by Constitutional attorney Robert Barnes
Trump’s Next Big Hurdle is Himself
Trump’s virtue and vice reflects two sides of the same coin: his stubborn independence from outside voices and abundant self-confidence. On the good side, it makes him immune from elite critics, orthodox thinking, establishment mindset, and institutional narratives. On the difficult side, it makes him unlikely to acknowledge errors, reverse course when needed, or look beyond his own horizon. A few examples of this.
During his response to the State of the Union, he wanted to remind everyone how wonderful the vaccines were, and why he deserves credit, not Biden. This tone-deaf response led to an avalanche of criticism on his own Truth account, and triggered Trump deleting the statement. But it reflected a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge he got taken for a ride by Big Pharma and it’s institutional allies in 2020 to the detriment of his own Presidential legacy and his core constituency.
It reflected a trend. Trump remains mute on Julian Assange, who his own administration secretly coordinated the imprisonment of. Trump remains silent on Edward Snowden, whose disclosures first outed the great dangers of the Obama administration’s weaponization of the intelligence community ultimately turned on Trump. Trump failed to comment on Amos Miller, when his own Department of Agriculture under Dumber Boss Hogg Sonny Perdue instigated the harassment of. Trump skipped support for Brook Jackson, whose case his own DOJ slow rolled to keep secret the Pfizer fraud of the Covid vaccine he just again celebrated.
Trump promised to hire the best and drain the swamp. Instead, he hired the Swamp. Barr’s own DOJ sabotaged his 2020 campaign. Rosenstein greenlit the Mueller onslaught. Pompeo promoted the Deep State at State. Bolton killed the North Korea nuke deal. His own generals sabotaged withdrawal from Syria. RussiaGate, and Ukrainegate, led from within his own administration, derailed détente with Russia. Elliott Abrams continued foolish coups in Venezuela. Miley almost induced war with Iran. Pence made his 2020 challenge DOA.
The administrative state remains fully intact at the end of his term, and used his power to make sure his reelection was doomed. Trump recently endorsed a host of establishment and deep state candidates over populist challengers, while considering corporatist Noem and war whore Tim Scott for the Vice-Presidency, a Deep State death invite for Trump, while employing critical campaign aides deeply embedded within the establishment.
Trump’s vulnerability – aside from the weak side of his instinctual refusal to admit error, a stubbornness that can come in handy when refusing to change many of his populist policy preferences from elite critiques – is he tends to see the world from his own horizon. To Trump, the problem with the lawfare is just it’s use against him, not an institutionally ill system of state power that corrupts all it touches and threatens all Americans’ liberty. This failure to appreciate the institutional problems divorces him from the true source of the lawfare against him, as well as the solutions essential to a successful second term for himself and the country. Institutional problem require institutional solutions, not individual ones.
This is why Trump’s next big hurdle – as he dominated Super Tuesday, ended the nomination early, won SCOTUS blessing of ballot access, and may be on the verge of dismissal or post-election delay of his criminal exposure – will be Trump himself. His best skill set for handling this hurdle is his marketing instincts and competitive impulse: the threat of a Kennedy campaign stealing votes for Trump can be his best incentive to shift toward policy prescriptions that mirror the institutional illnesses infecting our governance. The question is: will he?
Will the next one be the last?
If Europe again ignores the clear, public, published warnings given by Russia, and again attacks, with that be the end? Will the lights go out in Europe? Imagine:
September 2026: With Russian warnings ignored, and Europe attacks into the Russian heartland increasing with E3 increased weapons deliveries, Russia acts. Conventional ballistic missile and hypersonic strikes destroy key E3 drone and missile production facilities in the Britain’s Midlands, the Ruhr, and outside Bordeaux. NATO Article 5 is invoked. But Article 5 does not require military action - it requires each member to take ‘such action as it deems necessary’. The shallowness of the guarantee upon which E3 leaders assumed they could rely is now exposed. But a few countries attack, by air.
In response to air strikes, Russia takes the gloves off, determined once and for all to remove the threat from Europe to its people and homeland. Russia strikes airfields, training bases, dockyards, ...
The radical Albanese regime in Australia solicited a 60 page report on "Islamophobia" from its ‘Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia’ which conveniently never actually defined Islamophobia, but did call for “removing religion” as a motive in terrorist attack because that would discriminate against Muslims…
…and is now set to spend tens of millions on fighting this ‘Islamophobia’.
This comes not long after the Bondi Beach Muslim massacre of Jews at a Chanukah Party that was the single worst Muslim terrorist attack in Australian history.
The Australian government is now attacking critics of illegal Islamic invasion, falsely claiming that they are damaging ‘social cohesion’. No word about whether hospitals having to hide the Bondi Beach terror attack victims from Muslim nurses ‘damages social cohesion’.
A Muslim minister in the Albanese regime falsely claimed that “Islamophobia is dangerously close to being normalized”. No, but the denial of Islamic terrorism...