This is exactly what I was hoping for

Dear Palmer Report readers: it's Bill Palmer. I'm as sick of Trump as you are. I'm expanding Palmer Report's operations so we can lead the fight against Trump. Click here to donate $25 or $50.

Things are going to absolute crap in Donald Trump’s second week. He’s issuing such insane executive orders that some of them are being overturned in court already. He briefly tried to shut down Medicaid. He’s started some kind of trade war with Colombia, even as his administration spelled it “Columbia.” He went on Fox News and insisted on talking about nonsense, even while Hannity begged him to talk about the economy. This is all while egg prices are going through the roof, even as Trump is showing no interest in dealing with consumer prices at all.

It’s just massive, stunning ineptitude on a historical level. And I’m going to tell you something: this is what I was hoping for. No, not the damage. Not the carnage. Not the manner in which vulnerable people are getting hurt. That’s all abominable. But the incompetence โ€“ the sheer overreaching yet half baked idiocy โ€“ is precisely what I’ve been rooting for.

Why? Because above all other things, perceived incompetence is what makes a U.S. President unpopular. No President remains viable or retains any political muscle with the support of his base alone. He’s got to have the support of the political middle (translation: an approval rating about 50% or higher) so that everyone else will have to just bow down and let the President have his way. But Trump doesn’t have that. He’s already into the low forties, and he doesn’t seem to have any idea how to turn that around. In that sense he’s already a beached whale, just ten days into his term.

This is why I don’t waste time sitting around lamenting about the incompetence on display. I say bring on the incompetence. Trump and his regime are going to try to do evil no matter what. But if they’re incompetent along the way, it makes it harder for them to carry out their evil, and easier to convince the people in the middle that they need to join us in fighting back. So let’s root for continued embarrassing incompetence, and try to use it to our advantage. It’s the best thing we’ve got going in trying to fight back against the evil.

Dear Palmer Report readers: it's Bill Palmer. I'm as sick of Trump as you are. I'm expanding Palmer Report's operations so we can lead the fight against Trump. Click here to donate $25 or $50.