Pondering Mr. Trump’s Easter Post

As all who care are aware, on Easter Sunday Morning, Donald Trump – you know, our president – posted the following on his social media account (no “*ing,” since he didn’t use any):

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.  There will be nothing like it!  Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH!  Praise be to Allah.  President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

This is one of those times that I just can’t resist stating the obvious (the most obvious observation first:  Mr. Trump probably wasn’t really sincerely extending praise to Allah 😉):

• The Iranian Regime will not be cowed by Mr. Trump’s bluster.
• The Iranian Regime hopes that Mr. Trump will carry through on his threat, which could make him a pariah in the international community if he fails to restrict any strike to military-related targets, and could very well turn much of the Iranian populace, which heretofore has opposed the Regime, against America.
• Mr. Trump seems to have placed himself in a box; if the Ayatollahs fail to accede to the President’s demands and Mr. Trump fails to follow through with a dramatic strike that corresponds to the emphatic nature of his threat, Mr. Trump’s inevitable future threats will lack all credibility with the Iranian regime.
• The tone of the Easter post made clear to the Iranian Regime (as well as to the rest of us) that despite his protestations, Mr. Trump is terrified by what the Iranian Regime’s continuing hold on the Strait of Hormuz will do to the global economy; he is desperate; he wants/needs a quick deal much more than they do.
• We have an unstable, capricious, deranged, delusional, diminishing, desperate geezer in the most powerful office in the world.

I’d love the opportunity to ask the author of The Art of the Deal:  When you see that the other side is panicking and anxious for a deal, do you back down and give the other side what it wants — or do you exploit your advantage?

Acknowledging that the following inquiry invades the realm of the eminent psychologists whom I am honored sometimes read these notes, it nonetheless does not seem unreasonable for us laypeople to wonder:  Is the President of the United States … going looney?   

While pundits have been understandably primarily commenting on the ramifications of Mr. Trump’s behaviors for the outcome of the current Iranian conflict, I have heard at least a couple who have made larger observations in different contexts from which one could infer what I, and I perhaps you, have been thinking:  For a second, put aside Iran, and even concerns specifically about Mr. Trump’s fascist impulses.  How do we get through another almost three years with this guy?  And if he somehow leaves the presidency before his term is up, how do we survive J.D. Vance, whom I would suggest would, in many ways, even be worse?