Donald Trump Is Losing What Little Mind He Has Left

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.