MANY THINGS CONSIDERED: The President is Not Well

A congressional staffer to a Republican congressman told me back during the first Trump Administration that I needed to get over my “Trump Derangement Syndrome” – TDS.

I told her as nicely as I could that the only people who were deranged – other than the president himself – were those who didn’t see Donald Trump as a profoundly loathsome, deeply disturbed, wildly dangerous man who constitutes an unprecedented threat to the country and the world.

And that was before the pardons of 1,600 insurrectionists, the wildly corrupt profiteering off the White House, the mindless violence of ICE agents and Trump’s war of choice in the Middle East.

If you think none of this is normal you are not the deranged one.

The real Trump derangement

The willful acceptance of the continuing deterioration and perverseness of Donald Trump by his Cabinet, GOP members of Congress, rightwing media, most of the high tech world, a host of billionaires and the so called MAGA base represents an act of mass derangement that makes the Jonestown Massacre look like a Sunday school picnic.

Three examples – Iran, Robert Mueller and U.S. Marines – that should have stopped the group described in the previous paragraph flat in their tracks, but of course derangement at this level has no finish line.

Iran whiplash

I woke up this morning wondering if it would be a TACO Monday or a huge sell off on Wall Street with a further escalation in world oil prices.

Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO) it turns out, but not before a wretched whiplash of Trumpian nonsense.

As Politico put it:

The possibility of negotiations to end the war, conveniently announced prior to the markets opening, saw stocks jump and the S&P leap to one of its best days since before the war started, per AP. The price of crude oil fell to around $100, down from its $120 peaks last week.

Not so fast:Iranian state media quickly contradicted Trump’s post, raising doubts about how far along any negotiations actually are. They denied that direct talks have happened between the U.S. and Tehran, labeling Trump’s statement as a bid to lower energy prices and buy time, per Axios’ Barak Ravid.

And another grain of salt: This is the latest war assessment we’ve gotten from the president, which has so far ranged from the U.S. “winning” to the military potentially “winding down” to more promises to “obliterate” Iran’s energy sector. All the while, the Pentagon has Marines en route to the region, and while Trump may see an off-ramp, Israel does not. They plan to continue operations while avoiding Iran’s energy sector, though they were told about Trump’s post ahead of time, Bloomberg’s Dan Williams reports.

But Trump doubled down today, telling reporters before boarding Air Force One to Memphis that both sides have engaged in “very, very strong talks” with “major points of agreement.” Trump’s diplomacy duo — Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — are leading the talks, which kicked off yesterday and will continue by phone today. “We have a very serious chance of making a deal,” Trump said. He insisted that “they called.”

So … who do you believe: a deranged American president or a murderous Iranian Revolutionary Guardsman hunkering down in a bunker in Tehran?

Asked about Iran’s denial, Trump said “they’re going to have to get themselves better public relations people,” adding the conflicting reports may have been a miscommunication. Trump declined to specify who the U.S. is talking with on the Iranian side but that they’re “very solid” people. Axios reported Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan indirectly passed messages between Washington and Tehran over the weekend.

Iran also doubled down: “No negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped,” Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote on X.

Trump left the door open to the U.S. jointly controlling the Strait of Hormuz, which would be a significant change to the regional power dynamic. “Maybe me, me and the Ayatollah … whoever the next Ayatollah is,” Trump said. The leadership question is looming over Iran as Trump continues to dangle the specter of regime change. He told reporters he doesn’t consider Mojtaba Khamenei to be Iran’s new supreme leader.

The five-day trial period for talks could set the groundwork for settling the war — or risk further bombing, as Trump framed it. But the president signaled that the deal Iran is “very willing” to make includes an agreement to get rid of their nuclear weapons — a central sticking point. But he also said he can’t “guarantee” a deal.

Oh, the whiplash – the war is about “regime change” or “missiles” or “nuclear weapons” that were “totally obliterated.”

No, no it’s not a “war” its an “excursion” the war is “over” or its “winding down” or “we need NATO allies to step up” or “we don’t need their help” or “we’ll bomb their electrical system” and “the Strait of Hormuz is open” or it’s not.

And Cuba.

Maybe he should fib just a little and says he knew Elvis really well.

I don’t know, call me deranged, but all this sounds pretty deranged …

DJT hates real Americans

And this. Absolutely disgusting, not to mention deranged.

Before we move on to the next rancid outrage or hear some crank say this is just Trump deflecting attention from (fill in the blank) an incoherent and disastrous war; the Epstein Files; the price of gasoline; his own declining mental and physical health …

Let’s get very real about what it is.

It is the lunatic raving of an acutely unwell man. Period. It’s not deflection, it’s psychotic behavior from the man with the nuclear codes. It is truly Trump being Trump, an old, diminished man child who demolished the East Wing and put his name on the Kennedy Center and turned the Oval Office into a casino where the house always wins.

And anyone unwilling to confront this reality after all this time – like the lackey at the Treasury Department or the Senate majority leader or any number of “in the know” pundits – is truly deranged, as well.

Immensely. Deeply. Stupid.

Let’s talk about those U.S. Marines on the way to, presumably, the Strait of Hormuz.

