Boo-Birds and Armchair Quarterbacks are Out in Force, and Wrong as Usual

Fair-Weather supporters fail to realize ripping away lifetimes of corruption is a Herculean task, and fail to assess the big picture facing the Trump 47 administration.

Does anyone else remember the good old days, some three months ago, when catchy slogans like “I voted for this” were everywhere and almost every former Trump-hating commenter used the grace period and neighborly sentiments of good feelings to repent of their fallacious thinking and join the party? I sure do.

In fact, agenda items were being checked off at such lightning speed, it was damn near impossible to document all the progress:

Americans in the Trump 47 era are faced with an unfortunate double-edged sword. For those who support Trump’s agenda, which now has record-high approval, his presidential actions and executive orders have been impressively bold and focused on maximum impact. For those considering the long-term picture, the total breakdown and compromise of the legislative branch of government means the chief executive exercises maximum power and authority, creating a precedent that will extend to future, less virtuous presidents. This means all Trump executive actions must be handed down in such a manner that they are irreversible and transformative.

President Trump is checking off campaign promises at lightning speed.

People were genuinely excited to see such commitment to fulfilling promises, which are far too often used simply as a grift to get politicians in office. We even had a big, beautiful table right there at the inaugural after-party for executive orders, which were and are necessary if there is to be anything accomplished in this four-year period. Yes, executive orders can simply be rescinded by the next guy, but if you’re aware as to how poorly configured we are for sweeping legislative change, you are likely to make peace with letting the proverbial quarterback take it into the endzone himself.

Some of these items can be dealt with in a single day:

· Sick of the Gulf of Mexico? Bam, take this.

· Want to open this preserve for drilling? Consider it done.

· Get us out of this climate agreement? Signed.

I could fill up the rest of this article with the bull in a china shop routine President Trump put on display for the first 60 days in office. We call many of these items low-hanging fruit, because they’re easier to pick and take little time, energy, and resources to put into motion, pending review from an unelected tyrant in a black robe somewhere in the 50 states or Washington, D.C.

Fast forward to today, coming up on mid-May, and you can hear the start of a sad song being chirped out by boo-birds and armchair quarterbacks. I see them online, in opinion pieces, and all over videos and other influencer content – the armchair quarterbacks who take it beyond the duty to view the world with a critical lens and apply shallow thinking to complex problems that have been blown into such a raging inferno, the long-term future of this Republic is shrouded in uncertainty. I am most certainly not telling people to be blind fans, like the sycophants who excused a president holding power without full use of his mental faculties for four years; I am, however, telling people to view the entire set of challenges facing the Trump 47 administration as a chess board, not simple checkers.

There are two primary factors that limit progress toward the goals of the Trump 47 administration:

· The Legislative branch

· The Judicial branch

The U.S. House and Senate majorities are too small and too composed of feckless statists wearing a Republican label to get any bills defending our right to survive as a sovereign nation passed. Any amendments or legislation outlawing birthright citizenship, banning mail-in voting, or banning the Democrat Party? Not going to happen, and any earth-shaking bills of such magnitude will die by the hands of “Republican” legislators. Imagine a knife going through the heart of those bills, held in the hands of someone making a face like this:

What your school librarian looked like when you didn’t turn your books back in on time

In fact, once Lisa Murkowski is inevitably run out of the Senate, perhaps in 2028, she will reemerge right here on Substack with a purple check mark and post anti-MAGA drivel for hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, like her compatriot Adam Kinzinger. Substack competition notwithstanding, anyone who thinks we are going to get anything but the skinniest and least impactful of reforms through a tiny House majority and a weak Senate majority swamp filled with gators like Murkowski, McConnell, and Collins is deceiving themselves.

With the legislature serving only a limited purpose, such as those already largely in the rear-view mirror like Senate confirmations, this leaves the Executive branch to keep the lights on and drive was policy changes can be made given the increasing irrelevance of the legislative branch. In other words, even when our guy issues good orders, that isn’t how things were supposed to function in a healthy country. Think of it like throwing up tons of weight on an exercise, using bad form and all the muscles you weren’t supposed to use to get that weight up. It’s great that you can lift it, but long term, it’s a recipe for injury. As much as we love Trump’s orders, the country is in disrepair and the delinquency of the Legislative branch requires Americans to elect a chief executive who is going to have to do it all himself – for better or for worse.

This means our national reformation, as far as elected or appointed officials go, comes down to two lines of effort:

· The executive actions of President Donald Trump

· The lawful actions of all agencies reporting to President Trump

The same playbook that surfaced in 2017 to prevent sweeping change is still in play but used in a softer context given the failure in the courts of public opinion to bury Trump. It hinges on judicial corruption to swat down orders that would alter the American future drastically, such as the cancellation of birthright citizenship or the complete overhaul of the elections process. So far, there are no serious efforts to impugn Trump in personal or official scandal – that has been reserved for Pete Hegseth, who the military industrial complex wishes to crucify. This lighter approach is a hedging of bets – the system doesn’t think Trump will be replaced by a figure of similar political stature, and with Trump himself at an all-time popularity high, it would be unwise to foment further anti-establishment sentiment by running Trump out of office with only three years left until the 2028 election campaign begins in earnest.

For those of you who are impatient and wondering if Trump has gone over to the dark side because momentum has slowed down, why don’t we look at a little napkin math:

We are 112 days into a 1,461-day term, or 7.7% through the term.

If this were a nine-inning baseball game, there is one man out in the bottom of the first inning (4 outs out of 54 is 7.4%). We are the visitors and stacked on 4 runs in the top of the first before our threat died out, only to have the offense put a couple men on base in the bottom half, effectively getting us in a jam.