In things I write here in the Editors’ Blog, I am both critical of mainstream news conventional wisdom and also interested in it as a political artifact in itself. Whether it is accurate, fair, quality journalism, it is a fact of the political geography on its own. So it’s important to understand, and I spend a lot of time trying to analyze and place it on that basis.
On that front I wanted to return to a point I’ve alluded to a few times recently, which is that just in the last week or so there’s been a shift in that elite news conventional wisdom toward what we and others have been saying for a couple months. And that is a new focus on the disconnect, really the chasm opening up between Donald Trump’s political fortunes and his political actions. It’s not simply that Trump isn’t adjusting or repositioning as a more conventional politician might. Trump’s never been that way. It’s out of character. But he’s accelerating into the most toxic parts of his presidency. In addition to general discontent about the economy and the very unpopular Iran War, he’s pushed things like his ballroom and his slush fund to the very top of the political agenda, even short-circuiting or delaying other parts of his agenda to further them.
This is the big political fact and perhaps the big question of the political moment. Why is this happening? Does Trump simply not care? Does he have a trick up his sleeve? Is he so coddled and insulated at this point that he truly thinks he’s all-powerful?
The New York Times put the matter this way in the sub-headline of a news analysis piece on May 23: “President Trump continues to act like he’s politically all-powerful, even in the face of indications that he is not.” The headline of the same piece provided the context: Defiant After Bad Week, Trump Pushes Ahead on Politically Unpopular Ideas. It’s the piece two days later that further got my attention: Trump’s Self-Indulgence Deepens G.O.P. Fears in Midterms. Here the story is more clearly elaborated. Trump is doubling down on the most unpopular parts of his agenda — or things like the ballroom and slush fund that strain the term “agenda” — as his Capitol Hill majorities are going onto life support. A Politico PM piece that came out minutes before I published this post brought Trump himself in to make the point. “Trump: ‘I don’t care about the midterms’”. It is a feature of the moment that requires an extra-political explanation — either a secret election-gaming fix, as some imagine, or something within Trump himself or his perceptions of the world around him that has pulled him outside of the conventional math of political calculation.
We’re seeing this now because the evidence in front of us has become so overwhelming. On another level, though, his political weakness has taken the juice out of his constant razzmatazz of political domination — the stunts, the takedowns, the cartoonish public choreography, the ritual slayings of former allies. Trump has always used these spectacles of power to keep alive the idea that he always has the last say, that he’s always the strongest, toughest guy in the room. He punishes; others endure, as sure as gravity pulls objects down rather than up. But the scale of the unpopularity and political weakness is just too great. They’ve reached a critical mass where the whole carnival of power isn’t resonating in the same way, or maybe not at all. The change is both being driven by and driving his deteriorating hold on Capitol Hill. These stunts and antics are a kind of ideational gerrymandering, aimed at holding perceptions of Trump’s power — and thus to a real degree the reality of his power — in place. But like an electoral gerrymander, in the face of sufficient unpopularity they become brittle and can break suddenly. And that’s what appears to be happening.