{"id":27281,"date":"2026-03-17T18:02:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T01:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=27281"},"modified":"2026-04-05T19:54:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T02:54:00","slug":"is-trump-insane-delusional-or-merely-an-inveterate-liar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/03\/17\/is-trump-insane-delusional-or-merely-an-inveterate-liar\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Trump Insane, Delusional, or Merely an Inveterate Liar?"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Trump claims a former president supports his actions in Iran; the four living former presidents all deny it;<\/li>\n<li>Many on the extreme right sound insane to the rest of us, with examples;<\/li>\n<li>Trump is pressuring the media to support his war, as authoritarians do;<\/li>\n<li>Yet another example of how Trump is only transactional, without principles;<\/li>\n<li>John Pavlovitz on how MAGA Americans will feign ignorance of the Trump administration, jut as Germans did about the NAZIs.<\/li>\n<li>A report on the health of Democracies around the world is unsurprising concerning the US;<\/li>\n<li>Anne Applebaum on how everyone but Trump understands what he&#8217;s done;<\/li>\n<li>Philip Glass&#8217;s Monsters of Grace.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>Today&#8217;s story about crazy Trump.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/03\/16\/multimedia\/16dc-trump-iran-kqzl\/16dc-trump-iran-kqzl-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, 16 Mar 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/16\/us\/politics\/trump-iran-presidents-democrats.html\">Trump Claims an Ex-President Confided His Regrets on Iran. But Who?<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;The New York Times reached out to people close to President Trump\u2019s predecessors. They disputed Mr. Trump\u2019s claims.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>President Trump claimed on Monday that a former president told him privately that \u201cI wish I did what you did\u201d in attacking Iran and killing its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to reporters at the White House, Mr. Trump would not identify which of the four living predecessors he was referring to.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018I wish I did what you did,\u2019\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to get into \u2018who,\u2019 I don\u2019t want to get him into trouble.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>All of the four living ex-presidents have denied any such conversation. Is Trump delusional? Insane? Lying by rote as he always does?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This story has been all over the media, and Facebook. One wag on Facebook suggested that 47 had a conversation with 45.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>A lot of people on the right sound insane to many of the rest of us. They are steeped in fantasy and privilege and religious zealotry, and not grounded in reality.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>JMG:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2026\/03\/hegseths-pastor-calls-for-god-to-kill-james-talarico\/\">Hegseth\u2019s Pastor Calls For God To Kill James Talarico<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Friendly Atheist<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.friendlyatheist.com\/p\/nebraska-prophet-says-god-needs-him\">Nebraska &#8220;prophet&#8221; says God needs him to have access to a private jet<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Hank Kunneman said &#8216;even Jesus was concerned about going to certain ports and airports'&#8221;. Airports? I don&#8217;t think so.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Stepping out.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Donald-Trump-2266305477.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Salon, Sophia Tesfaye<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2026\/03\/17\/trump-wants-to-punish-media-for-his-unpopular-war\/\">Trump wants to punish media for his unpopular war<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;The president and FCC Chair Brendan Carr are threatening journalists and broadcasters for their coverage of Iran&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is what authoritarians do. And it&#8217;s happened before.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Michelle Goldberg, 16 Mar 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/16\/opinion\/trump-iran-war-support.html\">Trump Is Trying to Bully America Into Supporting His War. It Won\u2019t Work.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Trump and his supports have no principles. They only make deals. They are purely transactional.<\/p>\n<p>Via <strong>JMG,<\/strong> <strong>NY Times, 16 Mar 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/16\/health\/zambia-hiv-aid-minerals-trump.html\">U.S. Considers Withholding H.I.V. Aid Unless Zambia Expands Minerals Access<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;A draft State Department memo outlines ways the Trump administration may ratchet up pressure on the African country by ending health support &#8216;on a massive scale.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That people in Zambia may die is irrelevant to them. And you see these kinds of stories almost every day.<\/p>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p>As I said yesterday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Bulwark, Andrew Egger<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebulwark.com\/p\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-people-iran-oil-prices-war-europe-allies-china-hormuz-trump\">How to Lose Friends and Alienate People<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;First insult them for years. Then demand their help.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>A while back I mentioned the title of a book that would well apply to the current situation: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!HcFS!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1e11395f-bcb7-4d32-b1ee-53efba104e36_1814x1200.png\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>John Pavlovitz<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/johnpavlovitz.substack.com\/p\/how-will-this-end-for-maga-americans\">How Will This End for MAGA Americans? The Same Way It Did for NAZI Germans: Feigned Ignorance<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As horrifying and sad as it is watching the worst inhumanity of the past repeating itself in the place we call home, it does allow us to look back and get some idea as to where we\u2019re likely headed.