Trump is trapped and losing — and lashing out like an enraged child

I’m still grieving Dolly Parton. I never met her and always wanted to. She was almost exactly my age and my height and had values I deeply admired. Her death leaves a hole in the firmament.

Which brings me to the person whose values are as far from Dolly Parton’s as any human’s could possibly be and still claim to be human. I’m referring, of course, to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

“I knew her a little bit,” Trump boasted about Parton yesterday on Glenn Beck’s radio show. “She really liked me, I will tell you!” at which Beck laughed out loud.

Trump has become mad as a hatter. Loonier than loony-tunes. Totally nuts. An enraged, engorged child who’s frightened to death of being seen as a loser.

He’s losing his war in Iran — the war he decided to start without the support of any other nation, without consulting Congress, without even telling the American people his goal or exit strategy.

Now he’s trapped there — with a stronger and more extreme group in control of Iran than before his attack, more intent on making a nuclear bomb, blocking the Strait of Hormuz (it was open before Trump attacked), causing oil prices to again rise.

His current attempt to stop other nations from dealing with Iran is a bad joke. Iran is becoming the dominant power in the Gulf, having demonstrated its ability to damage the oil and gas infrastructure of its neighbors. Besides, China can supply almost everything Iran needs and has a strong incentive to do so.

So — now clearly revealed as a loser — what does Trump do? Like any bully, he lashes out.

If the courts won’t allow him to put his name on the Kennedy Center, he’ll demolish it. If they say he doesn’t have authority to build his ballroom, he’ll build it anyway. If his blue paint on the reflecting pool is peeling and the green algae are back and his U.S. attorney won’t prosecute “vandals” for causing the problem, he’ll stick to his story and blame vandals anyway.

It’s all going so badly for Trump that his lizard brain is compelled to show he can bully someone. So who does Trump choose? Our old neighbor and friend Canada, who has always gone along with whatever the American colossus ever wanted.

Out of the blue, Trump imposes 50 percent tariffs on all cars, trucks, auto parts, and steel coming from Canada. Why? Because, he says, “Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years. On Trade, and in other ways, also, they are among the worst Nations in the World to deal with. They feel entitled, and yet, WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!”

In other words, we’re in a trade war with Canada because, well, Trump wants one. A trade war with Canada likely seemed easier to win than a hot war with Iran. And he had to save face somehow, right? Even though the Supreme Court found his attempt to use emergency powers for his last round of tariffs to be unconstitutional, he’s now using the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930 — which, not incidentally, worsened the Great Depression.

But maybe a trade war with Canada won’t be all that easy to win. Canada has now retaliated with its own 50 percent tariffs against about 700 American products (made primarily in Republican states). As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney noted Saturday, “Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so they can own us, and I promised that will never, ever happen. We are keeping that promise.”

Carney is now a hero in Canada with approval ratings soaring to 65 percent, while Trump’s have sunk to the low 30s.

Humiliation upon humiliation for the man who can’t stand to be humiliated.

It gets worse by the day.

Netanyahu has rejected Trump’s plan for Gaza. Congressional Republicans are blasting him for increasing imports of ground beef. Universities are rejecting his latest directives. ABC has sued his regime for threatening its broadcast licenses.

Even the bond market won’t be cowed. It’s in open revolt against his bonkers fiscal policies.

Thank goodness for him that Darline Graham won South Carolina’s special election Republican runoff to replace her brother. Trump had made her race all about himself — of course — telling supporters that her opponents were “only fighting Darline because they want me to lose.”

I’m sure that’s what he’s telling himself about his many losses and humiliations — that they’re all due to his opponents plotting and scheming against him.

(Hopefully, he’s about to lose Congress, too.)

That’s an easier story for him to accept than the truth: that Trump’s carefully cultivated aura of invincibility has just about disappeared. The would-be emperor has no clothes. Almost everybody now sees the thin-skinned, peevish, petty, incompetent, corrupt, naked infant who’s been parading around in presidential garb.

And they’re not going to obey him anymore.

Dolly Parton was a huge winner, bless her soul. Trump is the biggest loser on the planet.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/