Worse is his demoralizing penchant for pulling the rug out from under his supporters with policy initiatives and personnel appointments that are announced and then almost immediately yanked back: tariffs on “Christmas items” from China, the deportation of sick “migrants,” conservative congressman John Ratcliffe’s short-lived float as director of national intelligence, ineffectual, court-blocked threats to end the so-called “Dreamers” protection for illegal immigrants who arrived as children and to close the Mexican border, and to build the wall. Follow-through has never been Trump’s strong suit.
Worst of all are the appointments and policy prescriptions that no conservative could ever endorse: lawyer Christopher Wray as head of a tarnished FBI, now tracking border groups opposed to US immigration policy as “extremist organizations”; and his bruiting of “red flag” laws to preemptively disarm Americans without due process on suspicion of mental illness — including using home-espionage equipment such as Amazon Echo and Apple Watch to collect data on individuals. All of which makes Trump eminently beatable next year.
That’s the bad news.
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