy not in deep recession.
Thank you, that’s clarifying.
It was clear that Trump II would be very different from Trump I. It was always going to be a more assertive presidency. I did not anticipate just how dementedly assertive it would be. One could almost miss Biden.
The truly worrying thing to me is the question of how he will respond to a genuine crisis – whether it is a geopolitical one or (more likely) an economic one. During the last big economic crisis, Bush II was a rabbit in the headlights, but at least there were a few grown ups around who made some decisions – not great decisions, but not wholly disastrous ones either, and Bush at least had the sense not to get in their way. The possibility of Trump either going into complete denial mode or – worse – lash out to create a distraction – could make a very bad situation much, much worse.
Given some whispers going around the billionaire class – they seem to be worried about what Trump will get up to next – I wonder if there is a contingency plan in place for a financial crisis, one which may involve Trump getting carted off an ambulance. A Vance regency may not be an inspiring one, but for a lot of rich and powerful people it may be the least worse option.
Going by my brother the Dems are spreading rumors that Trump is in poor health and this may be true. In any case he’s obviously close enough the the Great Beyond to not care what happens “apres moi.” I’ve also seen suggestions that he thinks he’s on some kind of divine mission after last summer’s brush with death. Given those other Epstein rumors Trump may feel he has a lot to atone for and his version of Peace–everybody does what Trump says–his ticket through the Pearly Gates.
In medieval times bloodthirsty knights would have themselves ordained as priests on their deathbeds in hopes of the same.
Some already have him fully collapsed or dead. There is much examination of any appearance, all are currently being attributed to masks and a double. I don’t really know the exact time they believe was the last time we saw the real Donald Trump, but I have been hearing about this for well over a week.
Trump is old, doesn’t have a particularly healthy lifestyle, and his Overclass backers may eventually have some Blackwater type hold a pillow over his face, but until proven otherwise I’m going to assume that all this talk about his health is typical #McResistance hopium, continuing evidence that they don’t know what to do about him politically and are waiting for some kind of deus ex machina to magically rid us of him.
It’s a standard tactic now for any opponent you especially don’t like. Hillary stumbling as a sign of fatal neurological disease, Putin dying of cancer years ago, etc. It must be in the CIA playbook for “steps to undermine an enemy leader”, and since most of the American people’s real enemies are domestic it’s becoming more prominent in domestic politics.
I know Trump like the back of his hand, and being a doctor of numismatics, give him only a short time to live in the scheme of things, 20 years tops.
Trump could die tomorrow and the Democrat party still wouldn’t have a plan for fixing any of the problems in the US. If we do see an early exit for Trump, or even an expected exit following this term, I look forward to seeing what Team Blue does when they can’t say “But Trump…”
I look forward to seeing what Team Blue does when they can’t say “But Trump…”
They will have/create another excuse. This is all they have and all they know. They are a one trick pony. They will lose once again because they will run more un-electable turds like Harris, Hillary, Captain Good Hair and then blame the voters. St.Obama might even scold us for doing so.
One interesting question I have is how “news outlets” like Fox will handle things. There has to be an emerging cognitive dissonance within the MAGA base. Fox, at least when I flip it on for a few minutes, still largely parrots the Trump line, doesn’t challenge him, or his flaks, etc. The same for people on Facebook. But, their lived reality is different. Their cost of living is going up, basics are increasingly unaffordable, their kids are graduating from college and can’t find jobs.
Will they turn on him? If so, when.
Lastly, I am absolutely convinced that he uses the levers of power to tighten his grip as an autocrat, regardless of what the judicial system says. Then we’ll see what happens.
If curious check out Newsmax. I think Maga types largely migrated there from Fox a while ago. I’ve always found it interesting to periodically scan CNN, Fox, and Newsmax (occasionally Breitbart) to see the lack of overlap in stories they cover.
Thanks very much for this. Putting Trump on the couch is exactly what we should be doing and some of us have suggested that the entire ruling class needs a shrink.
I read a lot of books about the Great Depression/WW2 period that meant so much to my parents–currently about Liberty ships–and one is struck by how down to earth and practical elite attitudes were then. Whatever works was the mantra although to be sure the military–even then a bubble operation–made plenty of mistakes during the war.
We are in trouble with Trump but he is a bully and therefore also a coward so standing up to him works, but doesn’t cure the narcissistic craziness or his inability to just shut up. Some of the people around him are worse than he is and closer to the “fascist” label. Here’s hoping the “second time as farce reich” doesn’t end in a nuclear fireball. Given the Weimar Democrats and poodle Euros what can we do but hope?
