Here's a basic reportable fact. The United States has soured on Trump's leadership after electing him.

He's crashed to record low approval, Republicans bracing for election losses.

Americans angry at this Trump economy, high prices, the gas crunch, those are realities that can't just be spun or lied about.

The war now hitting its seventh week. Most Americans oppose it as foreign

policy. That's one layer. But they also view Trump as failing the leadership test to face this

crisis with strength and resolve and steadiness. So we're back in a familiar situation.

And it involves something that most people actually usually avoid talking about lately.

We don't talk about it in daily life.

It's not a big theme in pop culture these days and certainly not in politics.

I'm referring to 2020 when we had a sudden arrival of that COVID pandemic.

And it upended our society. It cratered the economy. It caused over 1.2 million Americans to die.

If you count it up, that's actually the deadliest disaster in our history.

It was a time of spreading fear and then a slowly mounting rage,

from the government briefings to the grassroots recriminations. And while sometimes in our

history, even quite terrible crises have burnished presidents, this one did not. You remember, the pandemic exposed Donald Trump's failures as a leader,

a truth teller, or an empath. Political experts, and Trump himself deemed COVID, and by definition,

his response is a major factor in his loss. And it is rare for incumbent presidents to lose.

So that repressed history is back in the news tonight, as Trump falters with this war

crisis.

Of course, this crisis is more man-made, and yet we see the similar ticks of magical thinking,

misleading claims of promised coming improvements just around the bend,

plus confusion over basic facts and some lies, and then the scorn for the brave people who

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