Trump’s folly

It’s not a good week for the buffoon-in-chief. His proposal to buy Greenland ran into a Danish prime minister who said no. The budget deficit is soaring. The economy is weakening. Beijing is not yielding in his easy-to-win tariff war, but Trump is softening his stance by postponing some promised tariffs. He has retreated from requiring universal background checks for gun purchasers, routed by a phone call from the National Rifle Association. American Jews he has accused of disloyalty to Israel by voting for Democrats are up in arms. Half a dozen potential Democratic candidates are out-polling him.

Trump’s reaction? He is doubling down on satisfying his anti-immigrant, Christian evangelical, racist base. You don’t want to separate migrant children from their parents? He proposes locking up both parents and children indefinitely. He declares himself the “chosen one” with a glance at the heavens. He retweets white supremacist, anti-Jewish trash talkers who claim Jewish Israelis, who don’t believe in the first coming of the Messiah, regard him as the second coming.

In any place but the White House, such jabber would be regarded as symptomatic. The mental illness is however not only his. This folly is still getting more than 40% approval. Americans have lost touch with reality.

This is not a conservative administration. It is a radical one sending the country to ruin. The deficit alone should be enough to make real Republicans doubt Trump’s wisdom. The trade war and slowing economy are putting the long expansion begun under President Obama at serious risk. Trump’s petulant cancellation of a trip to Denmark is making all America’s allies blanch. America’s adversaries are delighted: the West and its democratic ideals could be collapsing.

What can be done? Very little. Until Republicans tire of Trump and decide he will lead them to defeat in 2020, the Democrats are stuck: the House they control can indict but not convict or remove from office. Proceeding with impeachment before the election is a risky move. Their best bet is to investigate as thoroughly as possible and hope what they find will dent Trump’s support and encourage their own voters to turn out.

The Democrats’ best hope in 2020 is the economy: if recession hits by next summer, Trump is toast. There are a lot more voters interested in their jobs than in how many “conservative” pro-business, pro-gun, anti-immigrant judges he has managed to appoint and get confirmed. Wishing recession however is political self-immolation. So is internecine bloodletting through the primary season. All the Democratic candidates would do well to keep their focus on the miserable performance of the Trump Administration rather than on each others’ shortcomings.

Making Trump’s folly apparent should be easy. Hammer away at the weakening economy, the disrepute America has fallen into abroad, the silliness of a president who spends his days watching Fox News, and his failure to deliver on infrastructure, tax cuts for working people, and health care. Trump has made himself an easy target. Keep firing at it.