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Pete Hegseth: Egotistical And Blind to His Own Incompetence

Pieces in both the New York Times and the New Republic look at the severe damage being done to the U.S. military by the Felon and his incompetence, former Fox News talking head Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.  Hegseth was/is a happy cheerleader for the Felon's disastrous war of choice against Iran and takes delight in posting videos of bombs detonating on supposed Iranian targets.  He is also overseeing a purge of the U.S. military's experienced senior officers who he either deems "woke" or who have the wrong skin color and/or gender.  Only whites willing to prostitute themselves to the MAGA agenda are to be allowed in Hegseth's military.  Worse yet, he and his ego mad boss are focusing on the last war rather the quickly evolving new warfare on display in both Ukraine's war with Russia and Iran's drone attacks in the Middle East. This embracing of the past and MAGA stereotypes with little thought to the future parallels the Felon's war on clean energy in support of a slowly dying fossil fuel industry while rivals such as China embrace the new technologies with enthusiasm.  Thanks to the Felon's and Hegseth's bad decisions America is now weaker, short on allies, and less prepared than potential woes like China.  Frighteningly, there are no signs that the shit show will end anytime soon.  Here are highlights from New Republic: 

A flurry of reports from various media outlets is revealing how the unqualified secretary of defense is damaging national security with his incompetence and slavish devotion to MAGA ideology. The New York Times reported on how numerous senior positions within the Army have gone months without leadership since Hegseth fired them. The Washington Post reports that the firing of Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, in April was a result of George dragging his feet on terminating the investigations of Army aviators who violated safety regulations in order to “buzz” Kid Rock’s mansion.

Additionally, ProPublica reported that Hegseth overrode military leadership who warned him not to terminate the Civilian Harm and Mitigation Response program last year. The secretary of defense did not regard preventing civilian casualties as a worthy goal of the military and eliminated the program entirely. As a result, when the United States struck Iran, it hit a school for girls, killing more than 100 and inciting international condemnation. U.S. strikes in Yemen killed at least 150 civilians. These events drive anti-American sentiment in the region and push potential allies away.

This couldn’t come at a worse time. We are witnessing, in Ukraine, a revolution in military technology and fundamentally how we think about war. Iran has grasped it, and China is leaning hard into drones and AI as part of the “kill chain.” The battlefield is becoming faster, deeper, and more lethal than anything we have seen in human history. It’s less Gulf War and fighter jets with precision munition and more Terminator, with nearly autonomous tiny drones produced by the millions every year picking off almost 1,500 people daily.

Instead of leaning into the future, however, Hegseth canceled the Army’s elite experimental assault drone brigade, which had been championed by the generals he sacked. What he has touted instead is a military that looks the way he thinks it should look.

This means no transgender people, no female flag officers, no Black men with shaving chits, no non-Christians (and none of the wrong sorts of Christians, either). The new fitness standards being ushered in by the Army require a very specific waist-to-height-ratio requirement that is not waiverable. Previously, a soldier with an atypical body was exempted from these measurements if they scored extremely well on the physical fitness tests. Thus, a skinny soldier who barely passes the physical tests would be retained and promoted over someone with a thick core who scores a perfect 500 out of 500 on the Army Fitness Test.

Hegseth’s entire plan to modernize the military was basically carried out to get rid of “woke,” to purge anyone who didn’t meet his Christian warrior image, and to sunset rules of engagement that might prevent the killing of civilians. In order to go down this route to solve a problem that didn’t exist, he needed to get rid of anyone who wasn’t on board with doing whatever they were told, even if it was a spectacularly bad idea, like giving free license to young pilots to violate safety regulations or getting rid of the people who might prevent the Air Force from bombing little girls and random fishermen to no real effect.

After 14 months of applying Hegseth’s theory that getting rid of woke and bombing with minimal rules of engagement would make the U.S. military invincible because of testosterone and looking manly in uniform, Hegseth urged Trump to test this theory and take out Iranian leadership in what he promised would absolutely, positively be a three-day special military operation. Military leadership warned against this course of action, but Hegseth won out. Now, six months into the war, Iran has the U.S. “by the balls,” according to a senior American official interviewed by Zeteo. And the amount of testosterone in them has proved immaterial. Last I checked, T levels have no impact on missile stores or production, both of which are critically low, and will be for years after the fiasco in Iran.

