OPINION:
Is President Trump trying to lose the midterm congressional elections? Further, is he actively attempting to sabotage the Republican Party? Even further, does he really care what happens to America (other than getting a triumphant arch built to honor … himself)?
It might be one of the greatest ironies of modern political history that the Republicans surrendered their soul to a man who was never really a Republican to begin with. Lest we forget, before he was the MAGA messiah, Mr. Trump was just a Manhattan socialite who routinely cut fat checks to Democrats.
He wasn’t a grassroots conservative; he was a guy who could read a room. And he knew whose palms to grease to get his way.
In a plot twist that surprises absolutely no one familiar with his lifelong track record of grift, Mr. Trump is gleefully torching his own campaign promises. The most spectacular bonfire? His sudden, entirely predictable betrayal of the working-class voters who put him back in the Oval Office.
At a private lunch recently, Mr. Trump let the mask slip, acknowledging that vital safety net programs were suddenly too expensive for the American purse. “We’re a big country,” he said, thinking everything he uttered was off the record. “We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We’re fighting wars. It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things.”
So, the man who campaigned on shielding these exact programs is now tossing them overboard. If there is one immutable law of American politics, it is that you do not mess with social programs. Voters who rely on these benefits need them and will absolutely crush you at the ballot box for trying to strip them away.
But wait, the hypocrisy gets richer. We supposedly don’t have the cash to take care of our own citizens’ health care or child care, yet Mr. Trump is perfectly happy to incinerate $200 billion for an Iraq-style war overseas that absolutely no one asked for.
For a movement that endlessly preaches “America First,” this one seems awfully eager to put America’s most vulnerable last just so they can fund a needless foreign conflict.
Speaking of expensive, what happened to all those other lofty campaign promises? Mr. Trump swore he would bring down the cost of living and end the era of endless foreign entanglements. Instead, grocery prices — particularly for staples such as beef — remain sky-high, and energy costs are nowhere near affordable (attacking Iran certainly didn’t help gas prices).
The political fallout is already beginning to rain down. A recent poll reveals that Mr. Trump is driving away MAGA voters in droves.
A staggering 20% of his 2024 voters say they have decided to abandon the Republicans in the upcoming midterms. Even worse for Republicans, 57% of the crucial swing voters who flipped from Joe Biden to Mr. Trump in 2024 are also considering staying home or voting blue.
They took a gamble on Mr. Trump to fix the economy, and all they got was ever-higher prices. Time to bail.
If you want a perfect encapsulation of the chaos, look no further than the Department of Justice. Mr. Trump recently fired his own attorney general, Pam Bondi, essentially because she couldn’t put his enemies in jail.
When the top law enforcement officer in the country is ousted simply for refusing to weaponize the justice system to target the president’s personal enemies, the alarms aren’t just blinking red; they’re on fire.
But perhaps the most alarming display of this administration’s spectacular collapse came on Easter Sunday. On a day of reverence and resurrection, the leader of the free world took to social media to post a profane, unhinged message about the conflict in the Middle East.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
When the commander in chief is firing off expletive-laden, caps-lock rants that mock deities on a holy day, we have moved far beyond standard partisan incompetence. It prompts very serious, unavoidable questions about his mental health.
If Mr. Trump dumps the midterms, he won’t be able to get anything through Congress. But that’s never been his focus.
“He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who’s to blame for it,” the fictional commander in chief, Andrew Shepherd, says in “American President.” “We’ve got serious problems, and we need serious people.”
Sadly, President Trump is not a serious man. And it’s all about to get much, much worse.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.
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