I realize that, because of my support of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP primaries as well as my willingness to be critical when I feel it’s deserved, I’ve obtained the reputation here at Townhall of being somewhat anti-Trump. However, that characterization couldn’t be further from the truth. I happily voted and encouraged others to vote for President Trump for a third time, and nobody wanted him to succeed this year more than I did. No matter what I or anyone else feels about him as a human being, the fact of the matter is that most of his proposed policies, if implemented, will actually make all our lives better over the long haul. So, unless you’re some sort of America-hating psychopath, rooting for our president to succeed should be a no-brainer.
But if I’m going to put myself in the performance reviewer chair (since Trump is, after all, supposed to be our public servant), what we’ve gotten so far this year in terms of performance has been, to put things mildly, short of expectations. To be fair, not all of it has been his fault. Because Senate GOP leaders don’t have the cajones to do away with the filibuster and begin the process of actually ruling in a meaningful way, he’s been forced to rule through massive Omnibus bills and executive orders, all of which can be easily reversed once Democrats gain power. Trump, to his everlasting credit, has repeatedly stated his desire for Thune and Co. to do their jobs and ditch that outdated tool of Democrats, but so far to no avail.
So from a legislative standpoint, the president is doing all he can. But in the end, nothing meaningful has been codified, no federal voter ID, no end to birthright citizenship, no codified border security measures, no healthcare reforms or Obamacare fixes, nothing but a lump of coal from our ‘Republican’ Congress to ordinary working Americans. No, this isn’t entirely Trump’s fault, but as the head honcho, he does bear some degree of responsibility, albeit small, for being unable to twist arms tightly enough to get things done. Don’t get me wrong, Truth Social posts about ending the filibuster are great, but opponents of this necessary step should be constantly named and shamed into submission, and who better to do the naming and shaming than the most famous person in the world?
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As for the substantive things Trump HAS been able to do:
Closing the border and stemming the tide of illegal immigration to almost zero has been absolutely critical to any chances of actually saving this country, and for that, this administration deserves not just credit, but our gratitude. Trump and Republicans even managed to secure some border wall funding in the Big Beautiful Bill, and they are using it to repair the existing wall and even tack on a few miles here and there, though not nearly enough for my liking.
Executive orders are what they are, and the president has been wielding them as well as to be expected. Sure, they’ll be gone when a Democrat assumes control, but at least they’ll make things better for a few years, and that’s something.
Judicial appointments are important, obviously, and though fewer in number than at this point in his first term, word is they are more solid and based overall than they were the first time around. Trump, thankfully, has kicked the Federalist Society to the curb and is going with his gut and the word of close advisors he trusts. So far, it’s working out.
What is hurting Trump’s overall performance so far, however, is what I will call unforced errors, because these head-scratchers have been unnecessary and entirely preventable. Here are a few key ones:
Deportations are a sticky wicket. I, and probably you, want as many as possible as quickly as possible. To us, the Trump administration hasn’t been deporting nearly as many as it’ll take to restore the balance that got disrupted over the four years of Biden lawlessness, much less the past five decades of nearly unfettered Third World immigration. Half a million deportees and two million self-deportees are a decent start, but we need at least ten or twenty times that, and none of that is happening.
On the other hand, the administration isn’t doing a great job of sticking to low-hanging fruit - i.e., criminals and recent migrants, and thus is providing fodder for Democrats who point to this or that deportee with decades-long ties to this country who simply got caught up in a raid and found themselves in El Salvador’s CECOT (or wherever). Those of us who are hard-liners on immigration need to realize that our view isn’t yet as politically tenable as we’d like to believe. Instead of high-profile raids that accomplish little and posting brash videos of shackled deportees on the White House social media account, ICE should be doing its job quietly and efficiently, focusing on people it CAN remove without giving Democrats PR fodder to undermine the whole thing.
Tariffs are something many commentators, even on the right, would label a Trump error, and I would concur with a strong caveat. It isn’t the concept of tariffs that is the problem, but rather the communication and implementation. If people can understand why a certain tariff is being implemented, they can get behind it. But when they are seemingly being levied without any particular rhyme or reason other than the president’s whims, they become fodder for the other side. In an era when most Americans are struggling to get by financially, Democrats are going to beat us over the head with this in the midterms, and rightly so.
Pardons started well, with the president justifiably freeing nearly all of the J-6 political prisoners. However, since then, it seems like all it takes to get a Trump pardon is to be some sort of celebrity, politician (either side), or know someone who knows Trump and is willing to advocate for you. When looking into some of the more recent pardons, like former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted and sentenced to 45 years for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, Changpeng Zhao, a billionaire with ties to Trump’s crypto ventures convicted of money laundering, and former Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife, pardoned before their bribery and money laundering trials ever got started and later criticized by Trump for not being “loyal” after his favor, it’s hard to see any sense of justice in them other than cronyism and currying favors.
Trump’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case disclosure was nothing short of mind-boggling. Total and complete transparency on this from the beginning should have been the baseline expectation, yet Trump chose, for some unexplained reason (no, I don’t think he’s guilty of anything), to make it way harder than it should have been, and ended up losing anyway. What the hell?
Finally, the president’s callous and tone-deaf Truth Social post after the tragic murder of movie producer Rob Reiner justifiably drew criticisms from both the right and left. I mean, really, who does that? I get it, we all signed up for mean tweets, but we didn’t sign up for behavior that undermines our chances at winning elections going forward. You might think it’s no big deal, but I’m telling you that that post did more to undermine Trump’s perceived sense of humanity to a large portion of the public than any ‘mean tweet’ he’s ever posted. We’ll be fortunate if it doesn’t cost us dearly moving forward.
So yeah, it’s been a mixed bag so far. I’m glad Trump is president and I’d vote for him again, but I’d also like to see him button things up and stop with the dumb unforced errors. Is that too much to ask?
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