Sour economy has busted Trump’s mighty MAGA message machine: GOP strategist

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are focusing on building a $400 million White House ballroom — even though doing so puts them out of touch with the vast majority of Americans.

“This is a unique moment on a number of fronts,” MS NOW analyst Cornell Belcher said on Tuesday, while citing a poll revealing 55 percent of Americans say their financial situation is getting worse. “I'm struck by that Gallup number — it's the worst number we've seen in the last 25 years. Even in the midst of recessions, more people feel negatively about their financial situation now than any other time over the last quarter-century. Because Republicans are following Trump’s lead for a $400 million ballroom, they are now politically unprepared to convince Americans to retain them in power in the 2026 midterm elections.

“You wonder why Republicans are worried about the midterm elections — because they're not focusing on anything having to do with the economic stress and angst of the vast majority of Americans!” Belcher exclaimed to MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace. “All of their policies and all of their politics right now seem to be aimed at pleasing, or playing to the vanity and narcissism of one individual, and not the American people. ... I'm watching Republicans commit political party suicide by following him down this rabbit hole.”

Wallace pointed out that Trump is "in a very stable place" with the public — but it's not a good stable place, being in the low 30s.

Tim Miller, a political analyst for the conservative website The Bulwark, added to Wallace’s observation, saying the infallible MAGA news machine, which has been shaping the news to Trump's benefit is even failing to overcome Trump's doldrums. Miller pointed out that the MAGA message machine kicked immediately into high gear after events at White House Correspondents' Dinner, advocating for a new attack resistant ballroom, as Trump wants.

“They did something they've done very successfully in the past, which is marshal the entire echo chamber. If you turned on Fox at all today, they were talking about the ballroom. If you looked at a Republican politician's social media feed, they're talking about the ballroom. If you were on Twitter following a right-wing account, they were talking about the ballroom. And this is what they're good at — getting everybody on message and creating these stories out of nonsense.”

Yet while this tactic is great at rallying the 30 percent who already support Trump to his side, it appears to be doing nothing to convert the 70 percent who despise him.

“That machine works very well when the other side is in charge, and you can gin everybody up to smear them and tear them down,” Miller explained. “It works decently well if everybody's feeling good about what you're doing, and you're just giving them a shiny object to distract them from whatever little problems they have in their life. But the machine doesn't work if everybody's already p—— at you. If people are asking, ‘Why are we in this war?’ ... It's going to be $5 gas this summer, and it already is that in some states on the coasts. So if things are getting worse for people, and they're not responding to the things people cared about — whether that be Epstein or the gas prices or whatever — this whole machine is just a little masturbatory.”

Wallace said Democrats should aggressively promote the image of Trump pushing for his gold ballroom at a time when gas hits a record it hasn't hit in a quarter century.”

Belcher agreed with Wallace, saying that “you show that image up against the image of struggling people at the gas pump, paying these crazy prices for gas and struggling to put food on their table — and it kind of speaks for itself. And again, I am just baffled. I've been in Washington politics for a long time, and I'm just baffled at the disconnect here, and at how all the Republicans are following him right down this rabbit hole, this pathway. It's remarkable to me.”

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