The chaotic start of Trump 2.0 proved that Sam Rayburn was right when he said, “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.” America needs a carpenter to rebuild the nation. It got Trump to make things worse.
Rayburn, the late and great House Speaker, helped guide Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal through Congress. Voters demanded change in 1932 when they elected FDR president, and his agenda gave them hope. Voters wanted change again in 2024 and Donald Trump gave them chaos.
Chaos and confusion reign supreme. The Trump administration is the gang that can’t shoot straight. Trump just needed a week and a half to bring the nation to its knees. The scary thing is Trump has been planning this shaky transition for four years.
The first and certainly not the last mistake of the new administration occurred just a week in. His Office of Management and Budget issued an order that froze federal government spending and loan programs.
This action made it impossible for seniors to request Medicare benefits, for high school seniors to apply for college student loans and frightened millions of people before the administration bowed to pressure and rescinded the action. Then, the new press secretary, Karoline Leavitt added to the drama when she said the OMB recission did not unfreeze spending. The ugly incident was a lesson to voters on the value of the federal government and on the incompetence of the Trump administration.
Trump only had one chance to make a first impression at the dawn of his second presidency and he’s already blown it.
Last week an air crash of a passenger plane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter killed 67 poor souls at National Airport in Washington. Trump could have used the tragic and fatal accident as an opportunity to unite a divided nation in prayer for the victims. Instead, he used it as a political football and blamed it, without any evidence, on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies of the Biden administration.
His invocation of DEI as a reason to criticize anything he opposes will wear thin quickly as the roof collapses on his not ready for prime-time players administration. These attacks against diversity also come with the shrill sound of a dog whistle. Voters wanted a president to battle high prices. All they got was a bigot who wants to fight a race war.
Trump, of course, failed to acknowledge his own complicity in the tragedy. The head of the FAA resigned on Jan. 20 and Trump didn’t bother to pick a temporary replacement, until the day after the accident. The buck stops at the president’s desk in the Oval Office.
Even before the freeze folly, there was evidence that Trump and his cronies had quickly put the wrong foot forward. It certainly didn’t take long for him to squander the little political capital he possessed after his narrow popular vote win in November.
New national surveys conducted for Reuters by IPSOS indicated his negative job rating already increased from 39 percent to 46 percent in the first week of his second presidency.
This president no longer enjoys the luxury of the honeymoon that Americans traditionally give the new occupant of the White House. If his disapproval is so high now, imagine what it could look like in two months. It’s no wonder that Trump is in a rush to get things done. Soon, he might have no political currency at all to spend.
Before my Democratic and progressive friends get too excited, it’s important for them to understand Trump’s strengths and weaknesses so they can pick their fights. He has made traditional media and the tech titans afraid of their own shadow. He also enjoys the support of a compliant Congress and Supreme Court. That kind of concentration of power can forgive lots of political sins.
Despite his rocky early approval rating in the Reuters poll, most Americans support his executive orders to reduce the size of the federal government. Big government is still a bad guy, and we need to create our own heroes and focus the spotlight on innovative state and local government officials who are fighting climate change and making politics work for everybody in their states, cities and counties.
But most Americans opposed many other of his executive orders. Only one in three people supported his Jan. 6 pardons. Americans want law and order but not terrorism and violence. Or maybe, they just don’t trust a president on legal issues after he was found guilty by a jury of New Yorkers on 34 counts of felony fraud.
There wasn’t much more support for Trump’s unilateral decision to end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship or his abrupt departure from the Paris agreement. Trump zealots may be surprised to learn that most Americans, including three in ten Republicans, even oppose his dictate to end the recruitment of women and disabled citizens to positions in the federal government.
Trump has done everything he can to screw up his honeymoon. Now it’s up to us to show Americans that we can do a better job. Delaying Trump’s agenda is fine because he’s wearing out his welcome. But Democratic proposals to shake up the status quo are even better.
In the end, Americans want a president who will make the federal government work better; not one who will put it out of work.
Brad Bannon is a national Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.
