Tomorrow is the Ides of March:
Be grateful we are where we are.
We here at Instapunk were grousing about this exact dip in voter enthusiasm back during the last weeks of the campaign. Why did Trump have to keep insisting that it would be quick work to fix the Biden mess? He knows better than that. People will be disappointed at having to wait for $1.50 gas.
He was exaggerating. He does that. All of the repair work is going to take longer than the First Hundred Days. We all knew that even if we didn’t admit it out loud. Grousing’s allowed on that score. But it’s also the case that President Trump is not the same head of state he was in March of 2017. This is the 2.0 version, a refined and slightly debugged version, an older, wiser version immeasurably more ready for the Oval Office than he was the first time around. The biggest difference, for both good and ill? He’s a politician now. He has to be.
Instead of tapping our feet waiting for results to hit our own kitchen tables, we should be watching and learning from how he’s going about the job of being President in his second term. It’s both interesting and encouraging to see him moving through his days.
We used to remind readers about the 48 to 72 hour rule. Pundits were always stubbing their toes (and feet, if not their tongues) by leaping prematurely to conclusions about what Trump meant or was planning when he said something provocative. Then they were proven wrong and embarrassed by what happened next, which was usually an unexpected win on some point of policy. The 48/72-hr rule is no longer applicable. The new rule should be 1-4 weeks. The changes he’s working for are far bigger than they were in 2017. They’re also riskier and potentially far more beneficial in the grand scheme of things. The Biden administration did so much damage that everything is harder to do than it was.
World leaders got used to a United States that could be stalled, lied to, pushed around and even ignored. The media covering the White House got lazy and lost every skill but covering their own flabby asses by blaming Trump for everything that didn’t suit them. They even managed to get away with this sad routine when Trump was not President anymore, not in charge of anything but salvaging his career and protecting his own life and family from harm. He learned a lot in the process of picking up the pieces and mounting his spectacular political comeback.
The biggest change you could see in him was in his dealings with Congress during the ‘Wilderness Term.’ He sensed what he could do and what he couldn’t, regardless of what the most rabid ones around him were urging. He remained at arm’s length or
more from the various fights over the Speakership. He didn’t have real weight to throw around in the bowels of the House and Senate and he knew it when others forgot it. He traded in mean tweets for discreet nudges behind the scenes, and he dealt with the reality of principals he could not fire by forgiving, schmoozing, and befriending them. He let the GOP leadership deal with McCarthy. He did not overreact when the new Speaker proved as naive and gullible and weak as many feared he would be. Trump needed the GOP caucus not to fall apart or off the Capitol dome even if that meant swallowing bad compromises and RINO grandstanding.
He dealt with the mess at the RNC the same way. He pretended Ronna McDaniel was not as treacherous a Romney as her uncle, and he waited for appropriate internal alliances to gather the momentum needed for change even as the clock ticked hard away. His answer to almost every Republican tiff and dustup was an evening of good cheer at Mar a Lago.
That’s how he won. He cut his timing close on a multitude of campaign priorities and guided his embattled ship through all the minefields and barricades that blocked the way. He won the popular vote by far more than the final count showed, but he hasn’t made a public issue of that yet either. He moves like lightning where he can, and he waits for the exact right moment to strike when it’s time to act.
Trump 2.0 is a more patient man. He’s also a tougher man. He bullied Israel into the ceasefire because of, guess what, America First. With all the irons he had in the fire, he couldn’t afford more time wasted by internal Israeli weeping and wailing and backstabbing and politicking to make a ceasefire decision with no personal responsibility on the Israeli side for any ugly consequences. All the MAGA foreign policy purists are still self-righteous-illating over the rawness of that maneuver. The truth? Trump has to be as much smarter than his own friends as he has to be tougher than his enemies.
It isn’t always going to be pretty. Amy Coward Barrett absolutely deserves a mean tweet she didn’t get. Her nomination was a mistake. Nothing to be done about it. Let it go. There will be other people who disappoint. Can’t be helped. This administration had to jump out of the gate at top speed and not look back. Where we are halfway through the 100 Days. In the context of Washington DC politics and its deeply embedded villains and corruptocrats, the first 50 days have been an amazing triumph. (Should Triump be a new word?)
And that’s not even the best thing. The painting up top has been sitting on my computer since February of 2021. That’s how long the Trump-haters have wanted him dead, assassinated if need be like Caesar on the floor of the Senate. Which happened on the Ides of March by the way, tomorrow on the 2025 calendar. The best thing is that no matter what goes wrong in the Trump 2.0 administration it will still be heaven compared to what it would been under Joe or Kamala as President. The United States will survive this turbulent time. That could not have been promised truthfully on November 4, 2024.
Be grateful for that every day and if you must grouse, please don’t wake the dog…
Trump 2.0. Great moniker and a really good description of the start of this term in the White House. Now he knows the players and the game.
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