Trump’s Biggest Enemy is… Trump

By Jim Buckley

I’m worried.

Those of us who follow this stuff have always feared that the midterm elections of 2026 had the probability of going in a negative direction for Republicans. Despite the glorious results of the 2024 election, there was never a guaranteed positive outcome for the next. And we’ve learned (though frankly, we’ve known this all along) that the public is a fickle mistress. Regardless of the words of felicity pronounced by even longtime supporters, political love affairs have a way of dissipating quickly; even the most stalwart enthusiasts can be swayed by temperament and/or events.

Let me count the ways (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning) that Donald Trump, our President and Commander-in-Chief, could fall afoul of the public’s embrace.

He could lose support by responding callously to perceived injustices.

President Trump’s initial response to Margorie Taylor Greene’s criticism of his handling of the Epstein Files is a case in point. Greene co-sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act with Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie to force the House to vote on unsealing documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Representative Greene – up until then one of President Trump’s most ardent supporters – felt that the president had reneged on his promise to open the files to the public and had not even tried to explain why he simply dropped the idea.

So, Greene joined Epstein survivors at a Capitol press conference on November 18, where she criticized Trump for not releasing the files, despite his earlier campaign promise to do so.

Trump dubbed her Marjorie “Traitor” Greene on Truth Social and claimed that she’d gone bad after he ignored her calls. He hinted that a pro-Trump super PAC (MAGA Inc.) might back a primary challenger against her and that she turned on him because he wouldn’t support her bid for governor or senator in Georgia.

Greene defended herself at that November 18th press conference, saying that, “I was called a traitor by a man that I fought for... I gave him my loyalty for free.” She emphasized she had won her first election without his endorsement and refused to be treated as owing him allegiance, adding, “Loyalty should be a two-way street.”

She’s right, of course.

Resignation and Aftermath

On November 21, 2025, Greene announced her resignation, positioning herself as the “true MAGA champion” cast aside by Trump’s inner circle.

This is all quite ugly and doesn’t play to any of President Trump’s strong points.

In fact, it makes him look petty.

The president’s support could also leak away by his continuing to promise more than he can deliver. Or, by not explaining what exactly he and his Republican Party partners hope to achieve, how they expect get there, and how long it may take.

We need Republicans to prevail in the 2026 mid-term election. If they don’t, the progress achieved by his second term will come to a screeching halt. And should a Democrat take the presidency in 2028, well, you know what will happen.

We don’t want that.

Fireside Chats Called For

The voting public is often misinformed but isn’t stupid. An Oval Office speech (or two, or three) would go a long way in explaining and maybe amplifying everything the president and the Republican Party have done to rectify the conditions that the previous Democrat administration had so badly mishandled.

President Trump could explain how the Biden administration, by printing some $7 trillion in “emergency” funding after the pandemic had subsided had led to the serious inflation that Trump has tried mightily to contain.

It would also be good if he, right alongside Treasury Secretary Bissent, outlined how the 70-year international trade imbalance between the U.S. and the rest of the world had unwittingly helped China achieve great power status on the U.S. dime. And that it was important that he and his team fix those terms by way of more equitable tariffs. Immediately

The U.S. needs President Trump. The team he has cobbled together (Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health & Human Services head RFK, Jr., Attorney General Pam Bondi, “Border Czar” Tom Homan, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, FBI Director Kash Patel, EPA Director Lee Zeldin, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, et al.), have done so much in so short a time.

We have much to be thankful for and not the least being Trump’s defeat of “Cackling” Kamala Harris. He has secured the border, done away with DEI (Diversity! Equity! Inclusion!) and much of its concomitant residue at the federal level, destroyed Iran’s nuclear ambitions, cemented relations with Israel, Japan, and other key allies, re-invigorated the military, taken on the drug cartels, brokered peace in a number of incipient and/or ongoing international conflicts, brought manufacturing of critical industries back to the U.S., attracted trillions of dollars in new investments from around the world, and, well, we simply need him.

If Democrats take the House in 2026, it’ll get ugly. We’ll be back to impeachment threats and bickering over the panoply of crap that party has embraced.

This proposed series of fireside chats defining the reasons why it will take longer to fix things than the president had hoped – and how bad it had really become – would go a long way in educating the public in how vital the stakes are and why he’s the right man for the job.

The chats would go a long way too in shoring up his support… and his supporters.

Community Calendar:

Got a Santa Barbara event for our community calendar? Fenkner@sbcurrent.com