The State of Trump

Posted on by

Earlier this week, before the SOTU, I heard someone comment that Trump is not reading the room. After last night I’d say he’s dealing with two different rooms. The die hard MAGA devotees are certain he was brilliant last night. One even declared that last night the Democrats lost the midterms. According to the editorial board of the New York Post, Trump’s home-run State of the Union 2026 showed exactly how crazy the Democrats are. But most of the commentary, and the post-SOTU polls, say Trump’s act didn’t go over all that well.  The bottom line is that it probably didn’t change anyone’s opinion. And it’s looking like Trump’s die-hard fans are less than a third of the electorate. For some time polls have been saying the percentage of people who “strongly approve” of him has been stuck at closer to a fourth of the electorate, in fact.

I didn’t watch, but I’ve seen some outtakes. The bit of shtick where he makes fun of the word “affordability” seems to be a permanent part of his act now.  Trump doesn’t really give speeches as much as put on a variety show, as Tom Nichols wrote at The Atlantic. But whether at a rally or on national television, I can’t see how making fun of the word “affordability” endears him to anybody.

See also Who Said It Better? How Trump’s Economic Pitch Echoes Biden’s. This expresses something I’d already been thinking. I’ve read that a lot of voters turned against Joe Biden in 2024 because he kept saying “Bidenomics” was working,. and the economy was getting better, but people weren’t feeling it in their lives yet. But now Trump is doing the same thing.

Telling voters that the economy is better than they believe is a risky strategy, as Mr. Biden found out in his own truncated re-election campaign. He had spent months with an on-again, off-again branding exercise to sell “Bidenomics” as an economic miracle that never quite stuck. It did not matter that he was armed with a blizzard of macroeconomic data. Voters felt squeezed.

Now, with polls showing that a majority of Americans think that Mr. Trump’s policies have made life less affordable, he was the one trying to sell the idea that America has entered a “golden age.”

“The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” the president said, bragging about what he characterized as the stock market’s rise, the drop in gas prices and lower mortgage rates.

So I’m not too worried that Trump’s act last night cost Democrats the midterms. See also Paul Krugman’s analysis of the “speech.”

Yesterday there was reporting that the DoJ appears to have withheld key Epstein documents from public view, Further, there is reason to believe the withheld files contain allegations that Trump abused a minor. Greg Sargent has details.

Greg Sargent also writes that Trump’s ICE Is Quietly Stockpiling Weaponry—and It Should Alarm Us All. In brief, he writes that the Trump Administration has created a new “terror bureaucracy” that has pumped huge amounts of money into ICE and Border Patrol, creating an unprecedented military force that will likely be with us for many years.

18 thoughts on “The State of Trump”

    • Thanks for the link! I would love to see Newsom as president. He kept emailing me to buy his book (help push it to the top), but… I haven't. My concern is whether he can sell himself to the rest of the country, given the decades of stigma the right has painted over California, some of it valid. OTOH, the right is going to decimated soon, and we absolutely need to be ready to move on this.

      Reply ↓

  3. I suspect the ratings will be awful. That salt should be rubbed in the wound. Nobody wants to listen to senile grandpa for two hours. I'm curious of the count – how many Democrats skipped? How many walked out? YES – report on how many times the GOP nazis in the room stood to cheer Dear Leader. I'm soooo tempted to start putting up cardboard signs on bridges and wherever. 

    PRESIDENT

    PEDOPHILE

    We're getting evidence that it's true. Time to start putting it the faces of drivers who are tuning out the news. Get the subject talked about at work. Yeah, if I get caught, make a public free speech issue of the court case. Trump is a child molester. He's using the DOJ to hide it. There's lots of stuff more damaging than slapping a 13-year-old girl for sharp teeth. Like pumping ten bullets in a protester. Or sending people with no criminal record to third-world hell holes where they don't speak the language. 

    Inmates in Federal Prison keep track of pedophile sex offenders. They have a term for it, "chomos", for child molester. I was warned that one old guy was 'chomo' and had to ask. And I didn't test the penalty for being sociable with him.  At best, they are shunned and ignored, unfit to share space with felons.  

    If a practice like raping teens offends hardened criminals, it shouldn't be acceptable to regular society. "If he didn't do it, why isn't he releasing the evidence that can clear him?" Make the act of suppressing evidence proof of guilt. Trial by rumor. 

    6
    Reply ↓

  5. I didn't watch it, but from reports, not only was the speech packed with lies and insults, it was boring as hell!  Sleep inducing.  Trump rambled on for damn near two hours.  Yet you had CBS News new wingnut tool front man, Tony Dokupil, declaring the speech "extraordinary" and "vintage Trump."   The mainstream press never ceases to amaze the lengths they will go to to normalize and prop up Trump, who is hands down the worst "president" in history.

