Don the Dunce Has Learned Nothing

When you’re as stupid as Donald Trump, the last thing you need is to learn the wrong lessons.

But that’s exactly what’s happened as a result of Don the Dunce’s deceptively easy bids for regime change in Venezuela—and at CBS.

Trump’s illegal kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro taught him that toppling a head of state was as easy as playing a video game from the comfort of a Situation Room recliner, and encouraged him to play again—this time, in Iran.

Similarly, Trump’s ouster of Stephen Colbert from his time slot at CBS emboldened him to depose another comic nemesis, Jimmy Kimmel, from his perch at ABC.

What Trump didn’t understand, however, is that Iran isn’t Venezuela—and ABC isn’t CBS.

In Venezuela, Trump found a toadying collaborator, Delcy Rodriguez, willing to do his bidding to stay in power. At CBS, Trump had the billionaire nepo-baby (and Eric Trump doppelgänger) David Ellison performing Olympian acts of self-debasement to smooth his acquisition of CBS’s parent company, Paramount.

David Ellison and Eric Trump, card-carrying members of The Lucky Sperm Club. (Getty Images)

But Don the Dunce’s efforts to change regimes in Iran and at ABC have proven more challenging.

Initially, it seemed he might succeed at both. Early airstrikes in Iran killed much of the Islamic Republic’s senior leadership, just as his attacks on ABC (amplified by FCC chairman/First Amendment-hater Brendan Carr) cowed the network’s parent company, Disney, into pulling Kimmel off the air.

Then things started going very, very badly.

Despite epic and furious pummeling by the US military, Iran’s regime not only survived, but became more militant—and, thanks to its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, more powerful.

Similarly, after outraged consumers cancelled their Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions, the House of Mouse restored Kimmel to his late-night throne—where he watched his ratings soar.

Now, because one of Kimmel’s jokes has angered Melania “I Never Knew Jeffrey Epstein Despite the Dozens of Pictures You’ve Seen of Us Together” Trump, her senescent hubby is taking another run at ABC. This time, his FCC quisling is threatening to conduct an “early review” of the licenses held by ABC’s eight owned stations.

On Tuesday, Disney responded dismissively: “We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels. Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is, as has often been said, the definition of insanity. It is also Donald Trump’s personal mission statement. (See: his latest indictment of James Comey.)

Will Don the Dunce somehow convince Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Disney to be like Delcy? I doubt it. Like the Atlantic City casinos Trump drove into bankruptcy, he doesn’t have any cards.

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