From Palmer Report:
History is replete with villains who should have seen their downfall coming but did not. Hitler spent his final days still insisting that he was about to win World War II, thanks to a new Nazi secret weapon that didn’t exist. Saddam Hussein was completely caught off guard by the invasion that chased him into a mud filled hole, even though that invasion was being broadcast on live television. It’s enough to make you wonder how someone who went to such conniving, paranoid, evil lengths to take power and remain in power could, in the end, be so distracted when it mattered most.
These types of villains, of course, have something wrong with them to begin with. Their minds, obviously, do not work like that of a normal, sane, decent person. But you’d think that the same paranoid hyperawareness that got these villains where they were in the first place would end up being something they’d never let go of. Yet at some point, usually toward the end, as things are getting undeniably worse for them, these types somehow conclude that they somehow don’t need to worry about anything at all.
Perhaps it’s a subconscious attempt at denying the reality they’re facing. An attempt at enjoying the time they have left, in whatever deranged way they feel enjoyment, as the walls cave in. Or maybe they’re merely betrayed by their own narcissistic sense of invincibility. But regardless of the reason, the result tends to be the same. And this brings us to Donald Trump’s week.
By now everyone knows that Trump has become obsessed with building a White House ballroom. It makes sense, given that he’s the world’s worst real estate developer and has spent his entire life trying to con others into paying for his shoddy construction debacles so he can launder money through them. Perhaps he sees it as one last big real estate con, the last gaudy piece of crap he’ll ever get to build as his health continues to collapse. But as it turns out it’s not just the ballroom.
Yesterday Trump showed of renderings of a UFC mixed martial arts fight that he plans to host on the White house lawn on his birthday. That’s right. Trump, whose approval rating is historically low, whose economy is collapsing, whose war in Iran has been lost before it began, whose ballroom has less support in national polling than (not making this up) ghosts and telepathy, has now decided that his big fix for everything is to have a couple guys beat the crap out of each other while he watches.
Whatever you think of mixed martial arts, that’s beside the point. You could be the biggest UFC fan in the world, and if you were in Trump’s current position, you still wouldn’t conclude that hosting a UFC fight on the White House lawn is the key to turning around your failed presidency. It’s just not a thought that a mentally competent person, good or bad or evil or otherwise, could even entertain. Yet here we are.
Donald Trump’s advanced dementia exacerbates all of this, of course. And because his downfall is going to come in the form of losing the midterms, getting impeached, and dying of his worsening health problems in humiliating fashion, one can grasp why it’s a little harder for him to see it coming than, say, Hitler or Hussein being unable to hear the bombs dropping around them. But still, Trump thinks everything is going so swimmingly for him that he can afford to focus almost solely on a ballroom and a fistfight? This all just keeps growing more absurd.