By Charles C. W. Cooke
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
President Trump is at risk of blowing his second term
before it has hit the two-month mark.
Go on. Shout at me for saying that. I don’t care. Outside
of a handful of terminally online zealots who do more harm than good to their
side, nobody is invested in today’s presidential side quests. Early on
in his tenure, Joe Biden forgot the lesson that had made him president: that
neither social media nor the activists who dominate it are representative of
real life. Astonishingly, Donald Trump is on the verge of making the same
mistake. Within a year of his victory, Biden had lost sight of why he’d won,
inoculated himself against feedback, become insular in his political outlook,
and, worst of all, given in to the temptation to prioritize his pet projects
over the elementary building blocks atop which all successful administrations
are built. By advancing his chaotic, capricious, contradictory tariff agenda,
Trump is making a similar mistake. Absent a genuine crisis, such as a world war
or stagflation, it is invariably smart for presidents to begin with the quick
wins, gain the trust and support of the public by yielding stability, and only
then turn to the unpopular or tricky parts of their brief. Trump, like Biden,
has reversed this order. It’s not working out any better for him.
When one observes this aloud, one is typically called
names, tarred as a chronic pessimist, or even cast as an omnipotent wrecker.
But the thing is: The electorate doesn’t — and never will — have any interest
in any of that. As was the case with the Democrats, the MAGA movement’s
preoccupations, presumptions, and put-downs are wholly irrelevant to the
average American’s life. The public wants the economy humming, the border
secure, an end to the illiberal lunacy that was wokeism — and that’s about it.
It will not be distracted from those core aims by memes, inside jokes, or the
obsequious insistence that the president is “based.” Canada becoming the 51st
state, the purchase of Greenland, how people currently perceive Tesla, the
“Gulf of America,” the real or imagined infractions of random legislators, the
grudges and conspiracy theories of Truth Social users — these are all stupid,
irrelevant indulgences.
So, too, is the desire now being expressed by some to
“remake” America’s economy in the image of 1890 or 1970. Americans want the
economy to be strong, and, beyond that, are not especially interested in the
details. Telling those who are dissatisfied that the stock market has dropped as
the result of tariffs they overwhelmingly oppose that, instead of
complaining, they ought to be thankful for Trump’s brilliance is not going to
help. Telling them that this development is an act of “love” will irritate them
yet more. Telling them that the only people who care about such things are “globalists”
or “billionaires” or “elites” is a recipe for disaster. The people who voted
Donald Trump back into office wanted him to bring back 2019. They did not sign
up for a trade war with Canada, the resurrection of William McKinley, or an
endless game of red light/green light that tanks their 401(k) and makes it
harder for their kids to buy a house.
Nor, indeed, are voters even one-quarter as invested in
Trump and his success as his fans are. It may be important to Trump’s acolytes
to defend him at all costs, but it is not important to the electorate — which,
to its credit, is almost always unmoved by the bullying, lying, and indignant
self-aggrandizement that works so well on Twitter/X. Americans don’t care what
“influencers” have to say, they do not consider themselves to be represented by
them, and they do not believe that they are a part of some world-historical
revolutionary vanguard. They disliked the Democrats and wanted the basics
fixed, so they chose Trump and the Republicans to run the federal government.
That’s it. That’s literally all there is to this. The Republicans can either do
the job well or do the job badly, but they will have to deal with the
consequences of their choice. Doing the job badly and then trying to work the
refs will be no more fruitful for them than it was for the Democrats. As ought
to have become obvious by now, one cannot wheedle the public into accepting
preposterous social theories, into liking ever-higher prices, or into enjoying
destructive unpredictability. If Donald Trump doesn’t want to swiftly become
the lamest duck who ever walked the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he’ll
internalize that — and fast.
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