The Uncomfortable Truths of Trump

@January 26, 2026

  1. The most important statistic of 2025 is that border crossings have dropped to 0. We don’t talk about this enough; it is near miraculous.
  2. He has proven that Americans can have what we want through his playbook. Americans had becomed inured to the border disaster; it literally no longer exists. Damn the policy particulars, an item on the wishlist got resolved.
  3. Democrats have well and truly lost on the issue of immigration; what healthcare is to GOP, immigration is to Democrats.
  4. There is little we can do to turn the tide on deportations as a concept; Americans have resigned themselves to their necessity, as evidenced by Rogan’s recent comments.
  5. Democrats’ politics of confrontation in Minneapolis are regrettable. I do not blame them, but this is what Trump wants: out and out confrontation that highlights Democrats’ own internal contradictions. We have no plan to solve illegal immigration (a problem Americans clearly believe exists) other than “stop the deportations”.
  6. Democrats have not yet understood that they cannot corner Trump. At least, they have not be successful. At every turn, he will do something they couldn’t imagine (e.g. banning purchases of homes by private equity).
  7. Every cornering attempt evades an uncomfortable truth
    1. We try to corner him on immigration → The uncomfortable truth is that we decisively lost the battle on immigration in 2024. There is 0 way that this is a winning issue for Democrats regardless of the optics. They have no trust with the common voter on this topic.
    2. We try to corner him on affordability → The uncomfortable truth is that it is New York and California, not Florida and Texas that are truly unaffordable.
    3. We try to corner him on Epstein → The uncomfortable truth is that Trump is closer to Harvey Weinstein than he is Jeffrey Epstein: he’s a predator, not a pedophile. Guess what? Weinstein was a Democrat.
    4. We try to corner him on regime change → The uncomfortable truth is that if you don’t give a damn about the local population, like actually well and truly do not give a damn, regime change in pursuit of national interest is totally possible. Diplomacy is just as uncertain in ultimate success, but without any of the proximate victories.
  8. Greenland may have go down as one of the greatest foreign policy gambits of an American president in the 21st century. Trump knows the Europeans have to give him what he wants. He also knows exactly what he has to do to make them feel better: sell weapons to Ukraine. Once you get past the teeth gnashing and the protest from the UN set, it is an uncomfortable truth: you can take anything you want from Europe as long as you keep arming Ukraine.