Two weeks in August
Some impressions of domestic politics after taking a hiatus from the news.
I recently returned from a trip to Chengdu, China to watch the World Games.1 For security purposes, I did not bring my smartphone or laptop with me, and China’s so-called “Great Firewall” made it hard to keep up with what was going on in American politics.
When I got back, I decided to compile a list of newsworthy domestic political events that occurred during my two-week absence.2 Among other things that happened:
A Department of Justice official interviewed Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell shortly before she was inexplicably transferred to a minimum security prison.
IRS Commissioner Billy Long was fired after just two months on the job, and three other IRS officials accused of being too liberal were subsequently removed.
The Department of Health and Human Services halted funds for nearly two dozen projects to develop vaccines for bird flu and COVID-19, while the EPA announced it would stop providing monies to make solar panels more affordable.
Two FBI officials deemed insufficiently loyal to the White House were dismissed.
Trump praised the CEO of Intel after previously calling for his dismissal, and backtracked on his demand that iPhones be made in the U.S. after Apple’s CEO committed to more domestic investment and gave the president a valuable sculpture.
The White House announced a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which includes a corridor connecting Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Republic, named after Trump, where the U.S. will have development rights.
New tariffs went into effect on imports from a number of foreign countries – though not on Chinese goods, which were granted a temporary reprieve.
The Trump White House announced that it would review the content of all Smithsonian Institution exhibits.
Export licenses were granted to Nvidia and AMD to sell advanced computer chips to China, provided they shared the revenue with the U.S. government.
Trump officially proclaimed that he had made Social Security more solvent.
The effort to impose mid-decade partisan gerrymanders heated up in Texas, got more serious in California, and became a real possibility in Florida, Missouri, and New York.
For the next commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the White House nominated a pro-Trump economist with relatively little experience who was at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump sent national guard troops to Washington, D.C. and attempted to remove the city’s police chief and revoke its “sanctuary city” laws.
A long-awaited summit in Alaska between Trump and Putin to discuss ending the war in Ukraine ended abruptly with no progress, and Trump backed away from his threat to impose “severe consequences” on Russia.3
The first thing that struck me in putting together this exhausting (yet not exhaustive) list was how incredibly busy contemporary American politics has been since the start of the month. It seems especially unusual for August of an odd-numbered year, when Congress is in recess and no national elections are forthcoming.
Almost all of this political busyness was driven by Trump. David Ignatius has described him as an “everything everywhere all at once” kind of president,4 and that was certainly true for the first half of August, as it has been all year.
But what kind of busyness is this? One could argue that it reflects an urgent desire by the White House to achieve its policy goals, like reducing federal spending and crime, advancing a triumphalist view of American history, and boosting domestic investment with protective tariffs.
More importantly, though, these events reflect Trump’s leadership style as president. Consider how various elements of the above list reveal his tendency towards:
transactionalism (the export license deal, the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace agreement, support for Intel and Apple, possibly the Maxwell prison transfer),
punishing perceived disloyalty (the firings at the IRS and FBI),
mercurialism (reversing positions on Ukraine, Chinese tariffs, and the CEOs of Apple and Intel),
partisan warfare (pushing Texas and other GOP states to redraw their congressional districts),
performative politics (declaring Social Security is more solvent, sending troops to D.C.5), and
taking unilateral action, often without regard to the law (HHS and EPA impounding funds, the executive branch setting tariffs and sending troops to D.C.).
Few of these are desirable leadership traits for a nation’s Chief Executive. Many have argued (most notably Jonathan Bernstein) that Trump is simply not very good at the job of president. Little that the Trump White House did over the past fourteen days dispelled that notion.
The medium- to long-term consequences of these actions on the nation’s economy, health care, national security, museums, and confidence in the bureaucracy may be quite negative. But even if that proves not to be the case, they probably still did political damage to Trump and, by extension, his party. I can’t imagine it helped the White House’s image when Ghislaine Maxwell was put in a nicer prison, for instance. Higher tariffs also remain distasteful with voters of both parties, and sending troops to D.C. is not popular with the public either.
This may help explain one other facet of American politics from the past two weeks: Trump’s unpopularity. Recent polls suggest that his approval rating not only remains underwater, but may have fallen below 40%. He may have even lost ground with previously-supportive voting groups.
Trump may not run for president again, but his unpopularity still spells trouble for GOP majorities in Congress. No wonder the president is pushing Republican states to do mid-decade redistricting to create more GOP districts, even if it ultimately puts his own party’s incumbents at greater risk of defeat.
In our current environment, you can miss a lot of what happens in American politics if you stay away from the news for a week or two. But the larger picture doesn’t change much: Trump generates a lot of activity and attention, but seldom does it result in positive policy outcomes or political gains for himself or the Republican Party.
Not all the big news of the period was political. (Taylor Swift.)
The lack of any progress was predicted by many observers, such as Good Authority’s Stacie Goddard.
Ignatius was referring to Trump’s foreign policy making, but I think it also describes his domestic policy making quite well.
Sending hundreds of military troops to the nation’s capital certainly smacks of authoritarianism, and there could be significant consequences for people living in the city, particularly undocumented residents. However, I would argue that Trump did it primarily for performative purposes, and the increased military and fedreal law enforcement presence in D.C. is unlikely to have any durable effect on the city’s crime rates.