Trump Overreach

Webster Dictionary: Overreach; to defeat (oneself) by seeking to do or gain too much. 

We saw the first signs of it earlier this week. In Wisconsin, Florida, and Washington DC, the American people are beginning to react to the actions of this unhinged President. 

Donald Trump is operating on several faulty premises. 

First, he thinks that literally dodging the bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania was an act of God. His assumption is that he was chosen at that moment to fulfill his vision. 

There are some other explanations. 

He turned his head to look at the projected chart at the right instant. The rifle scope wasn’t properly adjusted. The shooter wasn’t a qualified marksman. Nerves caused the trigger to be pulled and not squeezed. 

And God’s only Son had to first die, not live, to fulfill his vision. There’s that. But Bible scholarship is not one of the President’s strengths. 

Secondly, just because he won all the “Battleground States” he thinks he won in an historic landslide and has a mandate from the American people. 

Like many other things he says, this is not true. 

In his well-sourced article in PolitiFact, Louis Jacobson writes, “Trumps margins—both in raw votes and in percentages—were small by historical standards, even for the past quarter century, when close elections have been the rule.” 

Wayne Steger, a DePaul University political scientist, wrote, “I’m inclined to view it as a close election in which there was enough anti-Democratic sentiment to carry the day.” 

Thirdly, Trump feels licensed to do as he pleases due to the bizarre ruling by the Supreme Court that he cannot be held criminally liable for actions taken in fulfillment of his official duties as President.  

The only catch in this area of overreach is that the man has never read the U.S. Constitution and doesn’t have a clear view of what his official duties are. And conversely, what they are not. 

In his first term he was surrounded by men and women who had read the Constitution and had the integrity and the shared moral compass to say no to the President when he was bouncing off the guard rails and threatening to take the bus into the ravine. Trump 2.0 has purposely surrounded himself with sycophants whose own anger, low self-esteem, and inexperience on the National stage are being channeled through the unhinged President in a toxic stew. Their silence in the face of the Musk takeover, amateur mistakes, and dangerous missteps have combined in just 70 days to indict both them and the Republican Senate that confirmed them.  

You could put the resumes in front of a 10-year-old child (tv host, conspiracy theorist, wrestle mania CEO, real estate developer) and ask them to compare them with the traditional successful government and military backgrounds of their predecessors and they would make better choices than the United States Senate. Think about that for a moment. 

But they all have the one qualification that the President wanted: the inability to say no to this President. Not only are they not Lincoln’s “team of rivals", they’re a dangerous corporation of enablers. 

But alas, the good news is that they are enabling the actions that may be Donald Trump's undoing. 

Trump has ignored his guarantee of lower prices and bungled his peace initiatives. He has damaged old alliances and destroyed our image in the world. He had indiscriminately fired hard-working civil servants, stopped lifesaving research and vital foreign aid. While Canada, Mexico, and the EU have gotten the headlines, his newly imposed tariffs have targeted some of the poorest nations in the world. 

Toxic townhall meetings were the early warning sign that this was not going over well in the land. Republican members of congress are getting the “do something or else” warning from their constituents. Democrats are, well, being Democrats. They did survive their first circular firing squad moment, however. 

Chuck Schumer’s decision to vote with the Republican’s to avoid a government shutdown has proven to be wise in my opinion. We are talking about tariffs, illegal deportations, Signalgate, and horrible economic indicators. Had the Democrats voted the other way, we’d only be talking about the impact of the government shutdown and the culpability of the Democratic party.  

Whereas the townhalls were the early warning signs, this week has been the worst so far. The judicial election in Wisconsin wasn’t even close and whether it was a referendum on Musk or Trump or both, it was the first time voters were able to react to the overreach of Donald J. Trump.  

On the same day, the Florida special election saw Trump’s 2024 victory margins cut in half in bright red Florida precincts and counties. This outcome in short-runway elections spells a troublesome reaction to the 70 days of Trump 2.0. 

Throw in the lasting stench of Signalgate, the bungled Greenland trip of the Second Couple, and other morsels of insanity and you had the perfect set up for...wait for it...Independence Day. (“Probably the greatest day in US History”). 

If you think it will be celebrated by our grandchildren and great grandchildren, I’ll take that bet. 

I am referring of course to (actually) Tariff Day, when Trump got to do something he has been talking about for 20 years, from Larry King to Howard Stern to Barbara Walters. His faulty economics, fractured history, false assumptions about the patience of the American people will now be publicly put to the test. The Wall Street Journal called it dumb, most economists think that it is not worth the risk, and as I write this the CNBC headline reads: “Dow Drops 1,500 points, S&P 500 loses 4% as stock market rout on Trump’s tariffs worsens.” 

Operation Overreach is off to a predictable start. He’s losing in the courts, losing at the ballot box, losing in the markets, and losing on the world diplomatic stage. This week, we even got the faintest of indications that the Congress is awakening. 

Keep those emails, cards, and letters going. March on April 5th with the rest of America. Keep the faith. Stay safe and be kind to one another.