Daily Blast host Greg Sargent said President Donald Trump appears to be at war with his encroaching physical and mental deterioration.
Sargent cited Trump’s Tuesday speech to military officials, during which he pronounced generals in the audience as enlisted in a “war” against an “invasion from within” and proposed U.S. cities serve as military training grounds.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) responded to the presentation by scorching Trump.
“Look, the president’s an idiot,” Gallego told a reporter. “He doesn’t actually understand how the military works. The first thing it’s going to be is that most U.S. citizens will stand against that in civil protests. And you’ll have many of us joining them in that if they try to do such a thing. … The oath that our members of the military take, they will not be firing upon their own men and women, their own neighbors. Only, again, an idiot like Donald Trump would believe in such a thing.”
“It’s worth noting that Senator Gallego has actual combat experience, unlike Trump,” said Sargent, adding that “there’s an argument for responding like Gallego does here with contempt and ridicule."
“Trump is clearly and visibly right here in mental and physical decline,” Sargent said. “He’s failing on many political fronts. And here he’s clearly trying to make himself appear strong. You know, he’s going to unleash the military on us. But of course, at the same time, the authoritarian threat is deadly serious. It’s absolutely real. It seems like the key here is getting this balance right. But I do think mockery has to be a part of the equation.”
Additionally, Sargent said Trump is also politically weak, so he “falls back on that rallying of the base.” But he may not realize that fascism is not a position of strength with the American public, according to polls against troop occupation of U.S. cities.
“I think Stephen Miller is whispering in Trump’s ear that fascism is popular, but it isn’t. “
Ian Reifowitz, a history professor at SUNY Empire State University and a co-author, said Trump, in his dawning weakness, might be “trying to provoke an incident” that would extend the limits of his power.
“There’s only so much he can do when there’s not actually things burning down. The idea that Portland or D.C. is a war zone is absurd, and he looks foolish for saying it. But if he can provoke something like we saw in the summer of 2020 … when there were [isolated] incidents of rioting, and violence … I think he’s thinking that maybe if there’s a rerun of that, then he can respond in a different way,” Reifowitz said, adding that crime and disorder “are winning issues for him.”
“And whatever he can do to keep that in the front of people’s minds means that they won’t be thinking as much about the fact that he hasn’t brought down inflation, or that his tariffs are not going to succeed — at least not likely to succeed — in bringing back American manufacturing jobs.”
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