“Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true” is a proverb often attributed to Aesop’s Fables. It is a timeless cautionary phrase emphasizing that attained desires can bring unforeseen, negative consequences.”
The prevailing question: does President Trump have popular support for what he is doing? I ask this question while the various analysts dissect the war and its consequences. Because, make no mistake, when the President bypasses Congress (the so-called people’s representatives), the consequences are on him. And, his future.
The President is doing a lot. Maybe in this scrum of actions there is a hidden, yet strategic agenda, but I can’t discern one. And putting a risk factor on his leadership initiatives, with ten being the highest risk, I would put his risk profile at a 9.5.
We are now engaged in war with Iran. We are learning, once again, that history and words and theology matter in the Middle East.
At home the Congress has been presented the Trump budget and it is long on defense spending and abysmally short on how to close the deficit or even continue to fully fund entitlement programs. Does borrowing have no consequences?
The Congress, of course, cannot even resolve the appropriations request for fully funding the Department of Homeland Security. The President is now appropriating by Executive Order. Where does that authority show up in the Constitution?
The overarching agency of government, the Department of Justice, is now being run by the criminal defense attorney who represented Trump before he was elected to a second term. Relatedly ICE agents are still masked up looking like Iran’s IRCG (The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful, elite military branch of Iran’s armed forces).
And, on the justice side of things, the President showed up at The Supreme Court to stare at the Justices who were hearing arguments in the Birthright Citizenship case that most believe he will lose. Attacking an institution with constitutional power is perverse on several levels.
NATO? Well the President does not like its independence or most Members defense spending and has strongly hinted that he intends to take the United States out of this protective coalition. NATO defeated the Soviet Union, but Trump doesn’t like the way it treats him?
So let me ring the bell: public opinion polls show the President at a historic low with approval hovering in the 33 to 39% zone. And Democrats, absent a cohesive coalition of interests, are winning election after election.
The most disconcerting, indeed maddening, aspect of this slide is the President’s insistence on playing the “us against them” card. ICE masked and aggressive. Birthright citizenship no longer applicable. And, if you don’t agree with some facet of his leadership, you are a “lunatic” or worse. On Easter Sunday he even used the F-word in a post on his website and referred to Iran’s leaders as “crazy bastards.”
Trump in that respect is old school. Today criticism is often symbolic—imagery, emojis, video clips, AI generated pictorial bombast replacing words. Trump however, almost daily, clutters his Truth Social website with vitriol. Words matter and he has weaponized them. Enemies store words and then use them destructively.
The President, in a undisguised act, seeks to be recognized as the equal of Abraham Lincoln. I will leave it to historians to grade Trump and, as they do, here are some questions that will probably be asked.
Are our institutions of self-governance stronger or weaker? What is the status, before and after Trump, of the United States of America in the world? Does our country continue to enjoy a reputation for morality? Do we still enjoy top credit ratings that keep interest rates low? Do we still have international alliances that protect us?
As noted, historians will write the chapters years from now. But the voters in the 4th Congressional District of Kentucky, will provide a contemporary judgment.
President Trump has made Congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican, who has from time to time dissented from his policies, a target in the Republican primary to be held on May 19th. Trump has called him an enemy. He has activated his financial supporters to back his opponent. If Massie wins, Trump’s trajectory toward lame duck status accelerates with the Mid-Term elections only months away.
I sometimes wonder, if you were a contestant on The Apprentice and were fired, do you feel better now?
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