"You can't fool all of the people all the time" (19) - The swing voters of 2024 have abandoned the president. Swing but not stupid

 Other "You can't fool all of the people all the time."

Donald Trump’s disintegrating coalition

«Since returning to office, Mr Trump's approval ratings have sunk to historic lows. Virtually all those who voted for Ms Harris disapprove of his performance, as does one in five of his own voters. (...)  Just 65% of Mr Trump’s supporters plan to vote for a Republican.»

"You can't fool all of the people all the time" (18) - In all areas, there are more men and women of all ages, races, and educational levels who reject Trumpism on all issues. It's difficult to get worse, but not impossible.

Other "You can't fool all of the people all the time."

YouGov

NPD. Confirmed diagnosis (3) - Dear devotees of Mr. Trump, you have been warned (several times)

Confirmed diagnosis (1), (2)

Moves that the enemies and adversaries of the US will enthusiastically applaud

Trump is at odds with his own administration—and with reality

«Trump on Friday (14) called on Americans to accept higher gasoline prices as the cost of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He posted this morning (18) that the “number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon”—even though his administration assessed before the war that Iran was not actively building weapons, even though the White House hasn’t offered any explanation for how the war will prevent the regime from restarting its weapons program, and even though the war may make Iran’s desire for a nuclear arsenal only more urgent. Meanwhile, Vice President Vance says that lowering fuel prices is actually now “goal No. 1” of the war. 

(...)

Meanwhile, Trump announced yesterday that he was curtailing joint military exercises with South Korea, “based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea.” »

Trump's current naval fixation

«Over the past nine years, Donald Trump has returned again and again to the concept of steam power. He loves the way that steam propels fighter jets off the decks of aircraft carriers, and he laments that the Navy has pivoted to electromagnetic launchers in its new ships. “That beautiful scene,” he rhapsodized at a rally in 2023: “That steam goes off, and that plane gets thrown the hell off; the power, beautiful. And it’s cheap!” 

(...)

Until last week, future ships were set to use electromagnetic propulsion too. But on Thursday, Trump ordered one of the Navy’s planned carriers, the USS Doris Miller, to be outfitted with steam catapults instead.

It’s a potential logistical nightmare.»

Trump administration proposes more than $100K fee for H-1B visas

«The Trump administration has proposed a more than $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications for skilled foreign workers, a policy that the president introduced last year but had been blocked by a federal judge.

President Donald Trump first proposed payments of $100,000 as a presidential proclamation in September 2025 in an effort to prioritize American workers, and overhaul the H-1B program that allows companies and organizations to hire foreign workers for specialized, high-skill roles.»

Pro memoria (148) - See my leaps, don’t read my lips. The trumping way to Make the Debt Great Again

Trading Economics

«Maybe we'll pay off our $35 trillion dollars, hand them a little crypto check, right? We'll hand them a little bitcoin and wipe out our $35 trillion.»

August 2024, in a Fox Business interview

"You can't fool all of the people all the time" (17) - Oklahoma is gone, Idaho and West Virginia are next

Other "You can't fool all of the people all the time."

YouGov

It is easy to understand why the net approval rate has been falling. What is hard to understand is that more than a third of Americans still approve.

It just have to avoid being defeated itself

Read on Quora

No, the ayatollahs would only be confident they could defeat the US if they were stupid. They are confident they only need to avoid defeat. As simple as that, but beyond the level of understanding of a guy who suffers from hubris syndrome and paranoid narcissism.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT! The Trump Administration admitted that it had withheld federal money in retaliation against its political rivals

«In a court filing earlier this month, a government lawyer did something radical: He laid out the truth in plain English.

The surprise was not just the honesty from a chronically dishonest administration but also the substance: The Trump administration admitted that it had withheld federal money in retaliation against its political rivals. The disclosure, first reported by The New York Times on Friday, is part of a lawsuit from a group of researchers in California whose grants were canceled. In lieu of turning over documents to the plaintiffs in discovery, an Energy Department attorney acknowledged in a filing that decisions about which grants might be terminated had been “based solely” on a goal of political retribution. “With one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing Senators (‘Blue State’ grants),” the filing stated, contradicting previous public statements by officials.

