By the end of the holidays I need to resolve my relationship with politics for the coming years. The federal trifecta with Republicans controlling the executive and legislative branches of government was a clear win, if a somewhat marginal one. After reading many news stories and comments, and based on my experience, I am ready to move forward. In general, Democrats are still licking their wounds, yet life is too short to dawdle in the arena. First, the situation, then what I plan to do in my next post.
Let’s start with President Trump. He is a lame duck going into his second term with about a year and a half to get anything big done. (Obama was hobbled after the 2010 midterms). This time the president-elect has a shadow administration comprised of the Heritage Foundation and their Project 2025 to support him. He also has a number of billionaire buddies he hopes to install in his cabinet and other key governmental positions. Don’t forget his side kick, the richest man in the world, who is willing to spend untold sums of money to get his way. These things can be counted among Trump’s assets.
Out of the box, Trump seems particularly weak. Partly this is his own doing, yet the evidence is more visible with each passing week.
The man is apparently governing via social media. Few people I know pay much attention to social media whether it be Truth Social, X, BlueSky, Threads, Instagram or Facebook. It is his decision how to govern and conduct routine press relations. A more effective way to do this would be to enable his press secretary Karoline Leavitt to play a larger role by releasing his appointments, policy announcements, and general news, thus creating a buffer to moderate his bad stuff before releasing it. As he is doing it, the message is off the cuff, and haphazard. Ultimately we can’t believe anything he says, but we knew that from the first term.
Some Republicans, including the president-elect, have been kicking around the word “mandate” after the November election. Enough dust has not been raised to obscure the fact President Trump barely won the election. The Republican majority in the House is super thin (5 members), and the 53-47 majority in the Senate is not filibuster-proof. In the Senate, it is not clear the aging cohort of octogenarian Republicans will cave to his every wish. It will be a rough road ahead for the president to accomplish much during the 119th Congress, if they are even capable of getting all the Republican legislators behind him on any legislation.
Trump is losing initial skirmishes. John Thune beat his choice of Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader. The Senate wanted no part of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. His side kick Elon Musk got out ahead of him in the public debate over keeping the government funded. Trump didn’t respond to Musk for hours. After he did, his demand that a suspension of the debt ceiling be included in the CR was ignored. All of these things point to a weak second term as president.
Despite this impressive ledger of liabilities, his minions, like Mariannette Miller-Meeks, continue to parrot his talking points about a mandate, to wit: “November 5th, 2024 is a day that will forever be remembered as the day the American people voted for a mandate—a mandate for change.”
There was no mandate, Trump barely got a plurality. Unlike his economic policy, I predict this weakness will trickle down throughout Republican governance. Stay tuned for what’s next for my advocacy in the next post.
Journey Home 
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