Today in shutting down the containment grid:

So he's moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, what's the big deal? I mean other than recklessly upending seventy years of U.S. foreign policy and potentially setting off a wave of violence and distrust that could end any chance of a lasting peace in the region?

Yes, other than all that.

I read the wikipedia page...well, some
of it, making me more versed on the
subject than Trump seems to be.

What am I talking about? Here, let me explain. You see...wait, no, look, I really don't understand all the geopolitical nuances of the situation, but I do know that the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is rooted in an impossibly complex knot of religion, politics, national identity and decades of violence and that the President's move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the embassy there flies in the face of the rest of the world's efforts to maintain a status quo in which peace may some day be brokered.

So why in the name of hell is President Trump doing this over the objection of basically the entire planet? Because he promised the goons who voted for him he would. Goons who live here, half way around the world from Israel, in our many electorally over-represented red states where they'll never see the dire repercussions of their actions.

Fun fact: a voter in Wyoming's vote counts for 3.6 times that of a Californian.
So in many ways the electoral college can go fuck itself.

"Vote for me and I'll recognize the
crap out of Israel. Big fan. Big fan."

-Candidate Trump to the rubes

Apparently support for Israel among American Evangelicals is like super-high even though its political situation has exactly zero impact on their lives. So why do they care so much about where the U.S. keeps its embassy? If you said 'because Jesus, you'd be correct. According to this Pew Research poll, 82% of white American Evangelicals said 'yes indeedily doodily' when asked if they thought that God gave Israel to the Jewish people. Guess how many Jewish respondents agreed with this? Go on, guess? 40%. So this isn't so much about the Jews and the Palestinians so much as it's about the Ohioans and Minnesotans.

Sure, it sounds crazy, but you have to
admit, the four Horsemen are pretty metal.

And look, I'm not like a religious scholar or anything, but I gather that part of this whole American Evangelical interest in Israel has little to do with the people who live there and everything to do with Armageddon, which they're totally into. I don't know all the details, although that's apparently not a prerequisite, but my understanding is that Evangelicals support Israel because doing so will hasten the second coming, Judgement Day and the end of the world. Yup, they're voting eschatologically and if a buffoonish gameshow host can get them there, then so be it.

I don't think he, the President that is, even knows what he's doing. Like, at all. I think in the face of low approval ratings and increasing scrutiny from the Mueller investigation he just wanted a win and since this is something he can do unilaterally...blamo. And I mean that onomatopoetically. As in the sound of the explosions the people in the middle east can look forward to because our President wants to score some points with American Evangelicals who literally want to watch the world burn.

The most apt analogy I can think of here is that Trump is Walter Peck who, over the
objections of a room full of people who know what they're talking about, shut down
the containment grid and will then blame everyone else when shit goes sideways.