Meanwhile, female drone operators in Ukraine are playing a crucial role in killing Russians faster than new ones can be recruited, and transgender people are helping to fight the largest army in Europe to a standstill. I’m also not seeing many Ukrainians or Iranians griping about how stubble makes them too unprofessional to fight.

At the end of the day, Hegseth is what he is: an ideologue who never made it past the rank of major in the National Guard, and he wasn’t a particularly good one at that: His own unit revoked his orders and refused to deploy him in 2020. He never saw things beyond the viewpoint of a guy who chafed at rules of engagement that didn’t let him blow stuff up and kill things with impunity. He never went to the War College. Never worked in industry. Never did a Pentagon tour as a civilian or as a member of the armed services.

He’s basically your random infantry captain who managed to somehow get promoted to the most powerful position in the world’s most powerful military on the strength of being a TV personality on a network that was ride-or-die for the president and despises the same sorts of people he does. He came in with the attitude that he knew better than all these other people with far more experience, who had seen the military from every angle over the decades, and he is willing to fire anyone who pushes back on his ideas. This is perhaps the worst example of someone being promoted way above their aptitude next to Trump.

Trump and Hegseth keep claiming that they’re restoring the American military. To the rest of the world, it looks like chaos and weakness caused by people too egotistical and incompetent to know they’re incompetent: the Peter principle and the Dunning-Kruger effect all rolled into one.

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Six Months In, Iran’s Regime Stands

As noted in a prior post, the Felon is desperate to keep the news media from reporting on his lost war with Iran - something which alone makes it worth writing about - and is busy creating chaos with his new trade war with Canada (which seems to have been planned as poorly as his Iran adventure if Canada can turn off electricity and block Great Lakes marine traffic if it wants to do so) and, of course bloviating about "election fraud."  The reality is that the Felon has made a huge mess with his war of choice which has left the USA looking diminished, short on critical munitions, some allies trying to make accommodation with Iran, viewed as more untrustworthy, with Iran in control of the Straight of Hormuz, and Americans suffering economically at home. Much of what we are witnessing was predicted, but the Felon in his typical narcissistic and hubris filled nature ignored all such advice. The end result is that there is no end in sight to the conflict, Iran is left able to attack shipping at will - thus putting the conflict back on the front page - and a weakened USA is reduced to imposing more economic sanctions in the likely false hope that it will force Iran to surrender. The whole debacle is a masterclass in what not to do.  A piece in the New York Times reviews the current stalemate:

It was supposed to be quick. Still, six months after the U.S. and Israel launched massive airstrikes on Iran, the conflict drags on. The Trump administration has replaced its military war with an economic one, but the result is likely to be no different, analysts said, with a lack of American clarity about goals, a decline in American credibility and a strategic defeat.

One thing remains constant, however. The ordinary people of Iran are bearing the brunt of the war, victims of both the United States and their own leaders.

The Iranian leadership, increasingly dominated by military men, sees its own survival as the nation’s, and it considers the sacrifices of ordinary Iranians as a necessary act of patriotism and even martyrdom. It has been ever more ruthless in stamping out the slightest signs of dissent.

It is hard to dress up what has clearly been an American failure to bend Iran to its will, despite the might of the combined American and Israeli militaries. Not only has the Islamic Republic survived, but it effectively controls the Strait of Hormuz. It has strengthened its influence in the region, with even the countries it was bombing a few months ago trying to reinvigorate ties with Iran.

“The war has failed to deliver U.S. objectives,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and head of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, judged the war a failure. “We did a lot of damage to Iran, but they have come out stronger than before,” she said. Iran’s neighbors have decided they must find a modus operandi with an Islamic Republic that is not going away.

American credibility among allies has suffered along with Mr. Trump’s own reputation for avoiding costly, interminable wars in the Middle East and promoting “affordability” at home. And it has made his promise to liberate ordinary Iranians look hollow.

“This war has really overtaken the Trump presidency,” Ms. Maloney said.  “Operation Epic Fury” began with a joint American-Israeli surprise attack on Iran, which killed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many of his officials, while badly wounding his son and now successor, Mojtaba.

Weeks of intense bombing destroyed much of Iran’s air force and navy and badly damaged its missile program. But the population did not rise up and the leadership did not fracture.

