Donald Trump has always liked the spotlight….
Right now?
The spotlight ain’t doing him or his Republicans ANY favors….
The Trump ‘Brand ‘ is underwater…..
Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner: “The frantic pace of the Trump presidency makes days seem like weeks and weeks like months — if not years. Finding rhyme or reason amid President Trump’s erratic conduct is impossible. Even so, while 2026 has not brought calm, it has brought more clarity.”
“Twenty months into his second term, Mr. Trump has remade the presidency and changed what Americans will tolerate from their government and from one another. Yet that transformation, sweeping as it is, may prove less important than what Mr. Trump and his allies could not do. They failed at the most ambitious project that they brought to his second term: using the state to remake American society. That failure is a central fact of the past 20 months, and it is why the country is in a less dangerous place than it was a year ago.”
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“Voters aren’t happy, and we’re in charge.”
— Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
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Seth Masket: “If you’ve been following the midterm election polling over the past week or so, the big story has been the sudden expansion in Democrats’ leads, both in many individual races and in national polling. Just in the past few weeks, Democratic odds of winning the Senate have gone from 50-50 to 64% at the FiftyPlusOne model and 65% in Nate Silver’s model. The median forecast for House elections at FiftyPlusOne has Democrats picking up 39 seats — not too far from my 46-seat forecast I made back in the spring, which I thought was insane when I wrote it.”
“The reasons for an overall Democratic lean this year are well documented. But in terms of the recent boost for Democrats, one can make a case that this is the product of the Republican midterm convention that Donald Trump organized September 9th-10th.”
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“Surging fuel prices driven by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are remaking global politics. Though benchmark oil prices have stabilized after a recent jump, a shortage of fuel tankers and limits on global refining capacity have driven increases in the costs of diesel and other oil-based products,” Semafor reports.
“U.S. average diesel prices reached $6.50 for the first time ever, adding to President Donald Trump’s worsening economic approval rating ahead of November’s midterms, Brazil’s government implemented measures to lower prices ahead of presidential elections next month, and European leaders have scrambled to use their limited fiscal capacity to cushion the blow ahead of polls in France, Germany, and Italy in the next year.”…
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Tom Nichols: “Perhaps this world of troubles is why Trump is taking refuge in plans of marble and gilt. Even an emotionally healthier man might want an occasional break from the travails of a presidency in crisis: Harry Truman would retire to the White House balcony with a bourbon; Dwight Eisenhower played a lot of golf; Kennedy and George H. W. Bush loved sailing; Ronald Reagan watched hundreds of movies in the mansion theater and at Camp David.”
“But Donald Trump is not an emotionally healthy man, and his obsession with monuments is not a mere diversion from the pressures of the job. His most recent tirade—posted at 7:34 this morning on his Truth Social site, some six hours after his last post the night before—suggests a president who is now lost in a fantasy city in his mind, a capital where the buildings are festooned with his name, drenched in glitz, and bristling with weapons.”…
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Dan Pfeiffer: “During midterm elections, the incumbent president is almost always a drag on their party. Voters quickly grow impatient with the lack of progress and tend to want to check the recently elected President.”
“However, the President usually has something to offer his party—a popular accomplishment or at least some progress on solving a problem. In 2010, the Democrats lost more than 60 seats in the House, but Obama was still pretty popular and could at least argue that the worst of the financial crisis was behind us. In 2018, Trump was unpopular, but voters still liked his economy and gave him credit for managing it well.”
“The NBC poll shows that Trump really offers Republicans nothing. His political problems are historic, and voters are rejecting not just him, but every element of his agenda.”
NBC News: 43% of voters want midterm vote to “signal opposition to Trump.”
image…Axios
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