This is what he'd rather be doing as his frequent digressions about the ballroom at press conferences show. Lavish spending of other people's money has always been Trump's particular propensity.
You can add "unbothered" to that. Trump doesn't appear to care about anything that doesn't directly benefit him. Watching him sling lies has been exhausting - but even worse are the news corps that parrot every single thing he says, no matter how outlandish - and he does that with little to no pushback from them.
Donald Trump’s political power has always depended on a trick of conversion. He turns disorder into theater, theater into grievance, grievance into loyalty, and loyalty into the appearance of strength. For years, that conversion has worked often enough to let him survive what would have broken ordinary politicians. Chaos, in Trump’s hands, becomes proof of vitality. Cruelty becomes proof of toughness. Isolation becomes proof of independence. Even failure can be repackaged as persecution.
But there is a limit to that magic.
The danger for strongman politics is not simply scandal, or even lawlessness. It is exposure. It is the moment when the performance of command collides with facts that cannot be massaged, delayed, or shouted down. It is the moment when the spectacle still blares, but the underlying reality grows too costly, too visible, and too contradictory to sustain the myth. That is the problem confronting Trump now as the war with Iran deepens, allies recoil, oil markets convulse, and administration officials face growing questions about the conflict’s clarity, transparency, and strategic coherence. Reuters reported on March 17 that Trump publicly attacked NATO allies for refusing to support a U.S. effort tied to securing the Strait of Hormuz, and AP and Reuters have both reported widening regional and economic fallout from the war.
The central issue is not whether Trump can still dominate a camera. He can. It is not whether he can still flood the zone with propaganda. He can. The issue is whether he can still make confusion look like control... https://essayx.substack.com/p/chaos-is-not-control
There's an iron rule of populism that one's policies have to be popular, and increasingly Trump's policies have been infringing that rule. No amount of prestidigitation or flummery is going to lower those energy and food prices.
Exactly. Populism can survive on performance only until material reality intervenes. When food, fuel, and basic stability worsen, rhetoric loses its narcotic effect. People may cheer spectacle for a while, but they live by prices, wages, and daily security. Once those crack, the myth of strongman competence begins to collapse under the weight of ordinary experience.
Well Michael, although that may feel like a truth, you can see for yourself that there are regimes around the world who have endured under populism well pay the point you are indicating. The people of Cuba are a great example of a people living in dismal circumstances, under a patriarchal populist leadership, who endured a lifetime of oppression and economic ruin. I fear we will live under this grifting, self serving, gloom for at long as Trump survives (or possibly even his family.)
Luckily, in the US, we started at such a high level of comparative individual and national wealth, that it is taking years to whittle away those feelings of national superiority and the people's individual economic privilege and sense of personal freedoms. We have only just begin to feel the losses of freedoms and national privilege under Trump, in particular white males who still dominate the power structure. As we move forward, more people daily feel their personal oppression and begin to push back. L
I hope that the resistance Americans have shown they can muster, will be enough to counter the full effects of a complete authoritarian clampdown. And, luckily Trump had only a limited amount of lifetime left, barring a takeover by his family and a complete teenager of the nation, which could still happen if we don't do this while we still can.
And, there's a lot that needs to happen still. Congress needs to take back their levers of control, before anything can actually be accomplished. Otherwise it will end up being a physical coup by the people, as was necessary in so many other nations around the world and throughout history.
Americans as a people, have just never truly understood how hard it is to hold up a government of the people. It takes rigorous attention, intentional oversight, and righteous accountability of the people we allow to represent us and to to make national decisions that will affect us. We have become indifferent and complacent, and the result is what we are now enduring.
It can be turned around but it doesn't look good at the moment.