We don’t seem too far off of the plot to the recent movie Civil War, in that life imitates art.
A cloistered President who fiddles around as the country falls apart~
A good movie btw.
But who will do the fighting on the Trump side? I don’t think Trump’s burn down the house radicalism is very appealing to the MAGA–who just wanted to get rid of Biden–and Yves’ poll quotes seem to support this. If inflation soars and even Wall Street turns on Trump then big business may make the move against him. Here’s suggesting DJT’s only truly loyal “base” is the Israelis and their American billionaire diehards. It’s not enough.
Pretty sure that the Israelis would be willing to give lots of advice, training and technical support in suppressing a rebellious population. Just think of Americans as the new Palestinians.
It depends on which Americans. Town-and-city Americans could be cut off and gazafied. But what about exurban and country Americans? Trump and the Republicans would have to try awfully hard to turn them into rebels against Trump, Trumpenvance and the Republicans.
But what if Trump and the Republicans actually achieved that? I think country and deep country Americans might be the new Afghans rather than the new Palestinians.
Separately, I believe that ” Black America” may also be making silent preparations for hard kinetic survival if necessary. Of course, as Malcolm X used to say . . . ” Those who know don’t say, and those who say don’t know”. So I am not presuming to say. I am just guessing out loud.
In Aurelien’s brilliant post today on the delusional ruling class and their visions of “war” (spoiler alert), he concludes that the men in the white coats should come and take them away. If only it were that simple. I imagine that photo of all the Eurocrats and their mascot Zelensky sitting in chairs around Trump in the Oval Office, and just wish this would conclude in whimpering, gnashing of teeth and not fire and brimstone.
Yes, after seeing the photo of them seated in the hallway, I got the feeling of the “leaders” being guilty, or maybe fearful, children waiting to see the principal and paddle.
Did you ever have to deal with the self absorbed, emotionally challenged (one can say immature, but it’s worse than that) children of the local elites or a leader of the no class local rat pack with delusions of importance? Either more money than god or a chip on their shoulder, which means that reality is not allowed to interfere with what they want.
It’s funny, but I just realized that much of the actions of our politicians resemble either the delusions of a over adulated fool who believes nothing will hurt him or of someone who has been bullied as a child and now has to show the world how tough he is, that he will never back down even if it kills him. Either way, prudence and reason is not acceptable. Just cunning and persistence.
‘Yes, after seeing the photo of them seated in the hallway’
Heads up, that may have been an AI generated image if it is the same one that I am thinking of. But it did have that misbehaving-kids-in-front-of-the-principal’s-office vibe to it.
Trump is definitely trying to do many things at once. Let me provide alternative views on some of these.
1. Tariffs litigation, like so much else, will end up at the Supreme Court. Trump’s record there is good. For anyone who had done the math, tariffs were never going to cause much inflation. Embargoes might, but we haven’t seen that.
2. Getting several peace deals and not getting deals for Gaza and Ukraine will not weigh heavily against Trump. There have been endless attempts for long term Middle East peace over many decades. Ukraine probably will have some resolution where no one is happy.
3. Why on earth does this article go into speculation about what will happen if things don’t go Trump’s way by quoting Psychology Today? Trump is one of the most covered people in human history. He was President once before. There were massive lawfare operations. He was shot. Most of the press has hated him since 2015 and dug for anything to use against him. We know what will happen: Trump will continue to move forward.
It appears that you have a reading comprehension problem
1. We have said Trump was likely to win on his tariffs appeal to the Supreme Court.
2. The post did not discuss only tariff price effects, which are large enough to be driving many small businesses out of business, contrary to your claims about minimal impact, as well as already turning consumers against them. It also discussed how they are turning all our allies save the complete vassals against us.
3. The Psychology Today article was not about Trump. Not once did it mention his name. It was relevant because it was one of the very few articles that discussed how narcissists respond to failure.
One aspect of Trump’s situation that the Psychology Today article doesn’t address, and which would make a destructive outcome more likely, is that Trump cannot leave the stage as the failures pile up. If a successful narcissist CEO suddenly finds their firm failing, they can lash out and blame all those around them, and then leave the shrinking stage and sulk, muttering “F… them” over and over while they sip their scotch.
Trump’s position as president denies him that exit option, while at the same time enticing him with the possibility of reversals of fortune in any of a number of issue arenas. There’s a way in which we’re fortunate that Trump is likely experiencing forms of cognitive slippage that will become more pronounced under strain and which will embolden the toadies surrounding him, as PK and others have suggested, to pull the trap door lever.
