Tick Tock... Time is not Trump's friend...

This morning, I awoke early, and whilst browsing on my iPad, I stumbled across this from David Frum at The Atlantic:

First, let me say that Frum is a neo-con lite who lives in Canada, so I take what he writes with a grain of salt and view it as an international interloper who likes to chuck gasoline bombs from the outside.

That said, occasionally, he gets it right.

Over the weekend, it seems like Trump used the wrong messaging app to direct AG Pam Bondi to replace Erik Siebert, basically a usual unhinged flapping of his gums[1]:

In case you are unaware, Mr. Siebert's sin was not being able to find anything criminal to charge NY District Attorney Letitia James with to put her away for the crime of actually charging (and convicting) the Mango hued felon.

I'll point out that his preferred choice, Lindsey Halligan, was a peripheral attorney of his defense who has never actually argued in court, her qualifications being merely that she will say "Yes SIR!" and charge Ms. James on cue.

Back to Frum, his thesis is that Trump's popularity with the general public is rapidly heading to the cesspool that it should never climbed out of, and his aggressive wrapping up of authoritarian rule is running into a hard limit. Autocrats may rule with an iron fist, but they rely on enough of the population to be accepting, and that balance usually means that authoritarian rulers need to be somewhat popular. Not 90% popular, but enough that the general populace doesn't rise up against them.

Trump seems to realize that he's running out of time.

Hence:

President Donald Trump is worried that Attorney General Pam Bondi is moving too slowly to prosecute his political adversaries on fake charges. Trump has good reason to be concerned. He is carrying out his project to consolidate authoritarian power against the trend of declining public support for his administration and himself. He is like a man trying to race upward on a downward-moving escalator. If he loses the race, he will be pulled ever deeper below—and the escalator keeps moving faster against him.

The running up a down escalator is a useful metaphor. This was after:

Autocracies are headed by one man but require the cooperation of many others. Some collaborators may sincerely share the autocrat’s goals, but opportunists provide a crucial margin of support. In the United States, such people now have to make a difficult calculation: Do the present benefits of submitting to Trump’s will outweigh the future hazards?

This is interesting to consider whether the folks surrounding Trump have self awareness. Like in the Nazi regime in Germany, there were fervent believers, people like Goebbels, and Himmler, who were all in. But there were plenty who had escape plans to flee accountability after Hitler fell.

AG Pam Bondi seems like the latter, that she realizes that she is in actual risk for post administration punishment. She may seem stupid, but she surely knows that Nixon's AG Mitchell spent 19 months in prison for his actions.

And it would take a very blind person to realize that Trump's grasp on the public is slipping:

Trump’s hold on power is indeed loosening. His standing with the voting public is quickly deteriorating. Grocery prices jumped in August 2025 at the fastest speed since the peak of the post-pandemic inflation in 2022. Job growth has stalled to practically zero.

Almost two-thirds of Americans disapprove of higher tariffs, Trump’s signature economic move. His administration’s attack on vaccines for young children is even more unpopular. This year has brought the highest number of measles cases since the Clinton administration introduced free universal vaccination for young children in 1993. Parents may be rightly shocked and angry.

And weave into that the utter corrupt looking favoritism to the human Potatoe Tom Homan, who was caught on tape accepting a $50K cash bribe to facilitate favorable contract issuance with the coming Trump administration. Bondi's DoJ buried that and halted any actions.

Not a good look.

Frum goes on:

Almost two-thirds of Americans disapprove of higher tariffs, Trump’s signature economic move. His administration’s attack on vaccines for young children is even more unpopular. This year has brought the highest number of measles cases since the Clinton administration introduced free universal vaccination for young children in 1993. Parents may be rightly shocked and angry.

Trump in his first term mostly avoided screwing up the economy. His trade wars with China triggered a nearly 20 percent stock-market slump in the fall and early winter of 2018. Trump retreated, and no recession followed the slump until the COVID shock of 2020. But in his second term, Trump has jettisoned his former economic caution. The stock market is doing fine in 2025 on hopes of interest-rate cuts. The real economy is worsening. The percentage of Americans who think the country is on the “wrong track” rose sharply over the summer. Even self-identified Republicans are now more negative than positive.

This is not a good look for Trump and his Trumpism project. Alas, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 is increasingly implemented, and that will be pretty difficult to unwind.

Still, it is encouraging that the public opinion is finally getting into gear, and it is causing heartburn in the administration. The question should be, will those who have some self-awareness begin to slow the roll, with an eye on their future (and freedoms.)

I am not sure that people like Bondi have more self-awareness than slime-molds.

Trump has a shrewd instinct for survival. He must sense that if he does not act now to prevent free and fair elections in 2026, he will lose much of his power—and all of his impunity. That’s why he is squeezing Bondi. But for her, the thought process must be very different. Trump is hoping to offload culpability for his misconduct onto her. She’s the one most directly at risk if she gives orders later shown to be unethical or illegal.

Does she get it? We shall see.

She will never be a person of integrity, and it fucking sucks that we have to rely on her instinct for self-preservation to not be incarcerated or forced to work as a barista next to someone with blue hair, a nose ring, and "They/Them" pronouns.

A man can dream.

1 - The implication is that Trump is likely using his Temu social media platform to send official messages to his cabinet. That should be a huge fucking scandal on its own.