    1
    Reply ↓

  6. What a meaningless ritual this has become, now but a hollow gathering in memory of a dream state.  We need to honor the second coming of the measles, but we didn't.  So too, the destruction of the West Wing.  How long has that remained undone on our nations to do list.  How about the war on life saving vaccines, look at the ground we gained there.  Then there is the arming of a national domestic terrorist police force.  Just wait until they attack the mythical problem of voter fraud.  

    Speaking of myths good luck finding those prices mentioned.  We do have cheaper eggs, but we all know they were in short supply due to a bird flu problem.  As for chicken, and beef both higher.  

    As for our international status, Krugman has the graphs and numbers on that.  Someone must have turned off that shining light on our hill. 

    At least one thing is truer than ever, Regan's words to fear…I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.

    Reply ↓

  7. To answer my previous question, the ratings for the SOTU are in. There was a 12% decline in viewership compared to last year with Trump. This will result in catsup on the wall as the former reality show star thinks the presidency is a reality show. People are tuning him out. He's not losing MAGA. Fox turned in the highest numbers, delivering a third of the viewership. The rest was spread across the six other major carriers. 

    Roughly half of House and Senate Democrats skipped the event, many joining a rally on the National Mall. I do not think any American President has gotten the middle finger from the opposition so publicly. 

    Trump is polling at the lowest he's ever polled – and it's still going down. NOTHING in the speech hinted at new policies that will turn things around. The economy is fine and everyone loves ICE.  It looks like Trump will retain tariffs in a different form, a tax that will drive prices up more. Manufacturing is still in decline – unemployment is rising. The magic of AI is being credited with cutting almost 50% of the jobs at Block, a computer company in financial services. This may be the tip of the iceberg of job cuts to come – on Trump's watch. This will increase Trump's popularity with shareholders. Block's stock prices jumped 24%.  How the average worker in the US feels about AI replacing him hasn't been polled. But there will will be a measuremnt in November.

    Reply ↓

  8. To answer my previous question, the ratings for the SOTU are in. There was a 12% decline in viewership compared to last year with Trump. This will result in catsup on the wall as the former reality show star thinks the presidency is a reality show. People are tuning him out. He's not losing MAGA. Fox turned in the highest numbers, delivering a third of the viewership. The rest was spread across the six other major carriers. 

    Roughly half of House and Senate Democrats skipped the event, many joining a rally on the National Mall. I do not think any American President has gotten the middle finger from the opposition so publicly. 

    Trump is polling at the lowest he's ever polled – and it's still going down. NOTHING in the speech hinted at new policies that will turn things around. The economy is fine and everyone loves ICE.  It looks like Trump will retain tariffs in a different form, a tax that will drive prices up more. Manufacturing is still in decline – unemployment is rising. The magic of AI is being credited with cutting almost 50% of the jobs at Block, a computer company in financial services. This may be the tip of the iceberg of job cuts to come – on Trump's watch. This will increase Trump's popularity with shareholders. Block's stock prices jumped 24%.  How the average worker in the US feels about AI replacing him hasn't been polled. But there will will be a measuremnt in November.

    Reply ↓

  9. It's time to focus on the 2024 elections. It's going to be a wild ride. I'm not prescient, but I think the best chance we have to avid the worst is to focus state by state on protecting the real state-controlled integrity of the election process. It will be difficult, but each state has decades of experience running elections. 

    As tempting as it will be to get caught up in all the BS that will be erupting from the federal executive branch, I plan to do two things: a) get connected with the folks in my state who do this stuff and do whatever I can to help them deal with whatever gets thrown at them; in other words support local (state) organizing.  And b) establish a habit of staying in touch with like minded folks in other states who I know are on the correct side (I'm talking about friends and extended family), and encourage them to support local organizing their state. I won't try to get involved in the process in other states, but I will maintain communication to be able to share ideas and news.

    For folks in states controlled by R's, it will be more difficult for sure, but hopefully we can establish a massive grassroots web of solidarity to provide morale to all. And every little thing that can be done, even in red states, and particularly in purple states, will be needed.   

    1
    Reply ↓

  11. Stagflation is the word of the day, today and for many days to come.  Our current administration can't even fix the blame correctly much less a stubborn economic problem.  It is looking like rough times are really upon us.  

    We may finally see how bad things can really get.  The blame has to go to those who have grabbed power with no sense of responsibility.  The ones with no credibility left who will try to lie their way out of it.  They will continue to be part of the problem and of little to no help with the solution.    

    Reply ↓

  12. Trump needs an ICE army because after he lost the 2020 election, and his only way to remain president would have been to send in the US Army to seize ballots and voting machines, that institution chose loyalty to the republic over loyalty to Trump. The ICE army can be trusted to owe its loyalty to Trump alone. The more crimes they commit, the more personal stake the members of the ICE army have in making sure that only Trump or his MAGA followers are ever in a position to control prosecutions.

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *