What's Tony Thinking

What A Week: But The Fog Is Clearing

This is the week we went from chaos to clarity. The week we went from mostly feeling overwhelmed to a sharper focus. No one summed up the shift, what is now clear, better than the Francis Fukuyama writing for Persuasion:

“We are in the midst of a global fight between Western liberal democracy and authoritarian government, and in this fight, the United States has just switched sides and signed up with the authoritarian camp.”

“The United States under Donald Trump is not retreating into isolationism. It is actively joining the authoritarian camp, supporting right-wing authoritarians around the world from Vladimir Putin to Viktor Orbán to Nayib Bukele to Narendra Modi.”

Andrew Sullivan writing at The Weekly Dish spoke of our new alliance with Putin:

“This is a Rubicon, I’m afraid, that cannot be fully uncrossed. But I have a feeling that the American people, including many who voted for Trump, will see this new alliance with Putin against a beleaguered, little democracy with the same disgust and nausea that I do.

“This is who Trump is. But it isn’t who Americans really are. I have faith that the West, now mortally wounded, can yet survive Trump and Putin, and re-emerge at some point. But it may be a dark, dark few years before the dawn’s early light breaks out again.”

Trump’s Approval Rating Already Going South. Let’s follow on Sullivan’s remark that, “This is who Trump is. But it isn’t who Americans really are,” with a confirming sign.

Trump’s approval rating has eroded badly over just one month. It has gone from 53% to 45%, the lowest for any President at this point in his presidency since World War II. Why? Well, for one thing, people are noticing that inflation hasn’t gotten better, as Trump promised it would as soon as he was elected. It has gotten worse.

And besides we didn’t elect Elon Musk who comes across as a crazed dude high on meth. As someone observed, “If Barack Obama or any other prominent black participant in the big leagues of American politics had 13 CHILDREN OUT OF WEDLOCK with 4 DIFFERENT WOMEN, it would be all anyone could ever talk about.” But sure, let this guy have the private information on every American and turn him loose on the government with a chain-saw. Why not?

And now, we’re supposed to buy the idea that Ukraine started a war that began when we watched Russian tanks roll across Ukraine’s border three years ago?

Trump’s Fast Start May Grind Down Like Those Russian Tanks. For a month now we’ve been battered by the rapid-fire pace of the new administration as if under an invasion. “Overwhelmed” was the word of the day. “It’s all too much.”

But there’s another way to look at it. I remember Ezra Klein’s, “Don’t Believe Him” column of February 2 in which he argued that the blitzkrieg tactics were not a sign of strength but weakness. Deep in that piece there was this nugget:

“I had a conversation a couple months ago with someone who knows how the federal government works about as well as anyone alive. I asked him what would worry him most if he saw Trump doing it. What he told me is that he would worry most if Trump went slowly. If he began his term by doing things that made him more popular and made his opposition weaker and more confused. If he tried to build strength for the midterms while slowly expanding his powers and chipping away at the deep state where it was weakest.

“But he didn’t. And so the opposition to Trump, which seemed so listless after the election, is beginning to rouse itself.”

It’s been a crazy week, but also a week in which the fog is breaking up. What’s going on and what’s at stake are becoming clear.