Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 15 March 2025
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
What will it finally take?
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, and Pres. Donald Trump appears to be doing likewise, taking the country on a roller coast ride where he appears on the top of his game one day only to lose ground the next. He has become Chaos, and the public is turning on him but not enough to force the Senate and House GOP to follow suit. What will it take? Certainly not his personal peccadilloes nor his autocratic rants nor his false facts nor his mangled and vulgar version of English. No, they who cast their ballots for him ignored all this, put on blinders, and focused on the issues that mattered to them, though, as it turned out, mattered less to Trump.
We are a little more than halfway through the first hundred days of Trump’s second term, and clues are emerging about what it would take to compel compliant Republicans in Congress to confront this most unorthodox president.
We have compiled a list of the top items Trump pays attention to. He is not a reader, and he is not a student of history, but he has an animal instinct for survival that serves him well, and it starts with the stock market, which is number one on our list.
Stocks are no longer just for a small elite group. A Gallup survey last year found 62 percent of the public own stocks. For a real estate developer and businessman like Trump, the market’s gyrations are like an EKG (electrocardiogram). When it’s up, he’s up; when it’s down, he’s down.
People watching their 401-k accounts go down are not happy either. A lot of regular people have lost money, and they may lose more. Trump says he does not rule out a recession. This is not what Trump voters expected.
Second on our list is tariffs. A trade war is easy to start and hard to unwind, and Trump can’t get it through his head that tariffs are paid by consumers not foreign exporters because that is how it works. Costs are passed along. It is basic. Most high-schoolers learned about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 and how it deepened the Great Depression.
Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska represent states that border on Canada, a friendly trading partner suddenly turned especially hostile to neighboring states as Trump ruminates about what a great 51st state Canada will make, the greatest state ever.
A third category ripe for a GOP rebellion is what we call national security hawks. They believe in NATO and credit the Western alliance with keeping peace in Europe for the last 75 years.
Trump has injected fear into NATO members that he may not honor the U.S. obligation under Article five of the NATO Treaty: an attack on one is an attack on all. Trump says he is pulling 20,000 U.S. troops out of Europe, another indication that he is less than fully committed to the alliance.
The pre-Trump Republican Party personified by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush revered NATO, and many moderate Republicans today believe Reagan’s “peace through strength” won the Cold War.
Lastly, the Trump-Musk team has targeted the IRS, the VA, and the Department of Education for more mass firings. These departments deliver services that will soon be missed. People may have to wait for their income tax refunds. Suicide prevention services provided by the VA are being discontinued, and federal programs that protect the most vulnerable students will be the first to go.
It may take some time, but voters will not put up with this, and members of Congress fearful of Trump may soon become more fearful of their constituents.
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
              Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
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END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND