Trump's belief he can ignore bad poll numbers just got a boost from the Supreme Court

How can Trump ignore his plunging polls? In his ego-driven arrogance, he thinks he can control the outcome of the 2026 midterms and ignore popular sentiment. or even their vote count. Yesterday's Supreme Court decision is one of its many contributions to Trump's arrogance. (The others: Citizens United and presidential immunity from criminal prosecution)

While piously claiming the decision that racial gerrymandering was a no-no, the Roberts court majority granted a victory to white southerners who objected to too much power being given to African Americans in drawing election districts. The current makeup results in 1/3 of the seats likely to vote for African American representatives, the same percentage of African Americans of the entire state, 30%. SCOTUS just okayed giving all seats except one to white-dominated voters, depriving the 30% of full representation in Congress. I short it was ok to give the white folks a disproportionate advantage, but not ok for the Black folks to get a fair share. ..if I understand the math ok. The effect of the decision couched in deceptive terms of fairness was to gut a main provision of a civil rights constitutional amendment, which would prevent racial gerrymandering resulting in racial discrimination in the first place. https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/scotus-smothers-voting-rights-act-greenlighting-racial-discrimination-and-a-rash-of-gop-gerrymanders/ It now opens the door to other white-dominated southern states to do the same now and in the future in order to limit a proportional representation of their population.

Trump has plans to overturn the anticipated losses in the midterms and the will of the majority of the people. He is using the tools of gerrymandering, like this on race, seizing control of states' voting lists to target and suppress anticipated voters, grabbing vote machinethat tabulate the ballots, and using ICE paramilitary dressed for war in Afghanistan to frighten off brown people from voting at polling places in person, while eliminating mail-in voting by executive order..(A fool's errand given the Constitution that gives states such control). The Supreme Court yesterday gave the green light for racial gerrymandering, undermining a major thrust of the civil rights movement and, in the long term, attempting to suppress African Americans' ability to elect representatives. who support their interests.

The Roberts Court's contribution to Trump's arrogance is now furthered, yesterday, adding to the past rulings, with a gift of immunity from criminal prosecution to Trump, and its Citizens United decision permitting dark money to be contributed to candidates, opening the floodgates to epic corruption to influence government policies favoring them, and candidate corruption by secret corporate donations. Yesterday's blow was one more nail in the coffin of voters' power to shape their destiny, the essence of a democracy. 

No, DJT, Ukraine has not lost militarily. . You have outsmarted yourself..

 I just heard Trump claim "Ukraine has been militarily defeated, " just as he claimed Iran has been defeated. https://www.bbc.com/news/war-in-ukraine . No,. Trump's lying. Note: Later,Trump said he mispoke; he was referring to Iran, not Ukraine. However, Trump has been saying that Ukraine is losing the war all along, from the Oval Office, that Ukraine did not have the cards to play as recently as December 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwL2ooeUsR8

The Ukraine war is a slog with the front going back and forth with victories and retreats measured in kilometers. Drones are not so secret Ukrainian weapons, and recently, Ukraine has used them to attack Russian military infrastructure, causing Putin to fear an attack enough to call off a parade to celebrate the Russian defeat of the Nazis.

DJT, both Ian and Ukraine have outsmarted you.

Iran has just demonstrated that strategy beats bombs, tanks, and missiles, and boots on the ground.. Trump failed to secure Hormuz first, and now Iran has the world by its control of a great percentage of its energy supply.

When it comes to Ukraine, superior technology and strategy overcome the superior manpower of the Russian effort, and now Russia is running out of recruits to feed their cannon fodder advantage.

This is in spite of Trump's constant sabotage of Ukraine's efforts, which is not very subtle:

.- his failure to even release aid to Ukraine, voted on by Congress, -his undermining of ATO,
-his miscalculating the extent to which Germany and Europe would up their military commitment to see Russia in Ukraine as a threat to them,
-his counting on the recently defeated Hungary's Orban, also a Putin ally, to keep European funding for Ukraine bottled up,
-his echo and wink to his buddy Putin in negotiations..all have failed to stop Ukraine from stopping Russia, and the war advantage now counts in numbers, one or two kilometers.

-Trump, above all also failed to anticipate the technological talent of Ukrainians themselves to manufacture drones, thus changing modern warfare, while defending against drones. made in Iran.

All of the above measures that Trump has tried have not been enough to influence Ukraine's resistance to Russian aggression. As AnneApplebaum of The Atlantic magazine has been noting since December 2025, because Europe has stepped up and because Ukraine no longer depends on US aid, America has lost the ability to influence the war's outcome and is therefore becoming irrelevant. If this is true, Trump outsmarted himself by challenging Europe to fund the Ukraine efforts, and when they did, he lost control of the situation.

