US President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House after arriving on Marine One as joint US and Israeli military strikes on Iran continue, with attacks against Iranian targets, in Washington, DC, United States on March 1, 2026.
Trump Is In Retreat, Big Time
Here’s the truth of the matter: When the president of the United States (and some of his top officials like Pete Hegseth) are in retreat mode, whether we know it or not, we’re in a different world.
As always, the Trump administration is setting ever stranger records for public “entertainment,” and yes, I certainly do have to put that word in quotation marks.
Only recently, Secretary of—you choose—War or Defense (I certainly know which I’d choose) Pete Hegseth made it clear that Nidal Hassan, a former US Army psychiatrist and American-born Muslim, who killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Ft. Hood, Texas, in 2009 (claiming to be waging jihad “for what he called the illegal and immoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”), would be executed by a military firing squad on December 3 and that the killing would—a first—be “live-streamed” for—obviously!—public entertainment. (The last time a member of the US military was even executed by firing squad was for desertion in France on January 31, 1945, only months before World War II ended in Europe.)
And just to put such a plan in perspective, these days, on this planet of ours, the only other two countries that regularly carry out public executions of capital sentences are Afghanistan and Iran. Even Saudi Arabia has stopped doing so (which should tell you something about the company the United States is now keeping).
Executioner-in-Chief Donald Trump is also now in retreat on almost every front imaginable, from global politics to the American version of the same.
In this country, nothing quite like this has happened since the public hanging of Rainey Bethea, a Black confessed rapist and killer, in Owensburg, Kentucky, in 1936, witnessed by an estimated 20,000 onlookers. Ever since then, execution as a public spectacle has been forbidden. But evidently, in the age of Donald Trump, nothing, however grim, is truly forbidden anymore, though, of course, the president did finally have to break down and, while not stopping the firing-squad execution, cancel its public screening.
In fact, in some strange sense, that public firing-squad execution, had it actually happened (and there certainly was opposition to it, even among congressional Republicans, though not, of course, from the president of the United States), would have been all too symbolic of the age of Trump and of a country that is distinctly going down, down, down on a planet that is, in fact, doing the same.
This may simply no longer be a Trumpian planet in any sense of the term. Give him full credit, of course. He’s been nothing short of amazing (or rather amazingly bizarre) during one and a half presidencies (so far), especially since, once upon a time, the very idea of him as president of the United States would have been the most ridiculous joke imaginable—or do I mean unimaginable? He should, in fact, be all too literally considered the living definition of imperial decline.
And yes, it’s true that Executioner-in-Chief Donald Trump is also now in retreat on almost every front imaginable, from global politics to the American version of the same. Don’t doubt for a second, for instance, that his party is likely to get clobbered in the upcoming November congressional elections, even though American billionaires are spending a fortune to help Republican candidates. After all, it looks like all too many of his potential voters might simply stay home, a phenomenon already labeled “the red undertow.”
Decline at Sea?
Globally, once upon a time, who would have even believed this version of the United States? Admittedly, there was that disastrous Vietnam War in the previous century, but still, this country remained a power beyond compare as its competitor, the Soviet Union, collapsed. These days, however, in the age (or do I mean the aging?) of Donald Trump, it’s down, down, down, and down again.
In fact, retreat now seems to be distinctly the name of the game. As a recent New York Times headline bluntly summed it up: “Trump’s Retreat: From the Gulf to Britain, American Forces Pull Back.” That, of course, was in relation to the war he launched against Iran which, if you happen to remember, was going to be victoriously ended within weeks. Seven months later, he’s talking about pursuing it yet again in a big-time fashion after the November congressional elections. Here’s how he explains it: “I stated, numerous times, that it would take 4-6 weeks to get rid of THE IRAN NUCLEAR THREAT, and I did it in one night!... the rest of the time is just to make sure it stays that way.”
It all makes sense now, right? And give him credit: Seven months later, there indeed is no Iranian nuclear threat (not that there ever was). In that sense he couldn’t have been more successful or, as he put it, “I am ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. We had no choice because we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
His very existence (twice!) as president of the United States suggests that decline has new meaning on a planet that itself may be going down in a big-time fashion.
Oh, now I understand, of course. (Who wouldn’t?) And under the circumstances, what a success his war has been!
