Feb 21, 2026
Gotta be encouraged by word of Trump’s tanked approval ratings, hitting rock bottom in four polls, according to Newsweek and plenty others. Of course, don’t be bamboozled by the White House comeback, “The ultimate poll was Nov. 5, 2024, when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda.”
We’re in a hot moment, with a sycophantic Supreme Court dusting off its robes and ruling 6-3 to strike down the broad tariffs at the center of Trump’s trade and economic agenda, and Trump responding with the dignity only he can muster by trying to shame the majority, calling the Court “fools and lapdogs” and singling out two of the justices he appointed as being “an embarrassment to their families.”
I look forward with voyeuristic anticipation to Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday when he glares down at the justices whom he “barely invited,” as he put it, to the charade.
But don’t fool yourselves. Offsetting the low approval ratings and Trump’s reliably inane spectacles, going into the months-long 2026 election gauntlet, Trump totes with him a bottomless, donor-enriched election toolkit, oozing with funds.
There’s loose change in the billions for voter suppression – ICE-stationed intimidation, redistricting ploys, contrived voter ID obstacles, disinformation campaigns, and compliant state legislatures. Despite Democratic efforts to keep re-charging words like affordability and inflation, the vagaries of the economy are aligned in Trump’s corner with a Powell-free Federal Reserve and the timely short term injection of AI into stock market numbers that affect 62% of Americans, according to Gallup.
Then there’s billions left over to stoke a steady stream of razzle dazzle events bursting in the air of 2026. With the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy ending momentarily, Olympic attention will pivot to the next Summer Olympics in 2028, which allows Trump home field advantage in Los Angeles. Just as Trump takes credit for ending handfuls of wars, he has in place an executive order establishing the White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics, which touts “one of the most prominent international sports events of the 21st century,” offering “a powerful opportunity to showcase American strength, pride, and patriotism while welcoming the world to our shores.” That’s nearly two years lead time to have the games renamed the Trump Summer Olympics and build a pantheon of Trump hotels that require athletes, entourages and an entire village to stay there.
For more than a month, come June 11–July 19, the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be jointly hosted by three countries—Canada, Mexico, and the United States—marking the first time the tournament has been hosted by three nations. It will feature 48 teams across 16 cities, and no doubt FIFA will showcase its first and only FIFA recipient who received the FIFA Peace award in December at the World Cup team drawing for this year’s games. As a continuing lead up to the games, FIFA’s President this week sported a red MAGA-like USA hat, laughing all the way during the inaugural meeting of Trump’ s Board of Peace.
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| FIFA President Gianni Infantino sports an iconic red “USA” hat at the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace |
All this is small sports potatoes next to the Super Bowl of patriotism - the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, dubbed Freedom 250 for optimal flag waving. Freedom 250 is already rolling with steam, with Trump’s declaration on Feb. 5, rededicating America as One Nation Under God, according to the Christian Broadcasting Network.
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| President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance pray during the 60th Presidential Inauguration, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, Pool) |
A sacred prayer ceremony, The National Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving, is scheduled for the National Mall on May 17. The site invokes: “Join with neighbors and friends from every state in the Union in giving thanks and praise to God for 250 years of His Providence for the United States, in praying that God Bless and Protect America for the next 250 years, and in solemnly rededicating our country as One Nation under God. In speech, song, and storytelling, we will bear witness to the extraordinary story of how God has powerfully and wondrously shaped the United States of America—remembering the people, sacrifices, and defining moments in which God has powerfully manifested Himself in our history.”
The blockbuster event is set for June 14 – Trump’s 79th birthday, wouldn’t you know. The U.S. Army is expecting to spend from $25 million to $45 million on the National Mall event. According to ABC News, “that number is likely to grow when factoring in costs from other federal agencies. According to officials familiar with the plan, the Army’s estimate would cover the cost to fly in some 6,600 soldiers for the event and provide them food and housing. It also would cover the cost of transporting the 150 vehicles -- including tanks -- along with 50 aircraft. Fireworks, military flyovers and musical performances also are planned.”
That number doesn’t account for the many other PR opportunities at Trump’s disposal. The U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission (America250), originally sought $150 million from Congress. Trump has enlisted the nation’s ambassadors to pitch for millions from around the globe, according to The Independent. “I think there is a competitive environment between some of the ambassadors right now of who can raise the most,” Ted Osius, a former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, told The New York Times, which added: From his desk at the White House in December, Trump announced a campaign to organize a series of Fourth of July celebrations for America’s 250th birthday, saying it would be “the most spectacular birthday party the world has ever seen.”
Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was officially signed on Aug. 2, 1776, has been steeped in its own events planning. The President’s House, a short walk from Independence Hall, had prepared an outdoor exhibit, entitled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” depicting how Presidents Washington and Adams, and their households, once lived and worked at a house on the site. That is until federal officials began removing exhibit panels at the behest of yet another Trump Executive Order, ironically entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
Philly, filed suit to keep the exhibits from being taken down and won, with a federal judge writing a scathing ruling: “As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims—to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts.” The judge concluded, it did not. [See this earlier post.]
All that crammed into one toolkit is Trump’s election year superpower, ready to be unleashed to divert the most glaring favorability slides. Deep, deep pockets and good old American patriotism (USA, USA, USA chants) will be hard to overcome. Will the public be repulsed by the self-aggrandizing gaudiness or be taken in by a call to a patriotic fervor that has enough fire power to launch wars?
It will be unseemly for the opposition to invoke rallying cries like resistance, anti-war, anti-ICE to many of the Trump cards. Aces in the hole, like Epstein and ICE, don’t beat Trump cards.
The aces are impressive but do they have the Avada Kedavra powers to take down a dark wizard in 8-9 months?
What’s needed, I believe, are organized, prescriptive directions and programs, more concrete than hope and saving democracy. One way to frame it is: What does progressive patriotism look and feel like? What does and should the Declaration of Independence stimulate in us? If not a show of military might or religion on the mall, then what?
Keep your money. Show me the pride, the plans, the humanity and empathy that America is known for around the world; the one that attracts investors, innovators, immigrants, and artistic talent.
It was not long ago that Florida and Texas conspired to deport immigrants and refugees to blue states and cities to rub in our collective faces and communities a “see if you like it” payback. Instead of planning for it, liking and welcoming it, our communities let NIMBY instincts loose and rebelled against the immigrants.
When Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” with the arrogance of a bully telling other kids they can play with a baseball only if they call it a donnie ball, we made fun of it and sulked. Wouldn’t it have better to mount a PR campaign and counter with “The Gulf of the Americas” in the service of a cooperative, hemispheric alliance led by the US?
If flag waving and USA, USA, USA chants are cringeworthy and jingoistic, bring out banners that capture the moment. I’m even prepared to put away the T-Rump banner I made and trade it in for one that goes beyond anti-Trump, away from Make America whatever Again, and more defining than peace, love and understanding. We need an affirmative alternative to No Kings. If no kings, then what?
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is to control border security, ports of entry, and inspections of people/goods entering the U.S. Fine with me.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is to handle lawful immigration, including processing green cards, citizenship, asylum, and work authorization applications. Keep it up.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is to manage interior enforcement, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Why not campaign to have ICE be limited by law, regulation and policy to removing only convicted criminals, to have local jails and prisons turn over convicted criminals to ICE for deportations with hearings, and providing legal status and a card-carrying path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for five years or more with no criminal records. That may sound suspiciously like elements of Obama’s policies. I’m ok with that, even with having the policy led by a “deporter-in-chief.”
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