You can't fool all of the people all the time (16) - Oklahoma withdrew and joined the remaining 45 states.

Other "You can't fool all of the people all the time."

YouGov

JD Vance, Trump's running mate, the righteous hypocrate, from Never Trump to Ever Trump and beyond (4)

Sequel to (1), (2), (3)

«Why is a smart man spending so much time saying stupid things? The simplest explanation is that Vance believes his voters are stupid. Or as Vance himself told Rogan last week: “There’s a real populism that I’m very much a fan of because I think you should be responsive to people, but there’s, like, a faux populism of: The way that I’m going to appeal to people is by assuming that they’re idiots and acting like they’re idiots.”

This is admission by analysis. All politicians pander, but the best of them do it with some finesse. Vance, who struggles through the most basic photo ops, is not one of the best; his two successful elections are both testaments to Trump’s political muscle. In 2022, when he was a U.S. Senate candidate, I included Vance in a round-up of very intelligent Republicans who were clumsily pretending to be fools for electoral purposes. Vance seems to have doubled down on the strategy since then, but each new incident just offers more evidence of his dripping disdain for voters’ intelligence.

This may not be the wisest political strategy, H. L. Mencken notwithstanding. Vance’s approval ratings have been underwater for more than a year, and the Never Trump pollster Sarah Longwell recently conducted a focus group with Trump voters and found that Vance has left them cold. Either way, Vance’s performance plays as tragicomedy: comic because he’s so bad at it, but tragic because of who Vance was not that long ago. Much has been made of his critique of Trump in his 2016 Atlantic essay, and although his flip-flop on the president is astonishing, he has also reversed himself on a more fundamental view of politics.

In that essay, he criticized the demagogic tendency to condescend to people in so-called flyover country, where he grew up—to view them as yokels who could be easily manipulated with simplistic talking points and grievance plays. The harms that Trump identified, Vance wrote, “demand serious thought and measured action—from governments, yes, but also from community leaders and individuals.” Trump, he argued, was cynically co-opting those harms for his own gain and doing Americans a disservice. That Vance was right; this Vance doesn’t seem to care.»

J. D. Vance Isn’t a Fool. Why Does He Act Like One?, David A. Graham, The Atlantic

Crassus fits Donald better than Caligula (2) - They both should have listened to omens, curses, and advice from allies

As remembered by a Reader of The Economist «it would be more appropriate to compare Mr Trump to another Roman leader, Marcus Licinius Crassus.»

For those who don't know or have forgotten, as Crassus left Rome for his campaign in 55 BC, a tribune named Ateius Capito staged a ritual, burning incense and pronouncing dreadful curses upon Crassus for launching an unprovoked war.  When his army crossed the Euphrates River into enemy territory, a sudden thunderstorm ripped through the camp, destroying boats and blowing away the military standards. Crassus dismissed it and refused the advice of the King of Armenia, who urged him to take a mountainous route where the enemy cavalry would be useless. Instead, Crassus trusted an Arab guide who was secretly a double agent for the Parthians, leading the Romans directly into the open desert.

The Parthians deployed thousands of horse archers. Crassus ordered his men into a tight defensive square (the testudo), expecting the enemy to run out of arrows. Surena had anticipated this. He brought a vanguard of 1,000 baggage camels loaded with millions of extra arrows. The Parthian archers continuously reloaded, maintaining an unstoppable, hours-long hail of arrows that pierced Roman shields and hands.

Crassus's son, Publius, was killed in a desperate counter-charge. Utterly demoralized and surrounded, the Roman lines collapsed. Crassus was killed during botched peace negotiations after the battle. Around 20,000 Roman soldiers died, and 10,000 were captured. According to a famous legend recorded by the historian Dio Cassius, the Parthians poured molten gold down Crassus's throat after his death as a symbol of his insatiable avarice. 

