How many weeks has it been since the US president was bamboozled in front of the world by Russia’s Vladimir Putin on the grounds of an Alaskan airbase? Weren’t there supposed to be “severe consequences” to follow if Putin didn’t halt his wanton bombing campaign in Ukraine?
That’s what Donald Trump told us, right? That he was really, really unhappy and it was going to be really bad if Putin didn’t suspend hostilities and agree to his terms?
Hmmm, let’s see: Since Trump’s latest humiliation in Anchorage, Putin has visited China to scheme with America’s other sworn enemies. Russian drones and even its jet fighters have “accidentally” flown into airspace over Poland and Estonia, two NATO-bloc countries. And his missile attacks have killed scores of civilians in Kyiv in recent days.
Yeah, Putin’s really quaking in his Valenkis.
Trump’s phony tough guy act isn’t working in the world’s capitals and, least of all, in Moscow.
That’s no bueno here at home, where his red-capped legions like to picture their commander-in-chief as some Rambo-like figure with ripped abs, not as a belt-busting duffer who scarfs down Big Macs and gets tucked into bed by real dictators.
Geopolitically impotent, Team Trump has turned its warmongering gaze to the only place in the world that can’t fight back, at least not militarily: our own country. Portland, Memphis, Washington, D.C. Maybe Boston.
On Tuesday, in a spectacle that was at once chilling and somehow still farcical, the president force-marched the nation’s military brass into what fairly resembled the gymnasium at Baghdad University for what amounted to a dressing-down by “War” Secretary Pete Hegseth.
At least Hegseth was cogent and comparatively succinct in his presentation. When his boss took the stage to a hushed room, he proceeded to rant and congratulate himself for 72 unhinged minutes.
About halfway, he got to the point: The real enemies of America, he told the generals, are the people of… America.
“We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they’re wearing a uniform, you can take them out. These people don’t have uniforms. But we are under invasion from within.”
The president singled out cities “run by the radical-left Democrats” —San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles.
“They’re very unsafe places, and we’re going to straighten them out one by one,” the man harrumphed. “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war, too. It’s a war from within.”
The incoherent ramble pinged about in his hollow noggin and into the ether for another thirty minutes without applause or laughter, a diatribe of dystopia set to the unsettling soundtrack of stoic silence and the backdrop of a giant Old Glory, like a scene from “Patton,” but on Percocets.
Putin broke through the chaos in Quantico for two brief cameos. Like most garden-variety schoolyard chumps, Trump’s still sorting out how he got skipped for the pick-up game and ended up watching from the pile of back-packs instead.
Sure, Donald is “very disappointed” in his buddy Vladimir, but pretty sure he’ll come around eventually.
“And I said to him, you know, you don’t look good. You’re four years fighting a war that should have taken a week. Are you a paper tiger? And it’s a shame. But I think, eventually, we’ll get that one done…”
So said Trump, the chump, our president.
Bill Forry is executive editor and co-publisher of The Reporter.
