To the Fox News crowd, Trump’s first month in office has been an unbroken series of victories. To be sure, the plight of fired federal workers alone is unlikely to create much of a backlash in the nation as a whole. But trouble is already brewing with a wide range of groups that expected better things from him:
- CONSUMERS: Trump was elected to stop inflation. To that end, he has accomplished precisely nothing, and his tariffs will make things worse.
- VETERANS: Cuts at the VA will make services worse, not better.
- NATIONAL PARKS: Republicans benefit from them, too. Indiscriminate mass firings of NPS employees will damage services and hurt mostly red state communities that rely on visitors for revenue.
- VIRGINIA REPUBLICANS: Mass firings of Virginia residents aren’t going to help the GOP candidate for governor get elected this year.
- CAR COMPANIES: If the tariffs on Canada and Mexico are implemented, the supply chain will be disrupted, prices will soar, sales will plummet, and workers will be laid off.
- HISPANICS: Mass deportations and huge cuts to Medicaid aren’t going to win any friends here.
- UKRAINE SUPPORTERS: No explanation is necessary.
- FARMERS: Deportations and tariffs are a disaster for American farmers–at least until Trump starts writing checks to them to compensate them for the losses he will be imposing on them.
The real test of the Trump presidency will come when his polls crater and the judicial system resists him. Will he back down or double down with even more authoritarian tactics? TBD.