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Trump Crashes Into Reality

Oil prices are up again today, the US and Iran are again conducting military strikes against each other, and a new poll reveals that two-thirds of Americans oppose the Felon's war of choice with Iran (even larger majorities say the Felon is focused on the wrong priorities).  Meanwhile, consumer prices are up further due to both the Iran war and the Felon's tariffs and the Felon's poll numbers are in the toilet, with many Americans angered by the Felon's claim that "affordability" is a Democrat hoax. And try as he might, the Felon cannot find a way to extricate himself from the Iran debacle.   Should Democrats regain control of one or both of the houses of Congress - something the Felon believes likely based on his desperation to pass the falsely named "Save Act" that would disenfranchise millions, especially married women - the Felon will likely face countless hearings into his grifting and misuse of Congressionally approved funds. For years the Felon has endeavored to get his cultist followers to believe in an alternate reality of the Felon's own making, but increasingly objective reality is forcing the Felon's lies into open view and eroding his followers' ability to pretend that they have not been duped and mislead.  Many fear how the Felon, a malignant narcissist, will deal with declining relevancy and the prospect of facing accountability.  A piece at The Atlantic looks at where we find ourselves:

[The Felon] President Trump has mused about being the most powerful man in history. He has started wars and remade his nation’s economic and strategic relationships with the world. He has demanded, and largely received, total obedience from his party. He has dominated the national discourse like no president has before, and he’s tried to recast his nation’s capital—and even its history—to his liking. He’s everywhere. He has said he believes that there are “no limits” to his power.

But if that was ever truly the case, it certainly isn’t now. Recent months have delivered a reckoning for [the Felon] Trump, who has crashed hard against some real limits. The war in Iran, a conflict that he’d once thought would take only a few weeks, hit the five-month mark today. The U.S. casualty count is growing, weapons stockpiles are running low, and gas prices are again surging. [The Felon] Trump desperately wants the war to end. He is receiving conflicting guidance from his advisers—escalate, some urge, as others tell him to cut and run—and has become just the latest U.S. president to be humiliated by hard-liners in Tehran.

[The Felon] Trump is also flailing domestically. His approval numbers have sunk, and Republicans are finally, in small doses, beginning to defy him. Trump has demanded that the Senate blow up the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act, which would make voting more difficult and require voters to provide proof of citizenship. But Republicans have refused.

Strategists from both parties predict that at least one chamber of Congress will flip to the Democrats, allowing the party to stall whatever is left of the president’s legislative agenda and open investigations into his administration and allies.

Once the midterms are over, [the Felon] Trump could face his worst fear: irrelevance. He will be a lame duck, down to his final two years in office, and at some point will no longer be the nation’s top topic of conversation. As focus shifts to the presidential primaries, Trump risks disappearing from the headlines. Even some of his closest allies don’t know how he’ll react.

[The Felon] Trump gathered a team of senior advisers at the White House on Friday to walk through the latest options in the war that he’d already declared won. The meeting came after nearly two weeks of the United States bombing Iran, with Tehran striking back against allies in the region, including a hit on a military base in Jordan that killed three American service members.

Iran has continued to menace the Strait of Hormuz and threatened to charge tolls for ships using the vital waterway, a nonstarter for American allies in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, the new wave of bombings, green-lit by Trump, has not produced meaningful change along the strait. The meeting was set to discuss the possibility of returning to an all-out war.

[T]he frustrated {Felon] president seemed more inclined to order a heavier assault—but he and his advisers once again opted against it. There were several reasons to discard the idea, at least for now, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations. That included the risk of dangerously depleting the number of defensive interceptor missiles available to the military’s Central Command, which is responsible for operations in the Middle East. Advisers also expressed worry about the prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the anger of key Gulf allies targeted by Iran’s counterattack, and the potential for an energy or a refugee crisis. [The Felon] Trump repeatedly told advisers that he worried that an escalation could spark a global economic conflagration and “turn me into Hoover,” the senior official told me.

A number of influential Republicans and conservatives have begun to urge Trump to abruptly declare some sort of win and leave the Iran mess behind. They argue that the short-term benefit of doing so would be to lower prices, push Iran out of the headlines, and potentially salvage Republicans’ midterm chances this fall. But the geostrategic consequences would be significant; Tehran would possess an economic weapon—control of the strait—that it could wield at any time to inflict global economic pain. And the Iranian regime could strike with impunity at its neighbors, including Israel.

