When dealing with all things Trumpian, one must acclimate oneself to residing in the chaotic environment of a political storm. And if you must exist in a storm, then it is wise to seek out the peaceful, though transitory, calm of the eye. This is the adjustment that Americans of all stripes are now making to our new president. Our past experience has taken us to a place where we like to anticipate what is coming, how it will appear, and exactly what its consequences will be. We like our politics to be predictable. That has always been a flawed concept because reality dictates that if it is nothing else, politics is at its core uncertain.
The
massive egos of journalism’s political punditry have pushed well-known media
personalities to think of themselves as not only experts in all things
political, but also beings that are blessed with infallible judgment and
understanding of what is to come. Over
the last decade or so, this dynamic has begun to fray and unravel. The reemergence of Donald Trump and his
current Administration has accelerated this trend to warp speed status. Donald Trump has always been…and will always
be…a creature of chaos. His modus
operandi is “seat of your pants”,
instinctive decision making and “shoot
from the hip” rhetoric. Trump has
been privileged to exercise this type of personal behavior and it has obviously
served him quite well in his career pursuits.
It is clearly going to take America some time to get used to this type
of governance.
There
is an old saying about “the means to an end”.
With Biden, there were no means and there were no ends. It was like the Israelites wandering about in the
wilderness. With Trump, you might wonder
if it is the means or if it is the ends; but you know damn well there is
something happening.
I
suspect that the bottom line is this: do not overreact to anything that Trump
says or does at the moment he does it; let it settle for a bit. One can never be sure why he is saying it or doing it and it is rather pointless to
speculate about it. The best practice is
clearly to see how his words and
actions play out over time, both short term and long term. The main issue of concern I have always had
with Donald Trump is not so much what
he does, but rather how it does
it. The simple fact is that no one is
going to change the how part of that
equation. Ergo, it would seem the best
way to evaluate the performance of the Trump Administration is not to leap at
every occurrence, but to judge the final results of the actions.
For
those of us who support Trump’s main policy thrusts, the good news is that he
usually arrives at a point that we can find pleasing. The bad news is that when you operate as he
does…outside of normal political parameters…there is essentially no escape from
owning the consequences. His methods of
operation pretty much remove the oft used political tricks of the past such as
political double speak, obfuscation, and empty rhetoric. I have faith in his overall policy initiatives
and feel confident that they will take this nation where it needs to be. The nagging fear that haunts me is that some
of it…mainly his economic policies…will
take longer to succeed and will not bear desirable fruit before the mid-term
elections of 2026. I shudder to even
consider what the last two years of a Trump Administration would be like with a
Democrat-controlled House and/or Senate.
Hold on tight, my friends…we are in for one exciting ride.
Thanks
to the Biden Administration, Donald Trump was presented with a colossal mess in
international foreign affairs upon his arrival in office. The options he now commands for the
Ukraine/Russia war game are far fewer in number than they were even two years
ago and the simple fact is that his remedies for this catastrophic and
disastrous conflict are severely limited.
There are few, if any, that would be considered good. He is down to making the best of a bad
situation and any reasonable person would understand that he should be given
the leeway to work this conundrum out the best way he can. He deserves that patience.
What actually occurred in the infamous
Oval Office meeting... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhquAWlke2o
Different perspectives on the
implications…
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-editors/what-happened-in-the-oval-office/
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/03/03/trump-vs-zelenksyy-democracy-dies-in-drama/
https://www.nationalreview.com/carnival-of-fools/the-ground-is-shifting-underneath-our-feet/
https://thefederalist.com/2025/03/04/how-bidens-blank-check-for-ukraine-disastrously-bounced/
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/03/zelensky-climbs-down.php
https://americanmind.org/salvo/wars-end/
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/better-righteous-than-right-about-ukraine/
The
leaders of our neighboring countries to the north and south can afford to speak
recklessly and brashly about what they will or will not do about American
policies concerning them; they are geographically protected by a U.S. military
presence. On the other hand, European and
many NATO nations exist in the shadow of the Kremlin Bear and although they may
occasionally be careless with their anti-American rhetoric…reality dictates that
America is their guardian angel. That
will ultimately determine how they deal with Russian and Chinese aggression.
https://americanmind.org/salvo/europe-must-listen-to-its-people/
One aspect of Donald Trump’s
foreign policy that I enthusiastically embrace is the fact that he does not insist
that our nation’s allies have to be like America…they don’t even have to like
America. But the one thing they must do
if we are going to be partners…they must RESPECT America.
https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/01/trump-vance-and-the-new-new-world-order/
The
obstacles to reshaping our nation’s government to shrink, become more efficient,
and better conform to our Constitution is a herculean task that is fraught with
ruthless opposition and endless complexities.
The Trump Administration is now fully engaged in that battle.
https://www.thefp.com/p/victor-davis-hanson-can-trump-reset
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/trump-delivers-address-joint-session-congress
Consider what it has inherited…
https://mrctv.org/blog/craig-bannister/postmortem-truth-about-biden-harris-economy
https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/01/dei-was-the-biggest-con-of-the-century/
https://americanmind.org/salvo/denizens-of-the-deep-state/
https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/03/who-really-politicized-the-pentagon/
Consider what it is trying to do to
fix it…
https://reason.com/2025/03/05/doge-and-congress-should-take-a-chainsaw-to-corporate-welfare/
Whether it be the Department of
Education, the U.S. Postal Service, USAID, or any other federal department or
agency…the first question should always be: Is this something that the
Government should be doing or is it something better left to the private
sector?
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/musk/2025/03/05/id/1201610/
As
we witnessed in his recent address to a joint session of Congress, there are some
among us who will never accept Donald Trump as our President. He and his Administration must mange to
succeed in spite of them.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/when-the-left-is-too-smug-even-for-the-new-york-times/
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/03/01/the-press-falls-to-another-record-low-in-public-trust/
https://www.jns.org/dont-mourn-the-demise-of-corporate-media-gatekeepers/