Iran’s military restored many of its missile launchers and attacked key American allies in the region as well as American bases, which were inadequately defended. It effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz and caused global economic disruption.

The original “Operation Epic Fury” has been replaced with what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced as “Operation Economic Outcast,” designed to isolate Iran further and crash its badly damaged economy. . . . . Despite rhetorical flourishes about D-Day and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mr. Bessent did not indicate how long this economic war will last, what instruments it will use or what it aims to achieve.

“There is no clear articulation of America’s goals,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a research organization based in London. “But if you don’t define behavior change, sanctions as coercion fail.”

Iran, already the target of many thousands of sanctions, is considered unlikely to surrender because of a few more. More likely, analysts said, is that the country will respond in time by escalating its attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf and on American allies, which could produce another round of American bombing.

With American objectives unclear, the confusion is real in Tehran, too, said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group. They will wonder, he said: “Does the U.S. want to achieve collapse, capitulation or compromise?”

Given that Iran’s leaders see the effort to strangle them as another form of warfare, Mr. Vaez said, the new American strategy has two risks. If it fails, the only option left is to return to military escalation. And if it works, it may lead Iran to escalate to break the U.S. naval blockade.

Iran’s public-facing leadership, including President Masoud Pezeshkian and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliamentary speaker, has been blunt about the economic imperatives to ending the war. They have warned of the consequences of hungry people and economic collapse.

They nonetheless take a consistent line on negotiating with Washington, insisting on a return at minimum to the June Memorandum of Understanding, which Mr. Trump signed but now says is “over.” They also continue to negotiate with Oman about managing the strait in a way Washington is unlikely to accept.

But the stalemate is also risky, said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “There is an increasing view in the White House that you can’t deal with this Islamic Republic,” she said. “It’s a dangerous moment, with both Tehran and D.C. concluding that no deal is possible with the other.”

Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official now at the European Council on Foreign Relations, remains puzzled why Mr. Trump has not taken any of the available offramps to ending an enormously unpopular war at home. By pushing even more economic sanctions, he said, Trump officials “are pretending they’re still fighting instead of pretending that they’ve won” — or admitting that they’ve lost.

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The Felon Is Desperate to Get The Iran War Out Of The News

The Felon rushed to go to war against Iran based on the assurances of Benjamin Netanyahu and Pete Hegseth and over the warnings of the intelligence services of how Iran could seize control of the Strait of Hormuz. Even Tulsi Gabbard (of whom I am NOT a fan) foretold the situation America now finds itself trapped.  With the Felon's poll numbers in the toilet and Republicans worried that they may lose control of both houses of Congress, the Felon is desperate to get coverage of the war out of daily news feeds.  Hence, perhaps the insane trade war with Canada which has spooked many in Michigan, New York and elsewhere with the prospect of electricity shortages and still further reduced trade with Canada. This desire to shift news coverage likely even extends to increase claims of election fraud from the Felon and his sycophants. The irony is is that Iran is well aware of the Felon's self-created debacle and may take its own measures to make sure the war and high gasoline prices remain constantly in the news cycles.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the desperation of both the Felon and the larger GOP.  Here are highlights:

For months, [the Felon] President Trump has been unable to bring the conflict with Iran to a close. A massive bombing campaign lost its effectiveness, and U.S. munitions supplies ran low. Diplomacy lagged, as leaders in Tehran remained content to deliberately prolong the process and harden their control over the Strait of Hormuz. Even the current pseudo-cease-fire—as deeply uneasy as it is—has done little to meaningfully lower the cost of energy around the globe.

With few options remaining, the Trump administration has settled into a potentially lengthy campaign of economic pressure, pledging to squeeze Iran until its leaders have no choice but to seriously return to negotiations. But that tack could prove toothless if the U.S. doesn’t also punish the nations that still do business with Iran and keep its economy afloat—and Trump has historically shown little willingness to stand up to the likes of China and Russia, or even North Korea, which has a strategic alliance with Tehran.

If nothing else, the new approach allows the White House to say it’s trying something and then—importantly—to stop talking about the war. Part of the plan, Trump advisers and allies tell us, is to try to push Iran to the background, while hoping that gas prices come down even a little and that Republicans can shift the nation’s focus to more politically palatable topics ahead of the midterms.

