By the time this letter is posted, the primary/runoff elections will be over and it’s off to the November general elections.
One thing is certain: Every local election for state/national office is a referendum on Donald Trump. While Trump’s popularity trajectory is falling, support remains firm with his core but declining base.
I’ve often been reminded by my MAGA friends to pay attention to what he does more than what he says, but I have difficulty reconciling the following (not sure how they do):
1. By his own reporting, Trump and his family have enriched themselves by $2 billion over the last year directly related to activities of the presidency; did you see Dusty Johnson’s recent email hailing his support for legislation limiting congressional members stock transactions? This is peanuts compared to what DJT has done.
2. Thanks to the Big, Beautiful Bill (among other things), the current year federal deficit is $1.8 trillion and federal debt has increased by $3 trillion to $39 trillion.
3. The Iranian war drags on with, at best, unclear end in sight and/or strategy in spite of every step of the way, communication from the White House that Iran has been pummeled into submission and is desperate for an agreement.
Yes, DJT supporters are right, don’t listen to what he says because it’s self-aggrandizing spin if not outright untruth. Remember when he said from the Oval Office that he had been contacted by a previous president who told him they wished they had taken the aggressive action of bombing Iran? An outright lie!
Irrespective of what he says, I do believe that one area of policy that will ultimately haunt his legacy and our country is DJT’s approach to energy and climate change.
What have the watchwords been? “Climate change is a hoax,” “Drill, baby drill,” “Coal, beautiful coal” and “Green Deal scam.”
And with those as anthems, DJT has ceded, if not surrendered, world leadership in green energy technology (e.g., electric vehicles and solar/battery technology) to China.
It won’t happen as long as MAGA flags are flying, but the U.S. will rue the day that we adopted that posture, and South Dakota will as well, given our investment in wind energy that DJT has been critical of and taken executive action to limit and reverse its development.
Bill Kubat
Sioux Falls
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One question for all the Trump supporters, are you better off? It may be true if you’re a member of the one percent—but for the vast majority of Americans, paying more for virtually everything from health care to gasoline and food, the answer is no. Consider the latest polls--a new poll by the public opinion research firm SSRS found that 70% of adult Americans disapprove of the way President Donald J. Trump is handling the economy while only 30% approve. A whopping 75% disapprove of how Trump is handling inflation, while only 25% approve. When it comes to gas prices, the numbers are even worse for the president: 79% disapprove while only 21% approve. Sixty-five percent think Trump’s own economic policies have hurt the country, while only 22% think those policies have improved the economy. And we haven’t even begun to feel the effect of millions of dollars of cuts to medicaid—Doeden’s loss to Rhoden, almost exactly mirrors these poll numbers, Doeden secured 29% of the vote—that’s the hard core MAGA base who support Trump and candidates like Doeden.
People aren’t suffering from some made-up syndrome—most folks simply recognize every time they fill up their car or go to the grocery store or pick up their meds at the pharmacy or try and square input costs with the destruction of export markets for agriculture products, that by every metric, they aren’t better off. Rhoden’s lined up squarely behind Donny, but even staunch Republicans are beginning to question whether we can afford more of the same bullshit. Really, it’s as simple a question as who won the 2020 election—at least for normal, rational folks.