tl;dw: I might be wrong about this but I am pretty sure that over the last week or so, Donald Trump has set his presidency completely on fire. (To say nothing of the country itself.)

looking at the past week and thinking about this week, one of the things I'm so struck by is how much the Trump administration's activities, it's war in Iran, the way that war is likely going to exacerbate inflation, cause gas prices to shoot up, maybe knock the United States economy into a bona fide recession, or if nothing else just provides a economic difficulty. I'm so struck by how this all amounts to political suicide. In addition to basically national suicide, the United States spent the last year on the Trump gutting its ability to do medical research, gutting technological research, gutting its scientific capacity, destroying its relationship to other nations, destroying its trade relations, doing essentially everything it can to isolate itself and make itself a global pariah. And then we have this war, which is guaranteed to isolate the US and make it a global pariah, something like a rogue superstate, rogue superpower. In addition to all of that, it's just like political suicide. I guess it's my dog's tail and she came here. It's just something like straight up political suicide. Trump was elected very specifically to reduce costs and reduce inflation. That's what got him his victory. Yes, there's this mega core that likes all the violence, that likes the anti-immigration extremism, that likes the Gestapo tactics, like likes all of that. But the, what you might call the marginal voters, the voters that actually determine the election, the one for whom Trump would not be president, they didn't come out and support him. Those voters voted for lower prices. Those voters voted for cheaper groceries. Those voters did not vote for this broad and grand ideological project to make the United States this fortress state. They didn't vote for American autarky, but that's what they're getting. And not only are they getting that, they're getting the opposite of what they actually voted for. They're not getting the lower prices. They're not getting the cheaper goods. They're getting a more expensive life. They're getting payoffs around the world and chaos at home as well. And again, Trump, in addition to promising a return to the economy as it was before the pandemic, he promised a reduction in chaos at home and abroad. So it's like this active political suicide. I know a lot of you look at approval ratings and you see that Trump hasn't declined to like 10% or 15% and therefore it's useful. And therefore it's not worth thinking about them. He isn't the mid-upper 30s and it's very difficult for any president no matter how unpopular to drop below that. Even George the Bee Bush, it's absolute worse. Like total worse was hovering in the low 30s upper 20s. Now it remains to be seen whether Trump can get that low. I think he can. But it suffices to say that like the guy who's destroyed his presidency just absolutely completely driven it into the ground. I think a lot of this is predictable. I think you could have guessed this outcome. But it's still striking to observe the extent to which Donald Trump was handed kind of the best set of circumstances you can get as a president, which is everyone thinks that your predecessor was a disaster, whether or not the texture of the case, the economy is growing. And if you just kept your hands off of everything, you would have reaped the benefits of economic growth. And instead, Trump embarked on this grand, again, this grand ideological project. He empowered, I mean, empowered kind of a strong word. He has no interest in being president, who he allowed through his inaction and disinterest, a set of ideologues and extremists to sort of use the power of government to do if they wanted. And he has sat back and watched that unfold. And the result have been in addition to chaos and pain and suffering for, at this point, millions of people, but here in abroad, the results have been just total political collapse for the administration and for this presidency. I've never seen anything quite like it. And my expectation is that when it does come time to vote, the backlash against this White House is going to be much greater than I think people, even those who are anticipating a big backlash, much greater than I think people are anticipating.