For 10 years, I’ve been of the clearly wrong impression that Trumpism couldn’t last much longer. The pendulum of American politics would eventually swing back to the middle. I never held much hope that the ultra-conservatives would see the evil of their policies, but I did assume that the middle-spectrum voter would respond to the overreach of the MAGA crowd.
It took much longer than I expected, but it does seem to finally be happening.
Recent polling shows the president is disliked by between 55 and 68% of the electorate. Fox had the disapproval at 58% and NBC at 63%. Republicans on Capitol Hill privately have given up all hope of midterm success.
For the past 10 years, I’ve also assumed that those of us who generally vote Democratic would have to be the leaders of anti-Trumpism to save our nation. We needed to educate and convince Trump voters of the waywardness of their thoughts. How totally wrong I’ve been.
The hero in this story is Donald J. Trump himself. He is personally responsible for the growing decline of the movement he recognized and made his own. He understood the growing frustration of the middle and lower economic classes. He understood, as Adolph Hitler did in 1929, that movements of economic discontent need scapegoats. Immigrants are an easy target; gay people are an easy target. The disabled are easy targets. Like all autocrats, he understood the power of enforcing personal loyalty and cults of personality.
Amazingly, American institutions have held the line. When Donald went too far with immigration arrests, the American people spoke and the administration’s tone and behavior have softened just a bit. When Trump tried to rig the number of safe Republican congressional seats, the American system pushed back. Even the heavily stacked court system has denied prosecution of elected and appointed officials felt by Trump to be opposing him. Jimmy Kimmel still lives on in late night TV.
But let me repeat the real hero of anti-Trumpism is Trump himself. He is clearly not up to the task of governing and leading. Leadership includes creating messages, empowering and hiring great people, and reading the room well. He has done none of those well this term.
The Trump cabinet is a clown show. He chose appointees based on loyalty, not ability. Many of the loyal lacked any integrity or true beliefs. They simply saw Trump’s coattails as a path to personal power, wealth, and success. Several have been fired. His attorney general, Pam Bondi, had no clue what a criminal case takes to succeed. Kristi Noem, former Homeland Security secretary, thought it was a great idea to give $200 million to close associates for a personally promoting series of video ads.
Several of the clowns are still in the small car. The secretary of war continues to promote a Christian theology to U.S. troops while running a poorly planned war. Our commerce secretary lied repeatedly about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Secretary Kennedy at HHS thinks it’s a good idea to destroy vaccine and general medical confidence. Children are dying from measles, sham cures are being promoted, and he recently bragged about dissecting the sex organ of a roadkill squirrel. (I can’t possibly make this stuff up.) Trump has failed to hire great people and the electorate has noticed.
So how has Trump done on messaging? He started a war with Iran. Most Jews are good with any action that might ruin or delay the nuclear plans of Iran. We certainly feel that way. But the messaging to the U.S. electorate has been terrible. The president has never laid out the evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons progress. He has never rallied the American people. Wars require a populace willing to sacrifice for the war effort. It is a president’s job to rally the people.
Trump has also failed to rally our international allies. He just assumed they’d do as they were told. They simply said no. Had he taken the time to build a coalition, the answer may have been very different. If there was no time to do that — a bomb was days away — then show the intelligence to the allies and the public. He failed. The president simply lacked the expertise or advice to win this type of war.
What the American people have seen is higher prices led by gasoline hikes. To the average wage earner, this is a serious financial issue, and they lack the “Pearl Harbor” reason to sacrifice. Sixty-five percent of the public opposes the war.
This failure to communicate has hurt Israel and Jews. It makes this suffering at the gas pump an easy rallying cry for folks who hate Israel. It makes folks who hate Jews feel empowered to spew hate. It allows those who espouse social progress to tie Israel and Judaism to the suffering of the non-combatants in Gaza and Iran. They conveniently forget 80 years of attacks by the Arab states and militias. By failing to communicate the need for action, Trump failed Israel and Jews in the U.S.
Why can’t Trump communicate? He simply can’t stay on message or read the room. He failed to understand the need to bring the public with him. He’d rather attack political enemies, spout bigotry, and re-adjudicate his failed election in 2020. He’d rather attack the Republican senator from North Carolina than retain Senate control. The room, the American public, doesn’t care about 2020. They care about their gasoline costs. They care about electric bills. They care about food prices. Reading the room takes work and focus. Trump simply lacks the will or the intellect to do that.
So the hero is truly now Trump himself. His personal failings and psychiatric flaws have led his movement over the lemming cliff. Thank God. The Dems have their own disasters on the far left. The Dems run the risk of alienating a strong Jewish voting bloc. Folks like myself were clearly not up to the task of defeating the religious right, bigoted coalition of Trumpism. Let’s be thankful that Trumpism is dying finally. The clown car has crashed, and the head clown is too drunk with ego and power to see his own failings.
Have faith.
Scott Rifkin, MD
Publisher
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