ROBERTS The end of the honeymoon? Trump faces backlash over unfulfilled promises

When myth runs into reality

“Trump’s honeymoon is over,” headlines the Washington Post. “At Testy Town Halls, Republicans Take Heat for Trump’s Bold Moves,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Certainly, the president’s honeymoon is not over with his loyal supporters; most Republican lawmakers remain so intimidated that they have approved all of his cabinet choices, including those who are undeniably unqualified.

But there are small signs of a gathering backlash against the new president. In five recent national polls, his approval rating stayed stuck between 44% and 47% -- not a majority in any of them. And as the news site Puck reports, “Republican House members scattered home to their districts and faced constituents’ uncorked fury over the efforts of Elon Musk and Donald Trump to seize the power of the purse from Congress.”

As result, a few GOP dissenters are starting to emerge. “It requires speaking out. It requires saying, ‘That violates the law. That violates the authorities of the executive,’” asserted Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Trump’s looming problems are rooted in this plain fact: He has sold two myths to the American people -- told two lies so often that his fervent acolytes have embraced them. But those myths are now running into reality.

The first myth is summed up in the banners that appeared at his campaign rallies: “Trump Will Fix It.” Indeed, he often promised that the country’s problems were so simple that he’d start improving things on “day one.” But that’s a totally impossible standard, especially regarding the issues that voters care most about: inflation and the cost of gas and groceries.

Since the new political season premiered last month, Trump has successfully launched his reality TV series, “The President.” In various episodes, he’s driven around the Daytona racetrack, waved at the Super Bowl and promoted a fake magazine cover that features him wearing a crown. Cameras have documented his armed agents rounding up undocumented immigrants. “The second Trump administration is using imagery to project an air of authority and invincibility,” wrote The New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik.

Here’s the problem: This is all a show, a performance. Despite his promises to fix it, Trump hasn’t done anything about inflation because he can’t. No president has any real power to affect prices, as Joe Biden discovered painfully.

In fact, inflation rose by half a point in January. Gasoline has dropped from its peak, but it remains well over $3 a gallon. Don’t even mention eggs, now averaging almost $5 a dozen. And Trump’s bluster about imposing tariffs on imported goods has only aggravated consumer anxiety.

No wonder 62% of voters told CNN that Trump was not doing enough to curb inflation, about the same number that called inflation a “very big problem” in a new Pew poll. The University of Michigan’s widely viewed consumer confidence index slipped badly last month, and Walmart foreshadowed lower sales and profits.

“For many Americans,” summarized Barron’s, “the Trump administration’s recent policy changes have heightened uncertainties about the economic outlook.”

The second myth Trump keeps repeating is that government programs only benefit other people -- mainly the undeserving poor, like the “welfare queens” demonized by Ronald Reagan. Accordingly, billions of dollars in “waste, fraud and abuse” could be slashed from the federal budget without hurting hard-working, tax-paying Trump voters.

But the truth is that every American community, every family, is affected by government programs all the time. Veterans benefits and farm supports, subsidies for mass transit and school lunches, inspectors who protect wetlands and wildlife, regulators who enforce rules promoting clean water and safe workplaces and effective drugs -- the list is endless.

And even conservative Republicans know that. That’s why, for example, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito is worried about funding for green buses made in her state of West Virginia. And why Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas is frantic over cuts to the Food for Peace program that buys crops produced by his farmers.

If Republicans adopt a budget mandating reductions in programs like Medicaid and food stamps to finance tax breaks for the rich, Trump’s political problems will only get worse. As one Republican operative told Puck, Trump’s slash-and-burn crusade, spearheaded by his billionaire buddy Elon Musk, has “energized Republicans, but it also woke Democrats up when they were quite depressed.”

Trump has always been a brilliant TV performer, a “ratings magnet,” as he likes to boast. But as president, he has to produce tangible results, not just transitory reactions. And when the myths he spreads encounter reality, reality will always prevail.

Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University.