'Trump Has the Look of the Weak Horse; People Are Acting Accordingly'

(TPM) "A president’s power is a uniform commodity wherever he reaches. What boosts it or drags it down in one area affects it everywhere else. That’s the best way to understand President Trump’s position 10 months into his second term. It’s hard to know whether it was the five-week government shutdown which focused public attention on draconian cuts to health care, the election night shellacking, the first signs of MAGA diehards defecting from the president, the grotesque and absurd Epstein cat-and-mouse game or a dozen other comparable examples. What makes it both hard to pick apart the different drivers of a president’s decline and perilous for the president himself is that the different drivers feed on themselves. They become both cause and effect in a mounting spiral."

"At some point in the next several months the Supreme Court will render a verdict on President Trump’s manifestly illegal tariffs which have not only roiled consumers in the United States but upended the entire global financial system. There have always been signs that this power grab may have finally been a step too far, even for this Supreme Court. To the extent one can map the facts of the tariff case onto the Court’s pet doctrines — ‘major question’, ‘non-delegation’ — the Court should be hot to reject Trump’s claims. A question of such gravity shouldn’t rest on what is at best an ambiguous text and even if the Congress had wanted to entirely cede its constitutional power over tariffs they shouldn’t have been allowed to. Obviously, jurisprudential consistency doesn’t count for much amidst the Court’s corruption. More significant is that the tariffs themselves probably aren’t terribly welcome to a six person Republican majority. There’s also Federalist Society architect Leonard Leo’s conspicuous role in the legal challenge to the tariffs. But there’s another factor. The Court is not immune from the factor that is weighing Trump down on so many other fronts. Indeed, their corruption likely makes them even more liable to it. No one likes to back the weak horse. No one wants to back the loser. Right now Trump looks increasingly like a loser, a president whose formal powers will likely last another three years but whose actual power is ebbing."

"Again, these things become both cause and effect. Having his signature policy exploded in an instant will only add to the stench of haplessness, impotence and failure. People are just less and less afraid of this president. You can see it in their actions. Trump is now threatening primaries against the Republicans who didn’t bend to his will on gerrymandering their state. He shouldn’t have to do that."

"When did it start? Was it the Jimmy Kimmel brouhaha? Keep an eye out to leaks. They appear to be coming more easily now. We hear it short order when investigators are fired for getting too close to sharks and hucksters like Bill Pulte. The GOP Senate’s attempt to cut $1 million checks to ten of its members demonstrated both the invulnerability Team Trump now feels but also quickly ebbing public patience. MSNBC reports this morning that Kash Patel’s girlfriend, country music performer Alexis Wilkins, now has a round-the-clock security detail of FBI SWAT team agents. Someone leaked that. Just like someone leaked Patel’s use of his FBI jet to squire her around the country on their weekends out. You can imagine Patel’s furious ire at the leakers. He must want them run to ground at the earliest opportunity. But remember that they’re seasoned law enforcement and/or counter-intelligence professionals. Patel is a one time junior line prosecutor-turned podcaster. He may not stand a chance."

Continued at link:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-has-the-look-of-the-weak-horse-people-are-acting-accordingly