Trump Deflates

Opinion by David Frum

Ukraine won. Trump lost.

The House vote to aid Ukraine renews hope that Ukraine can still win its war. It also showed how and why Donald Trump should lose the 2024 election.

For nine years, Trump has dominated the Republican Party. Senators might have loathed him, governors might have despised him, donors might have ridiculed him, college-educated Republican voters might have turned against him—but LOL, nothing mattered. Enough of the Republican base supported him. Everybody else either fell in line, retired from politics, or quit the party.

Trump did not win every fight. In 2019 and 2020, Senate Republicans rejected two of his more hair-raising Federal Reserve nominations, Stephen Moore and Judy Shelton.
But Trump won almost every fight that mattered. Even after January 6, 2021, Senate Republicans protected him from conviction at his impeachment trial. After Trump left office, party leaders still indulged his fantasy that he had “really” won the 2020 election. Attempts to substitute Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley as the 2024 nominee sputtered and failed.

[David Frum: The ego has crash-landed]

On aid to Ukraine, Trump got his way for 16 months. When Democrats held the majority in the House of Representatives in 2022, they approved four separate aid requests for Ukraine, totaling $74 billion. As soon as Trump’s party took control of the House, in January 2023, the aid stopped. Every Republican officeholder understood: Those who wished to show loyalty to Trump must side against Ukraine.

At the beginning of this year, Trump was able even to blow up the toughest immigration bill seen in decades—simply to deny President Joe Biden a bipartisan win. Individual Senate Republicans might grumble, but with Trump opposed, the border-security deal disintegrated.

Three months later, Trump’s party in Congress has rebelled against him—and not on a personal payoff to some oddball Trump loyalist, but on one of Trump’s most cherished issues, his siding with Russia against Ukraine.

The anti-Trump, pro-Ukraine rebellion started in the Senate. Twenty-two Republicans joined Democrats to approve aid to Ukraine in February. Dissident House Republicans then threatened to force a vote if the Republican speaker would not schedule one. Speaker Mike Johnson declared himself in favor of Ukraine aid. This weekend, House Republicans split between pro-Ukraine and anti-Ukraine factions. On Friday, the House voted 316–94 in favor of the rule on the aid vote. On Saturday, the aid to Ukraine measure passed the House by 311–112. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate will adopt the House-approved aid measures unamended and speed them to President Biden for signature.

As defeat loomed for his anti-Ukraine allies, Trump shifted his message a little. On April 18, he posted on Truth Social claiming that he, too, favored helping Ukraine. “As everyone agrees, Ukrainian Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us!” But that was after-the-fact face-saving, jumping to the winning side after his side was about to lose.

Trump is still cruising to renomination, collecting endorsements even from Republican elected officials who strongly dislike him. But the cracks in unity are visible.

Some are symbolic. Even after Haley withdrew from the Republican presidential contest on March 6, some 13 to 19 percent of Republicans still showed up to cast protest votes for her in contests in Georgia and Washington State on March 12; Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio on March 19; and in New York and Connecticut on April 2.

Other cracks are more substantial—and ominous for Trump. Trump’s fundraising has badly lagged President Biden’s, perhaps in part because of Trump’s habit of diverting donations to his own legal defense and other personal uses. In March, Biden had more than twice as much cash on hand as Trump did. Republican Senate candidates in the most competitive races and House candidates also lag behind their Democratic counterparts. CNBC reports that the Republican National Committee is facing “small-dollar donor fatigue” and “major donor hesitation.”

How much of this is traceable to Trump personally? The Ukraine vote gives the most significant clue. Here is the issue on which traditional Republican belief in U.S. global leadership clashes most directly with Trump’s peculiar and sinister enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And on this issue, the traditional Republicans have now won and Trump’s peculiar enthusiasm got beat.

[David Frum: Justice is coming for Donald Trump]

To make an avalanche takes more than one tumbling rock. Still, the pro-Ukraine, anti-Trump vote in the House is a very, very big rock. On something that mattered intensely to him—that had become a badge of pro-Trump identity—Trump’s own party worked with Democrats in the House and Senate to hand him a stinging defeat. This example could become contagious.

