We recently observed the third anniversary of the beginning of the war between Ukraine and Russia — a war that Ukraine started under the leadership of its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who is a dictator.
Well, at least that’s President Trump’s version of events.
Sure, Trump says outrageous things all the time. Even before they had retrieved the bodies from the water, Trump was already opining that diversity programs had caused the recent mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter over Washington, D.C. He provided no evidence to support that assertion when he first made it and has provided no evidence since.
He has also said that China controls the Panama Canal. It doesn’t. And of course he still believes — and says out loud from time to time — that he really won the 2020 presidential election. He didn’t, though polls indicate a majority of Republicans believe Trump’s version of reality.
Since the last presidential election, Trump has been bragging about how he won a “landslide victory.” Except he didn’t win even a majority of the vote. He won a plurality, beating former Vice President Kamala Harris by only 1.5 percentage points, one of the smallest margins of victory since the 19th century.
Trump’s departure from reality, as I say, is hardly breaking news, but it matters nonetheless. It gives him the ability to claim a “massive” mandate for just about anything and everything he wants to do.
“One of the biggest presidential powers that Trump has deployed is the ability to shape his own narrative,” Julian Zelizer, a Princeton history professor, told the New York Times. “We have seen repeatedly how President Trump creates his own reality to legitimate his actions and simultaneously discredit warnings about his decisions.”
Which brings us back to Trump and the war between Russia and Ukraine. As Peter Baker tells it in that Times story, “By undercutting public sympathy for Ukraine, Mr. Trump may make it easier for him to strike a peace agreement with Mr. Putin giving Russia much of what it wants even over any objections by Mr. Zelensky or European leaders. Since Mr. Zelensky is a dictator responsible for the war, this reasoning goes, he deserves less consideration.”
Words matter, especially when they emanate from the mouth of the president of the United States. Truth matters, too. Our allies are listening. If Trump is willing to throw Zelensky under the proverbial bus, what should our friends around the world expect from the president when the going gets tough?
And here at home, an analysis piece by Aaron Blake in the Washington Post — that ran under the headline, “Trump’s honeymoon is over” — says that “The Post-Ipsos poll queried participants on about a dozen Trump policies and efforts, including mass deportation, banning transgender people from the military, shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development and pardoning Jan. 6 defendants. All but two were unpopular, by an average of 25 points.”
But is the honeymoon really over, or is it just wishful thinking? Another poll from Harvard CAPS/Harris, tells a different story: “All of Trump’s key policies received majority support except for renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, with deportation of illegal immigrants who have committed crimes (81 percent), eliminating fraud and waste in government expenditures (76 percent), and closing the border (76 percent) as the top three most supported policies.”
So which is it? We’ll know soon enough if the American people support the attempt by Trump and his efficiency guru Elon Musk to overhaul the federal government — or if, like Democrats and their allies in the media, they believe the dynamic duo represent a “constitutional crisis.”
Losing Zelensky is one thing, with all the important implications that go with that. Losing the American people would be something else altogether.
So sure, Trump can call Zelensky a dictator, rename the Gulf of Mexico or blame diversity programs for plane crashes. But here are a couple of questions for the president: Can you bring down prices at the grocery store — as you promised? Can you make sure folks aren’t burning through their paychecks just to fill up their cars? Because at the end of the day, people don’t vote on what you call a body of water. They vote on what’s in their wallets.
And if inflation keeps punching Americans in the gut, all tough talk in the world won’t save Trump. You can’t distract people from empty wallets and high prices — not with polls, not with slogans, not even with another round of “witch hunt” speeches.
Sooner or later, reality catches up — even with presidents who try to create their own reality.
Bernard Goldberg, who posts on X, is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Substack page.