That won’t change the reality on the ground in the Middle East: Alliances have been strained, the U.S. military has been overtaxed, and Iran wields far more power in the region than it did at the beginning of the war, about six months ago. But it could allow Trump, a master of distraction, to turn to other priorities—a trade war with Canada! Claims of election fraud! . . . . . “We’re just trying to hang on until the midterms,” one Trump adviser told us.

At this moment, strategists in both parties believe that the Democrats are favored to capture the House. And despite a GOP-friendly Senate map, the upper chamber is viewed as a toss-up. Trends were already working against Republicans: Traditionally, the party out of power tends to do well in the midterms, and over the past decade, Trump supporters have seemed less inclined to vote when his name isn’t on the ballot. The president hasn’t done much to help, and his poll numbers have plunged, even on the economy and immigration, his usual strengths. Republicans, fearing hostility, have largely opted to forgo town halls this summer, skipping what tends to be an effective way to reach constituents.

Republicans have been urging the White House to wrap up the conflict and reduce its drag on the nation’s economy—and their reelection chances. But a solution has proved elusive. Trump’s goals for the conflict were never well enunciated and have shifted many times. Gone are lofty promises about regime change or preventing Iran from having a nuclear program. Instead, the president has privately told his political allies that once the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, he is inclined to simply declare victory and move on . . . . But even that has proved vexing: Iran has continued to menace ships traveling through the strait and has insisted upon charging a fee or toll. Other countries in the region have declared that unacceptable—the strait was, after all, open and free before the war—though Trump has waffled on whether or not he could live with it.

Republicans have signaled to the White House their approval of its new economic pressure campaign, which was announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent earlier this week. . . . Some in the administration believe that emerging divides in Tehran’s leadership could prompt talks. And if the new sanctions did bring Iran to the table before November, then maybe a renewed stab at diplomacy could juice the markets—and provide an 11th-hour boost for Republicans.

Trump has been bored of the war for a while. Aides have been pushing him to focus on the economy to help Republican candidates, but he has continued to downplay the nation’s affordability challenges, much to his aides’ chagrin. And while Trump remains furious at Iran’s unwillingness to bend, aides have persuaded him to give the new plan a chance. . . . The regime seems willing to endure significant hardship, and its own citizens’ struggles, to maintain its grip on power. And the new approach carries its own political risks. If Iran proves resilient again, the pressure campaign may have to stretch beyond the midterms, leaving prices high in the interim.

The U.S. military has not struck Iran in weeks. This month’s relative reprieve follows a long pattern of using force to try to extract concessions from Iran and failing. After a 13-day strike campaign in July, the U.S. military privately assessed that extending the campaign would lead to diminishing returns—and worsen the nation’s extraordinary munitions shortage.

A July 27 assessment by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that the war has significantly depleted U.S. air-defense stocks—particularly of Patriot and THAAD interceptors—and that replenishing those munitions to prewar levels would take years. Last week, Raytheon announced it had been awarded a $22.9 billion contract that would “dramatically accelerate the production of Tomahawk cruise missiles.” Still, the administration insists its stockpile is robust.

There have been other costs to the American military: Eighteen service members have been killed, and bases in the region have been damaged. The USS Abraham Lincoln’s 5,000 sailors and Marines spent more than 270 consecutive days at sea without a port visit; the carrier’s extended deployment was marked by reports of food and supply shortages, plumbing problems, and declining morale.

Trump has never been one to show much discipline, and could lose patience with the waiting game. But Iran also gets a say in determining what happens between now and November. More punitive American sanctions are likely to provoke a response from Iran, particularly because its leaders want the U.S. to feel the costs of the war. Iran is also watching the midterm elections closely; some officials fear that Trump could become more aggressive in the weeks after ballots are cast. That could prompt Iran to escalate first—and once more put the war back into voters’ minds. 

