As a retired political consultant, I do, occasionally, prognosticate on
Trumpian political portraits.
I predicted early on, for example, that Trump would defeat Hillary in 2016 when
no one I could find or read agreed with that assessment.
The Supreme Court decision is/will be a major hit on the President. Essentially
one of his main platform planks, his reliance on the unlawful application of a
Federal law (International Emergency Economic Powers Act, known as IEEPA) will
cost, initially, somewhere in the vicinity of $175 billion to, most likely, be
required to be returned to the countries/companies which paid the money in
question.
Trump, for his part, claims he has work arounds to, effectively, bypass the
Supreme Court. Those options, however, seem dramatically more limited than what
he had been doing before.
It has to be kept in mind that while this will be a major hit to the revenue
tariffs were bringing in (roughly $30 billion monthly), This decision does not
eliminate all tariffs, just those implemented citing IEEPA those implemented
citing IEEPA.
IEEPA tariffs represent about 55% of all current tariffs collected in FY 2025.
It is essentially impossible for the US to keep these funds as a result of the
USSC declaring the collection of this money to have been unconstitutional
It will take some time, of course, to unwind the clock of this portion of
tariffs, but the sources of the payments themselves will not be difficult to
determine.
Further, there is a probability that the payments themselves will have to be
returned with some level of interest added to the costs, along with the legal
fees/costs/expenses incurred by the prevailing parties.
Which sets the table for the current snapshot.
But what of the actual political fallout? What impacts will this cause in the
midterms?
Recently,
the left, which lacks in most political areas of interest, had been hoisted on
their own petards of supporting illegal aliens, to include murderers, rapists,
robbers and the like; by funding the protests as well as the bail demands for
many illegals arrested for criminal acts, particularly in the fringe left
cities such as New York, LA and Portland.
ICE detainers are frequently ignored. Murders, rapes, robberies and assaults
have resulted. Many illegals are simply let go, back our on the streets to
continue their crimes.
So-called “sanctuary cities” urge fellow leftists to riot and engage in various
types of violence and obstruction in an effort to end or reduce ICE and related
law enforcement agencies from fulfilling their sworn duty to apprehend and
deport the illegals infesting us.
Out of control spending and massive, business-crushing
tax increases have resulted in more and more businesses closing down and/or
leaving these states. Portland’s downtown finds the value of many of their high
rises sinking lower than yet another Willamette River sewage spill, with massive
vacancy rates and a 70% devaluation in value.
They continue to stay in lockstep with their insane positions on fake females
competing against the real thing and free entering women’s rest room and locker
room facilities. They find themselves seemingly unable to even define what a
woman actually is.
They continue their opposition to a requirement to prove American citizenship
to vote in our elections, even though members of Congress are required to use picture
voter ID to vote on legislation… and even though CNN polling indicates that 71%
of democrats support voter ID.
Their insistence of sticking with the wrong end of these and other 80/20 equations
made it increasingly likely that there would be little to no leftist resurgence in the
mid-terms.
Until now.
NOW, they have been handled a legitimate issue reinforcing their oft-stated
perspective that Trump refuses to obey the laws governing this country. They will now begin a slightly different
approach, wherein they rightfully CAN call his judgment into question, given
his overwhelming defeat on the tariff issue.
Also, they can apply that test to anything he does, question his decisions on
anything (since, even if Trump cured cancer, they'd complain about the shape and
numbers of test tubes he used in the process.) and this time, have some legitimate reasoning for their positions.
In my decades of political work, there’s an axiom that has repeatedly proven
true:
"If you’re ‘explaining?’ You’re losing.”
This defeat blew up the news cycle like a small nuclear warhead.
On this issue, it IS difficult to avoid the “how could he do this” question.
How is it possible that none of the legal talent he has didn’t question the
legality of using a law that lacks any mention of the word “tariff” in it?
If they didn’t mention it, they should be fired.
If they DID mention it and he ignored them?
This crushing, 6-3 defeat. where even the alleged conservative members of the
Court tossed him under a bus, is legitimate fodder for campaign commercials and
the blame-game.
ALL politicians count on the notoriously short memories of the voters. Right
this moment, most GOP pols are praying for that short memory with the onset of
the midterms. Meanwhile, it’s a bet that leftists are not already writing the
commercials they run wherein they call into discussion the President's judgment
as well as the judgment of those who had supported Mr. Trump’s efforts.
But now, GOP incumbents out in the field are likely to find themselves on the
receiving end of questions they do not want to be asked.
And will likely have a very difficult time answering.
Does this make the midterm flip more likely? Maybe. It certainly doesn’t help.
A competent ad campaign makes that more likely.
In my experience, the GOP has been “not bad” in getting power.
But they have a terrible time keeping it. Typically, as a result of their own failures, such as Majority Leader Thune failing to take action on the SAVE Act
And one of their major pitches just took a very solid, very bad hit.
