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  1. The 25th is a nice thought except we’d then have JDV who is equally barking. Also it relies on his cabinet or Congress getting a grip which seems vanishingly unlikely. He has little political support though which might help.The best bet is the mid terms, T loses the Congress, is soaked in investigations etc plus is lame duck and the wannabes will start jostling. Roll on November. Unless, shall we say, nature intervenes.

  2. The 25th would be nice (apart from JDV taking over, as Twang says), but I think it’s sadly a long way off. The cult close to Trump seems just as devoted as ever, despite the many, many signs that he is unfit to be President.

    However, cracks may be appearing among his supporters outside his immediate circle. For example, I read today – on X, so treat it with the appropriate level of doubt – of some town in the US where the main industry or employer involves quarrying marble. Apparently residents, the majority of whom voted for the orange hobgoblin, are outraged – OUTRAGED, I TELLS YA! – that Trump’s ridiculous triumphal arch might be built from Italian marble rather than good old American marble. For shame! Everything else he’s done has allegedly been OK as far as many of these voters are concerned (including the crazy notion of the arch itself), but now this town has turned against him because his plan could directly affect its main employer.

    One can only hope that such feelings grow and make a difference come election time. I think that the only way his cabinet or the Republicans in general will turn on him is if they think their jobs might be in danger and their gravy train will come off the tracks.

  3. ‘Possibly’ his pious and highly moral followers might feel a bit awks at him, er, “virtue signalling” as Jesus? If I was a religious person, I’d see him as evil, and a “lord of lies”, hiding in plain sight, smirking his way through it, and delighting in the chaos and disruption he’s caused.

    In reality, I think Dump has been the living expression of malignant narcissistic personality disorder all his life, and now has emerging fronto-temporal dementia. He should be taken off-stage and put on the golf course with a bottle of Pepsi and a “nurse” previously seen in an Amsterdam window. I look forward to his eventual demise and everyone on his side pretending they were never involved, that they tried to turn things around, knew he was a wrong ‘un, etc. The civilian idiots who support him can go back to licking windows and not liking strangers.

    I still hope for a decent smoking gun of evidence regarding his degeneracy (as if it’s not there already) and his public ruination. Ideally before he ruins what’s left of the world he’s already cocked up.

    • But he wasn’t representing Jesus according to trump.

      “I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross,” Trump told reporters outside the White House in a hastily arranged press conference on Monday. “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”

      Of course it all makes ‘sense’

      • Reminds me of coients who are adamant someone stole their phones, took photos of them in the skud, and sent the pictures to schoolgirls. “When the lie’s so big”….

      • Heard an interesting viewpoint today – Rubio and Vance are both Catholic. Neither of them have been prepared (to date) to call him out on what they must view as blasphemy, demonstrating their impotence in the face of the mighty Trump. He’ll remind people of this in due course, when he anoints his successor – which will be a Trump family member, of course…

        • Hegseth has also kept quiet although one of his favourite pastors has criticised Trump over it. With this and Iran generally Trump has lost at least some of his prominent Maga supporters. They are all already on manoeuvres looking beyond him to the next presidential election, and the behaviour of most of those shits will currently be entirely calibrated on their desire to either be or to choose the next POTUS

        • It’s an interesting one because we Catholics aren’t/shouldn’t be too upset over this because those images of Christ that you see in tourist tat stores in Rome or Lourdes aren’t/shouldn’t be considered holy or sacred.

          My favourite one was a highly detailed photograph-like image of Jesus’s face as he is crucified, wearing the crown of thorns with blood dripping down his face.
          If you tip the image up slightly, his shoulders slump and his eyes close. This is the moment of his death. Of course, the next thing anyone sensible does is do it repeatedly and at high speed, which undermines the solemnity of it all.

  4. I am getting genuinely worried now. Events are escalating pretty fast. Ferinstance, what happens when Chinese vessels try to go through the Straits? It must be praying on my mind subconsciously as – for the first time since the 80s – I had a full, “nuclear-bomb-drops-out-of-the-blue-on-a-normal-day-in-my city” nightmare a few nights back.

  7. My American Civil War scenario is the military refusing to do something e.g. waterboarding the Dalai Lama or attacking Swanage with a million drones.
    The military would then lead Trump away and take over the Senate and Congress.
    And many of us would breathe a sigh of relief!

  8. While Vance would betray his granny for a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts he’d need the support of 2/3rds of the House and the Senate. There’s more chance of Peter Mandelson being made Spurs manager.

    • I want him to stay in post, impotent faced by a hostile Congress and seething as he slides into irrelevance. A bit of jail time would be good too.

