THE HONEYMOON'S OVER

Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President in March, 1933, in the midst of a genuine crisis – the Great Depression.  In July of that year, FDR devoted one of his weekly radio broadcasts (known as Fireside Chats) to a review of what Congress had accomplished during its hundred day session.  Basically, the President and Congress created the New Deal, which began the long process of saving the banking system, putting people back to work, and saving the economy.  That speech, and those accomplishments, were so memorable that “the first 100 days” became a benchmark for every succeeding American president. 

We are two-thirds of the way through Donald Trump’s first 100 days in the White House.  He, too, took office in a crisis, although the crisis was him.  Even a cursory examination of his life indicates that he’s King Midas in reverse.  Everything he touches turns to shit.  On January 19, despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, the economy was strong; our network of international alliances was effective; and President Obama left office with historically high approval ratings. 

Donald Trump claimed to be a great businessman, a brilliant negotiator, and the only man who could make America great again.  His biggest campaign promises were that he would deport Muslims and illegal immigrants; build a wall along the Mexican border (and make Mexico pay for it); defeat ISIS quickly; and repeal Obamacare and replace it with something that provided better coverage for less money.

Most of these things would get done on his first day in office.  It was going to be easy. “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to get tired of winning.”  After all, he had Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.  What could go wrong?  Let us count the ways King Midas in Reverse has struggled.  Here is a summary of Trump’s accomplishments two-thirds of the way through his first 100 days as president.

Trump and congressional Republicans promised to repeal and replace Obamacare on Day 1.  Instead, Day 1 was devoted to Trump whining because the press accurately reported that attendance at his inauguration was smaller than attendance at President Obama’s inaugurations.  His bizarre insistence on making obviously false claims ended his honeymoon with the press almost before it began.  Instead of giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, the press began to make a point of challenging his honesty. 

On Day 2, millions of women (and men) participated in the Women’s March on Washington and all over the world; the turnout in Washington, D.C., was also larger than Trump’s inaugural.

On Day 7, Trump issued an executive order that amounted to a Muslim ban.  It was met with massive protest demonstrations all across the country, and courts quickly blocked enforcement of the order.  After threatening to appeal, Trump withdrew the EO and issued a second one – which was in turn, promptly blocked by the courts.  Immigration & Customs Enforcement have done their best to make life miserable for immigrant families and sick people who came to America seeking expert medical care, but Trump’s best legal minds have yet to figure out a constitutional strategy to limit entry into the U.S., much less to deport millions of people who are already here.

On Day 9, Trump – who claimed during the campaign that he was smarter than the generals – revealed that his secret plan to defeat ISIS was to ask those same generals for help.  He punted the ball to the Pentagon, and gave them 30 days to devise a “comprehensive plan” to defeat Islamic terrorism.  Two months later, no plan has surfaced.

On March 16, Trump issued a proposed budget that even Republicans called “dead on arrival.”  It featured deep cuts to domestic programs in order to radically increase military spending and build a wall along the Mexican border.  The press did not failed to notice that the security costs associated with Secret Service protection for Trump’s wife and youngest son in New York, plus Trump’s regular weekend golfing trips to his estate in Florida, would easily pay for Meals on Wheels, as well as federal funding for arts, humanities, and public broadcasting.

Meanwhile, legendary policy wonk Paul Ryan, who had spent the previous seven years claiming that he had an Obamacare replacement ready to go, turned out to have been lying.  At the same time, many Trump voters were slowly coming to the realization that the Obamacare they thought they hated was the same thing as the Affordable Care Act that they loved.  As Trump said on February 28, “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”  Well, no Republicans anyway.

Republican town halls were soon filled with angry voters asking questions about the Republican plan to replace Obamacare.  It was hard to answer questions about a non-existent plan, so GOP congressmen tried to change the subject by blaming their constituents for asking inconvenient questions.  They were all outside agitators, probably on the payroll of George Soros. Most Republican congressmen stopped holding town halls. 

Realizing that his bluff had been called, legendary policy wonk Paul Ryan sprang into action like a hungover freshman trying to write three term papers in 24 hours.  The result, released on Day 47, was a plan that provided tax cuts for millionaires at the expense of dropping coverage for 24 million people, many of whom were Trump voters.  This news was not well received by the American public.  Ryan’s plan mustered only a 17% approval rate, against a 56% disapproval rate. 

