All this assumes that Trump will stand for election in 2028. He won't.
If he doesn't die by then he will cling to power by having ICE
manufacture various electoral incidents and fabricated emergencies.
Brent
On 1/10/2026 10:54 AM, John Clark wrote:
Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman has some interesting things
to say:
===
Things are not going well politically for Donald Trump. The polls show
him underwater on every major issue
<https://substack.com/redirect/7904c423-6b41-4d11-ad05-b1a2584a0545?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>.
And while he insists that these are fake, it’s clear that he knows
better. He recently lamented
<https://substack.com/redirect/0c651429-87af-40fa-92aa-5fab2e7cda9d?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o> that
the Republicans will do badly in the midterms and even floated the
idea that midterms should be canceled.
And as January 6^th 2021 showed, Trump simply can’t stand political
rejection. He will do anything, use any tool or any person at his
disposal, to obliterate the sources of that rejection.
So as we head into the 2026 midterm season, the best way to understand
U.S. policy is that it’s in the pursuit of one crucial objective:
Propping up Trump’s fragile ego.
What was the motivation for the abduction of Nicolás Maduro? It wasn’t
about drugs, which were always an obvious pretense. By Trump’s own
account it wasn’t about democracy. Trump talks a lot about oil, but
Venezuela’s heavy, hard-to-process oil and its decrepit oil
infrastructure aren’t big prizes. The Financial Times
<https://substack.com/redirect/cf4bf0cc-0f39-4cf2-ba8c-9e11fb4f5834?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>reports
that U.S. oil companies won’t invest in Venezuela unless they receive
firm guarantees. One investor told the paper, “No one wants to go in
there when a random fucking tweet can change the entire foreign policy
of the country.”
The real purpose of the abduction, surely, was to give Trump an
opportunity to strut around and act tough. But this ego gratification,
like a sugar rush, won’t last long. Voters normally rally around the
president at the beginning of a war. The invasion of Iraq was
initially very popular
<https://substack.com/redirect/e3fe7bf6-4e6d-4854-9379-a01d688dfc97?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>.
But the action in Venezuela hasn’t had any visible
rally-around-the-flag effect. While Republicans, as always, support
Trump strongly, independents are opposed:
<https://substack.com/redirect/272a4737-3e5e-4685-94ba-cc2dd5cee54c?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>
And now the story of the moment is the atrocity in Minneapolis, where,
on Wednesday, an ICE agent killedRenee Nicole Good by shooting her in
the head.
Trump and his minions responded by flatly lying about what happened.
But their accounts have been refuted by video evidence
<https://substack.com/redirect/6eb29bcb-5d4a-4716-a361-9cb5c2fe37c4?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o> which
show an out-of-control ICE agent gunning down a woman who was simply
trying to get away from a frightening situation. Yes, MAGA loyalists
will fall into line, preferring to believe Trump rather than their own
lying eyes. But public revulsion over Good’s murder and Trump’s
mendacity are high and growing.
A president who actually cared about the welfare of those he governs
would have taken Good’s killing as an indication that his deportation
tactics have veered wildly and tragically off course. He would have
called for a halt of ICE actions and made sure there would be an
objective and timely federal investigation into this national tragedy.
But for Trump, ICE’s violent lawlessness is a feature, not a bug.
Sending armed, masked, poorly trained, masked and out-of-control armed
thugs into blue cities is, in effect, a war on Americans, just as
January 6^th was a war on American institutions. In effect, Trump
would rather savage his own people than be held accountable for his
actions.
So in Trump’s mind, Renee Nicole Good’s murder is at most collateral
damage, in service to his insatiable need to dominate and feel
powerful -- so insatiable that he is attempting to create an alternate
reality, claiming that that Good ran over an agent
<https://substack.com/redirect/7cca252e-8b35-41a5-ab11-2925ae70ffc9?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o> although
there is irrefutable video evidence that she didn’t.
And when one set of lies doesn’t work, he switches tactics – changing
the topic, deflecting, and spouting even more lies. Thus, just hours
after Good’s death, Trump proclaimed that he was seeking a huge
increase in military spending:
<https://substack.com/redirect/dfeafbbb-ac8e-4b4e-be86-2d5cd46486e7?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>
It’s a near certainty that Trump’s assertion that he arrived at an
immediate 50% increase in the military budget after “long and
difficult negotiations” is yet another lie. There’s been no indication
whatsoever that a massive increase in defense spending was on anyone’s
agenda before he suddenly posted about it on Truth Social.
So what was that about? Given the timing, it’s clear that Trump’s
announcement was yet another exercise in self-aggrandizement, as well
as an attempt to grab the headlines away from Good’s killing. But
what’s also important to realize from Trump’s announcement is that he
is now clearly conflating the size of the US military with his ego.
Evidently the sugar rush of Maduro’s capture has left him wanting more
and more military validation, particularly as his poll numbers tank.
So here’s a warning to the US military: if you continue to indulge the
sick fantasies of this man, he will drag this country into more and
deeper international morasses to feed his need for glory. Do what
Admiral Alvin Holsey, an honorable man, did – stand down and refuse an
illegal order. Here’s a warning to the Republicans: if you continue to
allow this man to perpetrate war against his own people with impunity
through the actions of ICE, you will be remembered as cowards and
hypocrites. Here’s a warning to all his other enablers: if you do not
do something to stop this madman, you will go down in history as
traitors to this country.
And here’s a warning to those directly perpetrating Trump-directed
atrocities: He will not be in power forever, and I expect and hope
that you will be held accountable, personally, and prosecuted to the
full extent of the law.
Paul Krugman
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