Republicans lost the House in 2018 because they were beaten in districts once held by George H. W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Eric Cantor. They lost the presidency in 2020 in great part because their vote eroded among white suburban men. They lost the Senate in 2021 because Trump fatigue cost them two seats in Georgia. They lost Senate seats and governorships in 2022 because they put forward Trump-branded candidates such as Blake Masters and Kari Lake in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.

Republicans alienated too many of their own—and paid the political price. They alienated their own because of Trump’s hostility to Ukraine, and that price was paid in blood and suffering by Ukraine’s soldiers and civilians.

The issues that were supposed to keep the Trump show on the road have proved squibs and fizzles. Inflation is down. Crime is down. Republicans threw away the immigration issue by blowing up—at Trump’s order—the best immigration deal they’ve ever seen. The attempt to confect Biden scandals to equal Trump’s scandals turned into an embarrassing fiasco that relied on information from a suspected Russian spy indicted for lying to the FBI. And Trump himself now faces trial in New York State on one set of felony charges. He faces a federal trial, probably starting this fall, on the even graver criminal indictments arising from his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Each of these warnings and troubles has deflated Trump. He has deflated to the point where he could no longer thwart Ukraine aid in Congress. Ukraine won, Trump lost. That may be a repeating pattern in the year ahead.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-deflates/ar-AA1nmzAd?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=b260b26f435d4888d88231718ac93124&ei=14

**************

Deflation? …

Ben Meiselas, co-founder of MeidasTouch and owner of Los Angeles Magazine, reported today that "Donald Trump is actually farting in the courtroom and that it's very stinky around him."

"Trump's lawyers are repulsed by the scent and the smell," he said, noting that these observations are from credible sources in the courtroom.

https://lamag.com/politics/something-stinks-about-donald-trumps-trial-it-might-be-trump

I loved the fart post. What worries me though is that now that Trumps trials are actually beginning, the Supreme court seems to be in a hurry to take up his immunity case. The court belongs to him and I just cannot see them ruling against him. I guess years of watching him get everything he wants has just totally depressed me. I hope David Frum is right about his downfall, but I will believe it when I see it.

Just watching the trial coverage. Looks like the Donald paid off the National Enquirer to hide a story about him having a child out of wedlock.
What a fine fellow for the church folks to follow.
Also, he asked his followers to protest at the court, but almost no one showed up.
Poor, poor Donald.

Trump, the human whoopie cushion, and his first-round draft pick for Veep, The Puppy Killer.

Sheesh, what a party these folks are running.

Imagine how far off from true your moral compass has to be to think that killing a puppy and a goat are things you want to BRAG on?   Imagine what these people think of their base when they decide, "Yeah, they'll like THAT!"

https://www.aol.com/kristi-noem-says-she-shot-174904726.html

First off, what a lazy, cruel, idiotic sewer-wrapped-in-skin Kristi Noem is.  

We'll talk about the dog first.  If you have an excitable dog, the wrong thing to do is take it on a hunt.  The other dogs aren't going to "train" the dog for you -- that's your job.  If the dog's not ready to hunt, then you're just reinforcing its bad habits and blaming it.  It's a failure to properly train the animal, not the fault of the animal, which is barely over a year old. It's not a "working" animal yet, it's a trainee.  Also, true, you can't have the dog killing chickens, but you either take measures to keep it away from chickens, or, if you don't want to take responsibility for that, then you find another home for the dog.  There's no reason to kill it.  Killing a dog that's not suited for what you want it to do is not "part of farm life," it's part of being a fucking asshole.  

Second, if the goat stinks or it's aggressive... that's got a lot to do with you not having it fixed.  What he hell do you expect?   "I didn't want to live up to my responsibilities as a goat owner, so I blamed the goat and shot it."  

Y'know, Donald Trump reportedly stinks, and he doesn't behave worth a damn.  I'm not sure he should take her as a VP, just for his own safety.

