More Friday Male Beauty

 

The Felon Is Repeating a Biden Mistake On The Economy

If one believes the narrative that the Felon was re-elected because voters believed he would improve the economy - rather than because he was greenlighting open racism, hate and bigotry - more than a Democrat president. In reality, through his tariffs, multiple trade wars, the ballooning of the federal debt, and the Felon's war of choice in Iran, the Felon took what was actually a fairly good economy and drove it into the ditch. Inflation is higher, mortgage rates are higher, gas prices have soared, and consumer prices has risen across the board. The Felon's response? He says "affordability" is a hoax, claims that America's economy is in a new "golden age" - perhaps if one is a billionaire or a member of the Felon's family - and he continues policies that will push energy prices, especially electricity, still higher.  Perhaps equally bad, while millions of Americans are struggling financially, the Felon has posted over the top images of the recent state dinner that are so out of touch that they'd embarrass Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.  Indeed, it's little surprise that a recent poll showed the Felon's approval on his handling of the economy is down to 17%.  A column in the New York Times looks at the mistakes being made by the Felon and his regime:

When I served in President Joe Biden’s White House, we had good economic news to report: robust job creation, rising wages, low unemployment and a manufacturing jobs revival. Yes, inflation spiked early in his term, but by the time he left office, it had come down considerably.

Mr. Biden wanted his team to highlight his domestic agenda. His policies were working, and he wanted the country to understand what he was doing and why. But the polling was clear: Our economic message didn’t land.

Senior White House advisers, myself included, would meet for hours, day after day, trying to get a handle on the mismatch between the strength of the data and the flagging public confidence. . . . We pored over the numbers, worked through different messaging options and kept looking for a way to break through.

But Americans weren’t feeling it. Too many people were struggling with the prices of groceries, rent, child care and gas. Their lived experience did not match the encouraging economic news, and that disconnect shaped the entire public conversation.  We believed that if we laid out the evidence clearly enough, people would see what we saw. They didn’t, and we didn’t adjust to meet them where they were.

The truth is, we had a stale message and outdated models for delivering it. It cost Mr. Biden and, eventually, Vice President Kamala Harris dearly. President Trump is now making a mistake even more damaging.

The economic indicator that hurt Mr. Biden the most, inflation, is higher today than it was when Mr. Trump returned to office. The bond market has been roiled. The Federal Reserve just raised interest rates. Mr. Trump’s trade wars and his war with Iran are hurting the overall economic picture. All of which helps explain his sinking poll numbers.

Mr. Trump’s refrain that we’re the “hottest country anywhere in the world” is a no-sale, both because the facts really aren’t on his side and because he’s barely acknowledging Americans’ legitimate economic worries. By and large, people aren’t buying his assertions that “affordability” is a “fake word” or his insistence that higher gas prices are “a very inexpensive price to pay” for his war aims. . . . When leaders neglect lived experience, the message collapses.

Why? To start, facts and figures alone no longer carry the weight they once did. There was a time when people would absorb accurate information presented clearly through official channels, like the White House press briefing. They might disagree on what it meant, they might challenge certain points, but it wasn’t automatically treated as spin.

Today, anyone can be a content creator, producing videos, podcasts and memes with subjective, sometimes bogus interpretations of the news. Many Americans now get their news only from outlets that confirm their political leanings. Social media algorithms clearly favor outrage and certainty, not accuracy.

In that environment, official charts and summaries rarely break through. . . . And once a narrative rooted in daily life takes hold, it is almost impossible to dislodge.

We learned that lesson with the economy and again with the debate around Mr. Biden’s age. Looking back, we misread the public mood, thinking the age conversation would fade. At best, my responses from the podium about Mr. Biden’s age failed to put out the fire; at worst, they fueled it.

The Trump White House should realize that over the next two years, there will be only more, not less, scrutiny when the president appears to drift off during meetings, is cagey about the results of his medical exams or goes on one of his erratic, late-night social media screeds. His communications team should know by now that the prices at the pump and the self-checkout line are undefeated.

