On this blog, I discuss important national issues, often with reference to economic and fiscal matters.  Lately, I have devoted much attention to presidential politics, especially concerning the records of Presidents Biden and Trump.

Today, I discuss where I think President Trump is both succeeding and not, first, where he is succeeding:

• Populism is popular. Not surprisingly, mass, uncontrolled, migration is very unpopular all over the Western world.  Trump has essentially closed our southern border to illegal crossings.

  Furthermore, (mostly illegal) immigrant population has declined by about 1.4 million  since January 2025, showing the effect of Trump’s policies (see chart below).

  

  Public K-12 education is performing poorly in the inner city, and Democrats have virtually given up on school reform.  It is in the red states where school choice is prevailing.

• Wokeness prevails in the blue states. Notions of white supremacy, systemic racism, and gender fluidity, for example, are very unpopular amongst the non-elite.
• Crime control. His National Guard intervention in Washington, D.C. is popular and working well, but his power to intervene elsewhere is limited by law.

But President Trump is also floundering in some areas, especially on the economy:

• Labor market gains have slowed to a crawl, as demonstrated in the chart below. The problem is the uncertainty being caused by constantly changing tariff policies, which override the gains from the recently passed business tax reforms. The middle-class vibe has changed from secure to squeezed.

  

Conclusion.  Trump is riding the reigning populist, anti-woke wave, so prominent in the affluent Western world.  But inflation is still pronounced, and his constantly changing tariff policies are creating economic uncertainty.  His political fate is up in the air at this point.  It will be tested in the 2026 midterm elections.

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