Trump is fuelling conflict in the Middle East

Israel’s latest attack on Iran is something that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been itching to do for decades. However, successive US presidents prevented him from implementing a strategy that poses an extremely high risk and has the potential to drag America into military action. Trump has now effectively given Israel the green light. Iran has already promised to launch strikes against US and UK targets in the area. If that happens Trump will be under enormous pressure to respond with more force, adding fuel to an existing and long-standing regional conflict. He has talked tough on Iran and made extraordinary claims that it will be “easy” to make a deal with the Ayatollahs based on increasing trade with the USA.

Did Donald Trump steal the 2024 election?

Donald Trump to this day continues to claim the 2020 US presidential election was 'stolen' by Joe Biden and the Democrats. This is despite him bringing 62 legal challenges against election results in swing states across America, all of which failed due to the total lack of evidence. His own attorney Rudi Giuliani was forced to pay damages to two women election workers after making baseless allegations that they had helped to falsify the result in Georgia. Now, in a little-reported court case in the USA, there is clear evidence that some inexplicable things occurred in certain areas of New York and elsewhere in November 2024, which appeared to benefit Donald Trump. The case is in its early stages and there is nothing definitive yet, but all the evidence points to some, let us say, very unusual results. 

In short, it’s possible that he and his supporters stole the 2024 presidential election.

America is in for a long hot summer

Events in the USA are rapidly spiralling out of control. Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are sweeping across the nation arresting undocumented immigrants and shipping them off to detention centres for eventual deportation somewhere. The BBC reported on one such raid in Los Angeles where a law-abiding Hispanic named Jesus working at a car wash was detained and is now being held without being able to contact his family or lawyers. The whole exercise is sparking terror among the population which is said to include 900,000 what the administration calls illegal immigrants, 10% of the LA population.

The Farage paradox

While the councils that Reform UK won in May’s local elections descend into a "shambles" and the former chairman quits and two days later performs the equivalent of a political hokey-cokey, it seems Farage is defying gravity and retaining popularity among British voters. Reform would be an empty shell without him. It’s not really a political party at all, simply a means to enrich Farage and provide him with a high-profile public platform. Not one of the councillors elected last month would have tasted victory without the man himself. They are all simply bit-players, useful idiots in Farage's self-directed drama. I am not sure Farage actually wants to be PM in any case.

America is being crushed between two egos

The Trump/Musk saga continues, mostly fuelled by speculation about why it broke down so quickly and what might come next. I’ve heard several theories about the inevitability of the falling out, with one psychologist suggesting both of them have issues stemming from difficult relationships with their respective fathers. They are both desperate attention seekers to make up for the lack of warmth in their upbringing, apparently. It’s clear they are narcissistic and can’t bear to exist in somebody’s shadow, even for a few minutes. From that angle, the explosive separation was just a matter of time.  And contrary to some initial reports, it doesn't look like a trial one.

Musk and Trump turn on each other

It was quite a day yesterday. Labour won the Hamilton by-election against the odds, the German chancellor visited The White House, Reform UK’s chairman resigned, Trump banned travelers from twelve countries and the Russian ambassador to the UK accused Britain of colluding with Ukraine in operation ‘Spiders Web’ that destroyed a third of Russia's long-range bomber fleet. But the story that displaced them all was about a spat between two men.  The long-anticipated rift between the world’s two biggest egos has finally erupted. Elon Musk started it all by tweeting that Trump’s “big beautiful bill” was in fact an “abomination.” This came just days after his farewell in the Oval Office where Trump praised Musk - a ‘very smart guy’ - and said he would continue to be around to help his administration. 

Curtis Yarvin

Perhaps you already knew of Curtis Yarvin. I confess I didn’t until a few days ago. He is the man behind Peter Thiel. In turn, Thiel is the billionaire venture capitalist behind the Heritage Foundation which produced Project 2025, and also the man behind JD Vance. Thiel is a political activist and a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies. While he provides the money, Yarvin is apparently providing the original thinking behind it all. A long article about Yarvin in The New Yorker magazine by someone who knows him, gives an insight into where the bizarre philosophy that underpins Trump’s agenda for his second term comes from.

Trump's corruption is in plain sight

I was looking at the definition of insanity the other day to see if the symptoms might be a close match for Donald Trump but it turns out the term isn’t very precise or much used nowadays in psychiatry. The OED just says it is “a state of mind that impedes the ability to think, reason, or behave in ways that are considered normal, esp. one caused by mental illness.” Listening to Trump it’s pretty obvious that he never thinks, really thinks I mean, about anything and certainly doesn’t use reason to come to any conclusions. And to say he doesn’t behave in ways that are considered normal is simply to state a fact. Not only is he stunningly incompetent and dangerous by way of insanity, but he is also deeply corrupt. To use a Trumpism, nobody has ever seen anything like it before. He doesn’t even try to hide his grifting, in fact, he wallows in it.

The legacy of Elon Musk

Trump gave a typically rambling and incoherent press conference yesterday to mark the departure of the world's richest man from his administration. Elon Musk had been recruited as a Special Government Employee and was only permitted to work for 130 days in any one year; therefore, he was always scheduled to leave around this time anyway. I do however wonder if there isn’t something more to it since Trump routinely ignores these sorts of conventions and rules. There have been reports of clashes between Musk and other members of Trump's motley crew of dimwits, influencers, and swivel-eyed nutjobs so it's not a surprise.

Trump's tariff policy declared illegal

Reality is slowly starting to fight back in the USA. Trump's insane and erratic import tariff policy has been declared illegal by the US Court of International Trade in New York. The court has found his use of the  1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act was wrong and gave him no authority to impose any tariffs on anybody. It has all been one big power grab. The ruling gave the administration up to 10 days to close down the policy, although most of the tariffs are currently suspended in any case. What it does do is deprive him of a big stick. Naturally, in Trump's time-tested fashion, he immediately launched an appeal so it's not clear yet if he'll scrap the policy or not. The ruling doesn't affect tariffs on steel and aluminium by the way, which were imposed under a different law.