Hey, Donald Trump, you just launched a war that you’re losing, that’s costing you millions of supporters, that’s tanking your standing among even Republicans, that has the likes of Alex Jones accusing you of contemplating "genocide" and Tucker Carlson labeling your comments "vile on every level." What are you going to do for an encore?

Hey, I know. How about breaking up NATO and trying for regime change in Cuba?

He may, he may not. Who ever knows with this guy? But both are live possibilities. Trump threw a tantrum about NATO this week, issuing an "ultimatum" to European countries to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and bellyaching about their general lack of support for his war. Cuba is largely under a U.S. blockade that has resulted in massive energy shortages. A month ago, before the reality of Iran had quite set in, Trump bragged that Cuba was next, saying, "Cuba is going to fall pretty soon, by the way." Just yesterday, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said he wasn’t going anywhere.

Here’s the important thing to understand about Trump at this particular point in time. He does not think like a democrat (small d). He thinks like a dictator. A democrat who understood his obligations in a democratic system to the voters who put him in office would stop and think: Gee, the people don’t approve of what I’m doing. Maybe I should pull back a little. And who knows—maybe he will. There are peace talks with Iran this weekend in Pakistan, even though Iran is walking into them with a 10-point plan that Trump (and Benjamin Netanyahu) want no part of. But there actually is precedent for Trump seeing that what he was doing was unpopular—the ICE disaster in Minneapolis, most notably—and making a course correction.

Granted, I’m pretty hard-pressed to think of other situations in which he’s responded to public opinion. America doesn’t like anything he’s doing, except on sealing the border. Otherwise, he’s in the tank. And by the way, I alluded above to his weak numbers among Republicans: In one recent poll, he’s down to 81 percent among Republicans. That may sound high, but in fact, for that particular category, it’s low. A president’s support within his own party ought to be close to or above 90. Here’s a little context. The 1988 presidential election between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis was a blowout, right? Right. Dukakis got 83 percent of Democrats’ votes. And he got shellacked. That’s what 80-ish percent among your party leads to.

But even as the walls close in on him, Trump is no more likely to think like a democrat. He will think like the dictator he imagines himself to be. He will think, as dictators do, about three things: To the extent that he cares what the public thinks, he will focus his thoughts on how best to distract their attention and get them thinking about something else; he will think about ways to clamp down on dissent (and more specifically in this case, leakers); and finally, and never to be forgotten with this grubby mountebank, how to make a buck off the current mess.

Let’s break these down. The first thought is the one that will carry Trump to try something with Cuba, or to try to bust out of NATO. He needs headlines that aren’t about Iran. But he also needs headlines that start "Trump moves to" and "Trump declares."

That’s what matters. It scarcely makes any difference whether these moves are popular. Busting up NATO would of course be monstrously unpopular (and the president cannot simply leave NATO, though laws haven’t stopped him before). Toppling the Cuban regime might in fact be somewhat popular, depending on how it goes. But again, we’ll need to see what China and Russia have to say about that before the final verdict is in. It is liable to be more complicated than Trump imagines, simply because these things usually are.

The second thought is one to take very seriously right now. Zeteo’s Asawin Suebsaeng reported this week that Trump is directing a furious hunt for people who leaked info to The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan for that huge piece about how Trump decided to start this war. The piece is actually an excerpt from their upcoming book, which is expected to contain still more embarrassing details about the Trump regime. "In conversations with close aides and advisers, President Trump has loudly demanded to know who in his Cabinet or his team blabbed" to the reporters, Swin wrote. This is the sort of thing that obsesses dictators.

And finally, never forget that Trump is always on the lookout for his next swindle. Coming up on April 25 is a luncheon at Mar-a-Lago billed as "the most exclusive crypto & business conference in the world." The announcement of the luncheon jacked up the price of the $Trump meme coin for a minute. It’s not 100 percent certain Trump will be there. But where else would he be? Maybe the golf course. 

Consider this week in full. The abominable Easter Sunday social media post that dropped the f-bomb and mocked Islam. The far more abominable post two days later about destroying one of history’s most accomplished civilizations. The complete and utter backing down from it hours later. The phantom ceasefire, which Netanyahu obviously intentionally wrecked. The phony peace plan, on which the belligerent nations are miles apart. Anemic economic growth (0.5 percent, and yes, that’s point-five). Inflation above 3 percent.

And perhaps most of all, Trump’s wife appearing to throw him under the bus. Not that she’s any hero. But she’s pretty clearly preparing for the day when the Epstein files are made public and she may have to cut bait, depending on what’s in them.

To any other president, this would be the time to straighten up and fly right. To this one, it’s the perfect time to blow up the most important and durable military alliance in the history of the human race.

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March 27 quiz: "Remove your shoes, please!" On the pleasures of U.S. airports.

1. What’s the oldest continuously operated airport in the United States, dating to 1909?

A. Flushing Airport, New York (now La Guardia)

B. Islip Airport, New York (now Long Island MacArthur)

C. College Park Airport, Maryland

D. Fairbanks Airfield, Alaska (now Fairbanks International)

Answer: C, College Park Airport in Maryland. Surprising, eh? The website boasts that it’s the oldest continuously operated airport not just in the United States but in the world! It was established as "the military demonstration site for the Wright brothers," whatever exactly that means. 

