Opinion
A year ago Tuesday, Donald Trump was sworn in for a second time as president. It’s been a year of rapid movement, controversy and upheaval. It’s also been utterly mystifying.
Why does the president keep doing things that are against his political self-interest? Why has he ignored the reality that the midterms will be decided not only by how much his base is energized but by whether Republicans carry independents and soft partisans? Mr. Trump is missing chances to draw critical swing voters the GOP’s way. He could be driving some to vote Democratic.
On the lost-opportunity front, look no further than the president’s extraordinary achievement in securing the Southern border. He stopped the flood of illegal migrants. He was right. We didn’t need a new law, only a different president.
Yet Mr. Trump didn’t take a victory lap to publicize the success. If he had gone to the border, Hispanic and Democratic local officials would have thanked him for removing the tremendous burden on their hospitals, food pantries, social services and public safety. That image would have been powerful and lingered.
Instead, the White House has turned a major win into a major drag on the president’s approval: 58% of Americans and 66% of independents disapproved of Mr. Trump’s handling of immigration in a Jan. 12 CNN/SRRS survey. The administration’s pledge to focus on expelling violent criminal aliens—“the worst of the worst”—was widely popular. But Team Trump misplayed its hand by going a good deal further. Dispatching Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Home Depots to grab day laborers, or to other places where otherwise law-abiding illegal aliens congregate, is unpopular. These expanded ICE sweeps are turning voters against Mr. Trump. In a Jan. 12 Quinnipiac University poll, 57% of all voters and 64% of independents disapproved of how ICE is enforcing immigration laws.
The Trump administration made the situation worse by describing Renee Good, the woman killed by an ICE agent earlier this month, as a “domestic terrorist” and fomenting further chaos in Minneapolis. In a Jan. 12 CNN/SRRS survey, 51% of Americans said ICE was making cities “less safe.”
As puzzling as his mishandling of immigration is Mr. Trump’s insistence that for national security, Denmark must surrender Greenland. For weeks he made it sound as though he might even invade—clarifying only on Wednesday morning that he won’t go to war with a NATO ally. That he threatened so long to use force hasn’t endeared him to voters. Eighty-six percent of Americans oppose taking Greenland by force—including 68% of Republicans and 94% of independents, according to a Jan. 12 Quinnipiac poll. And they’re right to. An invasion would destroy NATO and gravely damage American trade and political ties. Only China and Russia would have profited.
What makes this still more confounding is that the U.S. already has a treaty allowing it to establish military bases in Greenland. Yet Mr. Trump has insisted America must own the land outright, which even without the possibility of war is a political loser. Quinnipiac found 55% of Americans oppose “trying to buy Greenland” while 37% support it.
That isn’t even the most unhinged moment from the first year of Trump 2.0. Remember “Liberation Day” last April? He levied tariffs willy-nilly, even on places with which we have trade surpluses or no trade. For months the president has attacked the Federal Reserve’s independence to set interest rates, roiling markets. He pardoned all the criminals who assaulted Capitol police on Jan. 6, 2021. He called voters’ affordability concerns a “hoax,” then moments later claimed he’d address them.
Last Thursday, he accepted Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s gift of her 2025 Nobel Peace Prize medal as if he had earned it. On Saturday, he announced a 10% tariff on imports from European countries that criticized his threats to invade Greenland and warned he’d raise it to 25% if the Danes didn’t strike a deal by June 1. On Tuesday, he suggested he’d send Americans $2,000 “tariff rebate” checks without congressional approval.
And in a missive almost too over the top to believe, he recently tried to bully the Norwegian prime minister because the Norwegian Nobel Committee hadn’t awarded him the Peace Prize. Because of the perceived slight, Mr. Trump wrote, “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”
The Trump presidency wasn’t normal even in his first term, but something is different now. Americans are increasingly unnerved by the president’s rambling appearances and late-night screeds. Whether it’s age or advisers who can’t check his worst instincts, Mr. Trump is acting in ways no American president has. His downward spiral has led 58% of Americans and 66% of independents in the CNN/SRRS poll to describe his second term as “a failure.” If his team can’t turn things around, he’ll help defeat his party this fall and damage the country for years.
Mr. Trump isn’t the only politician who doesn’t seem to understand that swing voters will decide the midterms. Next week, I’ll look at the Democrats. They aren’t doing too well either.
The column by Mr. Rove, courtesy of rove.com, was first published in The Wall Street Journal.
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.
Mr. Rove has been described by respected author and columnist Michael Barone in U.S. News & World Report as “…unique…no Presidential appointee has ever had such a strong influence on politics and policy, and none is likely to do so again anytime soon.” Washington Post columnist David Broder has called Mr. Rove a master political strategist whose “game has always been long term…and he plays it with an intensity and attention to detail that few can match.” Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, has called Mr. Rove “the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation. He knows history, understands the moods of the public, and is a visionary on matters of public policy.”
Before Mr. Rove became known as “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, non-partisan causes, and non-profit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional, and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.