The political news from the Trump administration continuously reflects purposeful self-delusion, seemingly to shield adverse popular conclusion.
From the Pentagon’s ever-changing defense of missile strikes about killing surviving drug crewmen to limp explanations for sending troops onto U.S. streets to trashing “affordability” as a made-up economics problem, what we’re seeing is the administration pulling into a crouch and then attacking whoever says different.
Worse, from the administration’s standpoint, none of it is working – as evidenced by an increasing string of local election victories or political advances for Democrats, increasingly poor polling numbers, and a palpable rise in public, insulted anger over what is seen as betrayal of American values.
–Defense/War Secretary Pete Hegseth is winning no friends in Congress by insisting that videos of follow-up strikes against those suspected drug boats in the Caribbean need review when he promoted the initial lethal videos as evidence of a manly steadfastness against drug smuggling endorsed by the Venezuelan government. The administration sees no reason to explain its behavior in seizing an oil tanker filled with Venezuelan oil.
–Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is drawing lawsuit after lawsuit over tactics she has authorized for masked, camo-clad, anonymized federal agents to use in arresting and deporting without undergoing legally required hearings and spreading fear across cities. Meanwhile, Noem is both heartless and deaf to reports that legalized migrants and U.S. citizens are getting caught in almost random street raids. Yesterday, she denied to Congress that citizens or veterans or families of veterans were being nabbed in raids, despite video evidence.
–Donald Trump himself went to Pennsylvania this week for a campaign-style defense of his economy against complaints of continuing high prices for food, housing, electricity and, especially, health insurance premiums. But what Trump used the gathering before 1,000 audience members screened as supporters to do was to demean the opposition and to deny that there is any problem with prices. If you only meet approvers, you necessarily will not hear from critics.
Add reactions to changes in eliminating vaccine protocols, dropping medical research, erasing the Education Department, setting aside environmental regulation enforcement and more. What you have is a government in public denial that anyone could be upset.
An Insulting Message
The Trump meandering speech, which slapped at immigration from poor countries and lavishly praised himself, was more than a slap against “affordability,” which he dismissed as even applicable to his administration’s economy. In Trump’s view, prices are down, not up, as experienced by anyone walking into a supermarket. Even if prices are up, he insists that tariffs, which are a national sales tax paid by Americans, more than justify any personal economic pressure.
Once again, he insisted that people who feel financial pain simply buy less – while he personally pursues expensive, gilded projects like a new White House ballroom and glitzy partying at Mar-a-Lago.
Why Trump thinks that this makes for good politics (or a good economic message) remains a mystery except for the obvious: He doesn’t recognize that his policies are prompting anger. That’s a classic definition for delusion.
Maybe Trump could make a case for delaying attention on prices to deal with adding jobs and manufacturing. But this speech didn’t do that. Jobs are down, prices are up, immigration enforcement is eliminating a layer of labor and the emphasis on AI is threatening a widening swath of job prospects. Trump’s tariffs are not fixing trade imbalances. Despite Trump’s assertions, no state is paying $1.99 a gallon for gas.
Even Trump’s announcement of aid to farmers hurt by tariffs came with misstatements. Farm aid funded by tariffs paid by Americans amount to less than a third of reported losses for shutting international markets to those farmers.
Trump’s economic message of denial is insulting.
It has become the trademark of this administration, and it has already become angry-making among Democrats, Independents and a now-growing number of Republicans.
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