President Trump, frittering away public support..........or maybe not.

Every time you think he's flubbing the dub, counter-evidence hoves into view. But the ominous trends are still there.

Abe Greenwald from Commentary sees things much as I do. Last week, he noted that, for Trump’s term in office, there’s already trouble in River City.

Donald Trump is 50 days into his presidency, and things have taken an unmistakable turn in the wrong direction. He came in like a colossus, announcing “the dawn of the golden age of America.” Trump wasted no time in articulating and establishing his agenda. And a popular agenda it was: to reverse institutional wokeness, secure the border, crack down on crime, unleash American energy reserves, negotiate new trade deals, end ongoing wars, bring down inflation, and cut the size of the federal government. He pushed through unorthodox Cabinet appointees and let loose a bomb cyclone of 89 executive orders, more than most presidents sign in their entire first year. Liberals despaired, but no one took to the streets.

Even in this optimistic assessment, one caveat is hard to miss: You can always “end an ongoing war” by surrendering. The question is not just whether the war ends, which they all do, but on what terms it ends, and with what aftermath. This remains to be seen for Ukraine, but the signs aren’t good. Publicly feuding with and tightening the screws on Zelensky while seeming relatively chipper with the vicious aggressor, Putin, isn’t a good sign.

And then came [Trump’s] bumbling policy implementation…

“Bumbling” is a euphemism for “acting without thinking about what comes next.”

…the combative carelessness of DOGE, the judicial pushback…and, finally, the daily tariff whiplash. Liberals are still down, but so is the stock market. Now there’s talk of recession and even stagflation. No one expected Trump to bring down the price of groceries in 50 days, but no one expected him to be this indifferent about raising prices with a trade war and dismissing concerns as “a little pain.”

I’ve often taken after the Democrats for shoving under the rug what their actual policies were going to be if they’d won, and the pain that those policies would cause. It’s no better when Trump does it (although by any fair measure he was much more up front about what he planned to do than Kamala, who apparently thought she was going to win on “vibes” and other such nonsense).

Struggling Americans don’t care much about foreign policy or Elon Musk’s theatrics, and while they may be happy to see the end of wokeness, what they want most is to pay less at stores and gas stations. If Trump doesn’t soon begin to deliver on that, everything else he’s doing will start to look like a bunch of irrelevant stunts. Few are going to buy his “common-sense revolution” if he continues to defy the most common-sensical economic advice and presses on with his trade wars.

There is a case to be made for tariffs, but in my view (and the view of many conservatives), a better case to be made against them, see here). This is especially true when the tariffs are combined with belittling, gratuitous swipes at our neighbors and friends in Canada — a story the Washington Post is already delighted to play up. Has Trump forgotten Canada’s incredibly brave and risky help in smuggling Americans out of Iran during Jimmy Carter’s hostage crisis? I haven’t, and my guess is our readers haven’t either. And Canada isn’t going to become the 51st state anyway, so what does Trump think he’s achieving by going on about it (achieving, that is, other than to give Chuck Schumer talking points about Trump’s being a thoughtless blowhard).

Trump didn’t want establishment Republicans in his administration. He wanted heretics and devotees, and he got them. Which means he’s surrounded by people who are more unconventional than he is, afraid to question him, or both. That’s not a recipe for sober course correction.

This is one of the most worrisome things about Trump’s incumbency. He, like any sensible person with power, should welcome advisers around him who raise caution flags. Instead he hectors and belittles them, if he has them on board at all. His public flaying of my friend Jeff Sessions in his first administration was particularly appalling, but it was far from alone. Exiling those who can see where your policies can be attacked, and will tell you about it, is an invitation to failure. Who does Trump think is going to bail him out when failure arrives? CNN? NBC? The NYT? His base will still like him, but his base is not a majority of the electorate and a tiny sliver of the chattering class.

After Joe Biden’s AWOL presidency, it seemed that whatever Trump had in store had to be an improvement. It’s been only 50 days, [and] Biden is long gone from the American consciousness. Trump can no longer bank on benefiting from the comparison….

[Y]ou can’t just issue a stream of executive orders, sit back, and watch the world transform in accordance with your wishes. Without the competent execution of the policies Trump has rolled out, his agenda will founder.

You don’t need to be a genius to see this. Weren’t we once told, “It’s the economy, stupid”?

[E]ven if the administration suddenly shows previously hidden stores of proficiency, there can be no golden age without reducing inflation and strengthening the economy.

That’s about the size of it. Yes, two months is too short a time to expect to rein in the inflation it took Biden years to build up, or significantly to move a gigantic economy, but Trump will soon have to show results and not just big talk. Right now, the stock market — down significantly for the last ten weeks — has its doubts.

Bottom line: Trump’s mixed performance up to now is paving the way to a loss of public support.

Or………..well………….maybe not so much. Wanting to be, as they say, fair and balanced, I should tell you that there is evidence that Trump continues to do acceptably well with the public, while the Democrats are in the tank. As reported here:

President Donald Trump and his administration hit a major milestone in the most recent NBC News poll, as 44% of Americans now believe that the United States is “headed in the right direction.”

NBC News pollster Steve Kornacki broke down the numbers with “Meet the Press” anchor Kristen Welker during Sunday morning’s broadcast, and he noted that the last president to see a number that high was former President George W. Bush, just months ahead of his re-election in 2004….

“So a lot of this is Republicans, but independents, that number is also up since the election on the direction of the country,” Kornacki added, noting that it wasn’t just Republican voters who were voicing approval of the Trump administration’s actions.

Still, 44% is far from a majority, and most of that figure was stoked by Republicans, who I suspect are still giddy about escaping Obama’s fourth term.

And although there are perceptible seeds of danger for Trump in the poll, it’s a lot worse if you’re a Democrat.

The poll also spelled very bad news for the Democratic Party, marking a new all-time low in its approval rating. Just 27% had a positive view of the party as a whole, and only seven percent said that view was “very positive.” Voters who had “negative views” of the Democratic Party sat at 55%, and 38% said that they had “very negative” views of Democrats. Those numbers mark NBC News’ lowest approval ratings for Democrats since 1990….

The poll was taken prior to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) decision to vote in favor of the Republican-led continuing resolution to fund the government through September — a move that also angered a number within his own party.

“Angered” is a fat understatement. When Hakeem Jeffries was asked shortly afterwards whether he still had confidence in Schumer as the Democrats’ Senate leader, his answer was, “Next question.”

It would be a mistake, however, to take glee or even solace in the Democrats’ current divisions. The public will, properly, judge Trump by what he achieves, not by what he says he’ll achieve. On that score, the warning signs are accumulating.