President Trump has been saying, ‘Vote as if I was on the ballot,’ and that’s exactly what I’m going to do — not vote,” Brandon Tremaine, a graduate student in Texas who voted for Trump in 2020, told The New York Times. “You do not campaign on being the ticket of peace and start a war of choice that is directly hurting Americans here at home and gotten Americans killed overseas.”
Voters like Tremaine pose a huge headache for Republicans. Few Trump supporters are likely to back Democrats next month, but many of them are so disillusioned with the president and his party that they will simply stay home.
“The enthusiasm has to be ginned up among Republicans because turnout is what’s going to determine the outcome of these midterm elections,” GOP strategist Charlie Gerow admitted to Reuters.
As CNN reported, “For the GOP, this year’s biggest challenge will be would-be voters who say, ‘I’m frustrated, I’m disappointed, I’m pissed off and I’m not going to bother.’” said Democratic pollster Paul Maslin. “And the I’m-not-going-to-bother voters will be disproportionately (Trump’s) voters, and not ours.”
This enthusiasm gap is draining and damaging Republicans. Reuters reports that 48% of voters who backed Democrat Kamala Harris two years ago are “very enthusiastic about voting” this time, while only 30% of Trump voters express similar excitement.
Trump voters in western Michigan, a key battleground state, explained their lethargy to the Times: “People are tired,” said Al Pscholka, a former Republican member of the Michigan House of Representatives. “The whole divider-in-chief thing, it’s gotten to the point where it’s just exhausting.”
Jim Pasek, a retired factory worker, backed Trump twice, but now says: “He’s not making sense. It confuses me, and then I just get disgusted and tune out. … He’s losing touch with the American people.”
The primary reason behind this disappointment is one word: prices. In the latest AP poll, only 17% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the cost of living, with 82% disapproving.
The cost crunch is especially brutal in rural areas, where Trump policies were already punishing farmers through inflated fertilizer costs and lost foreign markets. It’s harvest time, and the diesel fuel that powers agricultural machinery, from combines to trucks, is averaging $6.30 a gallon, a 70% increase since the Iran war began — but it’s much higher in some places.
Many of the closest Senate races are in states that depend heavily on agriculture — from Iowa and Nebraska to Texas, Ohio and even Kansas, which hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1936. So after insisting all summer that affordability was a “hoax,” Trump has finally admitted how wrong he was.
In a move that smells strongly of desperation, the president has announced a deal to buy diesel fuel from Russia. But it’s a typical Trump gesture: an act of political theater, a superficial performance, not a serious policy.
Energy experts agree that his deal will have virtually no impact on prices because the amount of fuel he intends to buy accounts for less than one day’s demand. “I cannot overstate how much of a nothing-burger this is,” Rory Johnston, an oil market researcher said to Reuters.
But if Trump’s turnabout won’t affect prices at home, it will deeply damage relations abroad, especially with Ukraine, which continues to battle Vladimir Putin’s invading forces. The president’s hypocrisy is astounding, since just weeks ago he signed a bill punishing other countries that buy Russian oil.
Even some loyal Republicans are furious, with four GOP senators joining three Democrats to sign a bipartisan statement that reads: “The United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians. The administration must immediately reverse course.”
CNN reported from Moscow that “the real benefit” to Russia “isn’t the billions of dollars in fresh revenue. It is the wedge this deal, and the rhetoric around it, drives right through the heart of the Western alliance, which has aimed to isolate Moscow over its war in Ukraine.”
“Privately,” observed CNN, “the Kremlin leader must be rubbing his hands with glee.”
But Trump doesn’t seem to care. He has always had more admiration, and respect, for Putin than for Ukraine’s leaders — or for his European allies, for that matter. And he is willing to sell them out for his own selfish political gain.
But it probably won’t work. Even hit shows eventually get canceled. Trump’s first smash series, “The…