Sunday Hopium - Trump Escalates In The Middle East, Throws ICE At Our Airports, And Gets An Ugly CBS News Poll

Our addled leader now has three Vietnams on his hands - tariffs, ICE/mass deportations, and Iran

Happy Sunday all. I ran away for a few days and head back to DC this afternoon. Was good to get away - need to do it more often!

Trump world was greeted by an ugly poll from their new ally, CBS News. A few key findings from the poll……

Two-thirds of the country not buying into the central premise of the Emperor’s New War:

People want the war to end now:

Strong, steady leader Trump is not:

Support for the war is declining:

And he and his agenda remain remarkably unpopular:

Another poll from a Trump-friendly outfit, the UK’s Daily Mail, had this headline on Friday:

The Mad King, in his infinite wisdom, and pathetic desperation, has decided to send the wildly unpopular and despised ICE into America’s airports tomorrow. What’s so remarkable about this is that The White House and Congressional Republicans have been in retreat on ICE. Noem and Bovino are gone, and they have made some initial concessions in the negotiations with Dems to fund DHS. In his effort to get confirmed Senator Mullin is floating further concessions with Dems. They know they need to as Mike Johnson said the other day “course correct” on immigration and mass deportation and put the murdering of Americans by ICE behind them…..

And yet both Senate and House Rs have refused to support Democratic bills to fund TSA, CISA and other parts of DHS not involved in mass deportation. Lines have grown long at airports. Terror attacks have been launched against Americans on our down soil while our counter-terrorism systems are hobbled. So while there are efforts to bring sanity to all this with Trump himself the default is always the “Maduro Model” - threaten, attack, and expect the other side to cave. It is what he has tried - and failed - to do in Iran. It didn’t work for Greenland. It isn’t working here either on DHS funding, and so, here, like in Iran, he irrationally escalates, and chooses to send ICE into the nation’s airports! Everyone in the GOP has to know this is a politically dangerous and reckless move at a critical juncture in the negotiations over DHS funding and getting Mullin confirmed…..

Meanwhile, our desperate and flailing leader threatened to bomb Iran’s civilian infrastructure if they did not open the Straits of Hormuz. In addition to be clear war crimes, here is how Iran is responding:

Iran has outplayed Trump, as Democrats have outplayed him on the DHS shutdown. In both cases, rather than taking a smart deal, cutting his losses, yielding to public opinion, and doing the right thing he escalates, lashes out, and demands the other side to YIELD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALL MUST YIELD TO THE MAD KING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I asked Claude AI to give me a definition of the “Escalation Trap,” or “Vietnam syndrome” as some call it. Here is what Claude provided:

The escalation trap (also called the “escalation of commitment” or “sunk cost trap”) is a well-documented cognitive and organizational phenomenon where decision-makers continue investing resources — money, time, lives, political capital — into a failing course of action because of what has already been spent, rather than making a rational assessment of future costs and benefits.

The core logic is irrational but psychologically powerful: “We’ve already invested so much, we can’t stop now.” The past investment (the sunk cost) becomes the justification for doubling down, even when the evidence increasingly suggests the venture is failing or the costs are becoming prohibitive.

Key features of the trap:

The deeper you go, the harder it becomes to exit. Each new investment raises the psychological and political cost of admitting failure. Leaders become personally identified with the decision, so reversing course feels like personal defeat or humiliation. Organizations and governments are particularly susceptible because admitting failure has public consequences — loss of credibility, political damage, accountability for past decisions.

Classic examples:

Vietnam is the textbook case — each administration escalated partly because withdrawing meant admitting the previous sacrifices were in vain. The Iraq War followed a similar pattern. Corporate history is full of examples — Concorde (hence “Concorde fallacy”), failed mergers, runaway IT projects that kept getting funded long after they were clearly broken.

Why it’s relevant to your work right now:

The Iran war context is almost tailor-made for escalation trap dynamics. Once military operations begin, the political cost of stopping rises with every casualty, every dollar spent, and every public commitment made. Leaders frame withdrawal as “letting those sacrifices be in vain.” Public support can erode — as the polling you’ve been tracking shows — while the political leadership feels more locked in, not less, precisely because of the mounting costs.

The trap is particularly dangerous when the original rationale for action was overstated, when the adversary proves more resilient than expected, or when domestic economic consequences start compounding the political damage.

What is so remarkable about all this is that it was so predictable. As we’ve been discussing Trump had an opportunity in his State of the Union to course correct on ICE/mass deportations, his tariffs, his global belligerency. He choose instead to double down. He illegally reinstated his destructive tariffs; is throwing both the ridiculous Mullin and ICE at airports at us; he recklessly and vaingloriously attacked Iran. Because Trump is so ignorant of history, so unwilling to listen to the few sane advisors around him, so incurious, addled, arrogant, impulsive, and narcissistic, he just keeps throwing himself and the country into the Mad Kingy “Escalation Trap” and now has at least three Vietnams on his hands - Iran, immigration enforcement, and his tariffs.

One could even argue there is a fourth - the failing SAVE Act.

And so here we are peeps.

More From Hopium

Trump Is Pushing America And The World Into A Dangerous Global Crisis

Friday Notes - Gas Prices Keep Rising, Trump Escalates, Rep. Smith A No On More War Funding

The War Must End Now

We got another big week ahead of us, so…….

Now, Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The Midterms, Competing In Red States and Red Places, Expanding The Map

Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $340,700 raised, $400,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate to all twelve of our endorsed House challengers with one click | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10) and learn more about the eight candidates we just added to our campaign here.

We will be meeting the rest of our newly expanded slate of intrepid House candidates in the coming weeks. It’s a great crew! This fundraising total includes funds already raised with our friends at FridayAction for a joint event we’re doing later this month.

James Talarico For Texas - $33,300 raised, $100,000 March 31st goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More | Watch my recent interview with Rep. Talarico

Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $52,300 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More. | Watch my new interview with Mary Peltola

Winning Ohio - $81,600 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party. Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue!

Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $89,6700 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper

Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $144,600 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $420,800 raised, $500,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, and catch interviews with 5 intrepid state party chairs leading us into battle this year.

Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties.

Advocate For The Hopium Agenda/Pass Resolutions Of Condemnation In Your Community/Sign Up For No Kings on March 28th

There are a few more ways to go to work in the coming days - call your leaders and advocate for elements of our working, ever evolving Hopium Agenda; bring resolutions that condemn our Mad King and lets facts be spoken to a candid world to your state or local government; sign up for a No Kings event and watch my new interview with Indivisible’s Ezra Levin, a driving force behind No Kings.

Here’s our working Hopium Post-Iran Disaster Agenda:

• Work To End This New Gulf War, And Trump’s Global Imperial Ambitions

• Make Clear We Support Ukraine and Europe, Not Russia

• Roll Back The New, Illegal Tariffs

• Rescind The Trump Tax Cuts, Claw Back The Extra ICE Funding

• Make The US A Clean Energy Superpower, Fight For True Energy Independence, And Lower Energy Prices For The American People

• Keep Fighting To Rein In ICE, End Mass Deportation

• End the War on Science, Health and Public Health

This week our calls should clearly focus on reining in the illegal war in the Middle East and ICE here at home, rescind the tariffs, and on blocking the “SAVE Act.”

Keep working hard all. We have a country to save and an election to win, together! - Simon