Art by Robert McKee

TL;DR: The “Stable Genius” has finally found a problem he can’t bullshit his way out of. By lying us into a regional war with Iran to distract from his own predatory history, Trump has triggered a global economic collapse just in time for spring planting. With the Strait of Hormuz closed, fertilizer prices have skyrocketed from $350 to $600 per ton — a 71% hike that is bankrupting family farms. While Trump hides a “Farm Bailout” inside the “Stop Americans from Voting Act” and fires off 3 AM tweet threats from a gilded toilet seat, the working class is paying for his ego with their livelihoods and their lives.

If there is one thing Donald Trump is world-class at, it’s failing upward while claiming he just summitted Everest. For seventy-odd years, his orange hide has been saved by his daddy’s checkbook and a mouth that moves faster than his grasp of reality. In his first term, he lied so often — clocking over 30,000 “alternative facts” — that the fact-checkers eventually just packed their bags and went home to drink.

In his second term, backed by a cabal of Silicon Valley Techno-fascists who view democracy as a “bug” to be patched, Trump has lied us into an unwinnable war. It’s not that we lack the hardware to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age; it’s that the “Clown Cabinet” is too profoundly arrogant to realize that bombing a country that controls one of the major economic choke points may have undesirable consequences.

Any 8th-grade history book would’ve warned that attacking Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz and trigger regional conflict. But apparently, they went with Pickled Pete’s “Alpha Male” manifesto bullshit. They miscalculated world oil markets AND shut off 30% of global fertilizer during spring planting season. US fertilizer prices: $350 → $600/ton, likely bankrupting family farms. Trump slipped a farm bailout into his “Stop Americans from Voting Act” to save himself.

Donald Trump has one outstanding quality that’s served him throughout his useless existence: his ability to lie his way out of most problems.

That talent has saved his orange ass more times than anyone can count. Failed businesses? Lie about how successful they were. Bankruptcies? Claim they were strategic. Sexual assault allegations? Deny, attack, lie. Criminal investigations? Deep state witch hunt. Epstein connections? Never heard of him (despite hundreds of photos together).

Lying has been Trump’s superpower. But there’s one problem he can’t bullshit his way out of: the disastrous war with Iran that he started based on Netanyahu’s manipulation and his own desperate need to hide his crimes.

Reality has a way of catching up with liars. And Trump’s reality — global economic catastrophe, military quagmire, regional war spiraling out of control — is something not even his most devoted propagandists can spin into “winning.” But they’ll try.

Trump’s Core Strategy: Never Admit Mistakes, Always Claim Victory

Trump learned early in life, under his sociopath father’s tutelage, that you should never — ever — admit to making a mistake.

His daddy’s wealth carried him through much of his adult life. When he failed at casinos (how do you bankrupt a casino?), real estate developments, Trump University, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Airlines, and a dozen other ventures, he simply claimed he’d won “bigly” or declared it was someone else’s fault.

The pattern was always the same: lie about the outcome, blame someone else, declare victory, move on before anyone can fact-check. Politics was a perfect fit for this pathological liar. You can fail upward forever in politics as long as you’re shameless enough and your base is gullible enough.

Trump lied so prolifically during his first term that the Washington Post tracked over 30,000 lies or misrepresentations. Thirty thousand. Eventually, the fact-checkers just got tired and went home. What’s the point of documenting lies when half the country doesn’t care and the media treats “Trump lied again” as just another Tuesday?

The War Trump Can’t Lie His Way Out Of

Now, in his second term, backed by billionaire techno-fascists who see him as a useful idiot for their authoritarian ambitions, Trump has lied us into an unwinnable war.

Not because our bloated, overfunded military can’t bomb Iran into the Stone Age — they absolutely can. But because Trump and his clown cabinet of sycophants and idiots were too stupid to envision that Iran might, you know, fight back.

Any basic understanding of history would have prevented this. Hell, an 8th-grade history textbook would have told them that attacking Iran would trigger the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and escalate into a regional conflict.

Iran isn’t Venezuela. It’s not Grenada. It’s not some tiny country you can steamroll over a weekend. It’s a large, mountainous nation with a real military, sophisticated asymmetric warfare capabilities, and the ability to shut down 20% of the world’s oil supply by closing a single waterway.

Experts in the field all warned that attacking Iran would have catastrophic consequences. But Trump and Pickled Pete Hegseth — drunk on machismo and “maximum lethality” bullshit — ignored the experts. They believed Netanyahu’s lies. They convinced themselves it would be quick, easy, surgical. They thought Iran would just absorb the attack and roll over. They were catastrophically wrong. And now we’re all paying the price for their stupidity.

When Idiots Run Foreign Policy

Trump and his advisors not only miscalculated Iran’s military response — they completely misjudged the effect on world oil markets. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Twenty percent of global oil supply isn’t flowing. Prices have spiked 30-40% globally. Energy costs are crushing economies worldwide. Inflation is accelerating. Recession is looming.

Trump genuinely believed — or his handlers convinced him — that bombing Iran wouldn’t affect oil markets because “we have plenty of oil” and “we’re energy independent.” Which is technically true for the US in aggregate, but completely irrelevant when oil is a global commodity priced on world markets.

When 20% of supply gets choked off, prices spike everywhere. American oil companies don’t sell domestically at a discount out of patriotism. They sell at global market prices. So Americans pay the same spike as everyone else, and oil executives pocket record profits while working families can’t afford to fill their tanks. This was Economics 101. And Trump failed it spectacularly.

