Trump should focus on issues most Americans care about.
And leave off incidental side fights that do not win converts and damage his political capital.
I like Donald Trump. Didn’t always. There was a time when Spy Magazine was making a name for itself during the heady late 80s when I bought into the stereotype of “the short-fingered vulgarian.” Trump’s tastes were gaudy. His braggadocio was trying. His demeanor was out of step with the quicksilver wit of the era, the last significant era in New York and American culture, before the Internet and social media leveled everything out. It was when print was king, and the technoratti hadn’t destroyed everything good, compelling, and original.
Trump was out of place in that high-brow literary era. Or at least he served as its classic villain: loud, garish, un-read, un-schooled. In today’s vacuous social media era, he’s right at home. Yet his former under-nuanced antagonists at Spy fail to grasp that Trump’s instincts are often correct. The border is broken. China is cheating us on trade. We need to shrink the size of government. His administration would be a roaring success if he focused on those problems. But Trump digresses.
America didn’t ask for the Gulf of Mexico to be named the Gulf of America. We didn’t want Canada as our 51st state, let alone usually quiescent Canadians driven to venomous fury over high tariffs. Americans like Canadians. Canadians like Americans. It was a fight no one wanted.
Americans don’t want to own the Panama Canal, let alone Greenland. We want lower taxes, criminals in jail, most illegal immigrants deported, much lower inflation, and a balanced budget. If Trump does all this and gets better terms on trade, all the better. However, the bottom line is lower taxes, crime, illegal immigration, inflation, and a balanced budget.
Trump is not doing that. On taxes, he may get there, but nothing yet. On crime, he has a long way to go. California, New York, and blue states like them still give too much deference to the criminal class. Trump needs to hold up all federal aid until these cities end no cash bail, institute broken windows policing, ban camping on city streets, and end drug giveaway programs. On illegal immigrants, Trump has to stop playing nice. Yes, criminal illegal aliens need to be deported. But so do everyday illegals. Bus boys, maids, gardeners, you name it. However pleasant, hardworking, and pliant, they need to go. Trump has shown a staggering lack of courage in going after the millions here illegally. At the same time, he needs to increase the migration of H-1B visa holders if we are to seize the advantage that homegrown semiconductor chips and data centers present.
Regarding inflation, the trade fight was worth having as we pushed back against export subsidies, IP theft, and forced technology transfer, but time is running out. Trump needs to start cutting deals, not merely announcing “progress,” or the prospect of massive inflation combined with GDP loss will dwarf whatever concessions he receives. Consumer sentiment is already down 30% since December and will likely worsen.
On the budget, he has let the colorful Elon Musk be the fall guy for DOGE. We need to get the high-profile Musk back to running Tesla, and smart, low-key, and measured billionaires like Airbnb’s Joe Gebbia running DOGE. We need to cut everything associated with Biden’s welfare schemes, including unnecessary COVID relief, rentals of unused Federal buildings, various racist, sexist DEI grants, unused licenses, and a plethora of credit cards. DOGE could save $350 billion, maybe more. But the real spending cuts need to come in the forthcoming budget. Everything needs to be on the table, especially cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and other welfare programs.
That is where Trump can shine. Restore American greatness by restoring American fiscal prudence.