      • Maybe he could be persuaded to go to the Holy Land, to an ancient archaeological dig and, surrounded by his MAGA acolytes, assorted tech bros, Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, be encouraged to drink from a certain ornate golden cup?

      • This is what I want too. To be voted into oblivion and investigated to penury and jail.

        That won’t happen and neither will the 25th. Though both should have during the first term. While it seems the bulk of decent American citizens dislike him and a good number of those will go on organised marches against him none of them have any power. Or the time/energy/interest to force change. Him and his cronies have done enough to hamstring the systems and neuter Congress.

        So the horrible old bastard wakes up every morning as the most powerful man in the world and no one can or will do anything until November

  10. There seems to be a real chance he’ll declare a state of emergency ahead of the midterms and suspend elections, in order to Make America Great Again. I don’t know how realistic a prospect this is but certainly, shades of 1930s Germany

        • You’re probably right, and the rulebook has obviously been thrown out of the White House window long ago, but I do wonder: where is the opposition in all this? Have the Democrats all packed up and gone home? How does he get to do all this without anybody/anything getting in his way?

          Obviously all the Republicans and his supporters should hang their heads in shame and get what they deserve, but so far the Dems haven’t covered themselves in glory, have they? Or have I missed their good works to rein him in?

          • I’ve asked the same question over and over @Captain-Darling. Why does the President have so much power..? OK, the two houses are Republican, but he seems answerable to no one. At least in our system the PM has to justify actions and get things through Parliament. They call it a democracy, but it looks more like an elected dictatorship from where I’m sitting.

            • Re an elected dictatorship: he appears to have ordered the war with Iraq entirely on his own, which certainly looks like a dictator-style move. Given the power that can be (and is currently being) unleashed by the US military, surely there should be at least a vote before a war can begin.

              One of the best scenes in the film JFK involves Donald Sutherland’s nameless spook describing how meetings between powerful men in Washington quietly led to a conspiracy to remove the President. As things spiral even more wildly out of control under Trump, I wonder if similar meetings are taking place now. I like to think there are at a least a few adults around who could pull the orange toddler away from the levers of power.

            • He loves Executive Orders:

              In 2025, Trump issued 221 orders, and early 2025 analysis indicated he signed 143 in his first 100 days, far exceeding past presidents. By comparison, his first term (2017) had 58 orders in its first year, and President Biden signed 77 in his first year. (AI summary)

              These can be overturned legally, but it seems they remain in place until that happens. Not very democratic.

            • The balance of power is supposed to be ensured by the two houses, the law/aka Supreme Court ultimately and the free press. He’s done a good job of stacking the SC which weakens the law (but not always – note his recent fury), buying or attacking the press plus having his own pro Trump news outlets and having both houses. This is not by accident. It will be significantly different if he loses the Congress in the mid terms.

                  • I think that is where a stand would be taken against him by the remaining rational Republicans with the Democrats. Also not convinced the US military would back him if he tried to force it.

                    • As I have no money in my pockets I’ll take that bet. They’re too wedded to the constitution, sorry Constitution to let him pull a fast one.

                      And believe me I have almost zero confidence in them doing the right thing.

    • With Trump’s Jesus pics, Vance decrying the Pope and Hesgeth quoting from the gospel of Jules from Pulp Fiction I’m starting to wonder if their faith might not be rooted in rigorous exegesis.

  16. False flag drone attack gets through to US warship. Mid-terms postponed. More bombs. Hegseth thinks the End Days are here, gets over-stimulated, has massive stroke, becomes aubergine. Even more bombs. California secedes from the Union. Bibi flees to Mar-a-Largo. Trump admitted in straitjacket to sanatorium, dribbling and completely incoherent.

    Then I woke up. Damn, that chilli was really good last night.

  17. If the country is collectively stupid enough to vote the man in, then they aren’t clever enough to trigger such a complex legislative move. It requires a mobilisation of voters to change things, and a willingness to fight back if democracy fails.

  19. A small twinkle of good news – the Supreme Court recently ruled twatto’s tariffs were illegal. The government has to now refund corporations, companies and consumers something in the region of $166bn.

    • I would think refunding consumers will be very hard to do. The increased costs were passed on to consumers but they (consumers) would have to clearly identify which part of the purchase price was directly as a result of tarrifs.

      I also think that this US Govt will simply not comply with the order.

      • There’s no process for an individual consumer to make a claim from the gov’t. There’s a website for businesses to make claims where there’s explicit evidence of a tariff being levied, but nothing for individuals. This seems to be because the gov’t levied the tariffs on companies involved in importing goods and have no visibility (and even less interest) in charges passed on to buyers. Shipping companies like UPS and DHL have said they will pass on any refunds they get paid as they collected the original payments from consumers. Now’t paid out as yet.

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