President Trump is off to a manic start, carpet bombing Washington with executive orders of dubious legality, firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and souring relations with America’s neighbors and allies.
I get that Trump was elected to shake up a status quo that working-class voters believe stacks the odds against them. But Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) was right: Trump has no mandate to inflict ruinous trade wars on America’s friends, disable the federal government rather than reform it and throw Ukraine to the Russian wolves.
Green’s protest got him ejected from the president’s stemwinder in Congress Tuesday night, during which Trump served up his usual smorgasbord of self-congratulatory fantasies to rapt Republicans and dejected Democrats.
We shouldn’t forget that half the country didn’t vote for Trump and endorses neither his brazen power grabs nor his embrace of old ideas — high trade barriers and isolationism — that failed our country badly in the past. At 45 percent, Trump’s personal approval rating is the lowest for any newly elected president since he set the record low of 44 percent in 2017.
Republicans no doubt are thrilled their hero is “owning the libs.” But what matters now is whether Trump can deliver tangible benefits to the swing voters who put him narrowly over the top — independents, moderate Republicans and Democratic defectors, especially noncollege Blacks and Latinos.