-A recent column in the New York Times by David French must have rankled him. The French call Zelensky the leader of the free world as well as changing the battlefield with their new, innovative technology.

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In the broader sense of what has happened, Trump has laid bare the weakness of his America First policy, of shedding alliances and going it alone. If successful. America is not first; it is irrelevant. That takes us back to the late 1930's when America Firsters became very powerful in keeping us from getting involved in Hitler's aggression in Europe. How did that turn out,

Trump's whining about Europe not helping to open Hormuz is political BS

 Trump's attempt to pass off blame for the Gulf of Hormuz is still closed on Europe's failure to come to his aid, and for good reason. Aside from the barrage of insults and dissing NATO hurled at our former allies in Europe, Trump is out to fool the US public as well. Trump claims Europe is so dependent on oil and gas shipped through the Gulf of Hormuz that it is in their interests to come to the US aid in freeing  Hormuz, which the US  action had caused  it be closed. by Iranian retaliation. Trump's BS wants Americans to ignore some facts: Only 4% of Europe's oil comes through Homuz, and less than 10% of liquid natural gas.  Europe's reduced reliance on fossil fuels has lessened over the years as its reliance on wind and solar has increased. 50% of Europe's energy comes from wind and solar.

  https://www.iea.org/about/oil-security-and-emergency-response/strait-of-hormuz  

https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/share-of-energy-consumption-from

So, how is Europe compensating for even the loss of this amount? It is importing more from the US. It would do more, but Europe right now is turned off from doing business with the US and Donald Trump, not only for his solo Iran blunder, but also for the tariffs and the US refusal to help Ukraine. and the arrogant attacks on Europe and NATO itself. US business interests are finding themselves persona non grata in Europe. There is no more goodwill advantage.   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/04/europeans-trump-enemy-of-europe-russia-war-poll

All of us,  Europe and the US, are paying high prices because the price per barrel is based on international supply and set by the cartels, but so long as the availability of the quantity of fossil fuels is not critical to Europe, Europe is finding ways to deal with the costs. Trump's failure to do likewise is causing a political blowback as seen in the polls, as he's getting the blame for the price of gas at the pump.

Answering questions that never were asked in the past: what'wrong with high costs, chaos, corruption, cruelty

 

What is wrong with the high cost of living, chaos, corruption, and cruelty? This is the kind of question I never had to ask in my lifetime, or for that matter, found so many who do not care enough about the answers, and out of fear or loyalty remain silent.. The challenge for the political opposition is to remind them of why those things are bad and how they hurt even the ones Trump says he says he loves. 

Let me add one more C to the alliterated attack list: Constitutional crisis:   The fruits of his power grab are high living costs, chaos, corruption, and cruelty. Trump has distorted, exceeded,  worked around,and abused the use of the powers granted him in the Constitution whenever he can. The rule of law is mocked to its demise.

 So what is wrong with the high cost of living? It is not fair on those struggling with balancing their peronal budgets now hile he and his cronies are living their gilded life.?

So what is wrong with the chaos?  Planning for survival on one day, whether you are in business or struggling with your budget, or worried about personal or national safety, may be obsolete the next. Trust in the leader's judgment or motivation, or trust in his good word, is gone. 

 So what's wrong with corruption?  Aside from the morality question, the problem with corruption is that what motivates the great leader's decisions may benefit him and the wealth and power of his family, but may harm those he governs who are not among the beneficiaries of his public policies.  

So what is wrong with cruelty, and is the use and threat of it quite OK? The fear of its use keeps the disloyal in line and deters others from doing what is not in their own interests. Using the DOJ to launch investigations on political enemies is a cruel misuse of power and true treatment of migrants in hopes all of one race will self-deport, whether or not they otherwise had any civil rights.

So what about a Constitutional crisis? Trump has been able to strike fear and demand loyalty to him by ignoring the rule of law and the Constitutional constraints because of a cowed Congress, a staff and cabinet of yes men, and his core MAGA base. The only constraints so far are a slow-acting judiciary and some justices who comply with his anti-democracy instincts. He thinks he can ignore the poll because 1) he has gotten away with acting like a dictator and thinking he is one, 2) the ability to use force, ICE, and seizure of voting rolls and election machinery to avoid an election loss at the November midterms and beyond.   For that reason, a a 60% disapproval of his policies is of no concern.  In any case, to him, this democracy is of, by , and for Trump and those who keep him in power. If you commit a crime on his behalf, he'll just pardon you.

 https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/messaging-again-democrats-may-be-onto.html