How Christmas will steal Trump

Trump gave what was billed as a “Christmas speech” in rural Pennsylvania this past week that began with his “wishing each and every one of you a very merry Christmas, happy New Year, all of that stuff” and boasting that now, under his presidency, “everybody’s saying ‘merry Christmas’ again.”

Then he claimed — contrary to the experience of nearly everyone in the crowd — that he had gotten them “lower prices” and “bigger paychecks.” And asserted that anyone having difficulty making ends meet should just cut back on buying stuff. “You can give up certain products. You can give up pencils … Every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two,” he said, adding, “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice. You don’t need 37 dolls.”

It’s rich — Trump preaching austerity while raking in billions from his crypto investments and bribes: a luxury jetliner from Qatar, gold bar from Apple, wealth from the Saudis, gold Rolex clock from Switzerland, and so much more.

“The only thing that is truly going up big, it’s called the stock market and your 401(k)s,” Trump continued, apparently unaware that 92 percent of the stock market is owned by the richest 10 percent of Americans while most Americans own no stock at all. (Just over a third have even a 401(k), 403(b), 503(b) or Thrift Savings Plan.)

He was supposed to talk about affordability, but Trump’s malignant narcissistic brain seemed incapable of the minimal empathy needed to understand the public’s angst over the cost of living. So he veered off affordability to attack Minnesota’s Rep. Ilhan Omar, ridicule windmills, mock transgender people, and call Joe Biden a son of a bitch.

Small wonder that most voters have had it with Trump. Even the MAGA faithful are starting to have second thoughts.

In Miami this week, voters delivered the mayor’s office to a Democrat for the first time in nearly 30 years and rebuffed the Republican candidate, whom Trump endorsed — by a whopping 59 percent to 41 percent. Miami’s new mayor-elect, Eileen Higgins, said the city is “at the tip of the spear” of affordability concerns in America.

In Indiana this week, Republican senators rejected a redistricting plan that Trump had tried to bully them into accepting. He threatened to primary legislators who didn’t go along and even whipped up supporters to pressure them — including so-called swatting of their homes (hoax reports to provoke a police response) and death threats.

It didn’t work. Twenty-one senators from the Republican majority in the Indiana Senate and all 10 Senate Democrats voted it down.

Even congressional Republicans are starting to desert him as they see that the wannabe emperor has no clothes: His ability to hurt or help them in next year’s midterms is rapidly diminishing.

They’ve rejected his demand to end the filibuster, rebuked his incipient health care plan, forced him to cave on the Epstein files, won’t approve his bonkers $2,000 tariff checks for Americans, want more say over his boat strikes off the coasts of Central and South America, and are in open rebellion against his handpicked speaker of the House.

Trump won’t steal Christmas, but it’s looking increasingly likely that Christmas will steal Trump.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/