The Worst Possible Timing

But the oil miscalculation wasn’t even the worst part. Trump picked the absolute worst time for farmers to start a war that would shut off global fertilizer supplies. Spring has sprung. It’s planting season. Farmers across America and around the world need fertilizer right now — not next month, not next quarter, right now — to get crops in the ground.

And Trump’s war just shut off 30% of the world’s fertilizer supply.

Iran and the Persian Gulf region produce massive amounts of phosphates and other key fertilizer components. The war stopped production. Shipping routes are blocked. Supply chains collapsed. And farmers are facing catastrophic price increases at the exact moment they need to buy.

Here in the US, fertilizer prices have skyrocketed from $350 per ton to $600 per ton. That’s a 71% increase. For family farms operating on thin margins, that’s the difference between profitability and bankruptcy. Many family farms are going underwater. They can’t afford fertilizer at these prices. But if they don’t fertilize, yields will be terrible and they’ll lose money anyway. They’re trapped between impossible choices, all because Trump started a war without thinking through basic consequences.

And Trump’s solution? He slipped a farm bailout into the “Stop Americans from Voting Act” — his latest attempt to rig elections while throwing some cash at farmers to buy their silence about the fact that he destroyed their livelihoods with his stupidity.

Corporate farms with deep pockets will survive. They’ll buy up the family farms that fail. Consolidation will accelerate. And Trump will claim he “helped farmers” while actually destroying them.

The 3 AM Toilet Tweet That Started a War

In a moment of particular stupidity — which is saying something for Trump — he issued one of his infamous toilet seat tweets at 3 AM threatening Iran’s power infrastructure.

Trump, sitting on his gold-plated toilet at Mar-a-Lago, probably constipated and rage-scrolling Fox News coverage, decided it would be a great idea to threaten to destroy Iran’s electrical grid. Like so much else he does, he was too stupid to realize the consequences.

And of course, he TACO’d — Tweeted And Chickened Out. When Iran said it would retaliate with attacks on its neighbors energy and water infrastructure. Trump walked it back, claiming he’s having “very productive talks” with Iran. He hasn’t, but next week, he’ll pretend the whole thing was fake news. All from a 3 AM toilet tweet by a man with the impulse control of a toddler and the strategic thinking of a goldfish.

Why Stupid People Are So Confident

There’s a sad reality about human psychology: intelligent people constantly question their decisions. They second-guess. They consider alternatives. They worry they might be wrong. Stupid people, on the other hand, are fully confident and charge full-speed ahead into shit-shows.

This is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect — the cognitive bias where people with low ability overestimate their competence because they lack the knowledge to recognize their own incompetence. Trump is the living embodiment of Dunning-Kruger. He knows nothing about military strategy, regional dynamics, economic consequences, or geopolitics. But because he knows nothing, he doesn’t realize how much he doesn’t know. So he’s supremely confident in his terrible decisions.

Meanwhile, actual experts — people who’ve spent careers studying these issues — are ignored, sidelined, or fired for daring to suggest that maybe, just maybe, bombing Iran without a plan is a bad idea. Pickled Pete Hegseth is the same. A Fox News talking head with no strategic expertise, drunk on power and probably whiskey, making life-or-death decisions based on vibes and machismo.

These are the people running the war. Confident idiots surrounded by sycophants who won’t tell them they’re wrong because Trump fires anyone who challenges him.

So here we are, living in the consequences of their stupidity, watching the world burn while they declare victory and blame everyone else for the disaster they created.

The Real Reason: Hiding Sexual Predation

Let’s not lose sight of why we’re here.

Trump started this war to hide the fact that he’s a sexual predator accused of raping and brutalizing young girls. The Epstein files contain evidence of his crimes. Witnesses have testified. Documents exist. The truth is coming out despite his best efforts to bury it.

So he started a war. Because war dominates the news cycle. War makes presidents look strong. War distracts from domestic scandals. War is the ultimate “look over there” while crimes get buried.

We, the working people of this country and the world, are paying for Trump’s desperate attempt to avoid accountability. Not just with higher prices — though gas, food, and energy costs are crushing families everywhere. We’re paying with our futures. With our children’s lives if they’re in the military. With global stability. With the risk of nuclear war.

All because a sexual predator needed a distraction big enough to cover up his crimes against children.

So Much Losing

Trump loves to talk about “winning.” He promised we’d get tired of winning. That there would be so much winning we’d beg him to stop. Well, we’re tired all right. But not from winning.

What we’re losing: Global economic stability. Affordable fuel and food. Family farms. International credibility. Peace. Democracy, and our futures.

The People Winning: Defense contractors (making billions). Oil companies (record profits from price spikes). Netanyahu (getting his war). The techno-fascists (using chaos to consolidate power).

So much winning. Just not for us. Not for working people. Not for anyone who doesn’t profit from death and destruction.

Trump is losing bigly. The war is a disaster. The consequences are catastrophic. The lies aren’t working anymore. And we’re all trapped in the wreckage of his stupidity, his ego, and his crimes.

F*CK ICE. RELEASE ALL THE FILES!

Please like, share, and subscribe — because Trump’s “winning” is destroying the world, and we’re all losing bigly.

Robert Cain is the author of Democracy for Sale: How Corporate Greed Is Corrupting Democracy and Endangering the Planet. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and booksellers everywhere.