Rome viewed eastern nations as "barbaric" and naturally inferior. To have over 30,000 Roman citizens slaughtered or captured by the Parthian Empire shattered their national pride. The defeat triggered a deep-seated public fear in Rome that the Parthians would launch a counter-invasion of Syria or the wider Roman East. Crassus had been the financial and political buffer between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. The loss of his army collapsed the First Triumvirate, removing the final obstacle to the civil war that destroyed the Roman Republic.

Karl Marx observes in his 1852 essay, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, that significant historical events and figures occur twice: the first time as grand, genuine struggles (tragedy), and the second time as empty, ridiculous caricatures of the original (farce).

[Story told with the help of Gemini]

Trumpism at its finest: accusing China of trying to manipulate the 2020 elections while he himself tries to manipulate the 2026 elections

If he knows that these doctrines are not true, he is a
demagogue; if he believes his own lies, he is an idiot.

«(Wednesday night) President Trump delivered a rare prime-time speech, but his address fell well short of the hype. Purportedly, the president was going to make a major statement about election integrity, but in reality, the speech was dense and hoarsely delivered. As my colleagues report, he provided no evidence to back up his long-standing lie that the 2020 election was stolen. The White House also released four tranches of documents meant to support the speech, but Trump’s claims were a farrago of recycled information, misrepresentations of evidence, and tendentious claims based on materials too heavily redacted to parse. Major news networks, apparently concerned that Trump would mislead, declined to air the address live.

So why even deliver it? The speech was a sign of desperation. Trump spoke now not only to distract from his sputtering Iran war and its effects on the economy, but also because his attempts to concretely interfere with the 2026 election thus far have almost all failed. As his opportunities to change the rules of the game before November slip away from him, the president is falling back on one of the few tools he has left: attempting to sow chaos and doubt among Americans.»

Trump’s Plan for November Is Failing, The Atlantic

You can't fool all of the people all the time (15) - Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, West Virginia, Oklahoma, are still left

Other "You can't fool all of the people all the time."

YouGov

Crassus fits Donald better than Caligula

The folly of war

The Telegram (May 9th) compared Donald Trump to Caligula. As Caligula never started a war it would be more appropriate to compare Mr Trump to another Roman leader, Marcus Licinius Crassus. Crassus was a real-estate tycoon who made his fortune by buying the properties of those purged after a civil war. Frustrated that he had not received the credit he thought was his for having quelled Spartacus’s slave revolt, he was eager to gain glory through a victory against a “real” enemy. With the help of his buddies in the triumvirate, Caesar and Pompey, he got his chance in 53BC. Crassus was assigned to subdue Parthia, an empire that covered today’s Iraq and Iran. Ignoring advice from his generals, Crassus rushed headlong into the desert and the Parthian armoured cavalry, resulting in one of the largest defeats suffered by a Roman army. The Parthians cut off his head and poured molten gold into his mouth.

PAUL VANDERBROECK [Letter from a Reader of The Economist]

_________

Trump's BEAUTIFUL FINAL deadlines have a BIG mortality rate

• Trump initially gave Iran a deadline to reopen the Strait.
• He extended that deadline once rather than acting.
• He extended it again by about 10 days, saying he was pausing military action while giving diplomacy another chance.
• Today he issued a final 48-hour deadline, warning, «A whole civilization will die tonight».

Is Bibi following in the footsteps of his godfather, who attacks his allies and venerates his enemies?

Groundnews

BELIEVE IT OR NOT! Finally, an agreement in which it is agreed that maybe an agreement will be reached (2) - Executive summary for MAGA believers

Continuation of (1), (2)

The following text is a summary by the MS Copilot of the article "Donald Trump gambles that Iran wants money more than power," and is intended for those who, 109 days after the incompetent attack on Iran, are still searching for a rationale in the chaotic decisions of their messiah. Good luck with that.

«The article analyzes Donald Trump’s preliminary peace deal with Iran, arguing that Trump is betting that Tehran values money more than strategic power — a risky and likely misguided assumption.

