If the voting public doesn’t seem terribly worried today about a certain problem, and if the fix would be onerous, savvy politicians (particularly those who plan on being reelected) give it a wide berth. No need even to kick the can down the road, just pretend it isn’t there. But not the bulldog, second-term President Donald Trump. He just dives right in and tells us how great it will be to finally solve that ugly situation.
Take our ever-increasing national debt, the matter that will inevitably bring us to our knees, perhaps sooner than we expect. Trump’s first line of attack has been to reduce unnecessary government spending — hence his assignment to Elon Musk’s DOGE team to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, an action most presidents promise but then quietly ignore. The DOGE effort has been remarkably fruitful so far; Musk’s $1 trillion target, once widely panned, now seems possible.
One might think the public at large, and even his political opponents, would offer grudging encouragement. Not so. DOGE’s aggressive examination and the administration’s steps to act on its recommendations have unleashed a torrent of outrage from the Left, focused mainly on DOGE leader Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who not long ago was their hero for ushering in the era of the electric vehicle.
The initial grumbling has morphed into violent and destructive protests at Tesla dealerships, widespread damage to Tesla cars everywhere, and even intimidation of Tesla owners. The illogic is mind-bending. Aren’t Tesla buyers the ones who stepped up in our mission to save the planet? I scratch my bald head trying to decipher the protest movement’s inane messaging, like the huge sign prominent in TV footage of the chaos urging us to “Burn a Tesla, save Democracy!” Huh?
The anti-DOGE effort is now metastasizing, including the engagement of left-leaning courts to block various government staffing reductions and spending cuts and broader initiatives like this past weekend’s “Hands Off!” protests. The implicit message is that we’re OK with the concept but don’t actually do it.
The anti-DOGE hysteria is mild compared to our most recent political flap, the broad array of tariffs announced by President Trump last week. The uproar is deafening, the objections fierce, and public figures are expressing outrage and ridicule — a wide-ranging reaction that is uniting the Left and worrying many on the Right.
It’s far too early to meaningfully determine how good or bad this newest, boldest Trump action is. To some degree, the overwhelmingly negative initial reaction to Trump’s announcement may have already been baked in. Trump has been advertising his tariff plan for months, and many express legitimate concerns and predict dire consequences — and so when the shoe finally dropped, the world’s fastest-responding poll (the stock market) tanked in fear.
The president’s explanation of his plan has not been entirely clear. He speaks of trade imbalances, how we are the world’s best customers, and how other nations have been “ripping us off” for decades with their own absurdly high tariffs on American goods. But the underlying, long-term objective is compelling. America was once the world’s superstar manufacturing power — a capability that saved the free world in WWII, but which has declined drastically over the years as we have allowed our own manufacturing capability to be replaced by that of lower-priced labor in other countries.
It’s not clear that imposing high tariffs on exports will effectively trigger a rebirth of our own manufacturing capacity, but imagine a World War III in which the production of weapons, ships, computers, vehicles, etc., all depended on suddenly unavailable imports of manufactured goods from our adversaries.
To some degree, howling disagreement about all things Trump has become par for the course. As he works at a breakneck pace to take on every issue under the sun, his opponents cast about frantically for opportunities to regain their political footing. But what seems to raise their ire to entirely new levels?
I don’t think it’s any more complicated than the human instinct to “leave well enough alone,” even if deep down inside, we know that what’s happening is really not “well enough.” Prestigious journals scold Trump for upsetting the established world order. But what if that established order is sure to work to our disadvantage at some point?
It is those issues simmering below the surface that career politicians avoid like the plague. Not Trump. That’s not to say his solutions will always work, but certainly that he is bold and fearless at taking them on.
And he’s not done yet. On our ballooning national debt, even his successful DOGE work just delays the inevitable economic train wreck; it doesn’t preclude it. The larger matter of actually balancing the budget, elusive for decades, still looms and poses a range of competing decisions on economic priorities and upcoming budget setting and tax policy deliberations. Stay tuned.
Next in the category of “fixing America’s future” may be the ultra-sensitive issue of entitlements, particularly Social Security. Trump (and every other politician in sight) vows to leave it untouched — and yet the simple math is unforgiving. Absent aggressive action — soon — the system will collapse of its own weight. Elon Musk first became public enemy #1 a few months ago when we characterized our Social Security system as a “Ponzi Scheme.” It is exactly that.
Don’t be surprised if the indefatigable Donald Trump, if he’s still standing, takes that one on as well. Be sure that if he does, the furies will unleash their next torrent of abuse. That is the sad reality of the political world we inhabit.
The big picture: It’s not the easy issues, the ones that ultimately solve themselves, that matter. We hire presidents to address the gnarly, seemingly intractable issues that can dictate our nation’s survival. And that’s why an American president asleep at the wheel is so inherently dangerous.
Is there anyone who thinks that the president is unaware of the risks, both to the nation and his own presidency, if his bold actions do not succeed as planned? As of this writing, he seems undeterred by the precipitous stock market decline, and he vows to stay the tariff course. His detractors call that arrogance. But is it not courage?
We can and should raise our concerns, but we owe him our respect, our trust, our support, and reasonable patience — not abuse.