Success and yet... once upon a time, “our” president certainly never would have guessed that, so many months after he launched his war, for fear of an Iranian attack, his administration would actually have pulled back a set of B-1 bombers from... no, not Saudi Arabia or Jordan (not faintly!), but Great Britain. Yes, those bombers were withdrawn from a base in England to bases in the United States, which couldn’t have been more victorious of him, could it? It fits perfectly with that TV show he (and I) once watched as kids about the US Navy in World War II, Victory at Sea.
And that tells you all too much about this increasingly strange planet (and president) of ours and just how Donald Trump and crew are taking down possibly the greatest imperial power ever in a big-time fashion.
It should also give you a sense of just how disastrous Trump’s war on Iran, which he claimed last spring would end “I think within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer, to do the job,” —and (it goes without saying) in victory, of course—has proven to be. These days, in fact, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are both suggesting that the war might last all the way through his second presidency.
Yes, Donald Trump is finally being pummeled on this planet of—well, is it ours or his?—and he’s undoubtedly soon going to be pummeled again, right here in the United States, a country with staggering numbers of nuclear weapons, in the upcoming November congressional races, where it will be beyond surprising if he and his party don’t go down, down, down.
Yes, whether he even knows it or not, he is now in retreat in a big-time fashion, including on that public execution. That includes, of course, his retreat from his recent comments about Los Angeles and San Diego being potentially lost to (assumedly) an Iranian nuclear weapon (that, of course, doesn’t exist) and that, were such a thing to happen, really wouldn’t matter to him. Yes, who among us would truly care if two West Coast, pro-Democratic cities were lost to Iranian nukes? Not “our” president, that’s for sure!
And let me just suggest that, after this November 3, President Trump is likely to find himself in retreat big time in American politics, too.
Here’s the truth of the matter: When the president of the United States (and some of his top officials like Pete Hegseth) are in retreat mode, whether we know it or not, we’re in a different world.
Honestly, the coming of Donald Trump as president of (not so long ago) the most powerful and dominant country on the planet gives imperial decline new meaning. Honestly (yet again!), once upon a time, it would have been hard to imagine any great imperial power, no less the United States of America, having someone like Donald Trump as president even in its era of decline.
His very existence (twice!) as president of the United States suggests that decline has new meaning on a planet that itself may be going down in a big-time fashion. Perhaps a future TV series about the US military in his presidency will be called “Decline at Sea.”
Retreat, ho!
We are at a crossroads
This country and this world are at a monumental crossroads. In a few short weeks, US voters will have an opportunity to beat back the forces of fascism and confront the billionaires who are rigging the economy, our media system, and our democracy, making it increasingly impossible for ordinary people to get by. We’re not just talking about the election. We’re talking about what must be done once these fascist elements are vanquished from power. We need a bolder set of solutions than what either major party has so far been willing to offer and a working-class movement ready to fight like hell for it. Trump didn't emerge from nowhere. The conditions that fueled MAGA authoritarianism were created by decades of radical neoliberal economic policies and a corrupt political system dominated by corporate interests. They slashed taxes on the super-rich, promising that the benefits would trickle down. They said giveaways to the corporate titans would make life more affordable for the rest of us. It was all bullshit. And when a bitter, betrayed populace searches for someone to blame, right-wing demagogues have little trouble finding scapegoats. People know when they're being lied to, but you won't hear any of this from the corporate media. Only independent journalism—powered and funded by people who believe in building a better world—can deliver truly trustworthy daily news. Our Fall Campaign is underway, and we need your help. To power our newsroom through the rest of the year, we need to raise $125,000 by midnight on October 31. So if you share our vision, please contribute whatever you can to sustain our work. |
The above piece, published here with permission, first appeared at Tom Engelhardt's substack page, where you can find more of his writing.
Engelhardt, was editor-in-chief of TomDispatch.com for over 24 years, is the author of numerous books, including: "A Nation Unmade by War" (2018, Dispatch Books), "Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World" (2014, with an introduction by Glenn Greenwald), "Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050"(co-authored with Nick Turse), "The United States of Fear" (2011), "The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's" (2010), and "The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond" (2007).
As always, the Trump administration is setting ever stranger records for public “entertainment,” and yes, I certainly do have to put that word in quotation marks.