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The Felon Has Lost Touch With the Public

Having launched a trade war with Canada that will likely harm both businesses and consumers in Midwest states the GOP needs to carry in the upcoming mid-term elections, issued threats to tear down the Kennedy Center  if he isn't allowed to renovate it and add his name to the building, threatening to rename Lake Ontario, and allowing the Iran war (a war the Felon chose to start against the advice of the intelligence services) to continue to harm American consumers, the Felon seems more and more detached from both objective reality and the views of the American public.  When faced with horrible poll numbers, the Felon simply says they are "fake" - his fragile, narcissist ego cannot accept the reality he is no longer popular even with a considerable portion of his base - and remains focused on anything and everything other than what matters to voters. Even the timing of the trade war launched against Canada gives the impression of being in part a distraction from continued negative news about the Iran war which he has lost while strengthening Iran in the long run. Simply put, Americans do not want data centers in their backyards or his ballroom, victory arch, and ever more gaudy renovations to historic buildings and venues. They want lower prices and economic stability, things the Felon is ignoring and/not delivering. A piece at The Atlantic looks at this disconnect:

One of the few issues that unites voters and politicians of both parties right now is data centers. Three-quarters of Americans would oppose a data center being built near where they live, according to a new poll released last week by Heatmap Pro and Embold Research. The two leading lights of the left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, have sponsored a bill in Congress to create a temporary moratorium on new centers. They have an unlikely ally in archconservative Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, who said yesterday on ABC’s This Week that data-center companies “basically dug their own grave” and “got the backlash they deserve.”

Standing against this consensus is [the Felon] Donald Trump. The president remains a big booster of data centers. “Communities that don’t take a data center—they’re making a mistake,” he said Thursday during an interview with his on-again, off-again lackey Michael Cohen. “Data centers throw off tremendous amounts of jobs and money.”

This was no one-off. Trump had made several similar comments recently. “If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it, because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous,”

This puts Trump, the most successful demagogue in American political history, in the unusual position of misreading, and opposing, a populist groundswell. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump took many stands that were unpopular among establishment politicians. . . . . On these matters (as well as on his willingness to encourage and participate in gutter racism), Trump demonstrated that a big constituency existed for views that other politicians had deemed electoral liabilities.

Data centers’ political arc has been different. Initially, many officials seemed to back the centers, following exactly Trump’s logic: They offered jobs and tax benefits. But as public opinion turned—driven by a mix of backlash to AI in general, environmental concerns, worries about energy prices, and old-fashioned NIMBYism—politicians changed their view as well.

Why has [the Felon] Trump missed the shift? Presumably one reason is that he is surrounded by advisers and tech executives such as David Sacks and Larry Ellison, who are major boosters of and players in the industry. Tech companies invested heavily in Trump at the start of his second administration, lavishing him with gifts, including a gold-plated bauble and donations to projects such as his inauguration and his ballroom, and Trump has reciprocated by taking policy stances that benefit them.

Trump has always tended to adopt the latest thing he’s heard, no matter what it is. He has been willing to alienate corporate interests in the past—when he saw some political upside. But he is not hearing from voters who might alert him to how unpopular data centers are. . . . as his energy sinks, his travel schedule gets lighter, and security makes events more challenging, Trump is getting out less.

Though his stump speeches dragged on for hours, Trump was carefully attuned to audience attention and what did and didn’t work.

The president has always been susceptible to fake news and bad at filtering information, but rallies provided a gut check about his base, if not about the broader national reality. Now Trump isn’t even receiving that kind of information. One of his major conduits for information is Natalie Harp, a sycophantic aide who isn’t interested in exposing Trump to criticism. He could read public-opinion data, but as his own approval sinks, he has taken to saying (and may well believe) that polls are fake.

As his world shrinks, Trump’s populist touch has faded. Despite being elected twice on an antiwar platform, he’s launched attacks on Venezuela and Iran. As the Iran war has gotten bogged down, he’s been incapable of reading the public mood. He has dismissed voter frustration over rising fuel costs, saying “I don’t even think about” gas; he previously called affordability a “hoax.” In response to reports that American sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln were struggling with a long deployment, Trump said they hadn’t been deployed “nearly long enough.” And the collapse of trade talks with Canada on Friday threatens Republican prospects in border states including Michigan and Ohio.

Each of these cases represents a growing gap between Trump and his base, but none is as ironic as Trump’s stance on data centers. The AI facilities store terabytes of data, but the president can’t get access to the information about them that he needs.

