Republicans get their wishes
A political monkey’s paw
An old saying warns, “Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.”
That is a piece of advice that Republicans should have heeded before they sent Donald Trump back to the White House. Trump is enacting an agenda that Republicans are happy with, but the problem is that the rest of the country (as well as the rest of the world, but they don’t vote in our elections, despite what you may have heard) isn’t nearly as thrilled with it.
At first blush, it seemed like a Republican renaissance. Voters suffering Biden fatigue handed Trump a convincing victory that included majorities in both the House and Senate. Republicans were squarely behind Trump and gave him the cabinet and executive branch staff that he wanted.
That was his undoing.
Rather than a cabinet of grownup Republicans, Trump got a bevy of yes-men. Where we had John Kelly and James Mattis in the first term, we now have RFKJR, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and Pam Bondi. The current White House staff will not only not tell Trump “no,” they compete to tell him how brilliant he is.
Where has this amen chorus gotten us? You’ve seen Trump’s declining approval ratings, currently at an average of 40.2 , but a deeper insight can be gained from looking at the president’s approval on individual issues.
A new poll from Echelon Insights doesn’t break new ground, but it confirms what many of us already suspected: Americans have seen the Trump agenda in action and they don’t like it.
The poll starts with bad news for Republicans as it invites voters to choose the “biggest issue facing the country today.” The “cost of living” was number one at 21 percent, followed by “political corruption” and the “state of democracy” with 15 percent each. “Immigration” was fourth at 11 percent, and “jobs and the economy” rounded out the top five at 10 percent.
It looks bad when only one issue is nominally a Republican issue, and that one is a distant fourth. It looks bad, but it gets worse.
The pollsters asked about three specific issues, including immigration, after asking about Trump’s overall job approval, which was underwater by 41-57 percent in this poll, very near the national average. On each of three signature issues, Trump was also underwater. These included the economy (38-59 percent), foreign policy (also 38-59) and immigration (43-55).
My interpretation of these numbers is that people agreed generally with Trump that the Biden economy was bad, that the world was a scary place, and that illegal immigration was out of control. However, after a year of Trump and Republicans implementing their wish list, Americans are deciding that the Trump cure is worse than the disease. (This is true in a more literal sense for RFKJR’s Department of Health and Human Services).
People are now realizing that massive trade wars are not good for the economy, and that tariffs really are taxes. They now see that the world is a much scarier place with Trump threatening and starting innumerable wars. Americans wanted Trump to arrest and deport violent criminal illegals, but they aren’t happy when ICE arrests children, grandparents, and hardworking families. And people are definitely not happy when ICE and DHS detain and kill Americans.
It is important to understand that Republicans are mostly happy with the status quo. They still support Trump both overall (by 84-14 percent) and on the issues, although somewhat lower than a year ago. Even on foreign policy, where Republicans gave him his lowest marks (79-17), he still has overwhelming backing within the party.
I think the support from Republicans is why we haven’t seen Trump’s numbers drop even lower. The mostly-firm support from the GOP is holding Trump just above a floor of about 40 percent (although some polls have him lower). That could change.
The situation is unlikely to improve for Trump. The Iran war is proving to be a tar baby that is not only unpopular on its own but is also contributing to a slowing economy through rising oil prices. Oil permeates our society. Not only do we use it to fill our gas tanks, it is used to both make and transport many consumer goods. When oil prices go up, prices for almost everything go up.
And it’s looking like there will not be a quick resolution to the war. With Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz, Trump can’t end the war, but air and naval power alone can’t reopen the strait. It seems increasingly likely that the president will commit ground troops in an attempt to reopen shipping lanes. How long these troops will have to stay is an open question.
Another limb gets stuck in the tar baby.
The response of congressional Republicans to all this is to try to rein in Trump’s excesses and extend congressional control over Operation Epic Fury. JUST KIDDING! They would never do that!
Actually, Republicans are focusing on the 11-percent issue with their SAVE Act. Polling shows that most Americans support voter ID laws, but the SAVE Act is a deeply flawed bill that would require Americans to vote with a birth certificate or passport to show citizenship. The SAVE Act is DOA in the Senate, thanks to the filibuster, and Republicans should probably be thankful that voters won’t see what’s really inside the bill, but it is probably more valuable as a failure to rally the base.
Something else that could help Republicans is make a deal that would end the DHS shutdown and curb ICE’s worst tendencies. At this point, ICE is so unpopular that half the country wants the agency abolished, so reining in immigration enforcement and its growing toll of deaths and unlawful detentions and deportations could conceivably remove a negative for Republicans. Again, the problem is that all this is popular with Republican voters who would see retreat as a betrayal by squishes and RINOs.
At this point, it’s fair to ask whether anything could make Republicans quit Trump. Certainly nothing has since 2016, but we may be about to find out whether increasing numbers of casualties from an unpopular war (that Trump promised not to start), rising prices, and a falling stock market will finally make MAGA tired of Trump’s version of winning.
Oh yes, and the Epstein files are still out there.
Even without Republicans abandoning Trump, the stage is set for a disastrous midterm. The Democrats will almost certainly take the House, and it is increasingly likely that they will capture the Senate as well. If the war and economic devastation don’t cause the GOP to break with Trump, the midterm shellacking might (unless he rehashes claims of stolen elections).
And all this is due to Donald Trump and Republicans getting their wishes (including the many Republicans who were all in for attacking Iran). They should have listened to the old adage about being careful what you wish for, because they made the wish, and as H.L. Mencken warned in another aphorism, they are about to “get it good and hard.”
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