Only recently, Secretary of—you choose—War or Defense (I certainly know which I’d choose) Pete Hegseth made it clear that Nidal Hassan, a former US Army psychiatrist and American-born Muslim, who killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Ft. Hood, Texas, in 2009 (claiming to be waging jihad “for what he called the illegal and immoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”), would be executed by a military firing squad on December 3 and that the killing would—a first—be “live-streamed” for—obviously!—public entertainment. (The last time a member of the US military was even executed by firing squad was for desertion in France on January 31, 1945, only months before World War II ended in Europe.)
And just to put such a plan in perspective, these days, on this planet of ours, the only other two countries that regularly carry out public executions of capital sentences are Afghanistan and Iran. Even Saudi Arabia has stopped doing so (which should tell you something about the company the United States is now keeping).
Executioner-in-Chief Donald Trump is also now in retreat on almost every front imaginable, from global politics to the American version of the same.
In this country, nothing quite like this has happened since the public hanging of Rainey Bethea, a Black confessed rapist and killer, in Owensburg, Kentucky, in 1936, witnessed by an estimated 20,000 onlookers. Ever since then, execution as a public spectacle has been forbidden. But evidently, in the age of Donald Trump, nothing, however grim, is truly forbidden anymore, though, of course, the president did finally have to break down and, while not stopping the firing-squad execution, cancel its public screening.
In fact, in some strange sense, that public firing-squad execution, had it actually happened (and there certainly was opposition to it, even among congressional Republicans, though not, of course, from the president of the United States), would have been all too symbolic of the age of Trump and of a country that is distinctly going down, down, down on a planet that is, in fact, doing the same.
This may simply no longer be a Trumpian planet in any sense of the term. Give him full credit, of course. He’s been nothing short of amazing (or rather amazingly bizarre) during one and a half presidencies (so far), especially since, once upon a time, the very idea of him as president of the United States would have been the most ridiculous joke imaginable—or do I mean unimaginable? He should, in fact, be all too literally considered the living definition of imperial decline.
And yes, it’s true that Executioner-in-Chief Donald Trump is also now in retreat on almost every front imaginable, from global politics to the American version of the same. Don’t doubt for a second, for instance, that his party is likely to get clobbered in the upcoming November congressional elections, even though American billionaires are spending a fortune to help Republican candidates. After all, it looks like all too many of his potential voters might simply stay home, a phenomenon already labeled “the red undertow.”
Decline at Sea?
Globally, once upon a time, who would have even believed this version of the United States? Admittedly, there was that disastrous Vietnam War in the previous century, but still, this country remained a power beyond compare as its competitor, the Soviet Union, collapsed. These days, however, in the age (or do I mean the aging?) of Donald Trump, it’s down, down, down, and down again.
In fact, retreat now seems to be distinctly the name of the game. As a recent New York Times headline bluntly summed it up: “Trump’s Retreat: From the Gulf to Britain, American Forces Pull Back.” That, of course, was in relation to the war he launched against Iran which, if you happen to remember, was going to be victoriously ended within weeks. Seven months later, he’s talking about pursuing it yet again in a big-time fashion after the November congressional elections. Here’s how he explains it: “I stated, numerous times, that it would take 4-6 weeks to get rid of THE IRAN NUCLEAR THREAT, and I did it in one night!... the rest of the time is just to make sure it stays that way.”
It all makes sense now, right? And give him credit: Seven months later, there indeed is no Iranian nuclear threat (not that there ever was). In that sense he couldn’t have been more successful or, as he put it, “I am ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. We had no choice because we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
His very existence (twice!) as president of the United States suggests that decline has new meaning on a planet that itself may be going down in a big-time fashion.
Oh, now I understand, of course. (Who wouldn’t?) And under the circumstances, what a success his war has been!
Success and yet... once upon a time, “our” president certainly never would have guessed that, so many months after he launched his war, for fear of an Iranian attack, his administration would actually have pulled back a set of B-1 bombers from... no, not Saudi Arabia or Jordan (not faintly!), but Great Britain. Yes, those bombers were withdrawn from a base in England to bases in the United States, which couldn’t have been more victorious of him, could it? It fits perfectly with that TV show he (and I) once watched as kids about the US Navy in World War II, Victory at Sea.
And that tells you all too much about this increasingly strange planet (and president) of ours and just how Donald Trump and crew are taking down possibly the greatest imperial power ever in a big-time fashion.
