President Donald Trump demonstrated a show of electoral force last week that gave off the appearance that he still has the juice. In Indiana’s widely-watched Republican primary on Tuesday, his quest for revenge against seven incumbent state senators who dared resist his edict to gerrymander the state’s electoral maps overwhelmingly succeeded. Some Republican pollsters said Trump’s ability to decisively oust Republicans who cross him indicates that, despite his recent breaks from some MAGA influencers, he still has a lock on his electoral base.
But looking ahead to November’s midterm elections, Trump’s performance in Indiana is hardly reason for Republican optimism. He still holds tremendous influence over his own party, no doubt. But that seems to be his sole focus these days, as he busies himself with positions designed to allay right-wing activists in policy areas, like immigration, and provide red meat for the base in ways that are likely to cost the party soft supporters. Meanwhile, he is perpetually ignoring the one thing that could save the GOP in November: delivering on affordability.
Even the way Trump is handling Iran suggests that his audience is far narrower than the general electorate.
Last week the Trump administration turned the dial up on its aggressive deportation agenda. At the Border Security Expo in Phoenix on Tuesday, White House border czar Tom Homan said, “For the people out there saying ‘President Trump’s getting weak on mass deportation,’ you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He added, “You ain’t seen s**t yet … mass deportations are coming.” And Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin assured Newsmax viewers on Tuesday that the administration is “still on track” to hit aggressive deportation quotas. “We just are doing it in a different way by using local law enforcement to work with us,” he pointed out.
In recent months, Trump has been forced to realize that he has to choose between immigration hawks — who are upset over his retreat from a maximalist posture following federal immigration agents killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis this winter — and less hawkish Republicans and independents who think he’s gone too far in enforcement. After a somewhat more restrained approach for a few months on immigration enforcement, Mullin and Homan’s rhetoric suggests Trump is choosing the immigration hawks. That’s the kind of maneuvering that could set Trump up for worse press in the coming months, and could hurt him with voters outside his diehard base.
Trump was reportedly expected to meet with anti-abortion activists at the White House on Friday, after reports came out that advocates in the movement were upset he hasn’t done more to crack down on access to abortion medications. Historically, Trump has seemed to understand he risks eliciting mass backlash by pandering too much to hardline anti-abortion activists. But his reported desire to engage with them will likely be read by reproductive rights proponents that even more extreme restrictions on abortion rights could be on the way. Trump, for his part, seems willing to take the gamble.
Even the way Trump is handling Iran suggests that his audience is far narrower than the general electorate. His comically short-lived and ineffectual “Project Freedom” operation last week was the product of a desperate search for good news to sell the base. Trump’s plan made little sense as a “humanitarian” operation to guide boats out of the Strait of Hormuz, since Iran threatened to attack boats passing through the waterway without its permission. But it did make sense as a (short-term, optics-centric) attempt to pressure Iran by controlling some portion of the strait — clearly at the risk of unraveling the already-fragile ceasefire. After Iran attacked a U.S. boat-guiding attempt, Trump backed down, fortunately. But the whole episode captures how much Trump was thinking about a way to sell a micro-victory at home instead of staying focused on the critical issue of ending the war and working to end an economic crisis — and bring down gas prices that are hurting all voters.
Indeed, the economy appears to be far from Trump’s mind and policy agenda. The GOP’s affordable housing legislation is gathering moss in Congress. And Bloomberg reports, “two executive orders, one aimed at easing access to mortgage credit and another that seeks to streamline regulations for builders, are not yet fully implemented and experts say they would only help marginally.” Meanwhile, Trump remains fixated on a potentially $1 billion ballroom project renovation and rarely carries out messaging on the handful of nominally affordability-focused policies he has passed.
It’s strange watching Trump clobber his own party so thoroughly. Even as Trump’s approval ratings plummet and consumer sentiment craters, he remains unable to focus on the cost-of-living grievances that have defined American politics for years now. Instead, out of habit (and maybe out of a desire for reliable affirmation) he goes back to the well of feeding his base, instead of taking a broader perspective on the American public. The one thing Trump has going for him going into the midterms at this rate is that the Democrats remain deeply unpopular. But Trump is making the lesser of two evils calculation easy for most voters.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.