Donald Trump is an historic political comet. They don’t pass through our earthly universe often.
Thanks to detailed planning, loyal staff, and his vibrant comparison with an impotent predecessor, Donald Trump’s first two months have been an extraordinary political tour de force, including this weekend's welcome intense attacks on Yemen's Houthis.
The volume, speed, and scale of his initial achievements and policy launches have been overwhelming in a wide variety of welcome areas, especially border security and undoing numerous damaging aspects of Joe Biden’s limp legacy.
Trump’s shock and awe launch has left Washington’s leaderless Democrats running around in circles and into each other. See the GOP’s nifty maneuvering that caused the collapse of their avowed opposition to an interim budget.
It’s been left to liberal interest groups to mount desperate stalling actions in the courts.
But even there, the Trump administration has gone on the offensive. It’s suing Chicago and New York over sanctuary city policies that illegally protect illegal immigrants, even convicted criminals and gang members, from federal authorities implementing deportations.
Sympathetic media, of course, are tuning up the violins for sad, subversive stories about poor migrants lured here (in multiple millions) by Biden’s open border and even transported inland to avoid future detection.
However, there are now some simmering signs of developing concerns over the scale and pace of the Trump Takeover that could potentially threaten the continued determined destruction of Woke, the Deep State, and bloated government ranks. And put a tarnish on the promised "Golden Age."
Call it preventive. Those early signs can seem threatening in the long run to those of us cheering him on now.
We’re only just halfway through Trump’s First 100 Days, the traditional measuring stick of political honeymoons for presidencies.
Yet polls already detail some warning signs as public worries begin to seep in:
- Voters like cutting wasteful spending, but how far and deep will cuts go? (Don’t even whisper Social Security.)
- What’s with Trump’s abrupt apparent abandonment of Ukraine support and seeming sympathy for Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin?
- And the puzzling, erratic application of steep tariffs today, or tomorrow, or maybe next month. Any one of these taxes on imports can quickly threaten already inflated Bidenomic prices that November voters wanted lowered, not increased.
- Nervous stock markets have fallen sharply, attributed largely to the ongoing uncertainties of Trump’s tariffs and retaliatory steps by other countries. Billions of value in 401k's were wiped out by the financial turbulence. On Friday, gold prices exceeded a staggering $3,000 per ounce.
- Consumer confidence dropped for the third consecutive month.
These concerns have gone largely unaddressed so far, which is easy to allow now but much harder to repair if they're allowed to develop into embedded worries.
Trump has spoken often about the power of unpredictability, which can be helpful in diplomacy and war, keeping opponents off-balance. “We must as a nation be more unpredictable,” Trump declared in April 2016.
But unpredictability is not so helpful in domestic politics when the political future of your next 46 months of policies rests on holding or growing minute GOP congressional majorities in next year’s midterm elections, which historically hurt an incumbent president’s party.
After campaigning hard and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to become president, few are very fond of unsolicited advice from people who didn’t run that gauntlet.
That’s an understandable attitude that develops when everyone stands as you enter a room, when the Marine Band strikes up “Hail to the Chief,” and when you live in government housing with 24-hour servants.
So, this is not unsolicited advice. Call it maintenance.
One, tell Elon Musk to tone down his public talk. Everyone knows he plays Bad Cop for you, which is fine. But the federal government is not one of his obedient companies.
There is a vast amount of fat and waste in a federal budget with 2.7 million workers that totals $6.8 Trillion spending annually. People overwhelmingly applaud getting that out.
But Musk's enthusiastic, apocalyptic talk about gutting government can scare some of us who rely on certain parts of that same government every month and have yet to bank our first $343 billion.
Even if unfounded, if not assuaged, such fears can be easily fanned by those bloated employee groups facing the gutting and by their Democrat servants inhabiting elected office in a place you once called the Swamp.
At the moment, these and other fears are springing up like dandelions in my field. And they're going unanswered.
Two, why not address those fears directly? You’re good at addressing fears.