[The Felon's] Trump’s campaign swing through Michigan yesterday was a rarity in his second term. But his refrain there was not: He made unfounded claims about election fraud and, this time, appeared alongside a GOP congressman running for governor who falsely said that Trump had won the state three times. (Nope, only twice.) The [Felon] president exaggerated the nation’s manufacturing rebound under his watch and, once more, mocked the affordability crisis that polls suggest is top of mind for many voters. His recent moves seem designed to dissuade or prevent voters from casting their ballot, not to inspire them.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has refused to do away with the filibuster, a move that would allow the GOP to push the SAVE Act through.

[The Felon's] Trump’s wish list has stalled. Some Republicans have sought permission to distance themselves from the unpopular president, and even loyalists such as House Speaker Mike Johnson said last week that, in terms of the war, it was time to “wrap it up.” By no means are Republicans in revolt. But Trump’s grip on the party has loosened, just a little.

[The Felon] Trump, a man who has spent his life in pursuit of attention, is also beginning to contemplate the limits of his relevancy. . . . . even those in [the Felon's] Trump’s inner circle aren’t sure what to expect if people start talking about him less. The political calendar is relentless: Once the midterms clear, Washington will turn its focus to the 2028 presidential campaign. With no incumbent in the race and no clear front-runner in either party, it will be as wide-open as any race in decades. Trump may no longer be among each day’s top stories . . . .

His widely panned speech at last week’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner seemed to offer a preview of his future: His grievances were met mostly with silence. Some of the president’s allies have begun to privately wonder how he might handle a new, reduced status. No one suspects that he’ll take it well.

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The Right's Masculinity Obsession

One of the things the Felon and his imitators have tapped into with far too males, especially, white males, is their fear of lost dominance, loss of social status and threats to their sense of white privilege. Part and parcel of this phenomenon is hostility to anyone who doesn't live up to the correct image of masculinity pushed by right wing influencers, some of whom seemingly struggle with their own masculinity while pushing a blame game against others and narrative that the misfortunes/emotional fragility is because of women, gays, and so-called elites. This obsession is on view in the way in which non-conforming males are ridiculed and attacked as not sufficiently masculine. In some ways its the same mindset of middle school and high school bullies who made the lives of their LGBT classmates - whether they were "out" or not - while seemingly shoring up and papering over their own inadequacies. A piece in The Atlantic looks at this right wing obsession with masculinity and how the blame game for personal failings is targeted at gays, blacks, women and anyone who is perceived as a threat to their societal standing. Pete Hegseth embodies this mind set. Here are article highlights:

American manhood is a fragile and precarious thing, shattered by the slightest deviation from ever-shifting norms—eating the wrong taco, tasting tofu, not eating meat, or maybe eating too much meat. Or at least, that is what right-wing commentators have suggested by their attacks on the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Texas, James Talarico.

Since the 37-year-old state senator clinched the nomination, right-wing politicians and media figures have been running a bizarre smear campaign attacking Talarico for not being manly enough. President Donald Trump called Talarico a “vegan,” and Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller has twice declared that Talarico is “transgender.” Right-wing media figures have referred to him as “Tofu Talarico” and suggested that he is “against meat.”

Anyway, you get it. Talarico is gay or something, and for the GOP, there’s definitely something wrong with that. Its own candidate, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is mired in allegations of corruption and infidelity, and is committed to some policies so extreme that, like Trump himself, they are unpopular even in deep-red Texas. Talarico’s choirboy looks and religiously inflected liberalism provide a stark contrast to Paxton’s hypocritical self-righteousness, and so Republicans are desperately trying to make those qualities seem like weaknesses.

George W. Bush’s advisers snickered that John Kerry looked “French.” Trump, of course, is famous for put-downs whose cruelty is part of their appeal. But there’s something new about the attacks on Talarico. Calling a man “French” or “vegan” retains a mote of the old deniability. Calling Talarico “transgender” does not. The rhetoric resembles nothing more than the frothing tone of masculinity influencers in the online manosphere, with its strict but arbitrary standards for what makes a man a man.

The Trump administration and the conservative movement seem to have taken this advertising strategy and transformed it into an ideology. The result is a secretary of health and human services who posts videos of himself working out in jeans and then presides over outbreaks of measles and explosive diarrhea; a director of Medicare and Medicaid who takes a break from stripping health care away from children to demonstrate how not to do a squat; and a defense secretary who interrupts his day job of starting and losing pointless, illegal wars in the Middle East to announce that he will force testosterone tests on service members. And Americans are supposed to be impressed by these overgrown children showing off their masculine prowess while failing at their basic adult responsibilities.

