The unhinged dividend
There's something about dealing with someone you know might be crazy.
Why did Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum risk national unrest, going after “El Mencho,” Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, head of the CJNG, Jalisco New Generation cartel? President Donald Trump suggests it was at his prompting; he said so in his State of the Union speech to Congress. Mexican authorities revealed that U.S.-supplied intelligence helped greatly in the operation to locate the drug kingpin. But also, did Trump’s continual drumbeat, threatening unilateral military action against the cartels on Mexican soil, play a role? It’s worth a look, as well as other situations around the world.
Popular X commentator AGHamilton posted Thursday night, after returning from Mexico:
I asked several people why they thought the cartel was so wary of harming Americans given American intel clearly played a role in taking out El Mencho and had several people directly say some version of "they are afraid of Trump".
On the ground in Mexico, in areas where American tourists hang out in droves, one thing the government of Mexico and the cartels agree on it not to harm a hair of the head of an American. Of course, Americans get scammed, extorted, and subject to all kinds of crime and corruption, if they stray or allow themselves to be put into compromising situations. But groups of gringos in Puerto Vallarta can party on in relative safety.
“There was a clear effort to reassure tourists with a lot of military personnel,” Hamilton wrote. “And even in Puerto Vallarta, I was told that the cartel was very careful about avoiding tourists during their retaliation.”
I think there’s one clear explanation at work here. They believe Trump will order the American military into Mexico to avenge, or protect, American citizens there. They believe Trump will order strikes against the cartels to stem the flood of fentanyl and other drugs across our southern border. In short, they fear him because they don’t know what he might do.
Buttressing this belief are the constant flow of American media opinions telling the world that Trump is nuts, crazy, unhinged, that he, as the New York Times Opinion page posits, “has lost touch with reality.”
Frank Bruni called him “the Trumpiest Trump I’d ever beheld,” “hallucinatory,” “fully immersed in fantasy.”
“A reality denial machine,” Bret Stephens countered, noting that it was the very thing that destroyed the Democrats in the last term.
Trump’s SOTU was called “rage bait” by Jamelle Bouie. His administration, “The Incompetence of Trump 2.0.” Ezra Klein asked, “What if Trump Believes All of It?” And that’s just the New York Times. If I delve into NBC News or more liberal hives, I will get the same kind of thing, just stronger. They’re all telling us Trump is bat guano crazy.
I wonder if they realize that they are helping other nations make decisions that give Trump more power around the world? There’s a dividend to crazy, and the media, and the fact that Trump’s administration is clearly, 100%, behind him this term, is having an effect in the real world. It doesn’t matter how many times you call Trump delusional; if his delusions become reality, then they are no longer hallucinations.
The Iranians are negotiating with a gun to their heads. I don’t think it will make any difference at this point, because once you put this much military power in one place, the probability of conflict is simply too high to avoid. Trump’s military will do his bidding, so either we will have a casus belli and go to war, or we will de-escalate. Either way, the Iranians believe that Trump is crazy enough to put the nation into war. It doesn’t matter to them whether Trump wants them gone for ideological reasons (that’s never been his strongest suit), or he simply wants their oil and their fealty to his interests (much more likely).
The belief that Trump is unhinged helps the U.S. in a very weird way. It’s obvious that Trump didn’t end eight wars. He didn’t free the people of Venezuela, and the Nobel Peace Prize (the medal, not the prize itself) given to him by María Corina Machado was wasted, because Nicolás Maduro’s government is still running that country. Trump’s continual denigration of Canada pushes a particular button in the Canadian psyche, and activates their “little brother” syndrome. But here’s the thing: Canadians love Americans, and they will get over it, though they will never forgive Trump.
In the end, Trump being bullhorned “he’s crazy!” around the world means the world tends to do that Republicans do here at home. They publicly flatter him; they accede to his wishes; they give him gifts. Privately they wish his attention go elsewhere, along with the rest of him.
There are two leaders who are largely unmoved by Trump’s “crazy,” and we know who they are: Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. However, even they won’t cross certain lines, because, well, Trump commands the world’s largest military, with the world’s largest nuclear stockpile, and no treaties or limits on either. Trump’s Secretary of Defense (Secretary of War, they call him) will do whatever the president orders. Trump commands the reigns of government and does so probably with more control than any president since Lyndon B. Johnson. If you don’t think that’s dangerous, meaning in the real-world sense of being lethal and effective, then you’re mistaken.
Even though there’s plenty of incompetence to go around (example: ICE), where it counts, the forces Trump commands are among the best in the world, if not simply the best. Mexican President Sheinbaum is correct to fear it, and Mexicans on both sides of the law know it. The Iranians know it.
The only limitation Trump has on crazy is that he doesn’t want to be remembered by body bags and graves. He’s in the strange position of really wanting a war, a glorious victory, something to build an American Arc de Triomphe at the Arlington end of the Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C. But he wants to win it overwhelmingly, not get slogged down in fighting. Hence, we have deployed nearly the entire effective air and naval hammer against Iran, which cannot stand against us. But we haven’t moved infantry or tanks. Trump doesn’t want that kind of war (except if it was Mexico, or maybe Greenland).
The American media, and our entire business and banking sector, acknowledge Trump’s unhinged factor, and it’s helping, not hurting. This is a weird development, because when a president destroys the economy with tariffs, uncertainty, illegal acts, and is rebuked by the Supreme Court, normally the markets respond with risk aversion and decline. But with Trump, risk aversion means keeping the market up, up, up. Where we should be in a spiral, we are only in a dip. Where we keep predicting doom and AI-bubble popping, we are not seeing it happen yet.
I think a large part of this is Trump’s delusion. He’s just crazy enough to do something that pees in the Cheerios of market makers, and investment bankers. Better to extend the risk window to get past this than to do what comes naturally and what the numbers indicate should be done. Of course, then there’s Warren Buffett, who has correctly foreseen where we are. But ask Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief, and he’ll tell you all boats are rising with the tide and we only need to avoid doing “dumb things.” Funny how the bankers and economists all treat Trump seriously, at least in public.
As long as we continue the crazy train, and Trump holds the power of both the military and the treasury (note: Congress is supposed to do this), then the dividends of people fearing him, at home and abroad, will continue. Don’t ask me if this is a good idea, because you might not like the answer. Short term, we might see some kind of American power—we got Hamas to return living and dead hostages. Long term, when the object of everyone’s fear—the crazy factor—is gone, things are going to get very bad. Or maybe there will be more crazy.
That’s the problem with the unhinged dividend, it’s addictive, and if you get off the high, the withdrawal hits like a giant brick. It tends to lead to endless war, body bags, economic recession, and civil unrest. So we’re creating an incentive for both the Republicans and the Democrats to continue crazy.
To me, it’s better to ask Ezra Klein’s question: what if Trump believes it all? What if he’s not crazy. He simply uses lies and exaggerations to get what he wants. He’s very competent, even preternaturally expert, at doing that. We should not be telling the world that Trump is crazy, but we should let them know he should be feared. It is our responsibility, as American citizens, to understand what they fear.
Pakistan is bombing Afghanistan, in what the Afghans are calling “open war.” What do I think of that? The radicals in Pakistan are fighting the Taliban, both likely using American ordnance. I say let them fight. Nobody has ever successfully taken over Afghanistan and kept it in the modern era.
Americans at the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem are being told to leave now if they want to go. This means the war machine is spinning up fast. Indian PM Narenda Modi has left Israel, after a love-fest. Either war is coming, or Iran will give Trump what he’s publicly asking for: no nuclear enrichment, no long-range missiles. I think it will be war.
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