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Trump Is Losing The Manosphere As The Mid-Terms Approach

One of the disappointments of the 2024 election was the swing of young male voters, especially the less educated, to the Felon.  As a piece in The New Republic lays out, this was not something that just happened. Rather it was the result of organized use of podcasters and so-called influencers who both depicted the Felon as take charge "alpha male" and who played to the prejudices and insecurities of this demographic.  Now, with many of the Epstein files still being hidden by the Felon's DOJ, the campaign promises of lower prices broken, and the USA locked in an unpopular war that appears to have no exit, there is a great deal of buyer's remorse within the so-called manosphere. Indeed, a number of influential podcasters and influencers have begun abandon the Felon and, in some instances, trashing his policies and accusing him of betrayal.  Higher prices from the insane trade war with Canada could well push others within the demographic to realize they were played for fools.  With the 2026 mid-terms bearing down, the loss of this young male support could truly harm congressional Republicans who continue to lack the spine to stand up to the Felon.  Here are article highlights:

Donald Trump has lost his war in reality and virtual reality, not only with Iran but also in the arena where he thought he was the eternal master, in image and myth. He has lost it on land, sea, and air—and in thin air. He has lost his war both physically and metaphorically. He has lost it in the Strait of Hormuz, but perhaps equally dangerous for his political survival, he has lost it in his manosphere.

Trump’s Iran war has shattered the once awestruck projection of him as the invulnerable alpha male. “There’s no one like that guy,” said Joe Rogan. “It’s the only reason why he survived all the shit they tried to put him through.” Now, symptomatic of the breakdown of Trump’s once seemingly granitic support along generational and ideological lines, Rogan calls the war “crazy,” “insane,” “nuts”; says Trump has “betrayed” his followers, and that Trump is blithering along with “no clear way to resolve this at all.”

The manosphere emerged in the 2024 campaign as an innovative component at the center of Trump’s political machine, a network of podcasters, influencers, and shock jocks serving as a pipeline to young men, exploiting their social and economic anxieties, particularly by targeting them with crude misogynist messages serving as vicarious defiance against an oppressive, woke feminist culture. 

The theory claiming a fundamental realignment of American politics in the 2024 election was based on the stunning statistic of 56 percent of young men in the 18 to 30-year-old demographic lurching rightward toward Trump—the exact percent that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and had supposedly given the Democrats a secure advantage. The manosphere was credited for engineering the reversal.

Barron Trump, the youngest son and least likely to play a significant political role, managed to insert himself as a go-between. Cloistered and cosseted, overseen by Melania supposedly hovering as a helicopter mom, he was an odd, extraordinarily privileged exemplar of the socially isolated and awkward young men who became addicted listeners of the transgressive talkers blasting outrageous riffs on how to escape the domination of overbearing women. He was the target audience. His foray was his attempt to take on an identity without breaking out of his cocoon.

Barron initiated the formation of the Trump manosphere by reaching out to the most notorious operators of them all, the Tate brothers. Their reputation preceded them. The Tates had attracted one of the sphere’s largest followings, numbering beyond 10 million. . . . Through Barron, the Tates geared up their networks for Trump, galvanizing the pupils of their Hustlers University who matriculated for Ph.D.s, “pimping hoes degrees,” and the Tates’ more elite $8,000 membership fee “War Room.” “I’m very close with the Trump family,” said Andrew Tate. 

Barron kick-started the manosphere campaign in April 2024, hosting a dinner of influencers at Mar-a-Lago, including Tate’s business partner, Justin Waller, who calls himself “the third Tate brother.” . . . Waller ran a centralized command structure with a military-style hierarchy of “generals” and “operators” coordinating a network of content creators to push the MAGA line. The Tates and the others transformed their operations using them to transmit digital Trump memes and messages hundreds of millions of times. Millions of campaign dollars were siphoned to the Nelk Boys, podcasters who were close allies of the Tates, granted repeated interviews with Trump and speaking at his rallies.

The manosphere effort also brought in a Republican operative, Alex Bruesewitz, 28 years old, to work closely with Barron. Bruesewitz’s sterling credential was having been a former organizer of the “Stop the Steal” group that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to help plan the January 6 rally in 2021. When Bruesewitz was questioned by the Congressional Committee on the January 6 Insurrection about his activities, he repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment on the advice of his counsel . . . .

