Trumptonite

You might remember the Mississippi rock band 3 Doors Down, not to be confused with Three Dog Night.  Back in 2000 (let that sink in for a moment), they were a top band on what passed for rock radio in America, and they were apparently hoping to replace the Allman Brothers Band as the Beatles of the South.  But, like so many rock bands that proliferated in the quarter century after the grunge revolt, they were gone almost as soon as they'd arrived, and to this day I still can't name a single member of 3 Doors Down without checking out their Web site or their Wikipedia biography.  By 2017 they'd fallen so far that they were one of the (very) few pop acts to accept an invitation to play at Trump's inauguration; their appearance suggested imagining the Beatles not having another hit after "Love Me Do" and playing a Tory rally on the occasion of Margaret Thatcher's assumption of the prime ministership of Great Britain seventeen years after.  As a result of this gig, 3 Doors Down lost numerous fans, shrinking their already pathetically small audience.

Ironically, their only hit of any consequence was a song called "Kryptonite."

Since 3 Doors Down killed their already-dead careers with their Trump gala gig, many Trump watchers have been patiently waiting for the one thing that would destroy Trump's Presidency - the equivalent of kryptonite, the one thing that could kill Superman.  This past week proved once and for all that nothing - and I mean nothing - can kill his political career.  Trump imposed steel tariffs on our closest allies - Canada, Mexico, the European Union countries - and our ex-friends vowed to retaliate.  At that news, the stock market plunged a couple hundred points. Then the next day, he leaked the latest unemployment statistics before the Labor Department could officially release them, sending stocks back up.  A friend of mine says Trump did this to manipulate the stock market to his advantage.  Maybe.  But he did manipulate the news to his advantage; thanks to the good jobs report and the headlines about a robust economy, you don't hear much concern about tariffs.

All right, so import taxes that could undermine future American economic growth didn't kill him.  How about the aftereffects of Hurricane Maria, and the news that, while only 64 people on the island of Puerto Rico died directly from the storm, over 4,600 Puerto Ricans died indirectly from the hurricane's damage - mainly because of the interminable blackouts and the disruption of the territory's services?  Certainly Trump's failure to react sufficiently to the damage from Maria would kill his Presidency!  That is, until the National Hurricane Center announced that the 2018 hurricane season, having just gotten under way, is expected to be an average season, lessening the chances of another storm like Maria, which allowed people on the mainland to shrug off last year's hurricane season as old news.  So what if Puerto Rico was turned into a wasteland? So what if Puerto Rico isn't even prepared for even a storm just short of Category 1 status? >:-(

But of course, there was the North Korean situation.  Trump felt the need to cancel his summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, which denied him to burnish his foreign policy credentials (even though he actually has none.  What a setback.  Until the North Koreans and the Trump administration worked out their differences over the proposed meeting.  Now the summit is back on.  Trump is back on top.

Nothing can kill him.

At this point, we have to realize that if Trump's Presidency is going to be brought down, it won't be brought down by circumstances beyond his control.  Whether or not he survives depends on a strong opposition.

It's too bad that the Democratic Party is prone to kryptonite poisoning.

3 Doors Down records, anyone?