Trump is a magical thinker. When he was campaigning in 2024, he described Washington, DC, as a place that had become unlivable. It was as though the city could entirely crumble having endured three years under Biden. My response to him at the time was that, actually, the city had improved after he left. The Capitol damage he caused had been repaired; the shit had been cleaned from the walls. The tacky Trump hotel was converted into a Waldorf Astoria.
But his belief that things happen instantaneously because he does, or doesn't, do something is steadfast. When he deployed the National Guard to DC, after a few days he reported that, since they came to town, there had been no murders in DC (which wasn't true), and that people could go to restaurants at night without fear (which people had been doing already, thank you very much). And, sadly, his decision to bring in the Guard actually caused the murder--of a Guard member.
Back in his first attempted autocracy, he met with Kim Jong Un. They had had one meeting, a short one, and he came out saying that we wouldn't have to worry about North Korea's nuclear weapons anymore. Magic. Just like his claim in 2016 that Obamacare would be replaced with "something terrific." There were no specifics, of course, and there was nobody you could point to who was working on it.
During the 2024 elections, he promised that he would accomplish several things on Day One, including bringing down grocery prices and ending the war in Ukraine. All without planning of any kind, or even "a concept of a plan." In his mind, the price of gasoline is $1.98 per gallon.
All of this could have been predicted if more people had read Rick Reilly's book, Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump. Trump has a need to be the best at everything, even if he has to cheat. He claimed, at the time of the book's publication, to have won eighteen club championships at his own golf courses. He had never won any, of course. But in his mind, I'm sure he believes he did, just like he believes that he has ended eight wars (if that's the latest tally) in the not-quite-two years he's been in office.
And, of course, he constantly claims to have accomplished more in his term and a half than any previous president.
We thought we were rid of him in 2021 (thank you, Joe Biden!), but in 2024, the Stupidest Electorate (apologies to Tom Brokaw) gave him a chance to make more mess. With his threat to use the Insurrection Act in Minnesota, he is on course to attempt to cancel the 2026 elections, at least in the Blue States. And, in threatening to invade Greenland, a NATO ally, he is on course to break the world.
When Trump became president in 2017, I predicted that he would fail spectacularly in front of the whole world, and gosh, wouldn't he have to go home with his tail between his legs. Well, the first part of my prediction came true, but too few voters noticed.