I think that is a sober and accurate reading. Democratic decline often feels slow until suddenly it does not. Complacency, institutional cowardice, and concentrated wealth all helped create this vulnerability. Still, you are right that public resistance matters. The central lesson is that self-government is not self-sustaining. It requires vigilance, courage, and a citizenry willing to defend it before collapse feels irreversible.
a lot of good that did in the last, rigged election...and, obviously, he's alREAdy been trying to rig the one in november. i like your intention, though...for what THAT's worth...
Easy to fall into cynicism and despair, but that is a kind of surrender. I’m not going to surrender, and I think there are a lot of people out there, a significant majority, who feel the same. Might be a fight, might have to be to get rid of the cancer.
Easy to fall into cynicism and despair, but that is a kind of surrender. I’m not going to surrender, and I believe there are a lot of people out there, a significant majority, who feel the same. Might be a fight - might have to be a fight to get rid of the disease. So be it.
Is this is all about boosting oil prices for all of Trump's rich oil buddies? "Drill baby drill" was the opening salvo. But at $60/barrel that was going nowhere. At $70/barrel Venezuela oil was staying in the ground. At $100+ per barrel the economics now make more sen$e.
Before the Supreme Court took off his leash and allowed him to run amok, I guessed that Trump was building an insanity defense for near-future criminal prosecution. Now that his majorities look weak in both houses of Congress, I wonder if he's reviving that plan in case of impeachment, conviction and removal from office.
I the jury already have a verdict: Trump is crazy, but insane only in the vernacular sense, not the legal sense.
He is such a pathetic human being. Listening to his statements, he sounds like a spoiled, bragging, pouting, bullying and ridiculous child. How did we get here??
It is NOT going to be a ‘BALLROOM’. It will be a genuine “ THRONE ROOM” worthy of Versailles…and the one planning to be CROWNED there is leaving no luxurious detail undone.
Ballrooms are ‘usually’ for DANCING, and since the pudgy snake can only giggle like Jello, he won’t be pretending to waltz or any other real DANCE!
His presence on the floor of that edifice will be hanging around the bathrooms in the specially designed NARROW hallways waiting to squeeze past buxom beauties as they exit.
He’s a TOP ARCHITECT…didn’t you KNOW that? SHEEEESH! As he begins all his instructive speeches: “Everyone knows that……”
So, the East Wing ‘had to go’…all the beautiful trees that have witnessed REAL Presidents…Michelle Obama’s gardens…GRASS!
I didn't realize "...Trump’s demand (is)...that voters provide proof of citizenship—a passport or a birth certificate and matching REAL ID..."
I looked into REAL ID last year & my Secretary of State requires making appointments now...that is difficult if not impossible with disability, so I decided I wouldn't fly anywhere...then it was reported that REAL ID was dismissed as legitimate ID in an ICE incident, so I thought it doesn't really matter what hoops we jump through anyway, the goalposts will be moved. There will not be time for people to meet these demands.
Trump once again proves himself to be a traitor and in the pocket of Putin.
I suggest we tie Hegseth to the front of a canoe with a broom in hand so he can clear the Straight.
Of course, Trump will blame everyone else for the mess he has gotten us into; that is to be expected.
Good to see Joe Kent telling the truth for a change, but remember, he is an opportunist, and you will see him running for office back here in Washington State.
About Cuba. A threat? Hardly. We have choked off that island to the point that they have little food of medicla supplies. While it is true that the Communist economy has failed, it is better to reach out--as we started to do under previous presidents--with a helping hand rather than a stick.
But that isn't Trump's way. His muddled mind can only operate as a bully in a tea shop.
Those long lines at airports, I feel sorry for people trying to make a flight, and I feel sorry for the TSA agents who are having to get food handouts and can't make rent payment, but I hope the Democrats in the Senate hold out to prevent that awful voting act from passing.
I am a fan of all that Heather Cox Richardson provides with her excellent writings…however, I cannot access her spoken word letters…I am hard of hearing and I cannot hear what she is saying. I prefer her written pieces.
