Due to personal obligations, there will be no post here tomorrow, and posting may be rare or irregular until next week.

***

Writing at the New York Post, James Bovard asks if the jig might be up for Donald Trump, as he ramps up his insults to the intelligence of American voters over "affordability" – that thing he ran on, but now calls a Democrat scam.

Or at least Trump calls it a scam when he isn’t claiming victory:

"I don’t want to hear about the affordability!" Trump declared in a Fox News interview last month after falsely claiming the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner would be 25% cheaper than in 2024.

After Democratic candidates bludgeoned their Republican opponents with the issue in last month’s elections, Trump proclaimed on Truth Social Nov. 29: "I AM THE AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT. TALK LOUDLY AND PROUDLY!"

At a White House Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump relapsed, revealing that the issue of affordability is a "hoax" and a "Democrat scam."

Who knows what this ass will say at any given moment?

The rest of Bovard’s column serves to show how disconnected from reality Trump is, and presumes everyone else to be.

The piece also indicates how futile or counterproductive Trump’s economic policies are, as well as the following looming problem:

Perhaps **Trump’s biggest handicap now is he’s no longer running against "Sleepy Joe Biden."

Instead, Trump is going up against reality

**. He cannot obliterate economic statistics the same way he ridicules "low IQ" congresswomen and overfed reporters.

Trump may doom his presidency by sneering and seeking to make people feel unpatriotic for complaining his policies are slashing their family’s living standards.

Whether his presidency is doomed will depend on one’s standard, and I am willing to wager that remaining in power is enough for him and his Congressional lapdogs to feel successful.

(By any patriotic standard, it has been doomed since Inauguration Day.)

I am afraid things will have to go from bad to worse before congressional Republicans fear the wrath of their constituents more than Trump’s displeasure. It is not helpful that the Democrats are at least equally insane, but voting for them anyway is the only way to send a message Republicans might hear.

I have little confidence in today’s Republican voters, but perhaps they aren’t as clueless as Trump obviously imagines them to be.

– CAV