Tipping Point?

The polls are telling us there is a serious alienation among young male voters now, and the macho man in the White House. A sampling of males 18-29 years old by Third Way in December found 66 percent of that group disapproved of Mr. Trump’s performance in office. Does anybody believe the numbers have gone up since then?

Some 61 percent of young men say the president is not fulfilling his campaign promise to put America first.

Moreover, only 26 percent of young men would back J.D. Vance if he runs for president in 2028. Fifty-five percent say no way.

Among all Americans, the RealClearPolitics polling average shows 55.2 percent disapprove of the job the president is doing, 42.1 percent approve. Not good. Very bad, especially for Republicans like Vance who have hitched their stars to a man whose current glide path resembles that of a falling wrench.

But I keep coming back to the question: what the hell did all these people expect when they voted to return the Charlatan-in-Chief to the White House? Why was it so easy for us to see through his bullshit, but so hard for them? And why oh why has it taken them so long to express misgivings?

Sure, there is always pure cussedness among Americans who would rather die than admit they made a mistake. And yes, good ol’ misogyny plays a role when a woman tops the ticket. There is also the seething hatred Republicans, especially devout Christians, have for socialist, communist, drag-show Democrats.

But I think it’s the Epstein scandal that is unraveling the Trump presidency among those who lined up to kiss his ring. It’s why he has obviously tried so hard to change the subject and hide the truth. He knows what’s in the files. He knows he’s in there. And he knows it doesn’t look good.

The Republican sycophants argue that Joe Biden and Merrick Garland did nothing about the Epstein issue when they were in power. True. So what? And by the way, who was Merrick Garland?

No, when it became apparent to even the most primitive knuckle-dragger that the Donald had broken his word to expose the elites who palled around with Jeffrey, when they saw he had no intention of coming clean about the list of would-be pedophiles, when they saw the stalling, prevaricating, deflecting flow of executive excrement pouring from the White House briefing room, and when they saw Attorney General Pam Bondi huffily screech her way through Wednesday’s congressional hearing, they may be starting to see a whole lot of other issues in a different light.

Maybe he didn’t know what he was talking about on tariffs. Maybe he didn’t actually settle eight wars. Maybe putting a clown like Kari Lake in charge of the Voice of America at a time when U.S. influence is waning around the world was not such a hot idea.

Maybe, just maybe, it rubs his base voters the wrong way when they see masked storm troopers executing “real” Americans in broad daylight, cursing them as they die, or bragging about it later to their buddies.

Maybe they didn’t like it when they were told it was unacceptable to carry a firearm to a demonstration, especially after they championed Kyle Rittenhouse for doing just that and even killing two demonstrators back in 2020, especially after some of them carried guns to that there Jan. 6 insurrection.

Maybe acquiring Greenland was always a stupid idea, even if the libs said it was. It don’t look so smart now, do it? Seems like we need those friends we had for over 80 years instead of alienating them in the interest of a new bromance with shit heads like Putin, or the very rich Arab autocrats. What say you, Billy Bob?

Maybe, just maybe, Trump and his kids are trying to make money from the presidency. Could it be? Did Lincoln try to do that? Lemme think. And speaking of the Great Emancipator, was it cool to portray a Black former president and his wife as apes? Sure, it was funny as hell, kinda like a barroom joke, they might think, but cool? I dunno.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been listening to bigots like Stephen Miller or lunatics like Laura Loomer. And speaking of incompetence, just in the last few hours, we’ve had news of an awesome festival of imbecility.

This week, the Federal Aviation Administration announced it was closing the airport in El Paso, TX, for 10 days. Then, hours later, it reopened the airport, because, well… never mind.

Apparently, Customs and Border Protection (border patrol) officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Pentagon, believing — wrongly — that a Mexican drug cartel had launched one of their drones to spy on the our border patrol in the area. Urgent action was required. But apparently, notification of anyone at the airport was not. Passengers were stranded, the mayor was outraged, and congressional hearings may result.

So here we have one totally unqualified Cabinet secretary, Transportation’s Sean Duffy, working with another utterly unqualified Cabinet secretary, the Pentagon’s Pete Hegseth, while working with a third completely unqualified Cabinet secretary, Kristi Noem of Homeland Security. Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, this was not. What possibly could go wrong??

Duffy later assured us that “the threat has been neutralized.” And I’ll bet it has, since the threatening object that demanded urgent action turned out to be … a party balloon.

None of these foul-ups alone would be enough to loosen Trump’s unbelievable grip on his idiots. But if you take them all together and top it off with a hefty dollop of Epstein sludge, it may be just a bit too much for an increasing number of Americans to, um, swallow.

If they couldn’t see it when they voted for this loser, it’s now rapidly coming into view.