Go into your settings, accessible only from a browser. Click on your pfp, go to settings, paid subscriptions and find this one. Tap on it and change your settings to email only. No audio version.
Oh, well spotted! However, I thought from J Lombardi's post that he/she had the impression that the spoken version was a different bulletin, which it isn't.
Unprepared and Untethered is not the way I want my leadership described. So many editions of Letters from an American have prompted me to commit my thinking in writing. I am grateful for the prompting. Today, the unsettling nature of the news brought me back to principle. I hope my writing resonates with listeners of this channel. My personal point-of-view makes me believe we all have much in common, but that is selfish. I will let you decide. https://vincehockett.substack.com/p/a-platform-of-principles?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
“…What, indeed, did the architects of this war believe would happen? That the Turbanate would absorb the blows and keep the gates open out of courtesy? That a state long shaped by sanction and pressure would suddenly choose restraint when struck directly? Such expectations belong not to strategy, but to wish. And wish is a poor foundation upon which to build a war.”
Trump is a mentally ill person
Hilarious! Good job!
Best you can do?
Nothing Was Left To Chance
He’d thought it through completely
From every angle and slant
The plans were considered meticulously
No, nothing was left to chance
Deep in the White House he gathered
His top lieutenants and team
To pour over all the contingencies
Of his visionary scheme
And only when he was satisfied
Did he send out the urgent call
To obliterate to smithereens
Every brick of the East Wing’s walls
Dale K. Nichols
This is what he'd rather be doing as his frequent digressions about the ballroom at press conferences show. Lavish spending of other people's money has always been Trump's particular propensity.
You must be stupid
You can add "unbothered" to that. Trump doesn't appear to care about anything that doesn't directly benefit him. Watching him sling lies has been exhausting - but even worse are the news corps that parrot every single thing he says, no matter how outlandish - and he does that with little to no pushback from them.
We are so, so cooked.
''Chaos Is Not Control''
Donald Trump’s political power has always depended on a trick of conversion. He turns disorder into theater, theater into grievance, grievance into loyalty, and loyalty into the appearance of strength. For years, that conversion has worked often enough to let him survive what would have broken ordinary politicians. Chaos, in Trump’s hands, becomes proof of vitality. Cruelty becomes proof of toughness. Isolation becomes proof of independence. Even failure can be repackaged as persecution.
But there is a limit to that magic.
The danger for strongman politics is not simply scandal, or even lawlessness. It is exposure. It is the moment when the performance of command collides with facts that cannot be massaged, delayed, or shouted down. It is the moment when the spectacle still blares, but the underlying reality grows too costly, too visible, and too contradictory to sustain the myth. That is the problem confronting Trump now as the war with Iran deepens, allies recoil, oil markets convulse, and administration officials face growing questions about the conflict’s clarity, transparency, and strategic coherence. Reuters reported on March 17 that Trump publicly attacked NATO allies for refusing to support a U.S. effort tied to securing the Strait of Hormuz, and AP and Reuters have both reported widening regional and economic fallout from the war.
The central issue is not whether Trump can still dominate a camera. He can. It is not whether he can still flood the zone with propaganda. He can. The issue is whether he can still make confusion look like control... https://essayx.substack.com/p/chaos-is-not-control
Hans Christian Andersen
The Emperor's new clothes
well said, Michael...i just hope that when the magic's over that there's still an audience left.
There's an iron rule of populism that one's policies have to be popular, and increasingly Trump's policies have been infringing that rule. No amount of prestidigitation or flummery is going to lower those energy and food prices.
Exactly. Populism can survive on performance only until material reality intervenes. When food, fuel, and basic stability worsen, rhetoric loses its narcotic effect. People may cheer spectacle for a while, but they live by prices, wages, and daily security. Once those crack, the myth of strongman competence begins to collapse under the weight of ordinary experience.
