Trump Fatigue

When Your Guy Starts Losing You

A Lost Legacy?

I voted for Donald Trump twice. I supported him, defended plenty of what he did and still believe his presidency challenged a Washington establishment that desperately needed challenging. It still does.

I’m still in his favor, but I'm tired, and I suspect a lot of conservatives are tired too.

Tired of Trump, Trump, Trump. Every issue becomes about him. Every criticism becomes disloyalty. Every setback is somebody else's fault. At some point, even those of us who supported the guy have to ask the uncomfortable question: Is this working anymore?

Iran may be the breaking point.

Trump, in my view, got bamboozled into a war that was supposed to demonstrate American strength and instead has become prolonged, expensive and badly underestimated. The Israeli’s played him like a shofar. The Strait of Hormuz will always be a problem and its NOT US territory.

Oil markets will never be the same. Our oil reserves are drip-drip dripping into dry tanks and Americans are paying for it every time they pull into a gas station. The administration is now scrambling for ways to reduce gasoline prices. “Drill baby drill” can’t seem to drill enough. That's not exactly Mission Accomplished.

In 2024, regular gasoline averaged about $3.30 a gallon. Today the national average is roughly $4.05. Energy prices are up 14.7% over the past year, gasoline nearly 25%. And here's something politicians (especially Trump) don't understand: consumer complacency.

When gasoline stays around $4 for months, eventually nobody celebrates when it drops from $4.19 to $3.94. Twenty-five cents isn't victory anymore. Next week it will be $4.30 then drop to maybe $4.10 and so on. Four-dollar gas became the problem. The consumer simply becomes numb to being screwed. We have to live our lives.

The same thing happens at the grocery store, the restaurant, with the electric bill and everywhere else. Compared with July 2024, overall consumer prices are roughly 6% higher; groceries about 7% higher and eating out more than 10% higher.

If you think large consumer product companies, food suppliers and utility companies are suddenly going to say, “phew, we are out of the war so lets lower our prices 15%,” then you are dreaming.

A McDonalds large Coke was 99 cents in 2023, today its $2.50. The price of sugar and water hasn’t caused that. The rise of wages, utilities, transportation and employee health care did. Meanwhile, Trump hits a call button and gets a Coke delivered.

I'm a capitalist. I love free enterprise. I own equities and want American companies to make obscene amounts of money. I don't begrudge success, infact I celebrate it. But Wall Street isn't Main Street. The guy making $75,000 a year doesn't care that the S&P had a good week when filling his SUV costs $95, his monthly electric bill is $300 and taking his family to dinner suddenly costs $150.

Americans have painfully figured out that a slowdown in inflation simply means the price is increasing more slowly, not going down. But when your base costs start high, even a slight increase feels enoormous and makes you look back to what was...and will never be again.

That's where Trump lost the plot.

I wanted Trump to disrupt Washington (he has), secure the border (he has), unleash American business (he has), reduce crime (he has) and keep America out of unnecessary wars. Instead, increasingly, we're getting drama, “we’ll sees” and a war that we are mired in. There is finger-pointing, pool liners, building facades, a new Air Force One and total exhaustion.

I still want his policies to succeed. But supporting someone doesn't require pretending everything he does is brilliant, even if he says it is.

Legacy is written at the end, not the beginning. And right now, my guy Trump is dangerously close to turning what could have been a remarkable political comeback into a bad final chapter.

Note: I am not trying to make this site political. Its obvious that I am a capitalist and enjoy prosperity for everyone, but these things matter and I am brutally honest. No BS...just the good stuff.