It should also give you a sense of just how disastrous Trump’s war on Iran, which he claimed last spring would end “I think within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer, to do the job,” —and (it goes without saying) in victory, of course—has proven to be. These days, in fact, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are both suggesting that the war might last all the way through his second presidency.
Yes, Donald Trump is finally being pummeled on this planet of—well, is it ours or his?—and he’s undoubtedly soon going to be pummeled again, right here in the United States, a country with staggering numbers of nuclear weapons, in the upcoming November congressional races, where it will be beyond surprising if he and his party don’t go down, down, down.
Yes, whether he even knows it or not, he is now in retreat in a big-time fashion, including on that public execution. That includes, of course, his retreat from his recent comments about Los Angeles and San Diego being potentially lost to (assumedly) an Iranian nuclear weapon (that, of course, doesn’t exist) and that, were such a thing to happen, really wouldn’t matter to him. Yes, who among us would truly care if two West Coast, pro-Democratic cities were lost to Iranian nukes? Not “our” president, that’s for sure!
And let me just suggest that, after this November 3, President Trump is likely to find himself in retreat big time in American politics, too.
Here’s the truth of the matter: When the president of the United States (and some of his top officials like Pete Hegseth) are in retreat mode, whether we know it or not, we’re in a different world.
Honestly, the coming of Donald Trump as president of (not so long ago) the most powerful and dominant country on the planet gives imperial decline new meaning. Honestly (yet again!), once upon a time, it would have been hard to imagine any great imperial power, no less the United States of America, having someone like Donald Trump as president even in its era of decline.
His very existence (twice!) as president of the United States suggests that decline has new meaning on a planet that itself may be going down in a big-time fashion. Perhaps a future TV series about the US military in his presidency will be called “Decline at Sea.”
Retreat, ho!
The above piece, published here with permission, first appeared at Tom Engelhardt's substack page, where you can find more of his writing.
Engelhardt, was editor-in-chief of TomDispatch.com for over 24 years, is the author of numerous books, including: "A Nation Unmade by War" (2018, Dispatch Books), "Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World" (2014, with an introduction by Glenn Greenwald), "Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050"(co-authored with Nick Turse), "The United States of Fear" (2011), "The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's" (2010), and "The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond" (2007).
As always, the Trump administration is setting ever stranger records for public “entertainment,” and yes, I certainly do have to put that word in quotation marks.
Only recently, Secretary of—you choose—War or Defense (I certainly know which I’d choose) Pete Hegseth made it clear that Nidal Hassan, a former US Army psychiatrist and American-born Muslim, who killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Ft. Hood, Texas, in 2009 (claiming to be waging jihad “for what he called the illegal and immoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”), would be executed by a military firing squad on December 3 and that the killing would—a first—be “live-streamed” for—obviously!—public entertainment. (The last time a member of the US military was even executed by firing squad was for desertion in France on January 31, 1945, only months before World War II ended in Europe.)
And just to put such a plan in perspective, these days, on this planet of ours, the only other two countries that regularly carry out public executions of capital sentences are Afghanistan and Iran. Even Saudi Arabia has stopped doing so (which should tell you something about the company the United States is now keeping).
Executioner-in-Chief Donald Trump is also now in retreat on almost every front imaginable, from global politics to the American version of the same.
In this country, nothing quite like this has happened since the public hanging of Rainey Bethea, a Black confessed rapist and killer, in Owensburg, Kentucky, in 1936, witnessed by an estimated 20,000 onlookers. Ever since then, execution as a public spectacle has been forbidden. But evidently, in the age of Donald Trump, nothing, however grim, is truly forbidden anymore, though, of course, the president did finally have to break down and, while not stopping the firing-squad execution, cancel its public screening.
In fact, in some strange sense, that public firing-squad execution, had it actually happened (and there certainly was opposition to it, even among congressional Republicans, though not, of course, from the president of the United States), would have been all too symbolic of the age of Trump and of a country that is distinctly going down, down, down on a planet that is, in fact, doing the same.
This may simply no longer be a Trumpian planet in any sense of the term. Give him full credit, of course. He’s been nothing short of amazing (or rather amazingly bizarre) during one and a half presidencies (so far), especially since, once upon a time, the very idea of him as president of the United States would have been the most ridiculous joke imaginable—or do I mean unimaginable? He should, in fact, be all too literally considered the living definition of imperial decline.