Well Michael, although that may feel like a truth, you can see for yourself that there are regimes around the world who have endured under populism well pay the point you are indicating. The people of Cuba are a great example of a people living in dismal circumstances, under a patriarchal populist leadership, who endured a lifetime of oppression and economic ruin. I fear we will live under this grifting, self serving, gloom for at long as Trump survives (or possibly even his family.)
Luckily, in the US, we started at such a high level of comparative individual and national wealth, that it is taking years to whittle away those feelings of national superiority and the people's individual economic privilege and sense of personal freedoms. We have only just begin to feel the losses of freedoms and national privilege under Trump, in particular white males who still dominate the power structure. As we move forward, more people daily feel their personal oppression and begin to push back. L
I hope that the resistance Americans have shown they can muster, will be enough to counter the full effects of a complete authoritarian clampdown. And, luckily Trump had only a limited amount of lifetime left, barring a takeover by his family and a complete teenager of the nation, which could still happen if we don't do this while we still can.
And, there's a lot that needs to happen still. Congress needs to take back their levers of control, before anything can actually be accomplished. Otherwise it will end up being a physical coup by the people, as was necessary in so many other nations around the world and throughout history.
Americans as a people, have just never truly understood how hard it is to hold up a government of the people. It takes rigorous attention, intentional oversight, and righteous accountability of the people we allow to represent us and to to make national decisions that will affect us. We have become indifferent and complacent, and the result is what we are now enduring.
It can be turned around but it doesn't look good at the moment.
I think that is a sober and accurate reading. Democratic decline often feels slow until suddenly it does not. Complacency, institutional cowardice, and concentrated wealth all helped create this vulnerability. Still, you are right that public resistance matters. The central lesson is that self-government is not self-sustaining. It requires vigilance, courage, and a citizenry willing to defend it before collapse feels irreversible.
YES. Confrontation. Ruthless exposure. Tell him "No".
These are war crimes. Trump and his administration need to be held to account.
get to it, Brian.
hi Isaac, that’s a very popular name in certain circles! I can’t judge, But I can protest. And I can vote.
a lot of good that did in the last, rigged election...and, obviously, he's alREAdy been trying to rig the one in november. i like your intention, though...for what THAT's worth...
Easy to fall into cynicism and despair, but that is a kind of surrender. I’m not going to surrender, and I think there are a lot of people out there, a significant majority, who feel the same. Might be a fight, might have to be to get rid of the cancer.
Easy to fall into cynicism and despair, but that is a kind of surrender. I’m not going to surrender, and I believe there are a lot of people out there, a significant majority, who feel the same. Might be a fight - might have to be a fight to get rid of the disease. So be it.
Why is Trump building the concert fence Congress told him not to build at the Mexican boarder?????
It’s a migration area and the animals will not survive being fenced from migration.
we stopped this during the first Trump regime.
Is this is all about boosting oil prices for all of Trump's rich oil buddies? "Drill baby drill" was the opening salvo. But at $60/barrel that was going nowhere. At $70/barrel Venezuela oil was staying in the ground. At $100+ per barrel the economics now make more sen$e.
Before the Supreme Court took off his leash and allowed him to run amok, I guessed that Trump was building an insanity defense for near-future criminal prosecution. Now that his majorities look weak in both houses of Congress, I wonder if he's reviving that plan in case of impeachment, conviction and removal from office.
I the jury already have a verdict: Trump is crazy, but insane only in the vernacular sense, not the legal sense.
Guilty as charged.
He is such a pathetic human being. Listening to his statements, he sounds like a spoiled, bragging, pouting, bullying and ridiculous child. How did we get here??
Dale dear:
It is NOT going to be a ‘BALLROOM’. It will be a genuine “ THRONE ROOM” worthy of Versailles…and the one planning to be CROWNED there is leaving no luxurious detail undone.
Ballrooms are ‘usually’ for DANCING, and since the pudgy snake can only giggle like Jello, he won’t be pretending to waltz or any other real DANCE!