1. The deal: lots of money, few demands

Unable to defeat Iran militarily, Trump now offers:

• The unfreezing of tens of billions of dollars
• Lifting of sanctions
• Immediate access to oil exports
• A reconstruction fund of at least $300 billion (1)

In return, Iran promises:

• Not to build a nuclear weapon (a long‑standing pledge)
• To reduce part of its enriched uranium
• To negotiate aspects of its nuclear program (without firm commitments)

The regime gives up almost nothing.

 2. The Strait of Hormuz and American humiliation

The deal includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but:

• Before the war, the passage was already open
• Now, after 60 days, tolls may be imposed
• The article frames this as proof of the folly of the war and Trump’s final capitulation

3. Why the plan may fail

The text lists several reasons:

1. Iranian leaders do not trust the U.S.
2. They expect Israel to sabotage the agreement
3. The nuclear program provides prestige and protection
4. Iran is skilled at dragging out negotiations
5. Inspections will be difficult, and the regime may cheat

4. Israel: the big loser

• Israel pushed for the war but was excluded from the negotiations
• Its campaign against Hezbollah was weakened
• Netanyahu may pay a political price in the October elections (2)
• The war was a strategic failure: Iran remains a threat

5. Gulf states: between fear and pragmatism

• They need to restore an image of stability
• They remain vulnerable to Iranian drones and missiles
• They may:
• Strengthen ties with Israel
• Accommodate Iran
• Or try to balance both sides
• They can no longer rely on America’s willingness to fight

6. The final critique

The article concludes that:

• Trump should never have started the war
• He now tries to exit it by assuming that “everyone does everything for money”
• But diplomacy requires understanding that the adversary does not think like you

In short

The deal is portrayed as:

• A humiliating U.S. retreat
• A strategic victory for Iran
• A setback for Israel
• A risk to regional security
• A fragile bet based on financial incentives that may not work.»

_______________

(1) With the pious intention of shedding light on the dull minds that habitually resort to the lazy and unintelligent expedient of trying to disguise the errors of their idols with the errors of their enemies, I remind you that the Barack Obama administration agreed to pay Iran compensation for defaults by previous administrations to resolve a long-standing legal dispute handled by the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague. This payment had the following two main components:

• USD 400 million for failing to deliver military equipment paid for by Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution;
• USD 1.3 billion relating to interest accrued over 35 years on that amount.

(2) Bibi has based his propaganda on: (a) only he could withstand international pressure and (b) only he could influence Trump. Now Bibi is compelled to choose between (a) and (b) and either disobey Trump on Lebanon and Iran, to save (a), or give in to preserve the perception of (b). Either option is bad for Bibi.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT! Finally, an agreement in which it is agreed that maybe an agreement will be reached (2) - Losing his grip on reality itself

Continuation of this other post

«Donald Trump arrived in France yesterday for this morning’s G7 summit and promptly confirmed America’s capitulation to Iran. Instead of merely repeating the outlines of what looks to be a terrible peace deal, however, Trump made a series of statements so bizarre, even by his usual standards, that they raise the question of whether the president still understands the words that come out of his own mouth.

The president began with a classic Trumpian move, daring his listeners to forget today what they knew yesterday. Just this winter, Trump had promised the Iranian people that the tyrants who ruled them would be gone. But now? “I never cared about regime change,” he told reporters, waving away his failure to achieve a primary strategic goal by denying that it had ever been a goal at all.

Things got a little weirder, however, when he described the Iranians who have stepped in to replace the regime leaders killed in U.S. strikes: “We’re dealing with people that I think are very rational people. And they were nice to deal with.”

“They were strong people, smart people,” he added. And then he dropped this remarkable claim: “They’re not radicalized, and they’re, you know, looking to help their country.”

This definitely not-radicalized group that Trump seems to like includes the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei (whose father, wife, and son were killed by U.S. strikes), and the still-standing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, all of whom have shown no compunction about lashing out in any direction during Trump’s “cease-fire,” the make-believe pause in the war during which no one actually ceased firing.

