Donald Trump and the maga "tinkerbell" effect: Just clap your hands and lies become fake news

On the first day of Donald Trump's second term, he said, was a national emergency (at least according to the himself). On January) 20, 2025, he declared a "national energy emergency," pledging to tap into America's oil and gas reserves. 

Echo opinion essay published by Troy Farah in Salon and Yahoo news.com

As Salon reported, experts said the "energy crises" at that time, was a false alarm. 

At the time, the U.S. was doing fine with its fossil fuel production. The bigger problem, one that Trump continues to deny, centers on curbing emissions and addressing our planet's overheating problem.

Roughly 18 months later, things have clearly changed. The nation is steeped in an energy crisis of Trump's own making, largely due to his tariff agenda and illegal war of choice with Iran. 

Despite a flurry of vague timelines and a litany of lofty promises, it doesn't seem like we'll be out of the woods any time soon. 

Trump's kidnapping of Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, and the recent announcement that the U.S. will take control of the country's oil fields to the tune of some 65 billion barrels, smacks of desperation. Yes, Exxon Mobil has agreed to go along with the theft, but it may be more lip service to the president, as extracting oil from Venezuela would be extremely costly and risky compared to drilling domestically. At any rate, it will be a long time before we see the effects of those moves on gas prices, ethical and environmental ramifications aside.  (Meanwhile, the Venezuelean government owns those oil fields regardless of how much Trump talks about taking the oil...it's a gimmick.)

Nevertheless, Trump keeps making promises that require more than a little faith (IOW, they cannot pass the straight face test). 

Right before he jetted off to his sad little ego-boosting convention in Dallas, the Trump stopped to talk to reporters at Joint Base Andrews. They asked him about the still soaring price of oil and a timeline for the end of the Iran war. First, he claimed that the U.S. is winning the war, that Iran is in shambles and its economy had all but collapsed, and that the American military even has control over the Strait of Hormuz. The worst will be over, he said, immediately after the November midterm elections. Or maybe a bit later than that.

"Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward," Trump said on the tarmac. "They're going to be tumbling down and we'll get them down. I think for gasoline, we'll get them below 💲2 a gallon."

Don't get hung up on the timeline, he added. It'll happen when it happens! Just trust me and vote Republican. That's his pitch, anyway.

The last time gas was 💲2 a gallon was during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for oil was destroyed because many people were staying home to avoid spreading a deadly virus. I can still remember how blue the skies in California seemed during that brief interlude. Too bad air quality can't be like that all the time. I'm not wishing another pandemic on us, mind you. My point is there are always tradeoffs. Trump knows this — he's only gotten richer as gas prices have jumped, thanks to his investments in the industry. A recent report from Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee found that "Trump saw his wealth go up by as much as 💲15.5 million just through stocks he owned in oil and gas companies at the end of 2025."

It may not surprise you that Trump's prediction about a sudden drop in gas prices seems unlikely. This week, oil came in at slightly over 💲104 a barrel, the highest it's been since July, and on Thursday, diesel hit an average of $6 a gallon — for the first time ever. It goes without saying that the ripple effects this will have on shipping and agriculture, and thus food prices, will be profound. Trump may want to take a page from Europe, where fuel prices are also hitting record highs, leading to widespread protests.

All of this while the U.S. and Iran continue to trade strikes across the Middle East. The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that it had destroyed five Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for attacks on its warships, while Tehran hit back at American targets in Jordan, where at least 18 ballistic missiles were intercepted but no casualties were reported. Given this flare-up in fighting, reporters asked if there would be an end to this war. (IOW, has Iran surrendered yet❓)

"I think the war will end immediately after the election," Trump said, claiming that Iran "can't hold out any longer . . . They're desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice, weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon. All they want is a nuclear weapon. And if they had a nuclear weapon, the whole world is in deep trouble." (Iran has never had a nuclear weapon.)🤥🤥🙄❗

The immediate follow up question was about whether or not there will be a new "nuclear deal" with Iran, something Energy Secretary Chris Wright said earlier this week might not happen any time soon, if at all. "There may not be a nuclear agreement. It may be simply destroying their capabilities to do it. An agreement may await a next administration in Iran. 🙄We simply don't know that," he told ABC News on Sunday.

But Trump claimed he'd be "doing much more than a nuclear deal," before immediately admitting that he wasn't looking to negotiate at the moment. "Originally, I wanted to make a deal," he said. "We're so far down the line they have very little country left right now, so we're not looking for it. Yes, a negotiation could possibly happen but it's not something we're looking at. This war will end immediately after our election." (Ahhh, hmmm, wait, is this "yes"..."no"...."maybe"❓)

Isn't that convenient❓Both the Iran war and high gas prices are extremely unpopular among all voters, which virtually all political analysts predict could swing votes in favor of Democrats. 