After the campaign, Bruesewitz became a consultant to Trump’s personal political action committee, Never Surrender, Inc., which paid him to serve as the chief outside media adviser for the Trump White House, working hand in glove with the communications office to produce AI-generated videos depicting Trump as a strongman. . . . . Trump’s image has always been a centerpiece of the manosphere. He was idealized as the paragon of uber-masculinity, supreme domination, and physical strength: the alpha male.

On election night, the blowhards of the manosphere were kings of the world. At his victory party, Trump turned the stage over to Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship, who called the roll of the manosphere heroes to thank them. At Trump’s inauguration, they were accorded seats of honor alongside the tech lords, front and center as the new powers that be. The influencers were hailed as the ultimate realignment champions.

At the core of the manosphere, however, was an alleged transnational criminal syndicate, charged with human trafficking, sexual violence, and money laundering. The very same operations that were purposed for the Trump campaign were simultaneously fronts to coerce women into sex work, where women claimed they were beaten and even strangled to the point of unconsciousness during sex.   

The first cracks in the manosphere edifice opened over the Epstein files. By May of this year, Rogan accused Trump of “trying to gaslight you on that.” Rogan railed on his show on June 16, “It’s like sometimes you just get fed up. Like, where the fuck are these Epstein files? The fuck is this? Why is this redacted? Where is it?”

For many of the manosphere performers, the war was the decisive event that shifted their tone from adulation to betrayal. Theo Von, a standup comedian turned podcaster, had been perhaps Barron’s favorite. . . . . There he was at the inauguration, and few months later in May 2025 there he was again at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar where Trump introduced him to entertain the troops. “I want to influence you to clap for a man who’s a great influencer,” Trump said. Theo Von was supposed to be the manosphere’s Bob Hope. 

“I can’t believe we went to this war,” Von bemoaned after Trump launched it. “When we started bombing Iran, I was like, ‘This can’t be true.’” The jokester felt he had been pranked. By April, Von called Trump’s war “diabolical” and “insane.”

Upon the Tates’ return from Russia, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service charged them on July 19 with 59 counts of human trafficking, rape, and child pornography. They were arrested in Miami and held for extradition. The White House went silent. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated there were no plans to intervene.

The Tates’ lawyer, Joe McBride, issued a warning to Trump. “Andrew Tate was a material participant in ensuring President Trump’s victory,” he said. “And if Trump doesn’t support him, and if the next people who are going to be running for office potentially are just like, yeah, down the river he goes, that young cohort of people will break with the Republican Party in the next election.”

If the Republicans lose the midterm elections, in part having alienated the constituency that returned Trump to the White House, the manosphere will become the subject of an intense congressional investigation. . . . . Ansari told me that if and when the Democrats are the in majority, she would seek to systematically unravel the network that exercised influence, beginning with members of the Trump family, in order to shield the Tate brothers. Barron Trump, the most protected son, is exposed as a midterm campaign issue and beyond that, perhaps one day as a witness under oath.

Trump, then, is at war with the world he has made. Alex Bruesewitz, working busily with the White House trolls, now churns out videos of Trump to prop up his image as the alpha male.

The Iranians, for their part, have produced viral, AI-generated videos to portray Trump as a petulant and impotent Lego character. The Iranian Trump figure naps at the Resolute Desk, frantically launches missiles to hide his name in the Epstein files, and sweats playing dice in a casino. The Iranian portrayal of the little plastic toy is far more realistic than the White House fantasies.

Trump’s response to his insoluble quandary is to launch a new crusade. His latest war is against an even more implacable adversary than Iran. His enemy now is time. He posts photos of himself with captions reading: “President Trump gets YOUNGER!” and “President Trump ages in reverse!”

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The Felon and Canada: America's largest trade partners

The Felon has launched another trade war with Canada, one of  America largest trade partners and the largest supplier of aluminum to America.  Why and why now? Frankly who knows, it could be to take the lost Iran war out of the news, it could be the actions of a delusional old man, or perhaps more of the Felon bullying once long time allies. Whatever the motivation, the result will be still higher prices for American consumers and still alienation of Canadians, many of whom are already boycotting American goods and canceling travel to the USA - some Canadian snow birds are selling their Florida vacation/winter properties.  Worse yet, as a piece at The Atlantic lays out, the likely result may be yet another loss for the Felon as Canadian retaliation and resistance further solidify. On every front, the Felon is making America more diminished, isolated and distrusted by almost every nation in the world.  And this doesn't even begin to assess the lost military strength due to depleted munitions and the incompetent leadership at the Pentagon.  All thanks to an unfit president who seemingly never plans one step ahead or grasps that his targets have ways to fight back.  Here are highlights from The Atlantic:

U.S.-Canada trade talks collapsed last night. Punitive Trump tariffs will now go into effect. Canada will reciprocate with retaliatory tariffs of its own.