Any man who goes online today is apt to come across content telling him that he will never find a partner who will earn him the respect of other men if he lacks money and connections, if he is not bodybuilder-fit with a full head of hair, if he is not more than six feet tall. Online influencers who push this narrative have products to sell. . . . . It makes you insecure so you’ll pay for a product in hopes of temporarily silencing your gnawing sense of inadequacy.

 Ad campaigns have long preyed in this way on female insecurities, telling women how they are supposed to look and act. . . . That marketing, though, was designed to turn women against themselves; the manosphere now tells men to lash out at others instead. It encourages white men in particular, but not exclusively, to blame their problems on a society that has allowed their lessers to compete with them for employment, power, and prestige by removing the barriers that once kept them out.

Social scientists have found that when men think their masculinity is being questioned, they may dismiss that challenge as irrelevant, they may quietly feel bad or insecure, or they may overcompensate by trying to behave in a more stereotypically masculine fashion. And that last reaction is where the dollars are. Be a man and buy a gun. Get the manly cereal for men. Wipe your butt with the wet wipes for men. Get the manly smelling deodorant. Eat the manly steak. It’s no coincidence that gambling apps and crypto companies have spent so much money on ads that make giving them your money seem adventurous.

Just as the manosphere and its galaxy of hucksters want you to fork over your cash so you can feel better about yourself as a man, Republicans want to make you feel insecure about your masculinity so that you vote Republican. Masculinity, in this sense, is a lifestyle product: one that comes with a set of political beliefs predicated on the subjugation of women, minority groups, and anyone else who men are told are their inferiors.

When people are constantly told that the only way to be a worthwhile human being is to conform to gender norms, they will naturally strive to meet those expectations, even if it means being harsh to themselves or others. But the strength of those emotions is precisely what makes them so exploitable.

Adam Stanaland, a psychology professor at the University of Richmond, told me that what’s concerning is when insecure men feel pressured to validate their manhood by harming others. Stanaland co-authored a study on “fragile” masculinity that notes that such men may compensate by endorsing “political bigotry, homophobia, sexual violence, and anti-environmentalism,” and that they are “more likely to endorse policies and politicians that disproportionately harm marginalized groups.”

Stanaland speculated that for “white men especially, their masculinity is framed by this idea they must be at the top of not only the gender hierarchy, but also other social hierarchies, and so any kinds of threats to that positioning of them at the hierarchy could be responded to with these compensatory behaviors.”

Ironically, some of the most prominent masculinity influencers are not themselves white. Andrew and Tristan Tate, who were recently arrested on rape and sex-trafficking charges after being spared from legal consequences for years thanks to interventions by the Trump administration, are biracial. This has not stopped the brothers from repeating racist far-right arguments that play well online, such as Andrew implying that Jews are “subverting western populations into mass genetic suicide.” This idea, known today as the “Great Replacement” theory, is a continuation of old-timey racist fears of “race mixing”

When that disappointment sets in, the manosphere has an explanation: Can’t find a girlfriend? It’s because women who make their own living can no longer be forced into marrying guys they don’t like. Can’t find a job? It’s because undeserving women and minorities are being picked instead of you, even though you’re better. Feel bad about yourself? It’s because our feminized society deprived you of a life of meaningful toil, military adventure, and elevated social status. It is a bleak view of the world, a kind of male doomerism in which a meaningful life can be found only in the domination and exploitation of others.

There probably shouldn’t be a lot of overlap between religious-right leaders, government officials, and someone like Andrew Tate, who proudly describes himself as a “pimp.” Yet Tate’s belief that “society functions better as a patriarchy” is hard to distinguish from the views of Doug Wilson, the pastor invited by Hegseth to preach at the Pentagon, who thinks that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Pious or secular, these beliefs come down to the same idea: Men are people, and women are things.

As my colleague Helen Lewis has reported, “Woman-bashing plays well on social media and sells lots of ads for crypto, sports betting, and supplements.” She adds: “You can make good money telling men that they’re the truly oppressed sex.” You can win a lot of votes that way, too.