Trump's blustering response to all this is to keep calm and vote MAGA. It'll all be resolved immediately after the elections or maybe months later. It's a coin flip, really. All you have to do is👏 clap your hands and believe❗

Clap your hands and lies magically become fake news❗

Despite offering absolutely no evidence for his claims, at least Trump called the Iran conflict a war, something Vice President JD Vance has been strangely reluctant to do. It's certainly possible that the Iranians are delaying an end to the war in order to hurt Republicans in the midterms, or they could even wait until Trump is out of office entirely before discussing an end to hostilities. 

But Iran's position arguably has more to do with Trump's volatile negotiating strategy than with some nefarious October surprise plot.

What we have here might be an example of the Tinkerbell effect, named for the "Peter Pan" character who could be resurrected from death by audience participation, i.e. belief in fairies. Psychologist Brittany McGeehan described it this way: "If you hold the belief that the power of your belief has an impact on your situation, you will increase your autonomy. Rather than becoming a victim to life, you will begin playing an active role and, therefore, start taking positive steps forward."

I don't know if that's great life advice or not, but it certainly feels germane to the Trump administration's strategy. Just saying and believing something will happen will make it happen, right❓ Who would put it past this president to embrace woo-woo manifestation as domestic and foreign policy❓ There are other conclusions we might draw, of course, such as that the president actually has zero control over the situation, and that things are likely to get more expensive and more explosive before they get better. Maybe if we all hold hands and close our eyes, we can manifest a collective reality check for Donald Trump: He lost this war long ago, and his inability to recognize or admit that truth is what's really choking the economy.

A version of this essay first appeared in Crash Course, Salon's free morning newsletter. 

Donald Trump is capable of taking any nefarious and illegal actions to stay in power and not go to prison

Echo opinion letter published in the Sun Sentinel a South Florida newspaper:

Anything to stay in power

It’s frightening 😱that our so-called president is attempting to buy the upcoming election with an offer of 💲5,000 to every adult if his party maintains its grip on Congress. 

That he’s attempting to do this is not surprising, of course, because he has shown himself capable of taking any nefarious action to stay in power and not go to prison — similar to his buddy, Netanyahu.

The fright I feel comes not just from the possibility that this attempt to bribe the American people could work, but from the profoundly disturbing level of ignorance among too many of our fellow Americans who could allow it to work.

That Trump has so many entrenched followers is very 😟worrisome.😥

My hope is, this will rightly be proven illegal, not to mention insane, that we would borrow from ourselves and hand us unearned money as we continue down the road of destroying our democracy. 

We must come to our senses and get this sick man out of office by using the 25th Amendment immediately,❗ or lose everything we have built over 250 years. We must act!

From Rich Soskis, in Havana, Florida

Thank you and "we apologize" - Messages from Americans to our friends in Gander Newfoundland

A New York Times guest opinion essay by Glynnis MacNicol

This Tiny Canadian Town Took In Americans on 9/11. It Would Again.

GANDER, NL:  The gift shop in the North Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland, sells a T-shirt emblazoned with the numbers nine and 11. The ones evoke the twin towers of the World Trade Center and are shaded in with flags: one American, one Canadian. 

Below is written “Beyond Words,” and below that “Gander - Canada.”

It’s a jarring image to encounter so far from ground zero. Gander sits some 1,100 miles northeast by air of New York City, yet the attacks that happened 25 years ago on Friday hit this tiny slice of Canada profoundly. When the airspace over the United States was shut down that day, 38 passenger planes that were in transit over the Atlantic landed here, nearly doubling the population of the town in a few short hours. Residents rallied and housed and fed close to 7,000 stranded and scared passengers over the following days. It was — and remains — an inspiring show of unconditional generosity and support from one country toward its closest ally in a time of crisis. The tale was even turned into a Tony Award-winning musical, “Come From Away.”

Things feel very different today. I landed in Newfoundland just as news broke that Prime Minister Mark Carney had pulled out of tariff negotiations with the United States, later telling reporters, “You’re at war when you’re attacked, and we got attacked.” 

The good will and unity celebrated in Gander suddenly seemed a distant relic.

Donald Trump’s trade war with America’s northern neighbor has produced innumerable headlines on Canadian rage — compelling because they are so at odds with Canada’s reputation for being nice. Canadians are famous for starting sentences with “sorry.” 

But nice is too often mistaken for being easygoing, and Canadians have not taken Trump’s insults lightly. And while the anger is real, Canadian feelings toward the States are more complicated than the rage narrative suggests.

Perhaps no place captures the unique, lopsided intensity of this relationship, nor the strange turn it’s taken, like Gander.


These days, instead of Americans seeking shelter, the people in Gander have been encountering, according to almost everyone I spoke with, an entirely new phenomenon: apologizing Americans.

No one comes to Gander accidentally. The town is in the northeastern part of the province of Newfoundland, which is so far east into the North Atlantic that it occupies its own time zone: one hour and a half ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Gander’s airport, a marvel of midcentury architecture, was once the largest in the world. Before jet travel advanced to longer-haul flights, planes routinely landed there to refuel, and the airport hosted a glamorous array of stars including Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis Presley, Albert Einstein and Muhammad Ali.

