After all that Donald Trump has put America through, he owed the country a good laugh. Recently, he delivered spectacularly, if unintentionally. Trump teased a “major announcement” that turned out to be a return to his grifter roots. This time he was hawking not worthless college degrees or failing casinos but digital images of himself in various heroic poses (cowboy, astronaut, superhero).
The sound of dropping jaws was palpable throughout MAGA world. If Trump’s earlier suggestion of suspending the Constitution to return him to the presidency didn’t convince his remaining supporters that this man belongs nowhere near power, there are promising indications that perhaps this latest evidence of untethered clownishness finally will.
The twice-impeached former president is running for that office again, though evidence of an actual campaign remains elusive. So speculation was rampant when Trump posted on his Truth Social site recently: ” AMERICA NEEDS A SUPERHERO! I will be making a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT tomorrow.”
“Will he announce a third party run? House Speaker bid? His running mate?” tweeted one breathless conservative. Others speculated he would announce he was accepting fellow billionaire narcissist Elon Musk’s invitation to return to Twitter.
What no one predicted was that Trump meant the “superhero” reference literally. What he unveiled — in a bizarre video announcement in which he declared himself a better president than Lincoln or Washington — was a line of digital “trading cards” depicting Trump in various heroic, muscular settings. Including one with lasers coming out of his eyes.