Alan Zendell, June 9, 2026

If ever there were an epithet that described Donald Trump, it’s the title of this piece. Our arrogant, rude, egotistical president has a desperate need to be in charge, or at least to have all of his sycophants tell him he is. That mostly worked for him until he entered politics. And therein lies the fundamental flaw in his assertion, in 2015, that what America needed was a successful businessman to run the country.

There are multiple flaws in that argument. One is the questionable suggestion that Trump is a successful businessman. Making money is not the only criteria for reaching such a conclusion. Other things, like the respect and admiration of peers and subordinates, the sense that the person in charge possesses a moral center and compassion for the people whose labors are what is actually making the business successful are more important. By those measures, Trump is anything but a model of success. The level to which people who have worked for or with him despise and distrust Trump is remarkable.

In business, a hated leader is tolerated as long as they’re making money for their patners and investors. When profits turn into losses or businesses run into severe protests or legal challenges, corporate boards and shareholders are ruthless. Presidents and CEOs find out quickly that they’re as replaceable as soiled underwear. Corporations don’t worry about fairness, ethics, or the approval of the masses. Make enough enemies and lose your edge, and you’re gone.

It doesn’t work that way in government. In a well-functioning republic, no single individual can maintain the kind of control Trump craves indefinitely. Screw up as badly as Trump does, anger and insult people indiscriminately, and let everyone see his total lack of compassion, and eventually they’ll topple him. It took all of Trump’s first term, which ended in the debacle of the January sixth insurrection at the Capitol, for that to sink in.

But few people are as driven by greed and power-lust as Trump. He spent all of Joe Biden’s presidency plotting to overthrow our rules-based system and undermine our Constitution. That meant accepting the support of right-wing extremists who would prefer that America be a white male Christian oligarchy. In their arrogance, the Heritage Society, which wrote Project 2025, presented it to Trump as his only path to becoming the all-powerful president he dreamt of being, believing with enough money and chutzpah, they could slip their agenda past a sleepy, disengaged electorate and execute a political coup before anyone realized they’d been mugged.

The probability that Project 2025 would succeed was never high, but with an opposition party that constantly tripped over itself and an army of well-financed influencers, this was the best chance the plotters would ever have. For more than a year, Trump and his cronies ran roughshod over everyone, aided to a great degree by a supportive Supreme Court. But as almost often happens when narcissistic leaders, encouraged by their yes-people overreach, Trump’s delusions crashed headlong into reality.

Trump found out that he couldn’t call the shots on tariffs, and even a Republican party cowed by the fear of being primaried wouldn’t stand for the creation of a Nazi-like government police force. Even their craven self-interest had uncrossable red lines, and when Trump’s power-grabbing attempts to neutralize Congress got personal, he learned he was not invincible.

But the die had already been cast for the midterm elections. Independent voters who had swept him into office in 2024 abandoned him in droves, which caused Trump to trigger a gerrymandered redistricting war among the states. But any gains he made as a result weren’t nearly enough to offset approval ratings dropping toward 30%. Thus, as many people predicted he would when his prospects became desperate, he started a war with Iran, or more accurately, he allowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to manipulate him into starting one.

Trump obviously thought he could control Netanyahu, and he assumed, in spite of warnings by people in his administration who knew better, that he could bully Iran into a quick surrender. It turned out, however, that Trump couldn’t call the shots against people who were as driven and determined as he was. For Trump, this war is about bravado and showing the world how tough he is. For Israel and Iran, however, it’s about long-term survival, which is a far more powerful motivating factor. Neither Israel nor Iran is about to adopt Trump’s agenda, nor is either willing to let him call the shots.

Trump has crashed into the consequences of his own mental illness and incompetence. When one of his business ventures failed, the collateral damage was limited to places like Atlantic City, New Jersey. But when an arrogant president who is also the Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful military fails so spectacularly, we all pay a huge price.

We’re going to be paying for Trump’s failures for many years to come. So far, the world’s enmity toward America has been focused on Trump, but it’s clear as he inflicts damage on everything he touches, that if Congress doesn’t take back its constitutional power, the nation that everyone once revered will become a pariah.