{"id":2077,"date":"2026-06-23T06:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T06:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2026-06-23T06:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T06:36:07","slug":"trumps-pitifully-impotent-presidency-torn-apart-as-pr-disaster-spirals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2077","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s ‘pitifully impotent’ presidency torn apart as PR disaster spirals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A conservative commentator argued that President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, instead of seeming all-powerful, are instead appearing to the world as \u201cimpotent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s secret edge \u2014 and the one factor polls kept missing in 2024<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe state of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is a sort of moron-populist version of Chernobyl,\u201d wrote The Dispatch’s Nick Catoggio on Monday, referencing the Soviet Union\u2019s infamous mishandling of a nuclear power plant leak in Ukraine in 1986. \u201cIn both cases, the government\u2019s incompetence and corruption created a vexing ecological problem. And in both cases, the government undertook to cover up its culpability in the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

After adding that the nuclear meltdown in 1986 was more consequential than the Reflecting Pool\u2019s algae growth in 2026, Catoggio noted that the Reflecting Pool crisis occurred because the White House valued cronyism over competence.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead it awarded a no-bid contract for a quick fix to a firm owned by a Trump donor\u2014except that the quick fix, applying sealant to the pool\u2019s bottom, didn\u2019t solve the issue of water leaking between the concrete slabs,\u201d Catoggio wrote. \u201cDays after the renovation was finished, the pool had more algae in it than at any point in June over the last five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite using hydrogen peroxide and \u201cadvanced nanobubbler technology\u201d without killing the algae, Catoggio argued that Trump made himself look worse by blaming saboteurs without basis instead of his own ineptitude for the blue sealants cracking and being ripped off in chunks.<\/p>\n

\u201cFormer Fox News talking head turned U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro dutifully vowed zero tolerance for pool-peelers,\u201d Catoggio continued. \u201cAnd she meant it: One man arrested by Park Police on Friday claims he did nothing more than touch a piece of floating debris before the cuffs were slapped on. At last check, armed members of the National Guard had been hastily deployed to stand watch over a basin that\u2019s now almost as green as the Chicago River on St. Patrick\u2019s Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Catoggio concluded that the fundamental problem facing Trump is his own inability to get things done, whether in cleaning up the Reflecting Pool or winning the war he waged against Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween the war on algae and the war abroad, Trump has never looked more pitifully impotent than he does right now,\u201d Catoggio wrote. \u201cThe perfect metaphor for his first year back in office came when, without warning, he demolished the East Wing to make way for his precious ballroom. That episode captured the political zeitgeist of 2025: Americans had elected a caudillo who cared not a bit about the country\u2019s civic traditions and would bulldoze them\u2014literally\u2014to get what he wanted, whether the other branches liked it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more WSJ reporter won\u2019t put his own money in Trump Accounts \u2014 and says you shouldn\u2019t either<\/a><\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThe reflecting-pool idiocy is the perfect metaphor for his presidency in 2026, coinciding as it does with our national humiliation in Iran. Postliberalism promises effective problem-solving through energetic authoritarianism, but as things stand, not only can\u2019t the authoritarian in chief forcibly open the Strait of Hormuz, he can\u2019t even successfully clean a public pool in D.C. The zeitgeist has flipped.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not Catoggio\u2019s first harsh critique of Trump and his administration. Earlier this month he noted that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, despite being ostensibly as right-wing as Trump, refused to kowtow to him \u2014 and that this further reflects his waning power.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 10 years of degrading bootlicking obeisance by the president\u2019s many courtiers, it was startling to see someone who needs a relationship with Trump assert her dignity against his insults,\u201d Catoggio said regarding Meloni\u2019s harsh reply to Trump\u2019s insistence that she \u201cbegged\u201d him to \u201ctake a picture with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Meloni rebuked Trump by saying that neither she nor Italy begs for anything, Catoggio commented that \u201ccasually demeaning someone because he bears them a grudge is as instinctive to Donald Trump as applying bronzer or bloviating about \u2018strength.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cBut those who need to stay on his good side \u2014 like, say, every Republican official in the country \u2014 are doomed to follow the Ted Cruz career arc between 2016 and 2021, broadly speaking. That is, if Trump insults your wife, you find a way to let it slide and salute when he asks you to help him stage a coup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meloni refused to play along, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so the prudent, if pathetic, thing to do when an imperious postliberal goblin insulted you was to bite your tongue,\u201d Catoggio wrote. \u201cNot Meloni, though. She\u2019s had enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Kook heaven\u2019: Pro-Trump org descends into chaos as staff mysteriously resigns<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A conservative commentator argued that President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, instead of seeming all-powerful, are instead appearing to the world as \u201cimpotent.\u201d\u201cThe state of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is a sort of moron-populist version of Chernobyl,\u201d wrote The Dispatch’s Nick Catog…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump's 'pitifully impotent' presidency torn apart as PR disaster spirals - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2077\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump's 'pitifully impotent' presidency torn apart as PR disaster spirals - 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