One of my ex girlfriends was a dog trainer.  She trained attack dogs, always had Rottweilers and Dobermans around.  Her Rottweiler was a bit mis-trained, she admitted -- she worked with him too much and didn't play with him enough, so he was rather... militant.  I got along with him (she said I was the only boyfriend she ever had who did), we had some mutual respect, but I learned pretty quickly that dude was all business -- Protect The Girl -- and you had to keep that in mind.  Once at her house, he was locked off in the kitchen, by a toddler gate.  Now, this big bruiser could've smashed through that toddler gate like nothing, but he didn't know that.  The Girl put the gate up there and he knew The Girl didn't want him to go through it, so he didn't.  One day we were in her bedroom hanging up a new poster she'd bought, and the dog was in the kitchen, sounding not very happy about it, because he couldn't see us.  I decided I'd go talk to him and calm him down.  NOPE!  I wasn't the one he wanted to see, he wanted to see The Girl, so he was barking like crazy at me.  She came running out and he instantly calmed down, and so we let him come in there with us and he was completely chill and was being my buddy again.  Wasn't good behavior, but it wasn't totally his fault -- he had been trained to do a job and was upset at not being able to do it.  He trusted me enough with The Girl to not just run in there and go at me, but he still wanted to see what was happening, just in case.  It was his job, and he was very samurai about it.

He'd even turn on her sometimes -- he got in a fight with one of her other dogs and while she was breaking it up he bit her leg.  She didn't kill him.   Years later, when he died, she got a tattoo commemorating him in the middle of the scar.   Once she was in a car wreck and the dog got his liver damaged, but he wouldn't let the EMTs get to the car to get her out, and the cops were going to shoot him.  She managed to stop them and get herself out so they wouldn't kill the dog.

She had another dog, a Doberman named Faby.  Faby was so pure-bred that all her commands were in German.  I loved Faby -- Faby was a total sweetheart.  My girlfriend was a little less fond of her, though, because she was too much of a sweetheart.  She couldn't get interested enough in attack training, always wanted to play and cuddle instead.  So, my girlfriend was thinking about selling her to someone else.  Then an old boyfriend of hers, who had a history of violence with her (and ended up having a very different one with me because of it), tried to grab her once and Faby lit his ass up.  After that she liked Faby a lot better, even though she still never really was "attack dog" material in the sense she wanted her to be.  

The point is, my girlfriend -- who was a little crazy, but not a psychotic like Noem --  would never have even considered harming any of her animals just because they "misbehaved" or didn't live up to the purposes she had intended for them.  She'd have found them another home, or she'd have kept them as a pet, or she'd have found a way to isolate them from whatever problem they were causing.  She had chickens, too (one, named Henny Penny, she used to walk on a leash, which was pretty freakin' weird), and the dogs and the chickens were kept separate.  

Anyway, considering that's a thing Noem is proud of herself for doing makes you wonder... what kind of shit has she done that she doesn't want to brag about?  And how far has that party gone that they think that is the kind of stuff they want to hear?   I mean, I admittedly don't have a very high opinion of conservatives in general, but they still don't strike me as a bunch of puppy-killers.  Seems like it'd be a universal turn-off, so how screwed up is Kristi?  And how screwed up is Donald Trump, when you know she wrote that to try to impress him?

I agree completely with every word of your post Z. If Trump nominates this shit head as his VP, he will lose half of his voters. No one who has ever been loved by a dog would ever vote for such a person.
We just lost the best dog we ever had about three weeks ago (Dexter choked on a piece of meat) and it was like losing a family member. We know he's probably better off now because he was in a lot of pain. but it doesn't help a lot. He had hip problems and we often had to help him stand up. He also had a nasty tumor on his side that bled constantly. He was 17 years old, and his vet wouldn't even give him his rabies shot because of his health. Even with all that, we still weren't ready for him to go.
Big Jim tried to do the heimlich maneuver and I tried to do a finger sweep to get that damned piece of meat out. Dexter closed his mouth so gently on my finger. The dog was dying but he still wouldn't bite his owner. And he was mostly a pit bull but was still the sweetest animal I've ever known in my life.
We still have a blue tick hound/pointer, and she is a sweet heart too, but she will never take his place. Dexter had a good life though and traveled with us in our camper from one side of America to the other, and he even saw Niagra Falls in Eastern Canada and Vancouver on the west. He slept in between us for 17 years. If anyone had so much as kicked that dog I might be in jail for murdering them, but,luckily, folks don,t kick pit bulls. He never bit anyone in his life and never would have. Just a loving being, much more so than most humans.
To be able to shoot your own dog takes a psychopath.