And yes, it’s true that Executioner-in-Chief Donald Trump is also now in retreat on almost every front imaginable, from global politics to the American version of the same. Don’t doubt for a second, for instance, that his party is likely to get clobbered in the upcoming November congressional elections, even though American billionaires are spending a fortune to help Republican candidates. After all, it looks like all too many of his potential voters might simply stay home, a phenomenon already labeled “the red undertow.”
Decline at Sea?
Globally, once upon a time, who would have even believed this version of the United States? Admittedly, there was that disastrous Vietnam War in the previous century, but still, this country remained a power beyond compare as its competitor, the Soviet Union, collapsed. These days, however, in the age (or do I mean the aging?) of Donald Trump, it’s down, down, down, and down again.
In fact, retreat now seems to be distinctly the name of the game. As a recent New York Times headline bluntly summed it up: “Trump’s Retreat: From the Gulf to Britain, American Forces Pull Back.” That, of course, was in relation to the war he launched against Iran which, if you happen to remember, was going to be victoriously ended within weeks. Seven months later, he’s talking about pursuing it yet again in a big-time fashion after the November congressional elections. Here’s how he explains it: “I stated, numerous times, that it would take 4-6 weeks to get rid of THE IRAN NUCLEAR THREAT, and I did it in one night!... the rest of the time is just to make sure it stays that way.”
It all makes sense now, right? And give him credit: Seven months later, there indeed is no Iranian nuclear threat (not that there ever was). In that sense he couldn’t have been more successful or, as he put it, “I am ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. We had no choice because we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
His very existence (twice!) as president of the United States suggests that decline has new meaning on a planet that itself may be going down in a big-time fashion.
Oh, now I understand, of course. (Who wouldn’t?) And under the circumstances, what a success his war has been!
Success and yet... once upon a time, “our” president certainly never would have guessed that, so many months after he launched his war, for fear of an Iranian attack, his administration would actually have pulled back a set of B-1 bombers from... no, not Saudi Arabia or Jordan (not faintly!), but Great Britain. Yes, those bombers were withdrawn from a base in England to bases in the United States, which couldn’t have been more victorious of him, could it? It fits perfectly with that TV show he (and I) once watched as kids about the US Navy in World War II, Victory at Sea.
And that tells you all too much about this increasingly strange planet (and president) of ours and just how Donald Trump and crew are taking down possibly the greatest imperial power ever in a big-time fashion.
It should also give you a sense of just how disastrous Trump’s war on Iran, which he claimed last spring would end “I think within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer, to do the job,” —and (it goes without saying) in victory, of course—has proven to be. These days, in fact, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are both suggesting that the war might last all the way through his second presidency.
Yes, Donald Trump is finally being pummeled on this planet of—well, is it ours or his?—and he’s undoubtedly soon going to be pummeled again, right here in the United States, a country with staggering numbers of nuclear weapons, in the upcoming November congressional races, where it will be beyond surprising if he and his party don’t go down, down, down.
Yes, whether he even knows it or not, he is now in retreat in a big-time fashion, including on that public execution. That includes, of course, his retreat from his recent comments about Los Angeles and San Diego being potentially lost to (assumedly) an Iranian nuclear weapon (that, of course, doesn’t exist) and that, were such a thing to happen, really wouldn’t matter to him. Yes, who among us would truly care if two West Coast, pro-Democratic cities were lost to Iranian nukes? Not “our” president, that’s for sure!
And let me just suggest that, after this November 3, President Trump is likely to find himself in retreat big time in American politics, too.
Here’s the truth of the matter: When the president of the United States (and some of his top officials like Pete Hegseth) are in retreat mode, whether we know it or not, we’re in a different world.
Honestly, the coming of Donald Trump as president of (not so long ago) the most powerful and dominant country on the planet gives imperial decline new meaning. Honestly (yet again!), once upon a time, it would have been hard to imagine any great imperial power, no less the United States of America, having someone like Donald Trump as president even in its era of decline.
His very existence (twice!) as president of the United States suggests that decline has new meaning on a planet that itself may be going down in a big-time fashion. Perhaps a future TV series about the US military in his presidency will be called “Decline at Sea.”
Retreat, ho!