Trump wins elections but fails at governing

Nobody plays the victim like President Trump. His self-portrayal is that of a comic book superhero waging a lonely battle against sinister forces bent on eliminating him so they can get on with destroying America.

Biased political reporters, deep state globalists, judges and Supreme Court justices who keep striking down his illegal power grabs, Republican turncoats, commie Democrats, freeloading U.S. allies, a Nobel Prize committee that stubbornly refuses to recognize his superlative contributions to world peace. Trump’s foes are legion.

From Pope Leo on down, anyone who dares oppose or simply disagree with our thin-skinned whiner-in-chief invites a fusillade of Trumpian invective. The trick here — what makes his big con work — is his ability to convince the MAGA faithful that his critics are all effete elitists who hate America and look down on ordinary working folks like them.

But it turns out that objective reality gets a vote too. No amount of presidential gaslighting can overcome the felt experience of U.S. voters. Too many working Americans don’t like what they’re experiencing today, and most blame Trump. Once again, he’s proving to be his own worst enemy.

The public ( 64 percent ) strongly disapproves of his capricious tariffs, which arise from Trump’s misapprehension that trade is always a zero-sum game. He promised to drive prices down, but just 17 percent of voters think he’s done a good job of handling inflation. Two-thirds oppose his muddled war with Iran, which 60 percent think America is losing.

Also unpopular are the president’s gratuitous attacks on Canada , Denmark and other U.S. allies, his revenge prosecutions and his frenetic stock and crypto trading , which has made him $2 billion richer even as inflation erases working Americans’ wage gains. Thanks to his brutal deportation tactics, Trump is even underwater on immigration .

It’s almost as if Trump’s signature policies were designed to inflict damage on his most loyal supporters. Even 60 percent of non-college whites think he’s flubbed the cost of living crisis. And farming communities are reeling from the double whammy of Trump’s chaotic trade wars and his impulsive stumbling into yet another Middle East quagmire.

Tariffs raise prices for fertilizer, plows, barbed wire fencing, tools, pesticides and other necessities. Iran’s escalating attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz raise gas costs and have doubled the price of diesel fuel.

Meanwhile, our trading partners are buying fewer U.S. farm exports like soybeans, corn and pork in retaliation for Trump’s protectionism. My colleague Ed Gresser reports that bankruptcies are rising as farm income has fallen $9 billion this year, while expenses are up $5 billion.

Another key measure of Trump’s misrule over the past two years is the unraveling of his winning 2024 coalition . He’s down 12 points from his Election Day tally with women, nine points with young voters, 16 points with Latinos and 21 points with independents.

Trump II is beginning to look like Trump I. Lest we forget, his first term ended in abject failure, as voters denied him a second term and gave Joe Biden something Trump hasn’t achieved in three tries — a majority victory . According to his 2020 pollster, Tony Fabrizio, Trump lost mainly because voters thought he fumbled the biggest challenge he faced — the COVID-19 pandemic that killed 400,000 Americans by the end of his term.

His second term performance has been even more shambolic, largely because spineless congressional Republicans have abdicated their Constitutional duties and let Trump run wild.

Obscured by his spotlight-hogging, the Republican-run 119th Congress is building a reputation as the least productive in memory. “The current Congress has had fewer bills signed into law than any other Congress of the last 30 years,” according to a Washington Post analysis .

Some Republicans are embarrassed. “This is a Congress without ambition,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), accusing his colleagues of being a rubber stamp for Trump. When Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) adjourned the House for a seven-week midterm recess, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) dryly noted , “The founders did not envision taking this much time off and still getting paid.”

But give Trump his due: Getting elected president twice after losing once is a rare and impressive political achievement — one he shares only with Grover Cleveland. Governing, however, isn’t in his skill set. He thinks it is about augmenting his power; voters think it is about helping them solve their problems.

Great presidents rally Americans to confront common threats and challenges. Trump’s divide and conquer method of gaining power is the antithesis of democratic leadership. And his Napoleonic self-regard impels him to claim he’s winning even when it’s obvious his policies are backfiring.

Trump’s inability to admit mistakes, let alone learn from them, makes him dangerous. But U.S. voters know governing incompetence when they see and feel it and will likely make his party pay for it in November.

Will Marshall is founder and president of Progressive Policy Institute .