Trump Outrages: Blowing Up Stuff

In 1950, U.C. Berkeley professor Theodor Adorno published a book, “The Authoritarian Personality,” attempting to define the character traits of European Fascists. But some of those characteristics apply to Donald Trump and several of his close  aides: outsized respect for the strong and contempt for the weak or those he deems inferior.

Hence, Trump’s sucking up to Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Viktor Orban and Kim Jong Un and dealing dismissively or insultingly towards European leaders (“weak”), including Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky (“you haven’t got the cards”)—and, of course, woke Democrats (“whacked out”), poor immigrants (“poisoning the blood of our country”) and those afflicted with conditions like dyslexia (“low IQ,” “dumb”).

He demonstrates strength by renaming buildings after himself, planning gigantic monuments, vilifying journalists, punishing adversaries, ignoring Congress and judges, attempting to steal elections, trying to annex Greenland and Canada and making war on or in small nations like Venezuela, Somalia, Iraq and Yemen.

He evidently thought that conquering Iran would be as easy as bombing Venezuela’s military and arresting its dictator. Along with Israel, his forces have inflicted massive damage on Iran’s military and killed dozens of top Iranian leaders. But it’s a well-established historical fact he probably knew nothing about that bombing alone will not defeat an entrenched ideological regime. Even “boots on the ground” may not do it.

He seems shocked that Iran has retaliated against neighboring Arab countries and he must have been asleep when aides warned him that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz and create havoc in the world economy. Oil prices have been soaring, along with dozens of commodities derived from oil and natural gas like fertilizer and helium used for medical technology and semi-conductor manufacturing.

After years of demeaning and offending allies—to the point of their distancing from the US—Trump tried to enlist them to risk the lives of their seamen by patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. He said that “many nations” would send warships to the Strait,” then said he “hoped” China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and others would do so. But, so far, he has received no firm offers. Germany’s defense minister was among the most blunt. “This is not our war,” he said. “We have not started it.” Trump reacted angrily, saying foreign rejections would lead to “a very bad future” for the NATO alliance. Europeans called his threats “blackmail.” In spite, he said “we don’t need them.”

When Japan’s prime minister said Trump had given no advance warning of his attack on Iran, Trump responded “you didn’t give us any warning about Pearl Harbor.” And last year he said to Germany’s prime minister on the anniversary of D-Day, “this was not a great day for you.” Both public put-downs were the behavior of an authoritarian personality. In fact, making people feel small (and himself, large) is what he does almost daily.

It’s wearing thin with allies and with the American people, the more so as the Defense Department is seeking $200 billion for a war that is supposedly ending “soon,” and Trump is moving 4,700 US Marines to the Mideast for unspecified action in Iran.

Seventy-four percent of Americans oppose sending ground troops to Iran. And more than 55% oppose the Iran war. With gasoline prices having risen from $3 a gallon to $3.85 (and over $5.00 in some parts of the country, including the Seattle area), only 16% believe inflation is getting better. Trump’s overall average job approval rating is 41%, with 55% disapproval. With the 2026 midterm elections eight months away, voters prefer Democrats by 5% to 8%, depending on the poll.

Trump suddenly zig-zagged between a statement on March 20 that the US had met most of its objectives and was “considering winding down” operations and then, the next day, issuing an ultimatum to Iran to open Hormuz within 48 hours or he’d “obliterate” all of Iran’s power plants. That sent oil and gas prices soaring and stock markets crashing. Iran reacted defiantly. Then, on March 23, Trump said that the US and Iran had held “very good and productive talks,” sending oil prices down and markets soaring in hopeful anticipation of an earlier-than-expected end to the war. Iran denied that any talks were taking place and said his announcement was an effort to calm markets. Who’s right? Stay tuned…

Then on Tuesday, Trump said he had received “a very big present”  from Iran that he would identify only as “oil and gas related” and tied  to the flow of oil through Hormuz. “It was worth a tremendous amount of money” and convinced him he was dealing with “the right people” in Iran who wanted to make a deal “very badly.” He also said this was evidence that he had achieved “regime change.” 

    At the same time, Trump ordered 3,000 troops from the 82d Airborne Division to Iran, making the number of US troops on the ground 7,500 to 8,000. US officials have not revealed what the troops will do. Speculation has them invading Kharg Island, center of Iran’s main oil export terminal or fighting from the Iranian side of Hormuz to help open it. This suggests an escalation of the war, not the end of it.