From the Substack Gold and Geopolitics:

The United States is sending 5,000 Marines into the Persian Gulf to seize Kharg Island, a speck of land 15 miles off the Iranian coast that handles 90% of Iran’s oil exports. This is, on paper, a reasonable military objective in the same way that sticking your hand into a beehive is a reasonable way to acquire honey. It is technically correct. The bees would disagree. ¹

And this …

To reach Kharg Island, the Marines aboard the USS Tripoli and USS Boxer must first sail through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has mined. The strait is also, as of this week, a toll road. The IRGC verifies vessels on VHF radio and charges up to $2 million per transit, payable in cash, cryptocurrency, or barter. At least eight ships have paid. Iran’s parliament is legislating the arrangement formally, because even revolutionary theocracies require a compliance department.

A White House source told Axios they need “about a month to weaken the Iranians more” before attempting this. One month. Of a war Trump described as ‘winding down’ on Friday – three weeks in, which by his count is basically four days… Both statements were made, as far as anyone can tell, by people who occupy the same government and occasionally share a building.

A former Navy SEAL called the plan “insane”. A retired Vice Admiral called it “a massacre-in-making scenario”. A retired Rear Admiral pointed out that even if they seize the island, Iran simply turns off the pipeline at the other end. Frankly, I think they’re being extremely polite. This is a clusterfuck of historic proportions and everyone who’s ever held a rank knows it. ²

Brynn Tannehill in The Atlantic:

U.S. troops may well take Kharg Island, only to endure ballistic-missile strikes, drone attacks, and petrochemical smoke, all without a reliable means of obtaining logistical support. The result could be a grinding war of attrition that more closely resembles the battle space in Ukraine than it does the “shock and awe”–style campaigns that Americans are used to. Iran has given every indication that it would likely escalate by striking oil-and-gas facilities in the region, just as it did to Qatar and Saudi Arabia after the Pars South gas field was struck. Ground casualties and the destruction of oil infrastructure throughout the region would almost certainly create pressure on Donald Trump to pull out; but extracting troops under loitering munitions is dangerous, and aircraft on the ground are prime targets for these circling drones.

This “excursion” has the makings of a nuclear age equivalent of the 1942 Jubilee raid at Dieppe on the north coast of France, a poorly conceived, poorly planned, under equipped attack that left thousands of mostly Canadian soldiers dead or captured.

As one history has described it:

Dieppe was a pathetic failure. Sixty years later, it seems obvious that Jubilee was a bizarre operation with no chance of success whatsoever and likely to result in a huge number of casualties. In August 1942, British and Allied officers did not have yet the knowledge and combat experience to make a proper assessment of the risks of such an operation. This catastrophe was useful precisely in providing that knowledge which was later to make victory possible.

All honor to the Marine Corps and they know such history and its lessons.

Their commander-in-chief, however, is a rank idiot about such things, an idiot in every direction surrounded by enabling fools.

There is no bottom

More from Politico late Monday (3/23/26):

NATE SWANSON, a career Iran expert who left the State Department in July, said he thought Iran perceived itself to be at a point of maximum leverage. He pointed as evidence to the U.S. lifting sanctions on Iranian oil on Friday, something he noted the Obama-era Iran agreement didn’t do.

“It was done solely based on market conditions,” Swanson said. “We didn’t get anything for it. So it’s just a huge victory for Iran, they probably see this and think they can replicate this model in return for the Strait. So I understand why Iran would be interested in talking right now.”

ROB MALLEY, who negotiated for President JOE BIDEN to try to restore the Iran nuclear deal, compared the moment to 2021, when he said Iranians would put out rosy updates on talks.

“It had nothing to do with reality but they’d say it because they wanted to firm up their currency,” he said. Today, he said, “The Trump administration wants to claim a deal is at hand not because it’s true, but to stop the markets from collapsing and oil prices from spiking.”

The White House didn’t immediately respond to the accusation, but White House press secretary KAROLINE LEAVITT earlier told POLITICO, “These are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the United States will not negotiate through the news media.”

It will come for all of us

Our narcissistically unaware toddler has blundered the world into an astonishingly dangerous place. He’s motivated by revenge, empowered by his ignorance, frightened by his decline and reliant on the worst White House staff and Cabinet in the nation’s long history.

Gillen Tener Martin wrote recently in The Washington Monthly of Trump’s mantra: “I Could Do Anything.”

… learning experiences don’t seem to affect the delusional and vainglorious as they might the rest of us. Trump took to Truth Social [last] Tuesday to pivot from petulantly demanding that NATO countries help secure the critical oil and natural gas shipping lane, the Strait of Hormuz, and instead petulantly claim we don’t need their help: “speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”

But, of course, we do. Even a military superpower needs allies in war, and allies are hard to find when war is waged on specious grounds without a diplomatic endgame. Under different circumstances, the president being forced to reckon with the consequences of his actions may have brought solace—even glee—to some. Alas, the repercussions of this mess will come for us all.

That’s right. It will come for all of us. Even those who aren’t deranged and see the present moment very clearly indeed.

Trump , deranged as he is, literally could do anything and history tells us whatever it is will be dangerously, hubristically stupid.

And it will all come for you, too, John Thune and you, too, Mike Johnson and you, too, Scott Bessent and all the others who know better but simply lack the character and the guts to tell our flailing, fraudulent Wizard of Oddness to take a flying … well, you know what.