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A con man\u2019s challenge<\/span> is to stay ahead of his con. If his marks begin to see too many signs that they are being played\u2014and the swindler can\u2019t craft a cover story to account for these contrary facts\u2014the artifice can start to crumble.<\/p>\n Donald Trump may be at this point.<\/p>\n Of course, millions of Americans have known from the start that Trump has long been a deceitful scammer. But millions of others have fallen for his hustle\u2014and they stuck with his flimflam after his first stint as president demonstrated he lied when he promised cheaper and better health care, a revival of American infrastructure, and an end to budget deficits. Despite his failure to make good on these pie-in-the-sky promises, he managed to keep the con going\u2014even after miserably mismanaging the Covid pandemic and then scheming to overturn a national election.<\/p>\n Facts can emerge and threaten a hustle. That might be happening now. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n As we know\u2014and he certainly does\u2014many scams depend on people wanting to believe the scammer. That was evident in 2024, when Trump\u2019s vow to lower grocery prices and spur an economic Golden Age appealed to voters slammed by inflation and the high cost of living. He had conned the electorate once before and nearly destroyed American democracy, but these voters were willing to give the bunko artist another shot. This was akin to an abused spouse offering their abusive partner a second chance on the promise that all will be grand this time.<\/p>\n Yet even within false realities, facts can emerge and threaten a hustle. That might be happening now. It has been widely noted that Trump campaigned as an America Firster opposed to so-called \u201cforever wars,\u201d and yet he launched this war of choice against Iran on what appears to have been a whim. (His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, called it a \u201cfeeling.\u201d) At the time of his impulse, negotiations between Washington and Tehran were still underway and Iran was not two weeks away from producing a nuclear weapon, as Trump has insisted. His trigger-happiness has belied his proclaimed aversion to Mideast wars and overseas interventions. He showed no fealty to what he professed to be a chief principle. This brazen contradiction is tough for everyone but the most committed Trump devotees to ignore.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not all. This past week, Trump proposed<\/a> a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, which would entail a 44 percent increase for the military. Such a boost is inconsistent with an America First position. If the priority is the well-being of Americans at home, why spend so much more for potential overseas military actions? The 2025 US military budget is already $962 billion, the most in the world and more than the combined total<\/a> of the next nine nations (China, $246 billion; Russia, $150 billion; Germany, $109 billion).<\/p>\n Moreover, Trump\u2019s wish-list budget cut 10 percent of non-defense spending. He said<\/a> last week that it\u2019s \u201cnot possible\u201d for the federal government to fund Medicare, Medicaid, and child care costs\u2014which was sort of big news that got lost in the shuffle. Any president saying something like that in years past would have faced days\u2014maybe weeks\u2014of headlines.<\/p>\n He has cast himself as the champion of the little guy who\u2019s been screwed over by Washington and the elites. Yet in his second term, Trump has wallowed in opulence and narcissistic self-worship.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n This budget proposal is unlikely to be adopted by Congress, but his call for shoveling an additional half-a-trillion dollars into the Pentagon while further gutting health care programs and much else is no America First position. Plus, pursuing such a path would exacerbate the budget deficits he once pledged to eliminate.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s con is being undermined on other fronts. His one big promise in 2024 was to lower prices and make life more affordable. His tariffs have done the opposite\u2014so, too, the Iran war. He has cast himself as the champion of the little guy who\u2019s been screwed over by Washington and the elites. Yet in his second term, Trump has wallowed in opulence and narcissistic self-worship, gold-leafing whatever he can, attaching his name to whatever he can, constructing a poorly designed White House ballroom<\/a>, and pocketing tremendous amounts of money in assorted grift, including his own crypto scam. (In a December poll<\/a>, 66 percent disapproved of Trump adding his name to the Kennedy Center; only 18 percent favored this self-glorifying move.) His claim that his mass deportation crusade targets criminal migrants has been proven false by horrific accounts of arrests, detentions, and deportations of law-abiding residents, including students, workers, grandmothers, and other valued members of local communities. And the public has reacted with revulsion to his immigration policies.<\/p>\n In a healthy sign of popular rationality, Trump\u2019s approval rating has been on a steady decline over the past year, and many polls now have his approval only in the mid-30s. That means he\u2019s getting close to his floor. My guess is that about 25 percent of American adults are full-on MAGA\u2014people who believe whatever bunk Trump peddles and will follow the guy off a cliff, while he has the only available jet pack. These surveys suggest that non-cultists are not buying his crap anymore.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s act is getting old. His chaos does not wear well. He\u2019s not delivering on the unrealistic promises he made, and he\u2019s making things worse.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n That seems especially true regarding Iran. A Reuters\/Ipsos\u00a0poll<\/a>\u00a0last month found that only 35 percent of Americans support the military strikes on Iran. And the numbers are sliding among non-MAGA Republicans. A CBS News\u00a0poll<\/a>\u00a0in mid-March showed that while 92 percent of self-identified MAGA Republicans backed his war on Iran, only 70 percent of non-MAGA Republicans did. An Economist<\/em>\/ YouGov\u00a0poll<\/a>\u00a0published on March 31 found that support for the war in Iran had dropped by 1 point for the MAGA GOPers fell by a whopping 23 points for those non-MAGA Republicans. Trump is losing everyone but the die-hard Trumpists, who don\u2019t really give a damn about the supposedly cherished ideas of MAGA\u2014such as America First\u2014and are driven mostly by devotion to a divisive demagogue.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s act is getting old. His chaos does not wear well. He\u2019s not delivering on the unrealistic promises he made, and he\u2019s making things worse. And there\u2019s not much room for improvement on the horizon, especially since it\u2019s unclear how this dumb war will be resolved. Which may be why some folks fear that Trump\u2014cornered like a wounded bear\u2014might become more dangerous and resort to authoritarian measures in the midterms to preserve GOP power (to avoid a boatload of investigations and possibly another impeachment).<\/p>\n Or that he could lash out with more war. His Easter message to Iran\u2019s leaders\u2014\u201cOpen the Fuckin\u2019 Strait, you crazy bastards, or you\u2019ll be living in Hell\u2014JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah\u201d\u2014showed derangement and desperation. His subsequent statement<\/a> to Axios\u2014\u201cIf they don’t make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there\u201d\u2014was a threat to commit war crimes. <\/p>\n One commentator\u2014I don\u2019t recall who\u2014recently observed that Trump might be hitting an \u201cEmperor\u2019s New Clothes\u201d moment. In that Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the con is that the vain emperor\u2019s new outfit is made of magical fabric only the intelligent can see. So he struts around naked, with everyone afraid to say he\u2019s wearing nothing\u2014until during a procession through town, while his aides pretend to be carrying his train, a child exclaims, \u201cHe hasn\u2019t got anything on.\u201d Then all the people join in and cry out the same: The dude\u2019s not wearing anything! The scam is uncovered. The Emperor exposed (literally).<\/p>\n Is Trump close to such a brink? Andersen\u2019s story does not conclude with that moment of truth. After the people see through the ruse, Andersen wrote,<\/p>\n The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold.<\/em><\/p>\n The spell was broken. But the Emperor and his die-hard supporters continued with the charade.<\/p>\n Trump is the most successful con man in American history. Maybe in world history. (Who else ran a swindle that landed him in charge of an arsenal that can blow up the planet?) But the con is fraying. Perhaps it will collapse. As Bob Dylan once warbled, \u201cEven the president of the United States \/ Sometimes must have to stand naked.\u201d Now, no one wants to see Trump in the buff. But it may be time to wonder what happens when his racket no longer holds\u2014and what perils that could present.<\/p>\n\n
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