His presence on the floor of that edifice will be hanging around the bathrooms in the specially designed NARROW hallways waiting to squeeze past buxom beauties as they exit.
He’s a TOP ARCHITECT…didn’t you KNOW that? SHEEEESH! As he begins all his instructive speeches: “Everyone knows that……”
So, the East Wing ‘had to go’…all the beautiful trees that have witnessed REAL Presidents…Michelle Obama’s gardens…GRASS!
🎶”Pave Paradise…put up a Parking Lot…”🎶
Love the poetry, though!
X
I didn't realize "...Trump’s demand (is)...that voters provide proof of citizenship—a passport or a birth certificate and matching REAL ID..."
I looked into REAL ID last year & my Secretary of State requires making appointments now...that is difficult if not impossible with disability, so I decided I wouldn't fly anywhere...then it was reported that REAL ID was dismissed as legitimate ID in an ICE incident, so I thought it doesn't really matter what hoops we jump through anyway, the goalposts will be moved. There will not be time for people to meet these demands.
This malevolent regime has to go.
Trump once again proves himself to be a traitor and in the pocket of Putin.
I suggest we tie Hegseth to the front of a canoe with a broom in hand so he can clear the Straight.
Of course, Trump will blame everyone else for the mess he has gotten us into; that is to be expected.
Good to see Joe Kent telling the truth for a change, but remember, he is an opportunist, and you will see him running for office back here in Washington State.
About Cuba. A threat? Hardly. We have choked off that island to the point that they have little food of medicla supplies. While it is true that the Communist economy has failed, it is better to reach out--as we started to do under previous presidents--with a helping hand rather than a stick.
But that isn't Trump's way. His muddled mind can only operate as a bully in a tea shop.
Those long lines at airports, I feel sorry for people trying to make a flight, and I feel sorry for the TSA agents who are having to get food handouts and can't make rent payment, but I hope the Democrats in the Senate hold out to prevent that awful voting act from passing.
I am a fan of all that Heather Cox Richardson provides with her excellent writings…however, I cannot access her spoken word letters…I am hard of hearing and I cannot hear what she is saying. I prefer her written pieces.
Go into your settings, accessible only from a browser. Click on your pfp, go to settings, paid subscriptions and find this one. Tap on it and change your settings to email only. No audio version.
The spoken word edition is just the written piece read aloud and slightly speeded up.
If he can't hear it, it makes no difference if it's sped up or not.
Oh, well spotted! However, I thought from J Lombardi's post that he/she had the impression that the spoken version was a different bulletin, which it isn't.
Unprepared and Untethered is not the way I want my leadership described. So many editions of Letters from an American have prompted me to commit my thinking in writing. I am grateful for the prompting. Today, the unsettling nature of the news brought me back to principle. I hope my writing resonates with listeners of this channel. My personal point-of-view makes me believe we all have much in common, but that is selfish. I will let you decide. https://vincehockett.substack.com/p/a-platform-of-principles?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
“…What, indeed, did the architects of this war believe would happen? That the Turbanate would absorb the blows and keep the gates open out of courtesy? That a state long shaped by sanction and pressure would suddenly choose restraint when struck directly? Such expectations belong not to strategy, but to wish. And wish is a poor foundation upon which to build a war.”
-The Grey Pilgrim
I strongly suggest 1 member of the House and 1 member of the Senate ( democrat or independent or a REPUBLICAN who can believe the truth when s/he/they sees and hears it); upon addressing the House or Senate, play aloud: "I Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag" by ©️ Country Joe and the Fish.
that's all....then sit down.
There is a huge Playlist of Music calling for standing up to face Truth to power. War by Ugly Rumors (1 version)
Something In The Air by Thundercap Newman
Talking About a Revolution by Tracy Chapman
Ohio by Crosby, Stills & Nash
to name a few. Newer works by Gen Z are out there too.
hit the collective memory