The qualities and tools Donald Trump used in his first term to enamor his fans are falling apart during his second term as voters and congressional supporters are increasingly leaving his camp.
That is the opinion of long-time Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who observed that the president’s “mood swings” as well as those of voters is signaling that exhaustion has set in.
It’s not just plummeting poll numbers that are plaguing the president, she wrote, but it is what comes out of the president’s mouth that is helping the exodus along, as his vulgar attacks on perceived enemies have ramped up and turned off fans who used to find him charming.
“There is the matter of his mouth. The president’s supporters have for 10 years put up with his babyish obsession with insulting people. They think of it as the Trump Tax, the price you pay for getting someone bold and tough,” she wrote. “But his hate-stoking now, in an era of political violence, is going to get someone hurt.”
“In his Truth Social post Tuesday night he used criminal language about the press—news outlets and reporters are ‘seditious, perhaps even treasonous,’ They ‘libel and demean THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.’ They are true Enemies of the people, and we should do something about it.’ Like what?” she asked before advising, “It isn’t 2015, we’re more on edge. In a darker time, he’s going to find in the polls fewer people willing to pay the Trump Tax.”
Adding to his woes was the loss of support from high-profile former MAGA supporter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) with Noonan predicting, “She’s leaving Congress but not looking like someone who lost her battles with Mr. Trump. His problem: Once someone makes a successful jailbreak, all the other prisoners know a jailbreak is possible. This changes the conversation in the prison yard. Guards are eyed differently, the warden’s mystique is diminished.”
An inflection point for Trump will arrive after the first of the year when he delivers the traditional State of the Union speech, which the columnist suggested may be his last chance to stem the bleeding.
“Those addresses don’t have the power they once had but still retain some,” she cautioned. “He might focus on things people are really thinking about—AI, inflation and how Americans in their 30s and 40s can get it together to buy a house and have a baby and keep this whole lumbering thing called America going.”
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