Let's just start with the premise that Donald Trump will deliver a failure of a speech tonight—the only question is one of scale. Will it be a colossal blunder or merely a disheartening flop?
How do we know Trump will bomb? Because the only way to actually unite a large group of dissimilarly inclined people behind you is to get their buy-in on a shared vision—and that vision must be grounded in some hint of reality. Since Trump's reality is consistently discordant with anywhere from 35 to 40 percent of the population, it's impossible for him to reach beyond that base to meet people where they are.
For instance, Trump gave himself an "A" grade Monday "in terms of what I've actually done" and a "C or a C+" for messaging. But the reason his “messaging” stinks is because there's no universe outside of Trumpdom in which he'd be acing a presidential competency test—as if his stalled Muslim ban, failed Yemen raid, and foreign policy misfires with our closest allies were just minor bumbles or, even more fantastical: Successes!
So the question isn't really one of how much he can unite the American people behind him—it's really more a matter of how ruinous his performance will be. Will it indefinitely turn off the other 60-some percent of Americans who mostly live on the same planet even if they differ on the best way to exist here? Will it signal to Congressional Republicans that they can afford to follow a guy into battle who has the lowest presidential approval ratings in history? Will it give GOP governors any hope of having a reasonable partner in the White House? Or will it leave most voters and most Republican elected officials searching for cover from the orange-hued tempest in the Oval Office.
The safe money is on him managing to alienate at least two out of the three above-mentioned groups. But more than likely, he’ll succeed in uniformly alienating them all.
So how will we know how he fares with voters? Well, if Trump, at any point, brings up his historic and sweeping win at the ballot box ("ya know, they said we couldn't do it") or disparages protesters or brags about his popularity, it's pretty much over in terms of that 60-some percent. They will tune him out one final time as being indefatigably more interested in his own self-aggrandizement than their well being. In governance, that’s tantamount to the original sin.
The sticking point for Congressional Republicans is obviously the astronomical amount of spending Trump is proposing without any real budget cuts or revenues in sight (i.e. he supposedly wants to preserve the social safety nets of Social Security, Medicare, and maybe even in Medicaid while simultaneously cutting taxes—unless you believe Paul Ryan). But just like the $54 billion he's adding to the Pentagon’s budget doesn't actually cover the sweeping military expansion Trump envisions, nor do the federal agencies have $54 billion in cuts to give. So if he's trying to rob an already strapped Peter to half-pay Paul, the numbers don't even add up.
“I don’t know how you take $54 billion out without wholesale taking out entire departments,” said Bill Hoagland, a longtime Republican budget aide in the Senate and now a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “You need to control it in the area of the entitlement programs, which he’s taken off the table. It is a proposal, I dare say, that will be dead on arrival even with a Republican Congress.”
As for leadership on the Affordable Care Act—fat chance. Just yesterday, the Donald had an epiphany: "Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated." Apparently, revelations like that are "A" worthy. So Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are now left to push forward on a plan that has no real chance of keeping people covered while also asking their members to follow the lead of an ignoramus with rock-bottom favorability. Don't bother listening for actual solutions on health care from Trump—that ship has sailed. The only thing to listen for is whether he'll actually take any responsibility for the plan Congressional Republicans are now pushing, or whether he'll hang it on Ryan and McConnell so he can blame them when millions lose their health care.
After Trump dazes and confuses Congressional Republicans, the only audience left is GOP governors and that provides another ACA hiccup. Because if the Congressional Republicans flat out repeal health care (rather than reforming it), Republican governors who got Medicaid expansions through Obamacare will lose that money. Can Trump bridge that gap? Let's just say it's doubtful, because that would require a vision of some sort. Another sticky issue is the border adjustment tax some House Republicans favor—a measure that stands to significantly impact major companies in some red states. Those red states, in turn, have two senators who would have to approve such a tax in order for the proposal to pass the U.S. Senate. These are but a couple examples of a great number of questions facing the Republican party as a whole.
All these political sticking points require the leadership of a president who's appropriately able to gauge the complexities of the challenges and thread the needle that sews up political divisions.
Trump aides have promised a speech they're calling the "Renewal of the American Spirit," perhaps as refreshing as the warm wash of optimism we all felt during his Inaugural address. There is one real certainty in all this, however, Trump and his minions are sure to give it an "A."