Just four months. That's what is left for US President Donald Trump's Republican Party to reboot itself ahead of the mid-term Congressional elections on November 3. Can the Republicans reshape their tarnished image to woo back voters within that time frame?
The elections are only for members of Congress but Trump's many unpopular policies are already taking center stage as campaigning heats up. Latest polls show most Americans are unhappy with almost all his policies. Trump's own approval rating is in deep negative territory.
Only about 30 percent of Americans say he is doing a good job, but almost all Republican legislators are standing by Trump. Democratic Party candidates are determined to ceaselessly remind voters that their Republican opponents have never swayed from backing Trump’s unpopular policies.
When the Democratic Party's Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, his chief strategist James Carville put up a sign in Clinton's campaign headquarters that said "It’s the economy, stupid" to remind staffers that the economy mattered most in elections.
Clinton's laser focus on the economic slump caused by a months-long recession that spiked oil prices helped him unseat Republican President George H W Bush. Trump is presiding over a mixed US economy. GDP is modestly growing and the stock market has broken records.
But this is mostly benefiting the wealthy. Ordinary Americans are facing an affordability crisis caused mainly by Trump's unpopular Iran war. The war has driven up gasoline, food, and other prices as Trump nears the half-way mark of his second term as president.
The fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran as part of a memorandum of understanding to negotiate a peace deal has eased oil prices. But recent tit-for-tat strikes by both sides have spooked markets. Economic experts say prices won’t normalize quickly even if a peace deal fully reopens the Strait of Hormuz through which about 20 percent of global petroleum supplies pass daily.
Polls show Americans are not only angry about Trump's Iran war which sparked the affordability crisis. They are also angry with the war cost. Moody’s estimates the war has cost taxpayers and consumers about US$132 billion (HK$1.03 trillion) so far. The Trump administration wants Congress to approve another US$800 billion for the military.
Americans are fuming over Trump using tax dollars to pay for multi-million-dollar vanity projects to honor himself while they struggle with the cost of living. His demolition of the historic White House East Wing to build a US$600 million ballroom triggered an intense public backlash.
Trump had claimed private donors would fund the ballroom, but The Washington Post revealed taxpayers will have to fund more than half the cost. Trump has proposed a 250-foot "Triumphal Arch" inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It is estimated to cost at least US$100 million with taxpayers footing much of the bill.
A week is supposed to be a long time in politics. Four months will give Republicans enough time to distance themselves from Trump. But they have shown no sign of doing that.
Michael Chugani is a longtime journalist who has worked in Hong Kong, the US, and London
