Trump's failure on every front sending GOP into a death spiral

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, May 16, 2025.

I spent the first hour of my day, reading story after story essentially saying that Donald Trump “miscalculated” in his catastrophically stupid war in Iran, which would seem to make the big damn assumption that this utter and complete moron “calculated” ANYTHING in the first place.

In fact, The New York Times headline had it this way atop their meandering story: How Trump and His Advisers Miscalculated Iran’s Response to War

That’ll be about enough of this damned nonsense.

This war never made any sense to anybody with a brain in their head, because here was what we knew for sure in its lead-up, and what we still know right now: Trump is a dangerous and impetuous idiot, who is capable of anything including attacking his own country, which is why his attack on Iran shouldn’t surprise a soul.

If I had to guess what was behind this insanity, I’d venture that in the last month or so, somebody inside the White House with a semi-cool head, and most likely his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, was able to finally chase him off the golf course for 45 minutes, and force-fed him some unsavory polling numbers to go along with all those Big Macs that pointed to a looming disaster in November, if he didn’t change course but quick, and do something about them.

Trump heard that as a great chance to go bomb another country, so he invited his boss, Bibi Netanyahu and his 22,000 pages of war plans to share an unhappy meal, while they discussed how to deploy their human oil slick, Pete Hegseth, to carry out their favorite war crimes.

But that’s just me speculating about why we are in Iran right now when even Trump and his wreck of an administration can’t seem to tell us for sure. They change their story by the hour, and our service members and their families are paying a terrible price for it.

This was a totally preventable manmade disaster in the most volatile region in the world that is intensifying by the minute.

The dead and wounded are mounting, and that is our horrifying reality right now.

The most gruesome look at where we really are came from this eye-opening blast from Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy on Bluesky Tuesday night. This sets the terrible scene right now better than I could ever hope to.

So essentially we are just bombing the bejesus out of the place and hoping victory will somehow rise out of the rubble. Calling these so-called plans “incoherent and incomplete” is about as nice as you can put it, but I do appreciate this senator’s direct approach to telling America the truth, because truth is the one thing you will never, ever get from the most notorious liar in American history.

We are in a very, very dangerous place right now, because America’s No. 1 convicted felon has managed to stick a gun to his own head and hold himself up. It really didn’t have to be this way, but anybody who has been paying even the slightest amount of attention the past decade or so knew this is exactly what would happen.

Trump actually entered his second term in decent shape, had the House and Senate falling at his fat little feet, and the political winds at his hunched back. In just 14 months, he’s incinerated all that goodwill, and his Republican House and Senate is starting to take on water.

Trump is failing everywhere, and I am telling you right now there is panic in the Grand Ol’ Party as we steam toward the midterms.

If the elections were to happen tomorrow, the Republican Party would most likely lose the House by 30-to-50 seats. Even the Senate would swing to Democrats with victories in just four of these flippable states: Alaska, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Montana.

Trump would be no less dangerous — and maybe more so — but at least we could gum up his dirty works, and stare the rest of the world in the face and not be completely laughed at.

A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll is out today with some stunning numbers.

Consider that Trump’s two strong points entering his second term were the economy and immigration. Now take a look at this:

-35% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the economy, while 58% disapprove.
-40% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling immigration, while 57% disapprove.

These are devastating numbers for Republicans, but it gets worse, because perhaps the most important tell for what voters will do when they hit the voting booth is how they are feeling about both parties at the time, so get a load of this:

-53% of registered voters said they would support the Democratic candidate on the ballot in their district, compared to 44% who said they would support the Republican.

Generally any party garnering a number above +5% is jumping for joy. This +9% spread has no doubt triggered a tsunami warning for Republicans, and jibe with recent election results in which Democrats have been hammering Republicans in one election after another.

Here’s are some other random numbers from that poll:

-Trump’s job approval rating among Americans is 38%, while 57% disapprove of the job the president is doing, and 5% are unsure.
-Americans are nearly twice as likely to strongly disapprove (50%) of the job he is doing than to strongly approve (26%).
-55% of Americans say the state of the union is not very strong or not strong at all. 45% think the union is very strong or strong.
-More than six in ten Americans (61%) also report that the nation is headed in the wrong direction. 38% say the U.S. is moving in the right direction.

This points to a president and a party that is failing at historic levels. It is every bit as bad as most of us thought it would be after throwing our hands up in disgust at a country that is capable of literally anything except electing a woman to lead our country.

Which leads to our cold, hard reality right now. To hash that out, I’ll return to a piece I typed just two weeks after his election two Novembers ago. It is still the most read thing I have ever published. Here is the lede of that offering:

“I considered waiting to publish this dire warning about what will be coming in the wake of the America-attacking Trump’s inauguration in two months, because too many good people are being asked to process too many terrible things right now.
This simply had to be put to paper, though, because I would be remiss if I didn’t urgently warn you that Trump’s takeover of our military is at the top of his dirty to-do list, and at the tip of his toxic spear in his quest to murder our Democracy.
Once you understand that Trump will use his presidency and whatever is left of his miserable life to settle scores and return the favors of the crooked dictators, and slobbery weaklings in his political party, who helped put him back in office, you can better prepare for the hell that’s most assuredly coming.”

I actually considered not reminding you again of this today, but because you pay attention, you fully know what is at stake right now, and what this madman is capable of doing.

Since returning to our White House, Trump has misplayed every card on his table, and is now turning that table upside down, and treating it like so many bottles of ketchup.

He is cornered, failing, and lashing out.

Because he is incapable of calculating anything clearly, as we discussed up front, he will do what he does best and scream and moan. His problems will be everybody else’s problems. He is capable of anything, because he is an incapable president.

With that backdrop, here is how I ended that piece 16 months ago, and how I will end this one today:

“Throughout history, supposedly good men have been talked into doing heinous things because of blinding misjudgment, weakness, or rocket-fueled ambition.
Trump is counting on this weakness to exploit our military for his rotten gains because NOTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect the citizens of the United States of America. EVERYTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect himself from the citizens of the United States of America.
This is not a story of hope, my friends, but words of warning.
Like it or not, and as tired as we are, we must be vigilant and NEVER accept this as anything approaching normal in this country.
A repulsive coward who never had the guts to serve will do everything he can to get our armed forces to serve only him.
WE must be the resistance.”

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)

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