Trump’s Greatest Strength – Alienating the Most People with the Fewest Words

 

Trump’s Greatest Strength – Alienating the Most People with the Fewest Words

Maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene finally wised up – Trump now only represents his tech bros, mega-rich “donors” and foreign “dignitaries” with lots of money for massive greenwashing – Trump has long since abandoned the movement he named and the people who trustingly followed him. Trump has become the polar opposite of what drove him to office in 2016 and 2024. His policies have flipflopped more than a fish out of water, almost none of his once immovable average constituents is better off today than they were during the Biden administration. Healthcare for millions, including a huge segment of MAGA adherents, is wobbling.

And still during a comparable period during his administration, Barack Obama deported more undocumented aliens than Trump… without the cruelty, spending billions and billions of extra dollars to build embarrassingly horrible “detention” facilities, a personal police force (the expansion of ICE) that can operate masked and anonymously without warrants or constitutional limitation and a hollowing out of those essential undocumented workers that support our economy. He has demanded that his miliary obey all his orders without question, that they must assume that his edicts are legal (the Richard Nixon argument that ultimately forced him to resign) and that even members of Congress, who insist that his military orders must legal to be followed (as set forth in the Uniform Code of Military Justice), are seditionist traitors who should be hanged.

As Trump wakes up to his unpopularity, as DOGE has finally closed its toxic offices, as the Epstein debacle continues to drag on, Trump will most likely rearrange his cabinet in the new year. I would have to say that some cabinet and subcabinet officers are the most likely to be forced out, including the military lightweight, DOD/W Secretary Pete Hegseth, puppy-killer Homeland Security Secretary and cover-girl-wannabe, Kristi Noem, FBI jet-setter Kash Patel, and if she cannot placate Trump on Epstein and shift the blame to Democrats, even DOJ Secretary Pam Bondi might have to go. Will Project 2025 implementer/advisors Stephen Miller and Russell Vought be given the boot? How about medical research-killer RFK, Jr.? They should, but their hold on essential conspiracy theory MAGA extremists is pretty solid. And I suspect nothing will stop Trump from continuing to issue his effective-death-threat fatwahs to anyone who opposes him (Trump knows how his minions will react) .

MAGA is fractured, but the schisms might not be what you think. One growing Trump constituency, angry young men, is flocking to organized religions (from Greek Orthodox and Catholicism to the more expected evangelical movement) and the extreme edges of Trump policies. “Republicans are facing a generational rift as younger members of the party move further to the right of politics… While older members of the GOP favor establishment principles and are more willing to engage in international issues, there is evidence that newer generations have adopted more populist and isolationist views and have more radical takes on a number of issues including immigration.” Kate Plummer, Newsweek, November 22nd. And it is precisely this angry, younger constituency that is most drawn to political violence.

Trump’s efforts to generate an enduring peace accord between Israel and the Palestinian people are unraveling: Hamas continues to refuse to disarm, Israel is allowing West Bank settlers to confiscate Palestinian properties, continues to launch attacks that are generating continuing massive destruction in Gaza and pledges never ever to allow an independent Palestinian state. According to Sam Sifton, writing for the November 24th The Morning (New York Times news feed), Trump Thanksgiving deadline for Ukraine to accept his “peace proposal” – which, except for the lack of Cyrillic lettering, appeared to be Vladimir Putin’s unchanged wish list – explains how off-base that demand was:

“The peace proposal… would require Kyiv to relinquish captured terrain and shrink its army. It would bar Ukraine from joining NATO and also prohibit foreign troops from coming to its rescue in a future conflict… ‘Right now the American plan is devastating for Ukraine, weakening its ability to defend itself and providing few guarantees of its future,’ Julian Barnes, a Times reporter who covers international security, told me yesterday… The Ukrainians have been outraged, and Volodymyr Zelensky said the proposal was a choice between ‘losing our dignity and freedom’ and losing U.S. support.

“That could be changing. American and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva this weekend and began reviewing the plan point by point. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said they were ‘narrowing the differences and getting closer to something’ that both Kyiv and Washington would be ‘comfortable with.’ The head of Ukraine’s delegation said the officials had made ‘very good progress.’ … While the diplomats in Geneva have been seeking compromise, Trump has been lashing out. He posted that Ukraine’s leadership had ‘EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE’ for American military aid and support. (Zelensky posted his own message hours later, expressing thanks ‘for everything that America and President Trump are doing for security.)… One Republican senator, Mitch McConnell, said yesterday [11/23] that ‘pressuring the victim and appeasing the aggressor’ would not bring peace.”

Recently profoundly anti-Putin after the recent embarrassing Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, where Trump purported to speak for Ukraine and Europe, Trump just did another 180. Indeed, elements that would have limited European choices (without European input) have been removed, and issues around security guarantees and territorial concessions (the Ukraine constitution requires a plebiscite to permit that request) are the focus. Yet Moscow hardliners are pushing Putin to continue until Ukraine totally surrenders, a very unlikely possibility.

As Trump’s mental and physical health are increasingly called into question, as his flipflop and abrasive personality are losing traction with an increasing number of his once loyal followers, is Trump even capable of shifting his violent rhetoric to reflect the cliff towards which he pushing his entire party… and are the GOP faithful in Congress prepared to accept a new path or do their best lemming imitation in the upcoming midterms? Can those vital independents send that message to the GOP?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I truly wonder if Trump can change his personal tactics, which no longer herd his sheep, or if he has already begun an earlier-then-expected presidency into a full-on lame duck reality.