A masterclass in incompetence at home and abroad

My neighbors’ mail. Note the date.

Last week my neighbors brought me an envelope with a “MAGA priorities survey” enclosed. A solicitation for money disguised as a survey, it opened with a four-page cover letter from Trump.

The survey drills down on ‘Biden’s sky-high mortgage rates,’ and ‘reckless spending binge’ even though we’re now 1.5 years into Trump 2.0. It blames Biden for ‘today’s affordability squeeze,’ despite Trump’s economically unhinged tariffs and $94 billion war in Iran. Trump, who still thinks exporters pay tariffs, single handedly turbo-charged the price of energy, and tanked consumer confidence at the same time, all while demanding that Americans disbelieve their lyin’ eyes.

Trump’s cover letter begins, “Dear America First Patriot, I put THREE LIVE POSTAGE STAMPS (all caps) on the enclosed Rush Return Envelope because I had to get your immediate attention… And because I need you to respond to me right away!” Four pages later, Trump urges True Patriots to make a True Patriotic donation of $2,026…. Or even just $47, by rushing back the MAGA survey using the enclosed TRIPLE-STAMPED Rush Return Envelope TODAY. (Combining all caps with bold, a triple-dog-dare-you maneuver that conveys urgency.)

The kicker is that the “triple stamped rush envelope” was the pre-marked, pre-paid, “No postage necessary if mailed in the United States” kind. Adding extra postage stamps to a prepaid postage envelope, according to the USPS, means Trump just wasted money (USPS bold, not mine). Trump, in one mailing, spent extra on an agency he accuses of waste, demonstrated his fiscal illiteracy, and declared his donors stupid. Another masterclass in Trump’s trifecta of incompetence.

Demanding respect without cause

While Trump’s ineptitude at home often skews absurd, it’s catastrophic on the world stage. Pitbullcomms director Steven Cheung recently told Mike Pompeo to “shut his stupid mouth” on Iran because Pompeo had “no idea what the f— he’s talking about.” Cheung was telling a Harvard top-of-class West Point alum, a military officer who served with distinction and as Trump’s Secretary of State, that he lacked proper credentials to weigh in on Iran. As Iran pulled out of talks, Trump did a victory dance on Fox News despite creating an objectively more hostile and dangerous adversary who now has us by the short hairs. Cheung told Pompeo with a straight face he “should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals.”

With foreign policy professionals like these, who needs insurgents? Trump managed, unaided, to upgrade Iran’s asymmetric fighting capabilities, strengthen Iran’s financial and geopolitical position, and alienate NATO and other U.S. allies who reminded Trump this was his war—not theirs— and refused to bail him out. Trump’s staggering incompetence has not only strengthened a terrorist state, it looks like Iran will be left in possession of some 10 tons of low-enriched uranium.

Even if Pompeo wanted to leave Trump’s Iranian quagmire to the professionals, there aren’t any. In a childish ‘up yours’ to the world, Trump handpicked the biggest bloviators he could find to serve in his cabinet, an assembly critics call one of the least qualified and most inappropriately vetted in modern U.S. history. The only vetting was for Dear Leader sycophancy, a skill relentlessly paraded during televised meetings by a cabinet of flattering courtiers afraid of telling the truth.

Trump’s incompetence is (relatively) safer at home

Trump wants to be regarded as omni powerful and untouchable. Targeting critics who criticize him, threatening punishment for their “seditious behavior”… “punishable by death,” Trump oozes Godfather because he lives in a delusional reality TV, alternative facts universe. Thankfully, even in our darkest hour, most Americans don’t fear incompetence. They ridicule it, as do our adversaries.

Iran has been trolling the US from the beginning with pop-culture driven critiques of a nation that would elect a moron like Trump. Other adversaries, including China, are watching. In the EU, where accuracy in the news is largely expected, resentment and disbelief have morphed into outright condemnation. But, here at home, where maga-aligned corporate interests rule most media, the gaslighting continues.

House Speaker Mike Johnson declared, “President Trump is the only one who could have gotten Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, to the negotiating table… Under President Trump’s leadership, our nation is stronger, more respected on the global stage, and safer than ever before.” Never mind that Trump’s war was pointless to begin with; never mind the uranium, the poor results, or the global condemnation. If Trump’s buffoonery in Iran isn’t an arsonist demanding praise for calling the fire department, nothing is.

Trump has received no Iran war approval whatsoever from Congress, which possesses the sole constitutional authority to declare war. Although Trump keeps bragging that his war in Iran has been shorter than WWII and Vietnam, he fails to grasp that those wars were justified, Congressionally authorized, and at least understood by most Americans. Only an imbecile would equate them with Iran.

Even if we leave Iran tomorrow, the U.S. will face new, heightened terrorism risks from a nuclear-enthused adversary for generations. Trump’s unprovoked and woefully un-planned aggression has now justified Iran’s hatred of us and its commitment to uranium.

As Trump pivots to planning his upcoming Idiocracy-forward, lowest-common-denominator cage fight and IndyCar race at the White House, we should breathe a collective sigh of relief. Trump training his genius on tasteless pageantry at home may rightly inspire ridicule, but it is safer than poking all the bears at once.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1^st and 14^th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.