Cathie from Canada: Catching up with the American Fantasia. Plus today's Commonwealth Games update

Saturday, August 01, 2026

Catching up with the American Fantasia. Plus today's Commonwealth Games update

Here are a few cartoons I found about Trump's crazy fantasies:

Trump's fantasy world is getting worse every day.

It's harder to keep up with all the fantasy stories that Trump seems to believe sincerely - everything from how he won the 2020 election, to how Dr. Fauci killed millions of Americans with the Covid virus he developed in a Chinese lab, how evil democrats are all communists who destroyed his fabulous Reflecting Pool, and so on and so one.
I know all politicians have their blind spots. But this is way beyond that, isn't it.
Here are some good comments:

In The Irish Times, financial editor Edward Luce writes about Trump's fantasy announcements:

...Trump keeps making fantasy announcements. His grip on power is suffering as a result.
That might seem paradoxical for a US president who has done more than any other to create an all-powerful presidency. But power is the ability to shape the world to your advantage. This should not be confused with constantly declaring how powerful you are.
Force is one of many means to an end, not the end in itself. Sometimes, as with Iran, military action creates the opposite end to the one you desire. Trump’s idea of power has led directly to his loss of ability to shape events in the Gulf.
That credibility drain is most visible in the markets. Early in Operation Epic Fury, Trump’s words triggered big market swings. The promise of death and destruction in Iran or a pledge to talk to its regime would produce wild gyrations. The more Trump declares things that are obviously untrue – by repeating, for example, that Iran has agreed to all his terms – the fewer people believe him. My colleague Robert Armstrong’s Taco motto (Trump always chickens out) has given way to a Wall Street shoulder shrug.
Like a drug addict upping the dose to regain that elusive high, Trump’s response is to make his rhetoric even more outlandish. Weaning himself off that habit would be the product of taking stock, seeking better advice and sticking to decisions that would yield long-term outcomes. His words would gradually regain weight. Since Trump’s learning curve is sloping downwards, we can assume he will do none of those things. The outlook for the rest of his term is thus tragicomic.
The comic bit is easier to foresee. In this moment of revived interest in Greek classics, Trump is like Icarus flying so close to the sun that his wings melted. History will record Trump’s Icarus moment as February 28th, the day the military campaign against Iran was launched...
...Here, in capsule form, is what to expect from a president intent on destroying his geopolitical credibility. The habitual trolling that serves him at home is sapping his potency on the world stage. But that will not prevent him from making bilateral deals; quite the reverse.
Serious agreements that outlast Trump can be discounted. The hasty ones may prove bad for the US national interest but will routinely boost Trump’s bottom line....

In The Toronto Star, Justin Ling reports on Trump's fantasies about Cuba and what is happening to that poor country:

...Cuba, bastion of communism, has established a global network of revolutionaries, terrorists and political agents meant to overthrow capitalism, says the U.S. And you can find Cuba’s fingerprints on everything “from the George Floyd riots to the rise of Antifa to the explosion of pro-terrorist activism on American college campuses,” per a lengthy report published by the State Department earlier this month.
That’s why, the Trump administration believes, Cuba must be defeated.
This conspiracy theory is as wild as it is cartoonish. But President Donald Trump and his warmongering Secretary of State Marco Rubio are using it as a casus belli to wage economic warfare against the Cuban regime, without concern for the collateral damage....

Paul Krugman reports its not just Trump, its all of MAGA:

...If you find the assertion that MAGA has a totalitarian mindset over the top, all I can ask is, have you been following the news?
What’s remarkable is the extent to which Republican politicians act as if they are living in a totalitarian state, when they aren’t — not yet, anyway. ICE would clearly like to be an American Stasi, policing any deviation from the party line, but it’s not able, so far, to arrest members of Congress who express skepticism about the president’s claims. And many Republican politicians still, I believe, know the difference between fantasy and reality.
But they behave as if they were courtiers to Kim Jong Un. Trump speeches are sometimes followed by “endless applause moments,” because none of Trump’s loyalists wants to be seen as the first person to stop clapping.
The susceptibility of the GOP to this totalitarian mindset has come as a surprise even to cynics. I have some idea of how this happened: It involves a confluence of big-money corruption, crony capitalism, religious fanaticism, and the ever-present forces of racism and sexism. But that’s a subject to be delved into another day.
What’s clear is that the war on reality is exacting a high price on America as a whole.
Remember, 1.2 million Americans died from Covid — a number that would have been much lower if MAGA misinformation hadn’t caused so many people to refuse vaccination. Now we’re seeing a frightening rise in measles and other infectious diseases, and God help us if another pandemic strikes with Trump or his successor still in charge.
Climate denial and hostility to renewable energy will mean more pollution even as it consigns the U.S. to energy and economic backwardness.
And the Iran war — which Trump started and now refuses to end because he won’t accept reality — has destroyed America’s credibility and depleted our weapon stocks with stunning speed.
But anyone pointing out the obvious is, of course, a Communist.

And I expect this will be Trump's next press conference