These days there are only about five daily flights into Gander. The more reliable way to arrive is to drive the more than three hours up from the provincial capital, St. John’s, along the Trans-Canada Highway, past signs for towns with names like Come By Chance and Little Heart’s Ease and glimpses of the ocean along the wild Newfoundland coast. I was cautioned not to make the trip at night for fear of hitting a moose.

Even on a Saturday afternoon in August, the height of tourist season, Gander evinces a drowsy small-town energy. 

On Sundays, locals congregate at Rosie’s Restaurant and Bakery, which serves both a Jiggs dinner, a traditional Newfoundland boiled meal of salted beef and vegetables, and a cookie called Moose Farts. The arts and culture center is home to an annual production of “Come From Away,” which draws visitors from across Canada and around the world. Each year the town commemorates September 11, a bigger event this year because of the 25th anniversary. Local schoolchildren are part of the production.

Size notwithstanding, Gander has long been more accustomed to taking in people from “away” than many other places. In addition to the town’s history as a fuel stopover, its residents have assisted stranded passengers on other, less storied occasions.

During my weekend there, at the height of trade war talk, there remained no question that the citizens of Gander would still be willing to help Americans in a time of crisis.

“We would probably do the same thing,” said Brian Day, who works as a porter at Sinbad’s Hotel. On September 11, he was working at the KFC, where he spent 22 straight hours making food for the stranded passengers. “You help your fellow man. Newfies are good people,” he said, using a nickname for Newfoundlanders. “We would treat a stranger like we knew them all our lives.”

“Trump is a bully,” Mr. Day added. “Time for him just to go away.” I heard versions of Mr. Day’s comments from those who had been teenagers and adults, and even babies, that day: It’s the president, not the people.

“I don’t think people have anything against people from America,” Amanda MacPherson told me as I was waiting at the theater to buy a ticket to that night’s performance of “Come From Away.” 

Ms. MacPherson was a teenager in 2001. She helped turn her high school into a temporary shelter and served stranded passengers food for days.

Canadians may have an easier time than citizens of other countries separating Americans from their government. That’s partly because many Canadians, until this administration at least, spent a lot of time in the States. 

A short list of reasons to cross the border (used to) include: grocery shopping, visiting family, sports events. There’s also the television connection: Canadians get their American TV through local affiliates. As a child growing up in southern Ontario, where more than a third of the country’s population lives, I had a strangely extensive knowledge of Buffalo.

Even so, Canadians were not quite prepared for the sudden change among Americans now landing in their midst.

Charlotte Brown, who works at a coffee shop and is too young to remember September 11, told me it’s not unusual these days for visitors from the States to lead with something like: “I’m American. I promise I’m not with them. I’m so sorry. It’s not our fault.” 

Brooke Gidge and Tamara Oxford, who were working the desk at the Gander Information Center when I arrived, confirmed the “American apology tour” was now the norm.

It’s a strange experience for Canadians, citizens of a country accustomed to being left out of America’s perception of itself and of history. Despite the close cultural and physical ties, America’s general obliviousness toward its northern neighbors has long been a source of exasperation, frustration, insecurity, identity crises and comedy. (Though it’s doubtful even Canada’s long-running satire show “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” or “South Park” in its “Blame Canada” heyday could have dreamed up “Lake America.”) Canadians, despite fighting heroically alongside the Americans and the British on D-Day, helping rescue Americans during the Iran hostage crisis and joining the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, are rarely noted in America’s retelling of these events.

If Trump has turned America into a nation of apologizers, he’s also making it an object of pity for the next generation of Canadians — a far more dangerous emotion in the long run than rage.

“I feel sorry for all the young women who have to live there,” said Ms. Oxford, referring to women’s shrinking reproductive rights in the United States. For Ms. Oxford and Ms. Gidge, who were both born after September 11, the date has become a historical footnote. (“It’s big for the older generation,” Ms. Oxford told me with a shrug.) They have spent more than half their lives next door to an America dominated by Trump, she said: “Last summer you guys had fires, and we were the first people to send over aid, and now you’re complaining about the Canadian wildfire smoke.”

It’s a reflection about how diminished the idea of America has become outside its borders. While older Canadians have stronger memories of a different United States, and sometimes seem to be operating under the belief (or hope) that bygone America will return after Trump’s term ends, the younger people I talked to in Gander have no such experience to return to.

These days expectations have begun to shift: Americans are moving into a future where they will have to earn the good will that used to come so easily. That’s as true in Gander as it is elsewhere in Canada.

But Ms. Gidge still extended a hand. “If you actually respect our country,” she said, “and you’re kind and talking to us, we would, in my opinion, love to have you.”

Reader response from Nova Scotia:  I was so proud that we could help our neighbors during this terrible time, and I know that we will always come to each others aid in times of disaster because that is what good neighbors do. But the USA that I grew up knowing is gone, and I don't think it will return, even when Trump is gone. This is the new reality, as Mr. Carney said, we can't trade on nostalgia for what we used to have, we have to seek new allies. It was good for a long time, but we can't go back.