President Donald Trump has devoted substantial time and taxpayer money to his Washington, D.C. vanity projects during his second term, and a key voting bloc that helped return him to office has grown weary of it. As the New York Times reported Monday, one group vital to his reelection now believes he has "gone too far," and that "his obsession with remaking Washington might hurt his party politically."

According to the Times, as the war has dragged on and the economy has soured, Trump has spent "the bulk of his working hours" focused on projects including a 250-foot-tall triumphal arch, the White House ballroom, the disastrous Reflecting Pool renovation, "assorted gilded gewgaws," and the Kennedy Center — which he now says he will have destroyed if his name is not added to the building. The Times notes: "These capital projects could cost well over a billion dollars, at significant taxpayer expense, despite White House claims to the contrary." Trump took over as chairman of the Kennedy Center's board early in his second term, and his involvement with the institution has been a recurring flashpoint in debates over his approach to cultural bodies.

Voters, meanwhile, are unhappy. In a recent poll cited by the Times, voters were asked "whether they thought Trump had gone too far, not far enough, or had been about right when it came to making changes to cultural institutions like the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian." Perhaps predictably, 84 percent of Democrats said he had gone too far, while only 28 percent of Republicans agreed. More tellingly, among independents — a group essential to Trump's victory that is expected to play a decisive role in the midterms — 63 percent said Trump had "gone too far."

Asked whether Trump had gone too far in pursuing his personal business interests while serving as president, 71 percent of independents agreed, as did 91 percent of Democrats and nearly a quarter of Republicans. Fewer than one-quarter of independents said Trump had placed the good of the country above his personal gain, and 82 percent of independents said he had not paid enough attention to the country's most important problems.

"He was re-elected to do four things: bring down inflation, juice the economy, stop illegal immigration and get away from woke culture," Republican strategist Whit Ayres told the Times, adding that voters are giving him "very poor marks thus far on the first two." The message, Ayres said: "Voters care a lot more about what happens in their lives than what happens in his life."

Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson told the Times that since reentering office, Trump "has squandered what was always his superpower — people had more trust in him on the economy than they had in him as a person." Looking ahead to the midterms, Ferguson said Democrats' core indictment of Republican decision-making is that the party is ignoring voters' concerns, exemplified by a president "who knows the price of marble but doesn't know the price of milk." The polling arrives with the midterms approaching, when control of Congress will be at stake and independent voters have historically been a swing constituency capable of shifting the balance in competitive districts.

Source: Alternet | New York Times