The story may not be over. Donald Trump is notorious for issuing threats, then reversing them. Wars are on, off, on again, off again, then on a third time—but only as a “little detour.” This is not an administration that thinks even one move ahead. But without a supersized Trump TACO, the U.S.-Canada impasse likely won’t resolve soon.

The Trump administration has one big idea about Canada: The U.S. is larger, stronger, and richer than Canada, so Canada must sooner or later surrender to Trump’s demands. That one big idea is wrong.

Yes, Trump can hurt Canada more than Canada can hurt Trump. That part of Trump’s thinking is true. But wars are not decided only by the question Who can inflict more pain? Wars are also decided by the question Who can endure more pain? Trump’s failure to accept this truth is why he lost the Iran war—and why he is losing his trade wars.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has much more political permission to accept pain from a U.S.-Canadian trade war than Trump does.

To read current Canadian polling is to see a country united under its political leadership—and energized by its dislike and distrust of Trump’s United States. A majority of Canadians view Trump’s America as a more immediate threat to their security than Russia or China. Two-thirds favor the government taking a hard line in trade talks; fewer than one-quarter regard the United States as trustworthy. Meanwhile, Carney is backed by the Canadian public, polling at about 60 percent approval, a remarkable figure in a multiparty political system.

The Canadian economy has definitely suffered because of Trump’s hostility. Exports were down last year, and growth slowed. But this year, Canada got an unexpected bailout: Trump’s Iran war and Trump’s inflation have boosted prices for Canadian oil, gas, minerals, and food products. Canadian incomes are rising again. Meanwhile, Canada’s low levels of public debt have kept inflation low.

By contrast, Trump is facing an omnishamble. “Trump’s Economic Challenge: $40tn Debt, 6.7% Mortgages and $5 Diesel.” That’s a headline in today’s Financial Times. The paper could have added one more: 33 percent job approval, and falling fast.

Trump’s tariffs are costing the typical American household $1,100 a year in both direct collections and indirectly in higher prices, according to the Yale Budget Lab. Although teasing out Canada-specific costs is tricky, one indicator is the price of aluminum. In 2024, about one-fourth of the aluminum consumed by Americans came from Canada, the U.S.’s single largest source of imported aluminum. Result: Whereas European and Japanese consumers now pay about $3,000 a ton for aluminum, Americans pay almost $5,000, driving up the cost of everything from a can of beer to the construction of a new hospital.

Although Canada’s economy is much smaller than the U.S.’s, Canada’s government has a more rational and intelligent leadership—and can therefore target its retaliation in ways that better serve national ends. U.S. alcohol exports to Canada have collapsed by 80 percent as Canadian provincial liquor stores ban U.S. wine and spirits. Canada’s booze boycott hurts more than one might expect given the comparatively small size of the Canadian market ….. More than 1 million bottles of wine intended for Canadian markets now slumber in U.S. warehouses, unsellable anywhere else without costly repackaging.

More than 30 percent of Ohio’s exports go to Canada, and almost 40 percent of Michigan’s. Both states will this year elect a U.S. senator and fill open governor’s seats. Not only is Trump putting at risk his party’s position in purple Michigan, but suddenly the races in beet-red Ohio look in jeopardy too. With these states, may turn control of the Senate—and Trump’s chances of facing meaningful accountability next year for his law-breaking and corruption.

Against Canada, Trump is fighting a trade war that very few Americans support, under leadership that most Americans reject, to achieve results that virtually all Americans would dismiss as pointless if not crazy.

Against Trump, Canadians are fighting a trade war that the great majority support, under leadership that commands broad assent, to defend their independence and self-respect. That’s a war that even the weaker side can win, especially if it needs to hold on only a few months longer to survive.

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