I can’t believe I have to respond to a comment like this, but re tariffs, you have no idea what you are talking about. I’m an owner of a thirty year old spice and specialty food wholesale business. Tariffs punishing us and plenty of other businesses I know. And we bring in items that do not, and often times, cannot even be grown here. Yet tariffed!
And further, what are the tariffs? What were they a few months ago? Will he change his mind next week? How can I plan for that? Will I be under-priced and lose margin? Will I be overpriced and risk market share and customer demand.
It’s a complete shitshow and truly cannot even be called a policy. It’s doing so much damage to the very businesses who don’t have the runway to ride anything out. It’s destructive and derelict.
I think Yves characterized it as ‘all tactics no strategy’. Maybe might we say his policies are all gambits and no strategy.
We will see what happens at SCOTUS. Might be 50/50. And there is always the possibility they will decline to hear. We can only hope. I need to get my tariff refunds back.
Completely concur. I had developed over the last few years a second company to manufacture and sell a solar product business, hired people, but thanks to tariff uncertainty, we abandoned manufacturing and shifted to a leasing model because planning is impossible in this tariff environment – there are zero non-Chinese options, and current tariffs are a money loser.
Not bringing manufacturing back – its chasing it away for small companies like myself (and I hear also for bigger companies, who can abandon the US market).
Thank you for this perspective. I’ve always viewed the Trumpster (vs. Batman) as a conman where lying is just a natural default.
I’m not a psychiatrist & the Trumpster is not my client. However, I’ve noticed how much more quickly he is to anger. This reminded me somewhat of Biden’s quickness to anger at supporters during the 2020 primary season. Thus, I conflated his quickness to anger as a possible first sign of a down slope toward dementia. I also noticed how many in memory care were also quick to anger (my mother was in memory care but “sweet”). It’ll be interesting to see how all of this evolves.
I agree that it could be dementia but IM Doc disagrees so I am a bit cautious. He doesn’t have the other symptoms like flat affect and poor short term recall. I am inclined to see that him having this much power this time as Prez (as in having well checked his enemies) as disinhibiting him. And remember, God saved him from that bullet!
It’s curious—
how little it’s remarked that Hitler’s surviving assassination attempts
means a demon under hell’s protection
—or what is mystery to Trumpkins?
Does Ray Dalio seriously worry that Trump is turning into FDR? Given that billionaire oligarchs like Ray just got a tax cut by stripping health care from average Americans I think I can assure Ray that his fears are unfounded.
Turn into some other 1930’s autocrat? Maybe. But FDR? Naagonnahappen…
heh, and what happens if Bird Flu hits under Trump. And there’s a notable death rate we can’t hide. Wowzers.
It’s gonna be another long 4 years of ongoing neoliberalism fueled decline.
As an armchair psychologist whose work in law and psychology was once featured in an episode of PBS Frontline, please forgive my indulgence in a brief moment of schadenfreude.
It must be brief, because Trump’s ambassador to Israel is a Dispensational Pre-millenialist who would like nothing better than to bring about Armageddon and the apocalypse. He’s found just the man to do it!
“Now of course the complicating facts with Trump’s emotional self-defenses is that he has been persecuted, first by RussiaGate, then with lawfare and then an assasination attempt. So his view of himself as unfairly pilloried is not made with whole cloth.”
This complicating factor is huge.
The narcissist leadership of the Democratic Party also claimed (under Biden and before) that everything was fine, actively attempting to invalidate any contrary assertions, and also refusing to take any responsibility for the multiple messes created under their long leadership. And, in addition, they then may have collectively moved to blow Trump’s brains out.
What may be going on there seems to be a total absence of inner restraint perhaps as profound and dangerous as a narcissist’s response to public embarrassment.
The opposition to Trump can never win on a platform centered on murder.
Trump’s consolidation of power, presumably under the guidance of Miller, offers an inherent flaw. In Trump’s absence, who will replace Trump (L’etat, c’est moi.) This intoduces the possibility of a chaotic struggle. Objectively, Trump is a 79 year old, overweight, out of shape individual who is in treatment for a number of health conditions. He is past the US actuary age. Longevity than becomes 50/50 propositioin on a yearly basis. There is an historical 20%+ chance that as POTUS, he will die in office. Apparently, Trump’s sycophants cannot concieve of life without Trump and consider himself ‘invincible’ (as he does himself) Even without obvious pyschological issues (e.g narcissim); there is a good possibility that Trump will persist under some sort of diminished capacity ala Biden that will be ‘covered’ up (like a blemish on a hand) until there will come a time that it will be impossible to do so. The assumption has to be that this a current, not future, condition of the state of affairs. Trump’s weaknesses are starting to pile up and the stink of decay is becoming obvious.
