Trump needs a war

“Today I am announcing that we are launching the largest-ever set of new sanctions on the North Korean regime. The Treasury Department will soon be taking new action to further cut off sources of revenue and fuel that the regime uses to fund its nuclear program and sustain its military by targeting 56 vessels, shipping companies, and trade businesses that are assisting North Korea in evading sanctions.” – excerpt from Trumps scheduled speech today during the Conservative Political Action Conference

Say what you will about him but Trump has proven he can accomplish at least two things, fire-up his base and change the news headlines. During his Presidential election bid his campaign spent very little on media purchases. Why? Because every time he opened his mouth the newspapers and television networks covered it. He is the King of diversions and distractions, honestly, he has a PhD in it. Never, in the history of this country has one man been able to manipulate a story line like Donald Trump.

Now, that isn’t to say what the press is writing about him is positive or beneficial to his “cause”, but if you have noticed over the last two years when something negative about him is dominating the news cycle, he tweets or says something typically asinine or stupid and that becomes the new hot topic.

I know that some of you can’t imagine he does this on purpose. You believe he just says stupid shit because, well, he is a dumb ass. I can promise you though, his efforts to change the daily news narrative is a cold and calculated endeavor. But he has a problem, a big problem named Robert Mueller.

You see special counsel Robert Mueller is operating in a vacuum. He doesn’t care what the headlines are, or what Sean Hannity is feeding the Deplorable nation. Trump can say or tweet all the stupid shit he wants to try to move the story off Russia. It won’t and he can’t sway Mueller or even get his attention. Mueller and his team are hunkered down, sealed tight, building a case, piece by piece and slowly, but surely, these pieces are beginning to lead to the main man himself, Donald J. Trump.

Mueller just filed new charges against former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. The indictment describes a “scheme” in which the two longtime business partners allegedly laundered $30 million, failed to pay taxes for almost 10 years and used real estate they owned to fraudulently secure more than $20 million in loans. And how does this involve Trump you ask? Part of the timeline of this “scheme” happened while both men were working for the Trump campaign. Piece by piece.

Short of firing Mueller, which would cause Trump a whole different set of headaches, his only other course of action is to try to change public opinion with tweets like; “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!” But guess what, it isn’t working. Obviously it is reprehensible that he even tried to save his own skin by using the deaths of 17 people as a talking point, but honestly are any of you surprised that he would?

So what does Trump need to do? How can Trump make a big splash across the headlines? How can he get The New York Times and The Washington Post reporters off of the Russia story and on to something else, any thing else? A good old fashion war should do it and who better to pick a fight with than the little Donald Trump of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.

Trump has a couple of problems with picking a fight with a country whose population is less than Texas, a war that will surely become a battle of nuclear rocket launches, and the biggest problem is stenciled on so many red baseball caps, MAGA. How does he sell the idea of spending billions, and risking the lives of millions, not just North Koreans but Americans as well to his populist, America first, Deplorable base? He thinks he has laid the ground work for an all out war against North Korea, but he hasn’t and he can’t sale it to Joe Deplorable down in Florence, SC and that is going to be Trumps undoing with his base.

For whatever reason, the Deplorable base has happily overlooked the millions Trump spends each weekend so he can play golf among “his people”. They ignore the millions his cabinet members spend on first-class plane tickets and trips for their families to exotic locations all in the name of “the nation’s business”. They have even turned a blind eye on Trumps escapades and payoffs to porn stars and Playboy bunnies, but a war with a tiny country across the Pacific ocean 5,000 miles away will be a tougher sale.

Trump needs a war and sadly, Trump wants a war and unfortunately given the persistent rumors that some of the most level-headed grown-ups in his administration may be on the way out,  national security adviser H.R. McMaster and chief of staff John Kelly, who will or can stop him?