How MAGA is 'making America look like a failed state'

08 March

U.S. President Donald Trump at the "Shield of the Americas" Summit in Miami, Florida, U.S., March 7, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Many opponents of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to go to war with Iran fear that his actions could lead to a much broader conflict that will involve a lot more countries than the United States, Iran and Israel. And the number of countries being attacked by Iran, they warn, is growing.

Iran is firing missiles or drones at U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrein, Jordan, Kuwait and other countries in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon are attacking one another.

And in Europe on Sunday morning, March 8, an explosion was reported at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway.

Oslo police investigator Frode Larsen told reporters, "One of our hypothesis is that this is terrorism, but we are also exploring other options."

Trump's allies, especially Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, are bragging about how well the war is going. But Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, in an article published on March 8, argues that the Trump Administration is, in fact, operating from a position of weakness during the conflict.

"'America is winning,' announced Pete Hegseth during a remarkably ugly Pentagon press conference this past week, in the latest and perhaps greatest example of the second Trump Administration outdoing Mike Judge's legendary 2006 farce 'Idiocracy,'" O'Hehir writes. "Admittedly, there's plenty of competition for that prize: The White House has also released a series of grotesque propaganda videos in recent days, apparently constructed by AI and incorporating images of U.S. strikes on Iran with unlicensed clips from action movies, popular TV series and video games…. Unfortunately, there's a real war happening to real people, including more than 150 children who were apparently killed when a U.S. missile struck a girls' school in southern Iran on February 28."

The Salon journalist warns that the Iran conflict is "likely to create much bigger problems down the road."

"If Hegseth were actually capable of self-awareness," O'Hehir warns, "we might suggest that he was striking macho-man poses on the deck of a sinking ship in an effort to convince himself that his personal brand, along with the rest of the MAGA enterprise, wasn’t headed straight for the historical dumpster. Let's put it this way: This recycled Fox News frat boy, whose bottomless stupidity and moral emptiness make the now-cashiered Kristi Noem seem like a nuanced thinker, seems to be experiencing doubts he cannot quite suppress."

O'Hehir continues, "If that's how it's going, then 'America' isn't winning anything, regardless of what does or doesn't happen in Tehran…. Trying to look manly and tough when your entire regime, from the top on down, consists of shifty characters with a wide range of obvious personality disorders might seem like a categorical error. But it's a core principle of MAGA ideology…. These pathological losers are making America look like a failed state before the whole world, which might be funny if it weren't terrifying."

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