Donald Trump Is Losing What Little
Mind He Has Left
A small-d democratic leader would notice the
public’s outrage and tap on the brakes. But the president of the United States
thinks instead like a dictator.
Tom
Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
Hey,
Donald Trump, you just launched a war that you’re losing, that’s
costing you millions of supporters, that’s tanking your standing among even
Republicans, that has the likes of Alex Jones accusing you of
contemplating “genocide” and Tucker Carlson labeling your comments “vile
on every level.” What are you going to do for an encore?
Hey,
I know. How about breaking up NATO and trying for regime change in Cuba?
He
may, he may not. Who ever knows with this guy? But both are live possibilities.
Trump threw a tantrum about
NATO this week, issuing an “ultimatum” to European countries to help reopen the
Strait of Hormuz and bellyaching about their general lack of support for his
war. Cuba is largely under a U.S. blockade that has resulted in massive energy
shortages. A month ago, before the reality of Iran had quite set in,
Trump bragged that Cuba was
next, saying, “Cuba is going to fall pretty soon, by the way.” Just yesterday,
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said he wasn’t going
anywhere.
Here’s
the important thing to understand about Trump at this particular point in time.
He does not think like a democrat (small d). He thinks like a
dictator. A democrat who understood his obligations in a democratic system to
the voters who put him in office would stop and think: Gee, the people
don’t approve of what I’m doing. Maybe I should pull back a little. And
who knows—maybe he will. There are peace talks with Iran this weekend in
Pakistan, even though Iran is walking into them with a 10-point plan that Trump
(and Benjamin Netanyahu) want no part of. But there actually is precedent for
Trump seeing that what he was doing was unpopular—the ICE disaster in
Minneapolis, most notably—and making a course correction.
Granted,
I’m pretty hard-pressed to think of other situations in which he’s responded to
public opinion. America doesn’t like anything he’s doing, except on sealing the
border. Otherwise, he’s in the tank. And by the way, I alluded above to his
weak numbers among Republicans: In one recent poll, he’s down
to 81 percent among Republicans. That may sound high, but in fact, for that
particular category, it’s low. A president’s support within his own party ought
to be close to or above 90. Here’s a little context. The 1988 presidential
election between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis was a blowout, right?
Right. Dukakis got 83 percent of Democrats’ votes. And he got
shellacked. That’s what 80-ish percent among your party leads to.
But
even as the walls close in on him, Trump is no more likely to think like a
democrat. He will think like the dictator he imagines himself to be. He will
think, as dictators do, about three things: To the extent that he cares what
the public thinks, he will focus his thoughts on how best to distract their
attention and get them thinking about something else; he will think about ways
to clamp down on dissent (and more specifically in this case, leakers); and
finally, and never to be forgotten with this grubby mountebank, how to make a
buck off the current mess.
Let’s
break these down. The first thought is the one that will carry Trump to try
something with Cuba, or to try to bust out of NATO. He needs headlines that
aren’t about Iran. But he also needs headlines that start “Trump moves to” and
“Trump declares.”
That’s
what matters. It scarcely makes any difference whether these moves are popular.
Busting up NATO would of course be monstrously unpopular (and the
president cannot simply leave NATO,
though laws haven’t stopped him before). Toppling the Cuban regime might in
fact be somewhat popular, depending on how it goes. But again, we’ll need to
see what China and Russia have to say about that before the final verdict is
in. It is liable to be more complicated than Trump imagines, simply because
these things usually are.
The
second thought is one to take very seriously right now. Zeteo’s Asawin
Subsaeng reported this week
that Trump is directing a furious hunt for people who leaked info to The
New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan for that huge piece about how
Trump decided to start this war. The piece is actually an excerpt from their
upcoming book, which is expected to contain still more embarrassing details
about the Trump regime. “In conversations with close aides and advisers,
President Trump has loudly demanded to know who in his Cabinet
or his team blabbed” to the reporters, Swin wrote. This is the sort of thing
that obsesses dictators.
And
finally, never forget that Trump is always on the lookout for his next swindle.
Coming up on April 25 is a luncheon at Mar-a-Lago billed
as “the most exclusive crypto & business conference in the world.” The
announcement of the luncheon jacked up the price of the $Trump meme coin for a
minute. It’s not 100 percent certain Trump will be there. But where else would
he be? Maybe the golf course.
Consider
this week in full. The abominable Easter Sunday social media
post that dropped the f-bomb and mocked Islam. The
far more abominable post two days later about destroying one of history’s most
accomplished civilizations. The complete and utter backing down from
it hours later. The phantom ceasefire, which Netanyahu obviously intentionally
wrecked. The phony peace plan, on which the belligerent nations are miles
apart. Anemic economic growth (0.5
percent, and yes, that’s point-five). Inflation above 3 percent.
And
perhaps most of all, Trump’s wife appearing to throw him under the bus.
Not that she’s any hero. But she’s pretty clearly preparing for the day when
the Epstein files are made public and she may have to cut bait, depending on
what’s in them.
To
any other president, this would be the time to straighten up and fly right. To
this one, it’s the perfect time to blow up the most important and durable
military alliance in the history of the human race.
This article first appeared in Fighting Words, a weekly TNR
newsletter authored by editor Michael Tomasky. Sign up here.
