Sep.19

electoral-vote.com

Dem 52

Ties 3

GOP 45

TrumpWatch, Part III: Signs Mount that MAGA is Fraying at the Edges

Sometimes Donald Trump has good weeks. Usually, he has bad weeks. But even the bad weeks are usually driven from without (by Iran, or the economy, or some persnickety reporter). This week had an unusual number of stories about trouble from within the tent. A rundown:

• And Then There Were Seven: This week, for the third time, the House voted to end the war in Iran. And there were three more Republican defectors, bringing to seven the total number of Iran aisle-crossers. Two of the new anti-war votes were from Iowans facing tough reelection battles—Zach Nunn and Marianette Miller-Meeks. The other was from Nancy Mace (SC), who switched sides because... well, who knows why she does what she does. The two Iowans made clear that they don't necessarily oppose the war, per se, but they do oppose the high gas prices it has caused.
  
  
• Britt's Two Faces: Publicly, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) has supported Donald Trump's tariffs. Privately, she's pressed the White House to get rid of the levies, particularly the ones that affect Alabama companies. This week, The Wall Street Journal laid bare the truth about the Senator's private and public faces, and called her out for being a phony and a hypocrite.
  
  
• ICEd Out: Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer was Donald Trump's nominee to lead ICE. He has absolutely no experience leading a law enforcement agency, much less a very large law enforcement agency. His main, and only, qualification appears to be that he's buddies with DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. At least a few Senate Republicans were not happy about the pick, and that was enough to kill the nomination. After a couple of months of Schroyer twisting in the wind, his nomination was yanked by the White House. In fairness, we must note that the last time the Senate managed to actually approve a leader for ICE was back in 2014. Ever since, it's been a string of acting directors. Maybe, just maybe, that's another argument for getting rid of a badly broken agency.
  
  
• Dim Witkoff: When you're ostensibly acting as mediator, it's not too easy to alienate the folks on both sides of the table, but apparently Steve Witkoff has done it. According to reporting out of Ukraine, both the Ukrainian and Russian governments are sick of dealing with him, as they don't think he understands the issues involved in their negotiations, or that he really actually cares about making progress (both sides say he seems to care more about trying fancy restaurants). And note that the only reason Witkoff is working on Russia-Ukraine right now is because the Iranians and the Saudis already got tired of dealing with him.
  
  
• Fox Tales: Fox "News" usually tries to downplay or ignore bad news for Trump. That includes bad polls, even if those bad polls are conducted by Fox. That said, polls cost money. And Fox's polls are the outlet's best (and kind of only) claim to being an actual news source. So, the bad polls are increasingly finding their way onto Fox's airwaves, among them a recent poll where 63% of respondents said that Trump made the economy worse. That same poll also gave the Democrats the edge on virtually every issue, as well as on the generic ballot, on enthusiasm and on party identification. Trump is furious about Fox's disloyalty, and yesterday told reporters:

  Fox has the worst, I think, Fox has frankly the worst polls in the whole business. I think they should have gotten rid of their pollsters years ago. They've been calling me wrong for ten years. But my polls have been very good. I get good polls. I get good everything.

  Do you think he really believes his polls are very good? Maybe Natalie Harp only shows him cooked data, or something like that? Because we struggle to think of a single good poll for Trump in the last 6 months, much less a bunch of them. Oh, and by the way, even the Foxers lambasted the alleged ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
  
  
• Trump Doesn't Sell: This story is actually NOT from the past week, but it's something of a complement to the Fox item. A couple of months ago, The New York Times did a study of 12 right-wing influencers. The paper found that ratings, across the various platforms, are cratering. For example, the 12 influencers combined for over 100 million YouTube views the month Trump was re-inaugurated; now they are down to less than 50 million a month. Views on eX-Twitter (600 million to 140 million) and Rumble (40 million to 12 million) have seen similarly steep declines. Podcasts listens actually rose from 10 million to 20 million by the end of last year, but are now back to 10 million.
  
  The Times ascribes this to two things. First, even among the faithful, Trump's shtick has gotten old. It's also increasingly irrelevant, as he'll be out of office in a little over 2 years, and he is likely to spend the latter part of his term as the lamest of lame ducks. Second, many right-wing listeners have turned against Trump, either entirely, or on key issues like fuel prices. The right-wing influencers are happy to pander, but that's not easy to do when some listeners want anger and rage that goes in one direction, and others want anger and rage that goes in the polar opposite direction.

We don't know if the fall of the House of MAGA has begun, or if this is just a temporary dip. But it's certainly possible that it really has begun, since Trump's popularity and power also declined around this time during v1.0, and this time, no matter what happens, he can't make a return.

There is one thing we do know, however: We are very glad we are not running for office as a Republican right now. That is a near-impossible task in this environment. (Z)