Congressional Republicans found themselves between a rock and a hard place.  On one side were members from swing districts who hated the bill because voting for it would have meant political suicide.  On the other were the infamous Freedom Caucus fanatics, who hated the bill because it wasn’t mean enough to poor people. 

For some reason, Donald Trump decided to put his prestige on the line by backing Ryan’s plan.  Mr. Art-Of-The-Deal brought in the heavy artillery (Mike Pence and Steve Bannon).  They all threatened and cajoled.  Trump, who doesn’t have a patient bone in his body, finally demanded an up or down vote within 24 hours.  The next day – Day 64, if you’re keeping score at home – legendary policy wonk Paul Ryan slunk into the Oval Office and admitted that he didn’t have the votes to pass the bill. 

Trump backed down, and began a search for scapegoats.  His first thought – even before he told his staff that the Obamacare replacement was dead – was to call the failing Washington Post and the failing New York Times to place the blame on Democrats.  It quickly dawned on the White House that blaming Democrats for Republican disunity was not a credible argument, so Trump and his media surrogates began on Day 65 to shift the blame to Paul Ryan and the Freedom Caucus.  Trump even floated the idea of working with the Democrats on health care reform. 

Are we winning yet?

And wafting through all these problems is, as historian Douglas Brinkley put it “a smell of treason in the air.”  The FBI, the CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence all agree that Vladimir Putin, working through Wikileaks, interfered in the presidential election on Trump’s behalf.  An unknown number of Trump’s campaign and transition team are under investigation for colluding with the Russians in this enterprise, and some of them are running scared. 

Late last week, the National Enquirer fingered disgraced former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn as a Russian spy.  The Enquirer is not exactly a trustworthy source, but it is owned by a longtime Trump ally, so it is reasonable to suppose that Trump’s people planted this story in the hope of shifting as much blame as possible onto Flynn.  Will the pugnacious former general meekly agree to take the fall for everyone else involved?  I wouldn’t bet on it. 

As we wrap up the tenth week of Trump’s presidency, his approval ratings are at an historic low, his legislative agenda is stalled, and members of his team are under criminal investigation. Neither he nor his closest advisors seem to have a clue about how to actually govern.  Nothing in Trump’s life has prepared him to be president.

Donald Trump was born rich, and when you start off rich, it’s easy to stay rich.  He went bankrupt four times, leaving his creditors holding the bag.  But he always failed upwards, because there was always someone (first his father, now Russian oligarchs) who’d loan him more money.  Trump’s money gave him access to the two things he wanted most: women, and flunkies to do his bidding and tell him how great he was.

As long as he was Donald Trump, celebrity businessman, he never encountered a problem he couldn’t buy his way out of, or walk away from.  Being Donald Trump, President, is a much harder job. 

Now he has to deal with a lot of other alpha males – and alpha females – who are smarter than he is, who work harder than he does, and who aren’t impressed by his money.  For the first time in his life, people are telling him “no,” and making it stick. 

The Obamacare replacement debacle has punctured his aura of invincibility, if not with his base, then certainly with congressional Republicans.  The guy who wrote The Art of the Deal couldn’t close the most important deal of his life, even within his own party.  The guy who boasted about being a big winner turned out to be a big loser.  Some people who were afraid of him aren’t afraid anymore.

Now he’ll look for quick wins elsewhere, but they’ll be hard to find.  Mexico won’t pay for a border wall, and he’ll have a tough time convincing Congress to cough up the money.  He’s already stubbed his toe twice on immigration initiatives.  He wants to rewrite the tax code, but he and his senior advisors aren’t smart enough to do it by themselves, and Paul Ryan’s reputation for budget wizardry took a pretty big hit last week.  

And if those challenges weren’t enough, tinkering with the tax code suddenly looks harder than it did last week.  Not only is the tax code more complicated than health care, but Republican assumptions about cutting taxes were based in large part on savings from the repeal of Obamacare.   

Every change in the tax code creates a new set of winners and losers.  As with health care, Republicans want the winners to be the ultra-rich, which means that everyone else will be losers.  As with health care, sooner or later many of those losers will figure out they’re being scammed, and they won’t be happy about it.     

At the age of 70, Donald Trump has failed upward as far as he can go.  From here on out, failure will take him down.