Callum: Is Trump already a crazy chicken?

After a long, miserable summer and fall, the holidays are upon us.

For some, it’s turkey season.

For others, it’s egg season.

For President Trump, it’s looking a lot like turkey season.

He has less than a year before power changes hands in Congress, dealing much-needed damage to his reign of terror against American institutions, immigrants, science and medicine, political enemies, and free speech.

(Sadly, even if the House of Representatives is flipped, Trump’s war on good taste will continue. Am I the only one who thinks that Trump is the 21st century version of Bond villain Goldfinger, who kills his victims in gold paint?)

As Trump’s popularity declines, signs of lameness grow. His party was defeated in this month’s election. Inflation, which he promised to beat, has not abated. Prices remain high. Consumer confidence has declined. Health insurance premiums are skyrocketing. The Supreme Court doesn’t seem to look kindly on his tariff schemes, nor on his plan to end birthright citizenship. Lower courts have defended him almost every time, most recently former FBI Director James Comey and New York Atty. General Letitia James.

Now the members of his own party stand against him. They effectively forced him to sign a bill requiring the release of Epstein’s files, something he had fought for months. During the longest government shutdown in US history, Trump demanded that the Senate end the filibuster. There is no money.

“There are some signs of cracks,” Bill Kristol said in a recent conversation with Tim Miller on the Bulwark podcast. “And what we’re seeing in Congress is that fear of Trump is turning into hatred of him.”

Exhibit A: Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, once Trump’s most ardent acolyte.

What a wonderful breakup. Trump has called Green a “traitor” for criticizing his efforts to block the release of the Epstein files, accusing him of abandoning his commitment to “America First” principles, and, in my opinion, for knowing enough that Trump’s populist pose is a sham.

“If I am fired by MAGA Inc. and replaced by neocons, big pharma, big tech, the military industrial war complex, foreign leaders, and a class of elite donors who are not even Native Americans, then many ordinary Americans are fired and replaced,” Green wrote in his four-page resignation letter late Friday.

Minor cracks in the MAGA coalition are also appearing over Trump’s expanding, potentially illegal, war on drug cartels in the Caribbean. It turns out, one of the lines that a few Republicans won’t cross is removing people from the water without due process, or even credible evidence that they’re drug users.

Nor is his party entirely happy with its call for the overthrow of the Venezuelan government. His willingness to capitulate (at least so far) to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s terms for peace in Ukraine has angered many Republicans.

Trump’s quest for the Nobel Peace Prize? I have to guess that doesn’t happen.

It seems that the weaker Trump gets, the harsher his rhetoric becomes. Last week, after six Democratic nominees with either military or intelligence experience gave public service announcements urging members of the military to remember they have an obligation to refuse illegal orders, Trump accused Democrats of “vindictive behavior” punishable by death.

Our comically, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Monday that he wants to prosecute one of the six, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy pilot who flew 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm and has a medallion to show for it. (In X, Hegseth mocks Kelly for his lack of medals.)

Honestly, though, is there a better metaphor for the Trump era than calling for the death penalty for the “crime” of speaking truth to power?

Trump isn’t just alienating congressional allies. He also lost a segment of the electorate that played a major role in returning him to office.

In 2024, more Latinos voted for Trump than they did for the previous Republican nominee, about 48%, up from 36% in 2020 and 28% in 2016.

The pundit talked about the historic, potentially lasting “reunification” of Latino voters, who traditionally support Democrats. But since then, Trump’s popularity with Latinos has declined. Mainly, it is the weak economy. But his mass exodus has turned off many Latino voters. It turns out they don’t like the idea of ​​being racially profiled on their streets, nor do they like seeing images of brown-skinned people being pushed to the ground or taken away by nameless, faceless government agents.

A new Pew Research poll puts it in stark terms: Two-thirds of Latinos (68%) are pessimistic about their status in America, and more than a third (78%) say Trump’s policies hurt Latinos more than they help them. In August, Latino polling firm Equis Research found that about a third of Latinos who supported Trump last year had no plans to vote Republican in next year’s midterms.

This reorganization certainly did not last long. Quack.

Blusky: @rabcarian
Topics: @rabcarian