Thinking metaphorically, we could view Trump’s skull as the ” Trump Containment Dome” and his brain as the ” Nuclear Trump Core”. The faster we can cause his brain to ” go Chernobyl” inside his skull, the sooner we can be rid of him and move on to facing and surviving the next stage . . . the immediate post-Trump aftermath.
Shame, humiliation, unavoidable evidence of failures and defeats could all be viewed as “neutrons” to be fired into Trump’s brain, in hopes of making it totally chain-reaction runaway-fissile and melting down and going Chernobyl. Pull out all the control rods, dump all the moderators, drain all the water out of the Trump Brain Reactor. ( I realize I have created a “metaphor salad” here, but I hope it is good tasting brainfood for thought.
The sooner we can cause Trump to self-destruct, the sooner we can start learning how to survive under President J D ” Trump’s little Tattoo” Vance. ” Trump’s little Tattoo”? Here are some images of Tattoo from Fantasy Island.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrEsPOAkrhoMgIAQyNXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=tattoo+fantasy+island+image&fr=sfp
The good people at South Park came up with this and did a recent cartoon in that vein.
” South Park Just Parodied Trump With A 70s TV Show Reference Many Won’t Get ”
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/south-park-fantasy-island.html
Since somebody noted somewhere that Trump has brought many accelerationists into his cabinet and his circle, our only hope is to turn the Accelerationism Cannons against Trump itself and Accelerationize Trump itself faster and harder than Trump can Accelerationise the decline and fall of America.
One source of such ‘neutrons’ could be this whole Epstein Files deal itself. Trump has just recently revealed his extreme sensitivity on this matter.
” Trump Admin Warns GOP: Demanding More Epstein Files Is an ‘Act of War’ Against the White House ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFilterNews/comments/1n7ijg5/trump_admin_warns_gop_demanding_more_epstein/
So . . . how can more constituents get more GOP Senators and Representatives to demand those files even louder and even harder? Come on, man . . . let’s get this Trump thing overwith and skip ahead to President Vance already, okay?
I have watched two narcissists come apart during my 7 decades on this planet, it was ugly.
There were no limits, no consideration of consequences and the damage they did to their families was permanent and horrendous.
Not just their families, everyone they could hurt, they did.
Including myself.
I can easily believe that Trump could order the bombing of an American City, provoke a mutiny in the armed forces, or push the big red button.
No limits means just that, NO LIMITS.
Trump has publicly stated that God saved his life in Butler PA in order that he could Make America Great Again on more than one occasion and several of his inner circle have encouraged that belief.
Which was unwise.
If one takes Trump’s statements at face value those who oppose him are opposing God, not a big step for an elderly Narcissist but a very worrisome one.
On a more positive note, there’s nothing wrong with Trump that reincarnation couldn’t cure.
To be reincarnated as Phelotrupes Auratus, the Golden Dung Beetle?
If he self-destructs slowly enough to Give the Order or Mash the Red Button on his way out, then this could be a problem. If he self-destructs too quickly and deeply to be able to do those things, then we will be spared the worst.
How to speed him on his way out? I envision huge silent marches . . . Not PROtests . . . Silent Marches . . . by thousands or even better millions of people all wearing Black Death Robes and carrying big scythes and wearing or holding signs all saying the very same thing . . . ” Come on, die already”. Would that send him into explosive heart attack or exploding brain-bleed aneurysm?
Donald Trump is a real estate developer from Queens who doesn’t pay his workers or suppliers.
He actually denied necessary medical treatment for a dependent family member.
He likes to cheat at golf and loves money.
He lacks a conscience and is referred to as being a “malignant narcissist.”
Donald Trump has an antisocial personality disorder, period.
So that sounds like the closer he gets to failure: which is where he has to go, inevitably, the closer he’ll get to being angry and irrational enough to pull a nuclear trigger somewhere… ?
Especially if some of the halfwits around him assure him something like ‘A tactical nuke here wouldn’t have any consequences further afield than here.’ ( and america 3000 miles from everywhere ).
Seems to me this eventuality can only be countered by a sure and certain promise from russia and/or china that any such incident over ‘there’ will draw an immediate response in kind over ‘here’ ( in the usa) and preferably guaranteed to be somewhere where donald is.
Would/has russia/china made such a promise? If they have would this lunatic remain rational enough when in his terminal phase to believe them?
Trump may fall back (or be prodded to fall back by his blobster associates) on the tried and true solution of overextended failing empires: “What this country needs is a short victorious war!” He must have his own version of Michael Ledeen egging him on toward that course now.
We can take the Bahamas… like a sitting duck.