We are a little more than a month into the Trump sequel. So how is it going? Cringeworthy, huh? If you think this performance is good, then you might really delight in seeing functional systems and institutions destroyed. This rampage is not reform. It is demolition. It is safe to say that this is the worst launch of a presidential administration ever.

Let’s look at some highlights. There are the inferior cabinet picks, where expertise is shunned in favor of partisan bootlicking. There is the white supremacist nationalist Defense secretary with demonstrated ethical lapses. We have a conspiracy-addled anti-vaxer leading HHS. The nation now has an authoritarian-loving flatterer as Director of National Intelligence. And then there is the paranoid revenge-fueled FBI Director who also feeds off conspiracies and is ready to suppress free speech. What a rouge’s gallery!

In another despicable display by our leader is the latest embrace of Putin and its accompanying distancing of democracy as is evident in his throwing Ukraine under the bus. So the only way the US is now ready to aid an invaded democracy is if they agree to hand over 50% of their most valued minerals and agree to having their invader keep a third of their country? And listen to Vance in Munich giving his Yale-educated polished justification to why the post-war international order that has sustained democracies for eighty years is no longer worth keeping. What a slap in the face of the Greatest Generation!

And what to make of the shenanigans of our unelected co-president Elon Musk? Is this what Republicans want, a South African oligarch making decisions about what US governmental programs stay or go and what benefits his businesses? And as a tax payer and Social Security recipient, I know I’m not alone in being incensed that Musk has given access to a bunch of his twenty-something employees to handle the records of US citizens.

I see three levels of support for Trump, firstly the hardliner MAGA cultists, secondly the lifelong Republicans who have convinced themselves that Trump is better than the satanic Democrats, and thirdly those who were angry that grocery prices were too high in the aftermath of the pandemic. It is this third group that make up the president’s softer support. And they will be the first to bail on him if inflation does not come down.

This third group is starting to waver. Consumer sentiment is increasingly pessimistic and Wall Street is beginning to show some reservations. Trump and Vance themselves are now distancing themselves from talk of lower consumer prices. Meanwhile, Trump’s approval ratings are dropping.

Should we be surprised? No! This is what the USA voted for. There will be pain to feel in this country and it is hard to not shout, “So, what did you expect when you voted for this guy America?!”