Of the 17 Republican candidates in 2016, you, as a Fifth Avenue billionaire, were the only one to hear and address the fears and angers of the Heartland.
They heard you. They voted for you. And last fall, even more of them did the same.
Explain yourself. Your plans. Every couple of weeks for a while. Your people are good. But no one possesses your stature or skills. At the moment, you own this presidential bully pulpit.
Last week, Maria Bartiromo asked about the possibility of a recession. Trump answered ominously, "I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big.”
The president could certainly elaborate on that.
He could explain his belief in tariffs. They do add costs to products and sound counterintuitive to lowering prices, which is one big reason Trump won.
Restoring U.S. manufacturing strength and jobs is an admirable long-term goal. But it was not high on voter priority lists last year. Lowering prices was. The president seems to believe that voters will put up with the economic discomfort of higher costs for an undetermined period now to bring manufacturing jobs back stateside eventually.
A long-term goal facing a looming short-term election verdict is a risky gamble. Laying out the goal and plan for anxious Americans would be very helpful.
Trump could explain his apparent trust in Russia’s leader. Putin is a killer whose domestic critics keep falling out of tall buildings, among other terminations with prejudice.
His country has invaded several others, seized provinces in Georgia and now Ukraine, and discarded treaties and signed agreements like used Kleenex.
This includes the Budapest Memorandum with the U.S. and Great Britain to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty if it surrendered its Soviet-era nuclear weapons, which it did. Putin invaded anyway in 2022.
Ukraine is not perfect. It’s not even 35 years into genuine independence. It’s fighting valiantly to keep it. NATO members have responded to your increased defense spending demands.
It’s no sign of weakness to explain yourself. Actually, it’s a strength.
One, it has the fragrance of humility, shows respect, and that you’re still listening to constituents. Even though you personally will never need them again. That’s an invisible attribute but more powerful than many realize.
And listening and explaining is what got your political life started so successfully, despite revelations that would have ended standard candidacies.
Two, explaining is also a sign of great strength because you’re confident people will understand once you do.
We do remember Biden’s arrogance. He never explained anything. In truth, he was incapable of explaining much beyond his favorite ice cream flavor.
He just complained that people didn’t understand or appreciate how successful he had been, especially on Bidenomics, which he touted as if it was good.
How’d all that work out for him, his party, and Ms. Harris? The good news is, it helped get Trump back.
Now, here’s the twist to this explanation idea. Do not do these little chats with Americans on TV with a bouquet of flags behind. Or from the Oval Office, like after the Challenger disaster.
Video is distracting and phony show biz. Just be yourself, in an audio recording. Ten or fifteen minutes in an easy chair at home in Mar a Lago casually explaining in simple terms for regular people these big decisions you’re making on their behalf. Release a photo afterward.
Your experience with Joe Rogan last fall showed you the exploding power and influence of podcast-like communications. Audio forces people to listen to actual words and ideas, not focus on your tie or wrinkles.
You were born a little late for appointment radio before television. I wasn’t. Audio taps into listener imaginations and possibilities much more effectively than video.
Another president tried this during a difficult time. Franklin Roosevelt invented Fireside Chats with Americans just eight days after taking office in 1933.
A possible recession was not the threat then. It was an actual Depression with capital D. Worry was not the word; national fear was.
Unemployment went up to 30 percent. Roosevelt closed all the banks at times. Some failed, swallowing millions of individual savings. And he launched the New Deal, a wide-ranging expansion of government and presidential powers that stirred fervent controversies.
In 31 evening chats during his presidency, Roosevelt explained the nation’s economic troubles in simple terms and then what he was doing about them to millions of worried listeners gathered around radio sets across the country. Two-thirds of all Americans tuned into the first one. Listen for yourself below.
As it turned out, the Democrat president got most of his New Deal programs through, including the controversial Social Security idea that's now become so sacred.
Not coincidentally, Roosevelt also got elected four times.