Quick drive-by post. I'm heartened by the fact that we seem to be "slouching towards Trump 1." As much as I dislike Donald Trump - and it's a whole lot and IMO quite well-justified considering my view of this great country - the policies in Trump 1 were on balance very solid. Because, whether he liked it or not, Trump governed like an establishment Republican who wasn't very concerned about how many mean things the media said about it (he seems to be bothered personally by those mean things, but it didn't impact his governance much).
I think the first few months of the new Trump Administration were pretty awful. The following things happened:
1. Elon came out guns blazing on DOGE. DOGE is the one item on this list that is not categorically bad. Very much a right direction program, but premised on the misunderstanding that the government can clean up its financial act without either major tax increases OR significant revisions to entitlements (I prefer the latter).
2. Vance tried to humiliate Zelinsky in the Oval. I don't think it worked out that way - Z basically told him to screw off. But it was part of a terrible strategy in which we provided maximal deference to some obvious enemies in connection with this harebrained "spheres of influence" idiocy. Like American's FP or not ... we are a clear world leader and the benefits of the same are substantial.
3. The tariff idiocy. I see
@bucshon post the economic numbers (which I'd agree aren't bad, tho I think current growth is iffier than it need be), and I wonder how much if he realizes that the tariffs being imposed are much, much lower than were announced. The tariffs imposed on China are high but far lower than they were in April. Elsewhere, we only have a 10% tariff on most countries, the Liberation Day tariffs were 4-5x that. America can survive what I'd consider unfortunate tariff policies (the current ones), because the impact of those is far different than the massive tariff regime proposed in early April.
4. The populists were steering the ship. Trump is the ultimate decider, but the people around him with the loudest voices appeared to be those in the "New Right" (I'd also call them the "Online Right"). Peter Navarro on trade, the Tuckerites on FP, the Bannonites on everything.
Sure I could come up with more. In recent weeks, we've seen the following.
1. Elon is gone, and even the Trump Admin seems to think the DOGE approach failed.
2. Whether Trump led the charge on Israel's attack on Iran or was dragged along (truth is somewhere in the middle), Trump seems to realize that degrading Iran's nuclear program is a big win, and that Iran is a bad actor. His last few months on Ukraine has been less bad than the first few months, tho he still defers too much to Putin (whose armies have been proven to be extraordinarily weak at this point).
3. "Tariff man" waffled when both the stock and bond markets revolted, and while the current policy isn't a win (I'm fine with a 50% tariff on China, but 0% is the right number elsewhere), it's far more focused on the specific goal of decoupling from China. That's not a bad thing.
4. Almost all of the bad ideas in Trump 2 have come from the Populist Wing, and Trump seems to have noticed who has led him astray. I don't know that he'll learn forever, but the credibility of this noisy part of his coalition has taken hits. Of course, they will start sucking up to him again soon as that's the only way back.
Bottom line ... we are slouching towards Trump 1, with more of a "strong man" approach to governance. I don't like the latter, but the former would likely end with Trump leaving the stage with a better record and higher approval than Biden.