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Abandoning Trump

Abandoning Trump

Last updated on: August 17, 2017 at 5:45 am by Gene Veith

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Abandoning Trump 2017-08-17T04:25:00-04:00 Gene Veith

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President Trump is becoming increasingly isolated. His own party is abandoning him. Fox News said that they could not find a single Republican (presumably a Republican office-holder or party leader) to defend him for his Charlottesville statements. Business leaders who comprised his various economic councils have been resigning, to the point that now President Trump has shut them down. But no one has resigned from his council of evangelical advisors!

Here is Shepard Smith on the difficulty of Fox News (!) of finding a Republican to defend him:

“Our booking team — and they’re good — reached out to Republicans of all stripes across the country today,” Smith said on his show “Shepard Smith Reporting.”

“Let’s be honest, Republicans don’t often really mind coming on Fox News Channel. We couldn’t get anyone to come and defend him here because we thought, in balance, someone should do that,” he continued.

“We worked very hard at it throughout the day, and we were unsuccessful. And of those who are condemning the president’s condemnable actions, I’ve not heard any prominent leaders, former presidents, members of the House or the Senate use his name while speaking in generalities,” he said.

The Republicans in Congress are running against him. They won’t implement his initiatives. They no longer fear his threats or respond to his efforts to pressure them. Which means that the policies President Trump ran on have little chance of getting passed. Meanwhile, the Democrats in Congress have prepared a resolution to censure the president. One would think that it would have little chance of getting through a Republican-controlled House and Senate, but I suspect quite a few Republicans will vote for it.

The president has dissolved both his Strategic Policy Council and his Manufacturing Council after the top CEOs who comprised it started resigning. The first ones who did so were targets of President Trump’s furious tweets, but they obviously no longer care about that. (See Trump’s Business Councils Dissolve After CEOs Turn Against Him – Bloomberg.)

Even military leaders are distancing themselves from their commander-in-chief. (For that and still more examples of the president’s isolation see this.)

All but a few of the council of evangelical advisers did condemn the White Nationalist attacks and urged President Trump to make a more forceful statement. Jerry Falwell, Jr., was a notable exception, who instead defended what the president said. And none of those council members resigned.

And one in four Americans say they will support President Trump no matter what he does. But his approval rating has dropped to 36%, so many of those who voted for him have given up on him.

Even those who support Trump’s agenda of putting America first economically, controlling immigration, avoiding foreign wars, repealing and replacing Obamacare, reforming taxes, making America great again, etc., have to be frustrated that he seems to have made so little progress with any of this.

The media, the Russian investigation, the deep state, his staff, the Republican establishment can all be blamed, but the president is not handling his adversaries well. He keeps shooting himself in the foot.

Look, it’s horrible to be isolated, to have people who were on your side to turn against you. I feel for the president. We need to pray for him.

And it’s horrible for the country, to have a dysfunctional government. And to have a leader who isn’t getting people to follow him because he is so tone-deaf, inflammatory, and careless in his speech. I don’t believe he is a racist or a fascist, but he keeps playing into the stereotypes put forth by his enemies, thus making their case for them! A president needs to articulate America’s highest values. He has done that in the past, so he needs to be doing that now.

Trump has done some positive things. His judicial appointments will have a positive long-lasting effect. He has cut back unneeded regulations to help businesses. In his stand-off with North Korea, Kim Jong-un has blinked, calling off his plans to shoot missiles in the direction of Guam. The economy is improving. He deserves credit for these and other accomplishments.

And we have a long way to go in the Trump presidency. I don’t think he has done anything to get himself impeached, so he is going to be our president for over three more years. Even those who do not support the man should support the office.

Maybe tax reform can be a winning issue for the president. Maybe he will learn and grow in office. Maybe the public will tire of being outraged and stop taking everything he says so seriously.

Are you among those former supporters who have given up on him, or are you one of the 25% who will support him no matter what? Tell us why.

What might Trump do to make his presidency strong? Would a strong and successful push for tax reform do the trick? What else would help?

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