The Summer Doldrums Before Summer

 

I had fun writing my recent post about why Bethesda's Starfield was getting mixed reviews despite being an objectively good, if not great, game.  It was enjoyable to get away from the poisonous politics of the MAGA era.  But the truth is, I am finding it difficult to return to political blogging after my gaming vacation.  Part of the reason is that the Trump regime has slipped into a pattern reminiscent of the quiet summer months, when large parts of the US government, as well as the American people, are out on vacation, resulting in a slow news cycle.  That is the vibe I am getting now. It is like the nation has slipped into the summer doldrums before even the summer has arrived!

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I believe a big reason why this Trump regime has suddenly become "low energy" is because they are on one heck of a losing streak.  Perhaps that can best be symbolized by Trump's mortifying visit to Madison Square Garden for Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Standing in a luxury suite, he was thunderously booed by the New York crowd the moment his military salute hit the Jumbotron.

This should not surprise anyone when POTUS's approval numbers are catastrophically bad:

Keep in mind this is an aggregate result; individual polls show an even grimmer picture

Hence, the booing.

This backlash is the predictable result of a fundamental betrayal: Trump ran a campaign entirely centered on reducing the cost of living, but his administration has done the exact opposite. Driven by the economic fallout of a grinding war with Iran, living expenses have skyrocketed to such an extent that recent polling shows a majority of Americans now openly view the Biden years as preferable to our current reality.

Worse, as ordinary Americans struggle financially, they see Trump, his family, and his "Epstein-class" cronies living the high life. This disconnect was recently reinforced by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's massive $1.6 billion luxury development scheme. While working-class Americans skip groceries, the President's daughter is busy bragging on podcasts about an "unbelievable, beautiful" Mediterranean island getaway. At the same time, their investment firm sends bulldozers to pave over the protected Vjosa-Narta wetland in Albania, sparking a furious "Flamingo Revolution" by locals fighting to save a critical nature preserve from the global oligarch class.

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Now, a sensible president - or at least a sentient president - would immediately work overtime to, if not address the sources of discontent, at least acknowledge them.  But not Trump!  As the New Zork Times relates:  

Prices jumped in May for the third straight month, leaving U.S. families and businesses to suffer the sting from the war with Iran.

And for the third time, the White House largely shrugged off the news, insisting that the problem was temporary — and that President Trump’s agenda was working.

“No, I love it, the numbers were great,”  the president told reporters on Wednesday. “I love the inflation.” [emphasis added]

It was a familiar pattern, one that appeared to underscore the widening chasm between Mr. Trump and the majority of Americans who say they are frustrated with the direction of the economy. The president’s comments perfectly framed both the political strategy and the stakes for Republicans entering an election season that may well hinge on the state of voters’ finances.

It is a familiar, exhausting pattern. The comment perfectly frames both the White House's political insulation and the staggering stakes for an electorate that is fatigued by the out-of-touch incompetence on display. The American people, even the one Trump easily duped in 2024, have had enough.  

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Now, let's talk about Trump's "little excursion" into Iran.  Here, I am reminded of Bilbo Baggins' warning that "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” 

The same can be said for war.  When the joint U.S.-Israeli offensive launched back in February, the White House didn't think it was stepping onto an unpredictable road at all. Trump assured the public it would be a brief, tidy affair, famously projecting a timeline of just "four to five weeks" to wrap up Operation Epstein...er, Epic Fury. He insisted it "won't be difficult."  Fast-forward nearly four months later, and that "excursion" has transformed into a quicksand trap. The administration is currently trapped in a reality it can neither control nor spin. One day the President is declaring the war phase "very complete" or claiming a peace deal is imminent for the 38th time, and the next he's threatening to obliterate entire civil infrastructures on Fox News because an Iranian drone just swatted a U.S. Apache helicopter out of the sky off the coast of Oman.  Like Bilbo warned, if you don't keep your feet, you get swept away. 

The administration didn't keep its feet, and now the entire American economy is being swept right along with its failed war.

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When the photography of Trump trashing the East Wing of the White House was released, I wrote, "In a time when the majority of polling shows increasing dissatisfaction with the present regime, such a picture has the ability to connect cause and effect in a way that countless editorials cannot." I believe the same will be said of these two additional photographs:

First, Trump turning the formerly majestic White House lawn into a staging venue for the lowest of lowbrow entertainment, complete with tacky corporate sponsorships:

From the NYT's Instagram Account

I don't think there has been a better photographic metaphor for how the Grand Republic has devolved into a nation of trash culture and trash politics, the latter, as always, being entirely downstream from the former. It is interesting to note that in French, "grand" is synonymous with "grown-up." Ironically, as America reaches its 250th Anniversary this year, perhaps it would be far more accurate to refer to us not as a great, mature superpower, but as the Juvenile Republic.

The second photograph captures a different, yet equally instructive, kind of spectacle. It shows the literal cleansing of history - construction scaffolding erected on the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to dismantle the "Trump" lettering from the defaced facade:

Cliff Owen/AP Photo

If the White House lawn photo captures the depths of our current cultural devolution, this image captures something far more profound: history's anticipatory judgment. It reminds me of a clever editorial cartoon from the conclusion of Trump's first failed administration:

That will be the ultimate judgment by history. As with corrupt and incompetent authoritarian thugs before him, he will be thrown on the ash heap of history to be forgotten, with his legacy not even leaving Ozymandian ruins behind to be discovered by future weary travellers.  The "Trump" name will be mud, both bearing the historical infamy of Dr. Samuel Mudd, but also fulfilling the original 19th-century linguistic definition of the phrase: a stupid, twaddling fellow whose name is dirt.

And Donald J. Trump, America's first felon president, is beginning to understand that reality.  Hence, the summer doldrums before summer.

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