Toddler Logic, Nuclear Consequences

What Donald's Willingness to Sacrifice Cities Really Means

Donald Trump at his Nebraska Rally

When you’re the most unpopular president in American history and you’re hemorrhaging support across every demographic, what do you do? If you’re Donald, you hop on a plane and travel through deep red states where you’ll actually get applause, all while insisting this somehow helps Republicans running in November. It’s the kind of logic only a man in complete psychological and cognitive decline could construct.

Donald spent last night in Grand Island, Nebraska, ostensibly there to support Senator Pete Ricketts in his campaign against independent challenger Dan Osborn. Before he even got to the rally, though, he stopped to do what he does best: speak with reporters outside the White House, contradicting himself and attacking anyone brave enough to point out how badly things are going.

One reporter asked him a straightforward question about something he himself has been saying for years. For years, Donald insisted mail-in voting should be made illegal because it increases voter fraud. Except there’s no evidence it increases voter fraud. But suddenly he’s telling his supporters to vote by mail. A reporter asked him about this contradiction.

Donald: No, vote by mail or vote in person. I’d rather have them vote in person, but they can vote by mail if they want because we seem to have no choice because a lot of people want to vote by mail, but a lot of very good people also want to vote in person. You can do either. What we’re concerned about is there seems to be a lot of, not seems to be, there is a lot of cheating in vote by mail. A lot of cheating all over. I’ll tell you what, start off by taking a look at California. There’s no evidence in California. Take a look at no evidence with millions and millions of ballots. You are fake news.

That is not a coherent response. It’s not an explanation. It’s word salad designed to obscure the fact that he’s been caught in yet another contradiction. Because when a reporter points out facts Donald doesn’t like, particularly his abysmal poll numbers, he has only one response: fake news.

Another reporter asked him about his tanking numbers with Latino voters. This is what he said:

I’m doing great. No, no. You got my poll. Your fake news. Your CNN, you’re fake news. My poll numbers are great and all you have to do is look at the crowds withdrawing. And every time I leave, that candidate will be losing and by the time I leave, they’re winning. No, CNN poll numbers are fake and your whole outfit is fake and so are you.

That is the response of a toddler who cannot handle being challenged or a man who is so desperately ill, both psychologically and cognitively, that he simply cannot face the truth. Instead of acknowledging that he’s unpopular, that his presence at rallies is actively toxic to Republican candidates, he attacks the messenger and creates an alternate reality where the crowds are bigger and the numbers are better.

But the real darkness didn’t arrive until Donald took the stage.

Donald has said a lot of horrible things throughout his career, but it’s genuinely difficult to imagine any sitting American president telling a crowd of supporters that losing one or two major American cities would be acceptable. Yet that’s exactly what happened.

While talking about gas prices that continue to skyrocket, making food and basic goods increasingly unaffordable for working people and the poor, and while talking about the Iranian war he started and then immediately began losing, Donald turned his focus to two heavily Democratic cities in California: Los Angeles and San Diego.

This is what he told the crowd:

By the way, we’re kicking Iran’s ass. You do know that, right? It’s going to end one way or the other. It’s going to end very soon and your prices are going to come tumbling. All your prices have been tumbling down. In fact, oil is less than it was under Biden, just so you understand. End very quickly and prices are going to come down very sharply. You might say, “Please, please, sir. It’s going down too fast. You watch what’s going to happen in a very short period of time.” And again, remember with the word it’s just artificial, it’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let him take out Los Angeles. Let him take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay and it’s going to be over very soon.

Let me be clear about what I’m looking at here. This is a man suggesting that the deaths of potentially tens of millions of people are an acceptable cost. These are the words of a psychopath, someone so detached from his own humanity and everyone else’s that mass death registers as merely inconvenient.

And let’s look at the lies embedded in there. The Iranian war is not going well. In fact, we may be seeing a new front opening. Donald lost that war on day one and has spent the last five months declaring victory over and over again. And oil prices? They’re hitting record numbers. Diesel is the highest it’s been in decades. Prices are not going down. They’re not going to go down because the war shows no signs of stopping.

