Trump's Hold on DC, US Politics and the GOP Is Weakening

The central dynamic in US politics today, and perhaps even the politics of the world, is the growing awareness of how weakened a figure Donald Trump has become.  He was beaten badly in the 2018 elections, and saw both parties come together in Congress to reject his strident demands on his central domestic issue, the border.  In essence no one is scared of him anymore.  

The opposition to him is becoming more pronounced in official circles here and abroad.  On Venezuela, China and Russia came together to support a pro-Maduro coalition, directly challenging the President’s very aggressive policy there.  The open hostility towards him was on full display in both Warsaw and Munich last week.  And here at home, prominent Republicans have not only challenged him on the border, but also on NATO, tariffs, Russia, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. 

The President’s unfortunate decision to declare a national emergency on the border when none exists may weaken him further.  As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports this morning, early polling on the emergency declaration is very bad for the President, even among his supporters.  After weeks of improvement on 538’s polling aggregate, the President’s approval rating has turned sharply more negative in recent days.  The sense that our President is failing, adrift, a bit crazy and potentially in imminent, grave legal jeopardy is taking hold here and across the world.  Domestically it means more direct challenges to his power, and more anger, lashing out; globally however it may mean even more aggressive actions against US interests, as this New York Times article about escalating Chinese and Iranian cyberattacks against American businesses details.  As I wrote this weekend, the President has left America dangerously isolated and not focused on the most serious threats facing us today – Russia, cyber exploitation of our open society, climate change and the corrosive geopolitics of oil wealth – but his profound new weakness is an additional threat to our security now too. 

Finally, with this wierd period from early October to last week when the political focus was on the elections and then the shutdown coming to an end, the focus now will be now on more conventional governing challenges - the economy, foreign policy, health care, the deficit, etc.  Given that virtually every metric about the health of the nation has worsened under Trump, and our standing abroad has taken a huge hit, the return to reality we may be about to experience is going to be unpleasant for Trump.  I don't know how he is going to handle it all - his decline, the willingness to challenge, the growing gravity of the legal cases, the reality that he's been a crappy President - but one should expect more distractions from it all, and more dark and challenging days ahead.