You can support Trump’s policies like I do and still question whether he has lost his way. Long-term victory may be at risk due to his tactics. Here’s my new column from RealClearPolitics.

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By FRANK MIELE

We all know about the principle of short-term pain for long-term gain. In private life, it means we sometimes choose to endure personal sacrifice or hardship in order to eventually achieve a goal such as home ownership.

In public life, there are also many instances of this principle being applied. In recent months, tariffs are a perfect example of how it is sometimes necessary to suffer short-term pain to achieve long-term gain. But as rolled out by President Trump, they are also exemplary of the political price to be paid for failing to explain the downside up front.

No doubt the president knew all along that raising tariffs on multiple trading partners would cause prices to increase as those new costs were passed on to the consumer. But Trump didn’t care because his ultimate goals were to create a new income stream for the federal government, to force other nations to level the playing field for our own goods shipped overseas, and to promote homegrown manufacturing.

Those are admirable goals, but they could only be achieved with the short-term pain of higher prices. Unfortunately, President Trump pretended at first that prices would not go up. Manufacturers, retailers, and middlemen would all do their part to absorb the cost of tariffs, and the American people would just reap the rewards. But the American people knew it wasn’t true, and they could tell that their hopes for an economic renaissance under Trump were not being realized with the speed they had hoped.

As a result, Trump’s poll numbers sank steadily during the first year of his second term. On Thursday, the New York Times reported his favorability was down to 40%, which led the president to add the poll as part of his defamation lawsuit against the newspaper. Shoot the messenger.

Tariffs, of course, are just one of many policies under the Trump administration that have forced even his most hopeful followers to acknowledge that despite the president’s good intentions, the pain and consternation he has caused are creating resistance that could easily cost Republicans the midterms.

Take immigration – the issue on which Trump campaigned most successfully, other than his assurance that he would quickly turn the economy around. Immigration was considered a so-called 80-20 issue, with Trump’s adamant push for a closed border putting him on the 80% side of that favorability equation. Even his frequently cited plan to export criminal illegal aliens had the support of a large majority.

But today, Trump is in danger of turning illegal aliens into a cause célèbre thanks to the masked and armed ICE agents terrifying not just immigrants but average American citizens with their heavy-handed tactics.

Does that mean the tactics are not justified? Not at all. There is nothing ICE is doing that isn’t appropriate or necessary when being tasked with removing at minimum a million people from our streets. But the problem is that Trump has not used his powers of persuasion to make the case that the pain inflicted today in rounding up illegal aliens will ultimately make our nation safer and more prosperous. There is a moral case to be made for upholding the law, but the White House has simply not made it.

And these instances of overestimating how much pain the public would put up with in order to achieve desirable results are not the exceptions to the rule. They are the rule. Perhaps due to the fact that President Trump is governing in large measure by executive order, not through congressional votes, his administration has failed to win consensus on a whole host of issues that hold the potential to remake America.

Consider health care: Trump insists that Obamacare is a disaster, which it may well be, but it is popular. If the president wants to change how health care is provided to the most vulnerable in the country, he needs to do more than complain. He needs a solution, and so far all he has come up with is sending a couple thousand dollars a year to Americans for a health savings account. Anyone who has had a major illness in the family can tell you that is laughable. Yet Trump insists the nation is behind him.

Bottom line: This president acts as though he is right about everything, and therefore has foregone the usual job of trying to convince the public through speeches, events, and debate that his policies will pay off in the long run. This narcissistic tendency was on full display last week when he told the New York Times that he doesn’t “need international law” to constrain him.

Asked if there were any limits to his global powers, he said, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

With such a belief at the core of his being, it is not surprising that President Trump doesn’t concern himself with the necessity to maintain popular support for his sometimes revolutionary policies. Instead he discounts any arguments against his proposals and dismisses his opponents as sick, deranged, or crooked.

Instead of convincing the public that his policies will make the country stronger, and thus worth a little short-term pain, Trump seems to be under the illusion that his insults and self-adulation will win the day without sacrifice or hard work.

Unfortunately for him, it is now almost inevitable that Republicans will lose the House in the midterm elections in November, and that as a result the policies he was elected to fulfill will slowly unravel.

Despite whatever excuses he will muster, that likely failure can mostly be attributed to the president acting like a bully instead of using the bully pulpit of his office to sell his policies. The short-term gains he won with executive orders and blanket intimidation will be erased, and he will have no one to blame but himself.

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About Heartland Diary USA

Heartland Diary is solely operated by Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana. If you enjoy reading these daily essays, I hope you will SUBSCRIBE to www.HeartlandDiaryUSA.com by leaving your email address on the home page. Also please consider purchasing one of my books. They are available through the following Amazon links. My new book is “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends” and is a collection of personal essays that transcend politics. My earlier books include “How We Got Here: The Left’s Assault on the Constitution,”  “The Media Matrix: What if everything you know is fake?” and the “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy. Part 1 is subtitled “Bush’s Global Failure: Half Right.” Part 2 is “Obama’s Fundamental Transformation: Far Left.” Part 3 is “Trump’s American Vision: Just Right.” As an Amazon Associate, I may earn referral fees for qualifying purchases through links on my website.