Related: Near where I live in Montgomery County, there used to be an airport called Congressional Airport, which I gather was pretty busy in the 1920s and ’30s and was used, as the name suggests, by members of Congress flying back to their districts on weekends. It was under consideration for a major commercial airport in 1938, but FDR settled on Gravelly Point, Virginia, which is the current site of what we liberals of a certain age still insist on calling simply National Airport, and which was the right call as it’s so much closer to the Capitol. The old Congressional Airport site, along Rockville Pike, is now Congressional Plaza, or actually two adjacent Congressional Plazas, which are home, inevitably, to a Container Store, an Aldi’s, and so on.  

2. What’s the busiest airport in the U.S.?

A. Chicago O’Hare

B. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson

C. New York JFK

D. Los Angeles LAX

Answer: B, Atlanta. It’s counterintuitive, especially set against my other three choices above, but by now everybody knows this, don’t they? 

3. What’s the legal opening time for bars at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport?

A. 7 a.m.

B. 6 a.m.

C. 5 a.m.

D. 4 a.m.

Answer: Yes—it’s D, 4 a.m.! My source is this Atlantic article (paywalled), which helpfully explains the reasons why normal drinking hours don’t count in airports. One answer is, "Hey, I’m on vacation!" But I think it’s mostly explained by the fact that around half of Americans profess to at least some nervousness about flying.

4. What is generally considered the most hated airport in the U.S.?

A. Dallas-Fort Worth

B. Boston Logan

C. Fort Lauderdale

D. Newark Liberty

Answer: D, Newark Liberty. Here’s one of many articles saying why. I was last there in 2014, and my experience was pleasant. I remember the restaurant had pop-up screen menus and no waiters, so you could order and pay up as fast as you please. Whatever damage it may have done to the unionized workforce there, it was awfully handy and pretty advanced in 2014, at least for this country. It’s still advanced now, from what I can see.

5. Match the airport code to the city.

Answer: These were fairly tough. Dulles is IAD; I’d figure a lot of people know that. Cincinnati is CVG, so at least it starts with a C. But Orlando is MCO and Nashville is BNA. Weird. The Orlando designation comes from its history as McCoy Air Force Base.  

6. Of America’s 35 largest airports, three still allow indoor smoking. Where are they?

A. Las Vegas, Miami, and Nashville

B. Las Vegas, Raleigh-Durham, and New Orleans

C. Las Vegas, Detroit, and Boston

D. Las Vegas, Houston, and Honolulu

Answer: A, Las Vegas, Miami, and Nashville, according to this. Las Vegas does because of course there’s gambling in the airport, and where there’s gambling, there’s smoking. Why Miami and Nashville, I have no idea.

This week’s quiz: "It might as well be …" Things having to do with spring.

1. When and where did people start calling spring "spring"?

A. 1400 BCE in Egypt

B. 200 C.E. in Rome

C. 900s in Belgium

D. 1500s in England

2. The date of Easter is, of course, movable (it’s the original "movable feast"). It comes on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. When was this formula accepted as the way to determine the date of Easter?

A. The Council of Nicaea, 325

B. The Rome Plenary, 614

C. The Gallipoli Conclave, 951

D. The Diet of Worms, 1521

3. What ancient landmark was built to face precisely due east on the date of the vernal equinox?

A. The City Gate of Machu Picchu

B. The Great Sphinx

C. The Caryatids of the Acropolis

D. The Eastern Doors of Angkor Wat

4. Below is the first stanza of a poem called simply "Spring," by which British poet?

Sound the flute!

Now it’s mute!

Bird’s delight,

Day and night,

Nightingale,

In the dale,

Lark in sky,—

Merrily,

Merrily merrily, to welcome in the year.

A. Christopher Marlowe

B. William Wordsworth

C. William Blake

D. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

5. Al Jolson first made this song famous in 1921, but subsequent versions were recorded by such luminaries as Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, NRBQ, and Bugs Bunny.

A. "It Might as Well Be Spring"

B. "April Showers"

C. "April in Paris"

D. "Spring Is in the Air"

6. True or false: Children tend to grow faster in spring.

7. You may not have noticed, but partly as a result of climate change, the United States this current spring is experiencing record-breaking drought. What percentage of the continental U.S. is currently under drought conditions, at least as of March 24?

A. 34.45

B. 39.56

C. 44.44

D. 46.97

I wanted to end with a happy question, but hey, the world is the world, my dudes. Answers next week. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com.

Also: My novel will be in bookstores later this month! Killing Baby Hitler opens in the future, when some scientists have unlocked the secret to time travel. After much hand-wringing, they decide to use this power to send two of their number back to 1889 Austria to do the deed, and, well, hijinks ensue. It’s quite funny, if I may say so, and a dark commentary on our own grim times. Kurt Andersen compares it to Vonnegut, and Joseph O’Neill (Netherland) says, "Michael Tomasky has produced an urgent, darkly magical fable." Not bad!

Order it here. And please, order it from the publisher, not from Mr. Bezos. And dig that awesome cover by Matt Mahurin!

—Michael Tomasky, editor 

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