U.S. President Donald Trump looks up as he participates in a roundtable on antifa on September 22, at the White House (REUTERS)
Is there a greater pleasure than watching a thundering narcissist stride proudly into his own pit? Texas conservative Nick Catoggio says he can’t wait to find out.
“Specifically, I’m intrigued to see what happens to an unpopular president’s support when he starts an unpopular war that no one saw coming while struggling to resolve another unpopular war he started that no one saw coming,” Catoggio told the Dispatch.
Having grown bored with the stalemate in Iran, Catoggio said a “frustrated” Donald Trump allegedly complained to advisers that the plan to squeeze Cuba into submission is going too slow, so he’s decided to speed things up by going “Venezuela” on them. This means indicting the nation’s leader on federal criminal charges as a pretext to kidnapping, positioning U.S. warships near it to intimidate leaders, and then asking Americans “to believe that a banana republic that can’t feed its people is a threat to the United States.”
But Americans hate the idea of invading Cuba, with disapproval registering at a lopsided 64-to-15 in favor. And Americans are still disapproving of Trump’s Iran War at 60 percent – which happens to be the same disapproval for Trump’s handling of the economy.
“That’s why I’m excited,” said Catoggio. “The Cuba takeover will amount to a novel political experiment to gauge how voters react to a democratic leader all but formally notifying them that their opinion no longer matters to him. Although, now that I think about it, I suppose he’s already given that notice.”
Trump, he said, appears to have learned nothing from his brush with the tragi-comedy of his “Liberation Day debacle.”
And while he’s making enemies among American voters, Catoggio said Trump turned Bill Cassidy into a lame duck who no longer owes him anything, then promptly did the same to John Cornyn. (Assuming Cornyn loses next week’s primary runoff in Texas, that is, which is likely.)”
“And then, with Senate Republicans already seething, he dropped two flaming bags of dog s—— on their porch, launching a new taxpayer-funded slush fund for his criminal cronies and demanding that lawmakers give him $1 billion for a ballroom while voters are screaming about the cost of living,” said Catoggio.
Why does Trump do it? Catoggio says he has the answer.
“I don’t think there’s any mystery to it. Almost the opposite: When, throughout history, have megalomaniacs trusted with immense power not eagerly bitten off more than they can chew?” he said. “… When you regard yourself as the most powerful person to ever live, when you imagine the only obstacle to getting your way is your own restraint in insisting upon it, the idea of being ‘overextended’ must be unfathomable. You won’t learn your lesson about it because you literally can’t.”