Madman in the White House
Many of us learned about madman politics during the misbegotten tenure of Richard Nixon. The idea was that a leader who seemed detached from reality could extract concessions from would-be antagonists. The phrase has since been applied to Saddam and Gaddafi, and most especially Kim Jong Un. If no one could predict how far you would go, they instinctively backed away from the craziness. You don’t want to be in a tiny closet buzzing with Asian Murder Hornets.
Now, of course, we are in the Age of Trump, who seems to have reduced his presidency to grunts. He is a reckless, indecisive, chest-pounding freak. On any given day, the war in Iran is over for keeps, or the beginning of an epic, end-times Armageddon. Our goal is to seize Iran’s stock of uranium or close the convenience stores on the road to Isfahan. It all depends on Trump’s mood-of-the-moment. He is perfectly partnered by the coked-up Hegseth, who never met a man he didn’t want to kill, and who fairly gleams with the intensity of a nut job. But it is Trump with his hands clutching the wheel. He makes Richard Nixon look like a Victorian spinster crossing a London street in the rain.
The latest little bit of violent inchoehrance has to do with the infamous Strait of Hormuz, the so-called choke point for the international oil trade. When the war began, Trump wanted it open. Using the advantages of asymmetrical warfare, the Iranians turned it into a lethal minefield. Trump professed not to care, challenging other nations who depended on the oil to fight America’s battle and “just take” the Strait. Now he seems to be in full manic-panic mode. As of Sunday morning, he was an elephant in musth:
"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open "the F------ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah."
No president in history has spoken like this in public, with the same combination of rage and obscenity. Meanwhile the Israelis go about their business, picking off targets like olives from a tree. If I were Melania, I’d be ordering meds off the Internet.
There is a chance, of course, that all of this is for show, the wartime equivalent of Trump’s infamous “weave,” his habit of jumping from one topic to another in the interminable pep rallies to which he subjects his cultists. That would mean performative madness and the possibility that he has mastered Nixonian dissembling.
But these are more likely the lunatic utterances of a real madman, who promises to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages (sic).” One of the pitfalls of the madman politics is that the leader may be effectively ignored because any promise to relent is inherently unreliable. Trump is nothing if not inherently unreliable, and he doesn’t appear to be impersonating a crazy person. Sometimes a crazy person is just…a crazy person. In the end, Trump loses any which way.
What Trump has shown is some sensitivity to disapproval. That’s how we got from Noem to Mullin. That’s how we got from Bondi to Blache. It’s why Stephen Miller has found his way to naziism lite, and why Lutnick and Patel may be kicked to the curb along with—please God—Hegseth and Kennedy. Trump has asked for $200 billion for warmaking at the expense of economic benefits for Americans. I doubt that Congress will authorize those expenditures.
And that’s because We the People don’t want those expenditures. My advice to my fellow Americans in the orbit of Easter and Passover is that tyrants may be brought low by courageous opponents. We have a job to do in the run-up to the midterms and American history will tell the tale of our bravery and discipline. Either that, or it’s the Stone Ages for all of us.