Trump’s description of the current regime in Tehran as a bunch of swell guys was brewed in a heavy-duty vat of wishful thinking. It’s an extreme version of Trump’s tendency, when he’s been outplayed by powerful enemies, to describe his opponents as basically reasonable people. (He has done the same over the years with dictators and autocrats in North Korea, Russia, and China, among other countries.) This is his way of assuring the public that he did not get taken to the cleaners—because, of course, his affable partners would never do that.

Trump fared no better talking about the Iranian nuclear program. Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium exists largely because Trump unilaterally called off U.S. participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 agreement that was meant to prevent Iran from enriching uranium beyond minimal levels for civilian uses. After the U.S. and Israeli attacks last year, and yet more pounding during Operation Epic Fury, that uranium remains underground, either hidden in storage or buried beneath tons of rubble; some of it can likely be recovered and enriched for military uses. Trump has said, repeatedly, that Iran must hand it over.

Until today.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT! Finally, an agreement in which it is agreed that maybe an agreement will be reached

After 104 days of bombing, several threats of total destruction, a three-dozen announcements of peace agreements followed by new attacks or threats causing in enormous stock market volatility, which some speculated were precisely the purpose of those announcements and threats, President Donald Trump announced yet another agreement yesterday, which, to be announced on his birthday, I speculate cost him several concessions, in addition to a concession to his own narcissism.

The announced memorandum of understanding will be signed at the end of this week and, from what it appears so far, leaves the most difficult issues for later, including the fate of the enriched uranium stockpile.

MAGA is a product of the decline of American democracy and an agent of its acceleration

«Belief in democracy as a core pillar of American identity is eroding, with only about two-thirds of U.S. adults now stating that a democratically elected government is highly important to the nation's identity, a sharp drop from 80% in 2021.

The poll reveals a widening generational divide over American exceptionalism, as 44% of adults under 30 say there are other countries better than the U.S., compared to just 22% of Americans aged 60 and older who feel the same way.

Skepticism surrounding the "American Dream" has become mainstream, with 51% of all respondents stating that the ideal—that hard work guarantees success—once held true but no longer does in the current economic landscape.

Deep partisan splits persist regarding the nation's global standing and values, as roughly half of Republicans view the U.S. as standing above all other countries compared to only 7% of Democrats, while 76% of Democrats see a mix of global cultures as essential to the U.S. compared to 40% of Republicans.

The data highlights a broader feeling of national unease, contrasting sharply with local and federal planning for the upcoming "America 250" celebrations commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States' founding.»

(Groundnews)

BREAKING NEWS: At first it seems strange, then it becomes ingrained (update)

Update to this post

«On January 6, 2021, 19-year-old Elias Irizarry was among the members of a violent mob that broke into the U.S. Capitol and attempted to overturn the recent presidential election. He was convicted of trespassing on government grounds, and videos from that day show him entering through a window with a metal pole in his hand. Now he may have access to sensitive national-security information as an employee of the Department of Defense.»  (The Atlantic)

BREAKING NEWS: At first it seems strange, then it becomes ingrained

«A convicted Jan. 6 rioter who later said that he regretted his participation in the U.S. Capitol attack has been hired by the Trump administration to work inside a Pentagon office that manages highly classified military operations, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The appointment of Elias Irizarry, who was 19 at the time of the riot in 2021, to a post in the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office has raised alarm internally among staff who question how anyone convicted in the assault on American democracy could be trusted for such a sensitive role in the U.S. government, these people said. All spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear of retaliation.» Washington Post

At first glance, it seems strange that the Trump Administration would appoint someone convicted of breaking into the Capitol to work in counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of Defense. However, appointing such a person to combat terrorism makes as much sense as hiring a hacker to combat cyber intrusion, which is a normal procedure in the computer industry.

«President Trump lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel's escalation in Lebanon in an expletive-laden call ("You're fucking crazy") on Monday, two U.S. officials and a third source briefed on the call told Axios.» Axios

It may also seem strange that Mr. Trump insulted Mr. Netanyahu, but the truth is that his democrat predecessor, Roosevelt, once said of the dictator Somoza, "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."

Unfortunately, not everyone, even among his devotees, understands these subtleties, and that's why President Trump's net approval rating continues to fall.