When people don’t believe what their government says, institutions lose legitimacy. Conspiracy theories flourish. Urgently needed legislation stalls. Elections are lost.

A decade ago, his bluster, so unlike traditional politicians, grabbed ears and eyeballs. Now even many of his fans can see that he’s frequently just seeking attention. Look at just about any poll and you get the sense that voters increasingly don’t trust him.

That tension, the ability to dominate the conversation while struggling to earn trust, defines this moment. . . . Once people believe their government is not speaking to their reality, it becomes incredibly difficult to earn that trust back. I felt that tension every day in the White House briefing room. I see it happening again now. 

Friday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Thursday Male Beauty

 

The Felon And GOP Are Flailing

The mid-term elections are a month away and both the Felon and Republican candidates are flailing as the Felon's Iran war drags on and high gas prices and consumer prices have caused much of the public to conclude that the Felon - and by extension Republican candidates - could care less about voters' concerns.  Other than horrific imagery of small children alone in immigration courts and continued violence by ICE thugs against both U.S. citizens and anyone with brown skin, the only Felon/GOP accomplishment - if one can call it that - is the passage of the falsely named "big beautiful bill  that gave huge tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy while screwing literally millions of citizens, including children. Throw in the Felon's vanity projects and threats to demolish the Kennedy Center and other landmarks and it ;eaves little to campaign on. Indeed, Republican candidates - like Jen Kiggans - have resorted to bald faced lies and continue to run ads that the local media have demonstrated to be untrue.  The record of the Felon and the GOP offers little to convince voters to give them more time to further plunder and weaken the country. The oligarchs and billionaire class may be thrilled with the tax cuts and deregulation that threatens clean air and clean water, but everyone else there is little to be thrilled about. A piece in The Atlantic looks at the situation:

The White House’s South Lawn was prepared just so: A full honor guard, complete with American and Chinese flags, stood at attention. The new White House helipad, made of four-inch-thick black-and-white California granite, seemed to gleam. President Trump appeared pleased—but something was missing. Where were the TV cameras?

For a president who needs media attention like he needs oxygen, this was an unacceptable development ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s welcome ceremony last week. Trump whirled around to his aides and demanded they fix it, and a staffer raced to the briefing room to ask ABC News whether it would film the arrival, two people familiar with the exchange told me on the condition of anonymity, given the private nature of the conversations. But the answer was no: The networks were boycotting participation in the TV-pool rotation in solidarity with CNN, which Trump had banned from the White House, along with two other media outlets, days before. No major U.S. television network recorded Trump’s over-the-top greeting for Xi, and the news channels refused to display images taken by the White House or any other outlet, American or Chinese. Trump did not get to show off his extravaganza. And he had only himself to blame.

At the risk of understatement, Trump has never been one to think all that many moves ahead. But his impulsive decision to ban media outlets spawned unintended consequences that derailed his own plans. Again. That’s been a real theme for much of this year: Many of Trump’s actions—quite a few impetuous and ill-considered—have only hurt him and his fellow Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections. He was elected two years ago to drive down prices, but his tariffs have done the opposite, and a recent reignited trade war with Canada has hurt Republican candidates whose state shares a border with our neighbor to the north. His war of choice in Iran continues to sputter along, leaving gas prices elevated as Trump threatens annihilation one day and offers negotiation the next. . . . . And he’s obsessed with vanity projects . . .

The numbers are bad: Trump’s approval rating dropped to 37 percent in a new Wall Street Journal poll this week, marking the lowest rating in that poll since 1990 for an incumbent president heading into a midterm election. He’s even lower in other polls. . . . More and more Republicans are starting to worry about a blue wave, one that seems certain to secure the House for Democrats but could very well, in an outcome unthinkable even a few months ago, yield a Democratic Senate as well. With barely a month until Election Day, and with early voting already under way in a number of states, Trump and his party are flailing.