<\/p>\n<p>For students of History, the last two years here in America have been one long experience of D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu of the worst kind: a growing assemblage of governmental red flag overreach, incendiary rhetoric designed to dehumanize an entire segment of the population, a steady failure of both systems and sanity, and the mass delusion of otherwise reasonable people who gladly enabled a fragile lunatic\u2019s sickening rise.<\/p>\n<p>For those of us fortunate enough not to have had our brains rotted and our souls devoured by the decade-long death cult of an orange imbecile here in America, we\u2019ve endeavored to understand how people around us succumbed to a hollow ruse that either intelligence or empathy should have seen through.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve repeatedly beaten our heads against the wall trying (and failing) to find new ways to reach into the stupor of their blind adoration and pull them into moral clarity, none of which proved successful.<\/p>\n<p>And, we\u2019ve attempted to predict just when (if ever) they would awaken from this ten-year racist fever-dream and come to terms with the multitude of horrors they\u2019ve co-authored with their votes and their undying allegiance.<\/p>\n<p>If recent history is any indication, we\u2019d better not hold our breath.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>This report has been anticipated.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/6e2aa7c8-8a0f-4b42-b4a7-e3e223712e7b.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1041%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1280\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Slate, Christopher Ingraham<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2026\/03\/democracy-trump-russia-putin-dictator-report.html\">They\u2019ve Been Measuring the Health of Democracies for Years. Guess What Their New Report Says About America.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You can guess. The graphs look like this:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/610d9271-d0cd-4bc0-8c0c-a110cc8df452.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1040%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=840\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Once again, MAGA Americans won&#8217;t notice, or care.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>And finally, a big piece by Anne Applebaum.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.theatlantic.com\/thumbor\/OgsXp20x7WY9u4N2TjecC_NfxIc=\/0x0:7925x4458\/976x549\/media\/img\/mt\/2026\/03\/2026_03_17_Everyone_but_Trump_Understands_what_hes_done\/original.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum, 17 Mar 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/2026\/03\/trump-iran-war-allies\/686423\/\">Everyone but Trump Understands What He\u2019s Done<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Allied leaders know that any positive gesture they make will count for nothing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Donald Trump does not think strategically. Nor does he think historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. He does not think about how his behavior in one place will change the behavior of other people in other places.<\/p>\n<p>He does not consider the wider implications of his decisions. He does not take responsibility when these decisions go wrong. Instead, he acts on whim and impulse, and when he changes his mind\u2014when he feels new whims and new impulses\u2014he simply lies about whatever he said or did before.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And it goes on with the progress of the Iran war and whether something might finally be breaking in Trump. Ending:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The result: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has declared that Canada will not participate in the \u201coffensive operations of Israel and the U.S., and it never will.\u201d German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius says, \u201cThis is not our war, and we didn\u2019t start it.\u201d The Spanish prime minister refused to let the United States use bases for the beginning of the war. The U.K. and France might send some ships to protect their own bases or allies in the Gulf, but neither will send their soldiers or sailors into offensive operations started without their assent.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t cowardice. It\u2019s a calculation: If allied leaders thought that their sacrifice might count for something in Washington, they might choose differently. But most of them have stopped trying to find the hidden logic behind Trump\u2019s actions, and they understand that any contribution they make will count for nothing. A few days or weeks later, Trump will not even remember that it happened.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As I&#8217;ve said before, what startles me is not that there are such people like Trump in the world, but that so many other people support such a person and don&#8217;t care or don&#8217;t notice.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been working my way through my Philip Glass CDs, some of them that I&#8217;ve only listened to once or twice when I first bought them without really absorbing them. Here&#8217;s one, recorded in 2007, called MONSTERS OF GRACE, which is remarkable mostly for its orchestration. I&#8217;ve been listening to it repeatedly for three days. There&#8217;s no complete recording on YouTube, but here&#8217;s the second track, which provide a good sample flavor. (Except that the four vocalists, who sound very familiar from at least one earlier Glass work I can&#8217;t place, aren&#8217;t in this track.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Philip Glass &amp; Robert Wilson, The Needle {Monsters of Grace}\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mA24x9UlW48?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump claims a former president supports his actions in Iran; the four living former presidents all deny it; Many on the extreme right sound insane to the rest of us, with examples; Trump is pressuring the media to support his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/03\/17\/is-trump-insane-delusional-or-merely-an-inveterate-liar\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,18,17,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-lunacy","category-music","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27281"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27515,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27281\/revisions\/27515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}