Politics in America these days has increasingly featured unreasoned narratives, meaningless rhetoric and nonsensical drama that ignores crucial problems inhibiting actual governance. The recent record-breaking 43-day federal government shutdown is a prime example.
And high profile events such as Congressional hearings have become nothing more than loud symbolic fights where preening politicians stage political dramas. These self-created spectacles may be good for campaign fundraising but avoid serious discussion of actual issues facing the public.
It certainly gives some validation to the absurdist notion of meaningless human endeavor. Democrats and Republicans alike are actors in this theater of the absurd.
On the right, there is the issue of President Trump’s decorum, or lack thereof. He does speak his mind and is not afraid to face the press. But really, to tell reporters to shut up or that they are stupid and second rate, even going so far as to insult one female reporter by saying “Quiet, quiet piggy” is beyond the pale.
And in the midst of the burgeoning billion-dollar Minnesota COVID-19 fraud scheme involving dozens of Somali American defendants, he calls the entire Somali community “garbage,” saying he doesn’t want them in the country. That inappropriate remark insults thousands of law-abiding Somali Americans. And Trump’s recent media post blaming the murders of Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner on “Trump derangement syndrome” was repugnant. The president continues to reveal his shocking lack of grace.
Also, some of President Trump’s executive orders are senseless and will likely be reversed. The one halting federal hiring, specifically targeting the IRS (presently understaffed), freezes certain federal funding and requires a review of its regulations. This will diminish the IRS’ efficacy that was being addressed, strengthened, and funded by Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
And there is the highly controversial birthright citizenship order that seeks to end automatic citizenship for children born to a mother who was unlawfully present in the U.S. and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident. It also applies to the newborn of women here on temporary visas (“birth tourists”) for the sole purpose of giving birth in the U.S. However, as this right is enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, it has faced legal challenges and is on the docket to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lastly, the Republicans accurately criticize the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) subsidies as being a burden to taxpayers and proof of its “unaffordability.” But it is absurd to end the subsidies without a plan going forward. They have several proposals increasing consumer choice and competition but no unified plan or proposed legislation yet. Without it they will be hammered by Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections on health care affordability.
On the left side of the political spectrum, Democrats continue to bow before their cross of identity politics, believing that the intersectionality of social identities create political outcomes that often result in oppression and marginalization.
And in the Democratic Party, the bigger the victim you are, the more currency you have. To believe that the shared characteristics of a group of people shape their voting habits is a risky electoral strategy.
The recent 2024 presidential election offers several examples of the folly and trap of that thinking. Democrats relentlessly highlighted Trump’s attacks on undocumented migrants flooding across the southern border, believing it would move many Latinos not to vote for him. And then Democrats hoped to energize the youth vote with the Biden administration’s plan for student loan forgiveness.
In both cases the plan failed as Trump garnered more support from those groups than he did in the 2020 election. Another example of the failure of identity politics was the Dems’ touting of Kamala Harris’ race and gender to boost her support. She ended up underperforming Joe Biden’s 2020 election stats with Black voters as well as women voters. That shows it’s not wise to view different groups in monolithic terms.
And now Democrats have made “affordability” their battle cry. What chutzpah! It was the Dems who told Americans that inflation was “transitory” after it hit 9.1%, in June 2022, during Joe Biden’s presidency.
The main reasons for the affordability problem are inflation and competition for housing, both of which were exacerbated during the Biden administration. Pumping trillions into the economy with the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (arguably misnamed) ignited an inflation fire.
And it was Biden’s neglect of our southern border that allowed millions of unlawful entries, creating a spike in the competition for housing. Incredibly, one 2028 Democratic presidential hopeful, Gov. Gavin Newsom, acknowledged the affordability crisis in his own state of California. In a recent podcast with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, he admitted that “poverty is the poster child of our [California] failure.” Telling.
Finally, there is Democratic outrage at President Trump’s multiple military strikes on suspected Caribbean drug-trafficking vessels in his war on narco-terrorism, including a follow-up strike that killed survivors of an initial attack.
They call it a war crime and question the legality of these strikes because the U.S. is not in a declared “armed conflict” with enemy combatants. Well, neither was President Obama when his drone strikes, targeting suspected terrorists in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, killed hundreds of civilians. In 1989, then-Sen. Joe Biden said, “Let’s go after the drug lords where they live with an international strike force. There must be no safe haven for these narco-terrorists, and they must know it”.
Sounds a lot like Trump in 2025, except that the U.S., in our own hemisphere, is going it alone. Call it the Trump Doctrine.
The final example of absurdity belongs to Donald Trump.
With the president using such aggressive tactics to fight drug smuggling, why then did he recently pardon the former president of Honduras, who was convicted of facilitating the importation of 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.? That’s a question that begs for an answer.
Columnist Andrew D. Hayes of East Longmeadow writes twice a month.