He’s traveled domestically far less this term, distancing himself from the concerns of his voters. But with October and the stretch run of the midterm campaigns now here, Trump seems set to gas up Air Force One.

Trump will begin with visits to two GOP strongholds (Oklahoma today, Alabama tomorrow) before then journeying on Saturday to Ohio, a state he won three times but where polls show Republican incumbent Senator Jon Husted trailing his Democratic opponent, former Senator Sherrod Brown. Ohio is not the only reliably red state that now seems to have a Senate seat up for grabs: Iowa, Texas, Alaska, Kansas, and maybe even Nebraska . . . .

Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist who worked in the first Trump administration but quit after the January 6 Capitol riot, told me that the president hasn’t given Republicans anything to run on, saying they have “no results to point to, no agenda to promise either.” And he said that many in the party feel that the bottom is dropping out and a wipeout could be coming.

[T]here has been some debate in GOP circles as to whether or not a Trump visit would actually help in some battlegrounds; several Republicans in tight races are weighing whether to request a presidential visit, party strategists have told me. Two candidates, Susan Collins of Maine and John Sununu of New Hampshire, have already said no, and others have refused to commit.

The White House downplayed any internal GOP concerns. . . . Yet there have been signs of Republicans distancing themselves from Trump on more issues, including immigration enforcement and ending the war in Iran. But that unpopular conflict may shadow the party for the foreseeable future: Many diplomats from the Middle East who attended the United Nations General Assembly last week privately feel that the war will, in stops and starts, likely continue well into next year and potentially throughout the rest of Trump’s term, threatening to drag down Republicans’ political fortunes for multiple elections.

Trump has lurched from one distraction to another—Renaming Lake Ontario! Offering $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans win in November!—but he has yet to shift the electorate’s dim view of his presidency. He’s still pushing claims of election fraud, even though few Republican candidates have joined in. He even authorized the Department of Homeland Security to use taxpayer money to pay for what is, in essence, a Trump campaign ad despite prohibitions on using federal funds for propaganda.

That moment with China’s leader underscored what is arguably Trump’s biggest problem: He has lost touch with what Americans actually care about. The Xi summit was a cornucopia of warning signs for worried Republicans.

The entire decadent spectacle seemed out of step with a country deep in an affordability crisis. The black-tie guest list was dotted with billionaires and tech titans as Trump feted the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, even though he continues to assail Democrats for allegedly being communists. . . . It all felt like a gift to Democrats, who pounced on the videos to paint those in the president’s orbit as dilettantes looking to enrich only themselves.

Susan Del Percio, a longtime Republican strategist, told me that even Trump supporters who are concerned about the economy feel that the president no longer cares about them. “Voters are angry because they are hurting, and through his actions, Trump is telling them that he doesn’t give a damn,” she said.

This week featured another event that likely will not land well with Americans who are struggling financially. Trump presided over a “Golden Age” event that featured business leaders and billionaires—and no talk of affordability challenges. Once more, Trump defended AI and even boasted that it would power a new government-services website. He then joked about where it stood among his accomplishments, saying, “If it is the biggest thing I’ve ever done, I’ve done a shitty job as president.” You can bet Democrats will grab that one too.

Thursday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Wednesday Male Beauty

 

With Luck, The Trump Brand Has Tanked

I and others have long been baffled by the willingness of many Americans to cast their votes for the Felon, a malignant narcissist who cares nothing for anyone but himself and who increasingly flaunts his unrestrained corruption. Seemingly, the Felon giving his cult followers permission to hate and discriminate against blacks, Hispanics, gays and non-right wing "Christians" was more appealing to these voters than their own financial security and access to health care. Now that the Felon's war of choice against Iran has caused fuel prices - including gas at the pump - to soar and his trade wars and tariffs have driven consumer prices even higher, some within his Kool-Aid drinking base are belatedly realizing that the Felon has always only cared about himself and that their struggles mean nothing to him.  Indeed, the Felon seems most fixated on taking revenge on perceived foes, enriching himself, and building monuments to himself.   The state of the economy is merely an after thought and the Felon has admitted that he thinks little about Americans' financial struggles. A column in the New York Times looks at the hopeful cratering of the Felon's brand:

In 1992, James Carville’s famous refrain — “It’s the economy, stupid” — compressed into four words what it might have taken a political scientist 400 words to explain: When family budgets feel tight, voters often go shopping for a new party to run things.

So as we approach the 2026 midterm elections, it’s hardly a unique insight for a pollster like me to say the election will hinge on the issues of our fragile economy and the high cost of living. Arguably, pocketbook issues led Donald Trump back to the White House for a second term: Poll after poll in 2024 showed the economy as the top issue and tended to show him with a significant advantage on who was more trusted to handle it.

Today, [the Felon] President Trump and Republicans haven’t merely lost that advantage; they’re underwater on the cost-of-living issue by an eight-point margin. And this year a second issue has been rising in my polling, ranking below the cost of living but ahead of other concerns. It’s not just the economy: “It’s the corruption,” too.

Voters don’t think the economy is working for them, and they think it’s being rigged more and more in favor of a precious few who are cozied up to our nation’s leaders. The combination of these two worries is putting Mr. Trump and Republicans in a terrible position on the eve of an election.

When Gallup asked Republicans back in 2016 what made Mr. Trump appealing, one in six alluded to his experience as a businessman. This was a product of his years in the public eye as a real estate mogul and as the star of “The Apprentice.” The top response? Mr. Trump was an “outsider.”

Some of his voters are wondering if that’s still true. Robert, one of the Trump-voting Texas swing voters in a recent Times Opinion focus group for which I was a moderator, put it this way: “You used to think that you could count on the Republicans to be able to help out with the economy.” Now, he said, it feels as if “it’s going to be the top class or the certain friends that are getting the benefit of the economy, not the general folks.”

For years, Mr. Trump got a lot of mileage out of his supporters thinking of him as a singular figure — a tycoon who put his glitzy life on hold in order to fix a broken Washington. Today, they see headlines about memecoin scams, inexplicable pardons and the enormous wealth that the president’s family and close associates are accumulating, and some of them are beginning to draw a different conclusion.

It would be one thing if Americans thought Mr. Trump were focused on fixing the economy and just hadn’t had enough time to deliver results.

In January 2025, I asked voters what they hoped Mr. Trump would focus on in his second term, and they were clear that they wanted to see efforts to lower the cost of living and secure the border. By November 2025, more than seven in 10 said he had given a lot of attention to the latter, but only 43 percent said he had made reducing the cost of living one of his highest priorities. Today, that figure is down to four in 10, fewer than the number who think he has prioritized projects such as building a White House ballroom or renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Even among Republican voters, only six in 10 think he has made the cost of living a top priority.

Many of Mr. Trump’s supporters grumble that he’s out chasing pet projects and feeding his ego, busy renaming buildings and bodies of water. As Pam, another of my focus-group participants, put it: “Those things to me are a waste, instead of spending time on what’s going on here in the U.S. and the fact that people are struggling.”

On its own, an economy that feels like it is leaving people behind would be a political problem for any incumbent. But add to it the gold leaf and vanity projects, and you wind up with a politically perilous one-two punch.

Some of the people who’ve believed in Mr. Trump over the past decade seem to be coming to the conclusion that the outsider businessman they voted for is just another typical politician. And while there are surely plenty of disillusioned Trump voters who wouldn’t dare cast a ballot for a Democrat, there’s no guarantee that they’ll bother to turn out on Election Day if they feel their own side is behaving poorly. Come November, that’s a slice of their coalition that Republicans can’t afford to lose.

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Tuesday Male Beauty