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Will Netanyahu Pull the Felon Deeper Into War with Iran

By most reports Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the players that convinced the Felon to launch the misguided (at best) war against Iran. Netanyahu seemingly wants endless war to enhance his reelection chances in October and also protect himself from potential prosecution at home and likely duped the Felon into ignoring the advice of his own intelligence and military advisers.  Now, Netanyahu is coming to Washington, DC, and the White House yet again and some fear he will seek to convince the Felon through false claims and flattery to widen the war and further damage both America's economy and that of the entire world.  Many in the MAGA "America First" base are not pleased, yet seem to still cling to some semblance of belief that the Felon will put America's interest first rather than take actions to please his own ego and a desperate desire to be perceived as "winning" in a war that the vast majority of Americans oppose. Meanwhile, oil prices remain up everyone is holding their breath to see if the Red Sea gets closed down by Iran's allies in Yemen. The problem is that the Felon has few good options to extricate the nation from his foolish war.  A Piece at Politico looks at where we find ourselves:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during his last in-person meeting at the White House, reportedly sold President Donald Trump on starting a war with Iran. Now, the GOP’s America First wing fears he’s about to pitch the president on ramping up attacks.

“I think all of President Trump’s most ardent non-‘Israel First’ supporters are furious,” said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. “Netanyahu has had twice as many visits to the White House in 18 months as Churchill had in all of World War II — with every one of them a disaster for America First.”

The two men are set to meet Tuesday morning for the first time since the two countries attacked Iran in February, with Netanyahu in Washington to attend the funeral of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. The meeting comes at a moment of tension between the two allies: While Trump has long defended Israel, he has grown increasingly willing to publicly criticize Netanyahu for being too aggressive with Lebanon.

It also arrives at a pivotal moment in a war that has dragged on for five months, with the U.S. teetering between attempts at peace and a more aggressive phase of war.

Many of the president’s anti-interventionist allies had hoped the latest ceasefire attempt would lead to a permanent end to the conflict. Instead, they’re grappling with the possibility that Netanyahu, who is visiting the U.S. for the seventh time since Trump took office last year, may instead push the president into a new, more durable phase of war that could leave the U.S. embroiled in conflict in the Middle East for months, if not years.

The meeting comes as new polling shows that a growing share of the president’s base no longer believes the war is worth its economic costs. And Republicans are increasingly resigned to the fact that the war will likely still be hanging over voters in some form when they head to the polls in November.

Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine, described the meeting as “DEFCON 1.” “Netanyahu is going to argue for the essential logic of escalation, which — if Trump is not willing to give the [memorandum of understanding] a chance and if Trump is not willing to walk away from the conflict entirely without a resolution — then I think we probably will escalate, and that’s what we’ve been seeing these last couple of weeks,” Mills said. . . . . “Netanyahu is going to push his agenda, which I don’t think in this instance necessarily is compatible with our interests . . .

Netanyahu has not been to the White House since the launch of the war, despite months of efforts to secure another invitation. Until Monday, the White House had not publicly confirmed the meeting, details of which were only just finalized as officials prepared for Graham’s funeral.

Strikes between the U.S. and Iran remain paused, though Trump on Monday threatened that the U.S. would “go back to doing what we were doing” if the latest attempt at diplomacy fails. Netanyahu could ultimately shoulder the burden of blame if the war continues to drag on — potentially deepening strains between the two allies.

“Netanyahu is kind of a problem-maker at the moment, right? This war has consumed the last five and a half months or so. There’s not a clear solution to it,” said a former official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics of the meeting. “Trump probably, publicly or not, blames Netanyahu partially or associates him with a thing going badly. It’s not like it has to be his fault. It’s that he’s associated with it. And the president’s pissed off about it.”

Trump, who faces increasing pressure at home to bring the war to an end ahead of November’s midterms, has grown increasingly vocal in his frustration with Netanyahu.

The Israeli prime minister, who faces reelection in October, needs Tuesday’s meeting to understand Trump’s next steps — whether he intends to return to the memorandum of understanding or move toward further escalation, said Elliott Abrams, the U.S. special representative for Iran in Trump’s first term.

But Netanyau, who has built much of his political identity around confronting Iran’s security threat, also enters Tuesday’s meeting from a position of significant political risk as the two leaders are poised to broach several difficult subjects, including Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

“The stakes are higher for Netanyahu both because Trump, not he, is the decision-maker here,” Abrams said. “And because his job and not Trump’s is on the ballot.”

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