Quick aside: even if prices were somehow declining, I don’t think anyone would be upset about that given how astronomical the cost of living has become. But they’re not declining. They’re climbing. And it’s because Donald doesn’t know what he’s doing. He can’t negotiate himself out of a wet paper bag at this point.

But we need to talk about what he’s really doing here. He’s signaling that he would allow Iran to destroy American cities just to prove some point about how strong he is. And more broadly, he’s setting the stage for martial law before the midterm election. He’s desperate. He knows things are falling apart. He knows it’s his fault. And men like this become dangerous when they’re cornered.

After casually suggesting the annihilation of American cities, Donald pivoted to another remarkable moment. He told the crowd that his illegal tariff policy, which the Supreme Court has already ruled he had no authority to impose under emergency powers, has generated so much money that America is now experiencing record economic success.

And because of all this success, he’s going to give every adult American $5,000.

Donald: Actually, the Trump dividend, as an example, is approximately... Think of that. We’ll call this a dividend. It’s a dividend to the people of our country for putting up with these morons and horrible four years of horror. You put up with four years of stupidity and horror, but the Trump dividend is $1 trillion. And our country is doing so well under Republican leadership that only I can make this promise to you. This is a big promise, but I’ve met all my promises, all my promises. If Republicans win the House of Representatives and the Senate, I am going to give all adult citizens in the United States of America $5,000.

He’s not going to do this. And if you believe him, you probably also believe that everything is wonderful right now, which is only true if you’re incredibly wealthy or named Donald.

He has kept practically none of his promises. The list is so long I literally don’t have time to enumerate it. He promised to end the Ukrainian war on day one. That didn’t happen. He promised the Iranian war would be over in a week. We’re into month five now. On and on it goes. He promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, to lock up Hillary Clinton, to have Mexico pay for the wall. None of it happened.

But that won’t stop him from making new promises he has no intention of keeping.

Before leaving the rally, Donald wanted to make sure the crowd knew that some people are saying he’s the greatest president of all time.

It didn’t get worse than that last administration. In fact, I think the reason I look so good, they’re all saying goat. You know there are a lot of goat hats. I love that goat. I say, “What about Washington and Lincoln?” They say, “You’re better, sir. I mean, you’re better.” They’re believers. Front row Joe’s, we got all the fundraiser. They think I’m better. “You’re better than them, sir. You’re better. Goat, greatest of all time. You know what goat means? Greatest of all time.. So I don’t know if it’s true.

The only people saying this are the voices in his head. Those imaginary supporters who constantly call him “sir” and apparently always have tears streaming down their faces. It’s the delusion of a man so isolated within his own echo chamber that he can’t distinguish between reality and the stories he tells himself.

But then he made a more serious play to the crowd, and he made it more than once. This is what he said:

So in this election, I am going to do this. I’m going to ask you to pretend that I’m running. Do you know there’s a line outside that’s like three, four miles long? Just remember, I’m running, I’m running. Okay. Even if you have to pretend, say Trump, because in a true way I am running. We have to keep it going.

Let me be absolutely clear: Donald cannot constitutionally run for a third term. It would be illegal. It would be unconstitutional. The fact that he’s publicly flirting with this idea, asking his supporters to imagine him on the ballot, is despicable. And for Democrats and everyone else paying attention, this is also your reminder about what’s actually at stake in the midterms.

The Republican Party, as it currently exists, is completely behind Donald. Every single Republican running for office or reelection is a co-conspirator willing to do his bidding regardless. So for all practical purposes, Donald might as well be on the ballot.

But here’s what matters: most people cannot stand Donald Trump. And a vote for any Republican is not just a vote for him. It’s a vote for his continued impunity. It’s a vote for making that horrible man’s life miserable. And right now, with the way things are going, that should be reason enough.