Iran continues to deny that “negotiations” were taking place, but that it had received “messages from friendly countries” and requests for negotiations. Iranian officials repeated earlier demands for an end to the war, including closure of US bases in the region and compensation for damage to Iranian infrastructure.

As to regime change, analysts have been saying that the Iranian government is led by the Islamic Republic Guard Corps and other hard-line forces least likely to give Trump any “gifts.”

More Outrages:

Beat the Press

Trump has been denouncing the media for more than a decade. It’s part of a strategic plan to, as he once explained to Lesley Stahl, convince the public not to trust negative stories about him. In his first term, he harshly (and continuously) attacked journalists and their employers for distributing “fake news” and declared them to be “the enemy of the people”—Stalin’s term for those he wanted to eliminate.

But in his second term, he’s taken actions that limit freedom of the press, seek to change the media landscape, and threaten to close down TV stations that criticize him. A federal district judge just struck down a Pentagon policy that constituted a prior restraint regime that required journalists to publish only government-approved information, revoked access to major organizations and demanded that reporters sign loyalty-style pledges. The rules led to a mass exodus of journalists who continued to contact their sources though they were banned from the Pentagon. It remains to be seen if the judge’s order will be upheld on appeal.

Trump has accused “corrupt media outlets” of wanting the US to lose the Iran war, accused journalists of publishing AI generated Iranian propaganda and suggested that news organizations should face charges of “TREASON.”

Hegseth has singled out CNN by name and said that “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.” Ellison is the son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison (and GOP megadonor and political supporter/friend of Trump), who has bankrolled his son’s expanding media empire. David Ellison, now 43, founded Skydance Media in 2006, and was a major producer of such projects as Mission Impossible and the Jack Reacher movies.

In 2025, Skydance acquired Paramount Global, giving him control of CBS among other properties and soon he’ll acquire Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns CNN. David Ellison has promised not to interfere with CNN’s independence, but if CBS is any example, he doesn’t mean it.

CBS has not (yet) become Fox News, but the network has developed a distinctly conservative character. Ellison hired Bari Weiss, editor of the Free Press, as editor-in-chief of CBS TV. She has closed down CBS Radio, cut the TV network by 60 jobs (Ellison previously cut 100) and killed a story about Trump’s sending deportees to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. Also CBS refused to carry a Steven Colbert interview with Texas Democratic senatorial candidate James Talarico. And Colbert is soon to be severed from CBS.

Her tenure has featured the resignations of several high-profile journalists who complained of loss of independence and ideological pressure, including Bill Owens, executive producer of 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper, a 60 Minutes correspondent, and John Dickerson, co-anchor of the CBS Evening News. Weiss’s ideology is described as “anti-woke,” skeptical of DEI, and aligned with Ellison’s.

Assuming the Warner Brothers’ sale to Ellison goes through, rightward changes can be expected at CNN.

Another Trump technique for intimidating the media is billion-dollar lawsuits, with their attendant defense preparation costs. He is currently suing the New York Times for $15 billion and The Wall Street Journal and the BBC for $10 billion each. In the past two years he has filed suits worth $70 billion. The suits never go to court but are settled for multi-million-dollar amounts.

In addition to all this, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is threatening to cancel the broadcast licenses of TV and radio stations unless they stop broadcasting “hoaxes,” “fake news” and “distortions” about the Iran war. Democrats and free speech advocates (including a few Republicans) have denounced the move as a “totalitarian” violation of the First Amendment. Carr claims revocations will pass muster under a 1969 Supreme Court decision that held “no one has a First Amendment right to a license” and that the government is within its right to deny a license when a broadcaster disseminates material “not in the public interest.

Zero Class

When former special counsel Robert Mueller died at 81 of Parkinson’s disease last week, Trump posted a characteristically foul message on Truth Social: “Robert Mueller just died. Good. I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people.”

Mueller inspired Trump’s enmity by leading an investigation that concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to benefit Trump’s candidacy. Mueller had previously been director of the FBI and was a decorated Vietnam war hero.

Trump may think he’s one of the world’s strong guys, but all his antics are not making America great again, but weaker. We would be the laughingstock of the world if the stakes were not so serious.