Trump is one too, maybe that's why he may pick her.

She will not do him any good.

Very, very sorry to hear about Dexter... he sounds like a great dog, and I know you gave him a great life. Seventeen is a really good run, especially for a dog the size of a pit! But it's never long enough with a great dog.

Yep, pitbulls can be sweethearts. That's one reason people are able to train them to fight -- they're such loving animals they'll do just about anything for you, even things they don't want to do, and people take advantage of that, unfortunately.

Anyway, sorry about Dexter, and I hope Noem doesn't get a good reaction from the MAGAs. I hope even they see how sick her story is...

bigdog wrote:I agree completely with every word of your post Z. If Trump nominates this shit head as his VP, he will lose half of his voters.  No one who has ever been loved by a dog would ever vote for such a person.
We just lost the best dog we ever had about three weeks ago (Dexter choked on a piece of meat) and it was like losing a family member.  We know he's probably better off now because he was in a lot of pain. but it doesn't help a lot.  He had hip problems and we often had to help him stand up.  He also had a nasty tumor on his side that bled constantly.  He was 17 years old, and his vet wouldn't  even give him his rabies shot because of his health. Even with all that, we still weren't ready for him to go.
Big Jim tried to do the heimlich maneuver and I tried to do a finger sweep to get that damned piece of meat out.  Dexter closed his mouth so gently on my finger.  The dog was dying but he still wouldn't bite his owner.  And he was mostly a pit bull but was still the sweetest animal I've ever known in my life.
We still have a blue tick hound/pointer, and she is a sweet heart too, but she will never take his place. Dexter had a good life though and traveled with us in our camper from one side of America to the other, and he even saw Niagra Falls in Eastern Canada and Vancouver on the west. He slept in between us for 17 years.  If anyone had so much as kicked that dog I might be in jail for murdering them, but,luckily, folks don,t kick pit bulls.  He  never bit anyone in his life and never would have. Just a loving being, much more so than most humans.
To be able to shoot your own dog takes a psychopath.  

Trump is one too, maybe that's why he may pick her.

She will not do him any good.

Thanks for the condolences Z. It's weird that I can't even remember the dates my parents died, but I think I will remember April 10th forever. I used to have a wonderful neighbor who believed in Albert Schweitzer,s Reverence for Life ideas and he would not even kill a snake in his yard. He said they have a right to live just like we do. I hate that I used to poke fun of him over it, because I now feel guilty when we have to kill a rat that's gotten into our house.

The older I get, the more I understand that many animals are far better creatures than we humans are.

What z said about Dexter, bigdog.  Sincere condolences on your very heavy loss.  I read a verse recently, supposedly written by Khalil Gibran, that resonated deeply with this old widow, and which, it seems to me, applies whether the lost loved one is human or other animal:

      And ever has it been known
         that love knows
         not its own depth
      until the hour of separation.    

Was half listening to NPR this morning and heard someone talking about grief over losing a pet, and how some folks grieve as much or more for their pets as they ever did for a parent, sibling, etc..  Was also surprised and encouraged to hear that some companies now actually allow paid time off for grieving when a pet dies.  Hope I heard that right, and that it's true.  

I hope Trump picks the puppy killer as his running mate.  Anything, ANYTHING, to reduce voting for that P.O.S. would be welcome.

Thanks for your condolences Linda. A very good thing is starting to happen lately- our blue tick/maine pointer has finally started sleeping in the bed with us all night. She would not do so with Dexter in the bed with us, even though they got along very well. Hounds are strange dogs. Pepper was not really affectionate until she was three years old After all, they were bred for hunting. Poor pepper was adopted because she was so cute to a family that wouldn't hunt animals if you paid us. But she did kill a chicken at a campground once, and we nearly lost her at Niagra Falls when a raccoon crawled out of a trash can in front of her.
She adjusted well to being a house dog after a couple of years and is now just a real sweetheart. The story about Ms Noem really makes me mad. She did not give that poor puppy (who probably looked like pepper) a chance to grow up. I don't know if ANYTHING can wake up the maggots from voting for Trump though. I'm afraid their brains are just toast.