The

The So imagine you're Donald Trump.

Or maybe you're one of Donald Trump's political advisors.

Or as kids.

One of the ones who doesn't want to lose midterms and start getting your crypto and AI trades investigated by congressional Democrats.

So you're there and you're planning out last night's state of the union. What would you do? Well, you'd probably start with a problem that you need to solve. The issues that got you elected in 2024 have turned into huge vulnerabilities in 26. Go back a year. Go back to February

2025. Immigration is your strongest issue. All those weenie liberals looking at your approval

rating can see it right there in Nate Silver's poll tracker. Your net approval on immigration is around 10%. That means 10% more of the country approves

of the job you're doing than disapproves of it. Suck it, liberals. Fast forward a year,

your net approval on immigration is negative 13%. Immigration has gone from your strongest issue to a reason

the country dislikes you. Or take the economy in early February of 2025, you were doing pretty well,

plus 7%. But then came the tariffs. Now your net approval on the economy is negative 17%. And it gets worse.

On trade, it is negative 23%.

On inflation, negative 30%.

Negative 30%.

So now it is state of the union time.

You have this rare opportunity to address the entire political system, the entire country. So what do you do?

Do you tell the American people you're working on it, that you know there's disruption and tumult

is just going to take some time for all these policies to pay off? Do you tell the American people

you hear them and you're going to change course that you've got a new plan? Or do you tell

the American people that they're wrong? That everything is actually going great. That they should

believe you, not their lion eyes and empty wallets and the videos of chaos in their streets.

...