I was thankful for Donald Trump a year ago. This Thanksgiving, I have to eat crow | Opinion
This Thanksgiving, I’ll be filling my plate with big ol’ helping of crow because last Thanksgiving I gave you a turkey.
It all started, as many bad ideas do, as a joke. “I am going to write a Thanksgiving column on why I am thankful for Donald Trump,” I said to my wife, who is the opposite of thankful for Trump. As I recall, she said something disrespectful about my profession.
I went down to my office and didn’t come up with one reason to be thankful for Trump. I came up with 11. The first five aren’t aging so well.
“1. Convincing Americans that we don’t need to constantly be at war to be safe. With Trump’s isolationist-lite foreign policy and Marco Rubio’s establishment ballast, America might just have four years of peace.”
With his awful Russian-written peace plan for Ukraine, Trump looks more like the kind of appeaser who is going to invite World War III than any kind of peacemaker, even if he has stopped eleventyseven wars around the world. I am just waiting for the invasion of Venezuela. It all could turn out OK, I suppose, because maybe I don’t understand Trump’s 3D chess and all. Rubio sure doesn’t explain it very well, because he has turned out to be less ballast than a wind sock.
“2. Convincing the Republican Party that working people might be just as important as business and billionaires. Trump isn’t trustworthy, but he knows what is in his interest. Regular people might benefit from his presidency.”
Who was I kidding? Trump has barely made a stab at fighting the inflation that made working people’s lives so difficult during the Biden administration. He’s tried to undermine the Federal Reserve and tied up the world’s wealth-producing commerce more in tariffs than in trade deals. But at least there’s not a drag queen story hour in the East Wing.
“3. The deliciousness of unleashing the brilliant Elon Musk, a man whose fortune comes from government subsidies, on cutting the government. He might even cut some of his own subsidies.”
This turned out not to be so brilliant for the simple reason that Musk’s DOGE didn’t cut much government and didn’t last through the whole first season of “Donald Returns to the Swamp.” DOGE did make the Democrats’ shutdown that replaced Elon’s follies look a little better. In my defense, Republicans have cut Elon’s formerly favorite electric car subsidy. Mark that as one beautiful thing about Trump’s Big Bill.
“4. Appointing Scott Bessent, a relatively normal pick, for the most important job in his government for my 401(k) – treasury secretary. It is just a bonus that the guy is a George Soros-protege. DOW 100,000! “
As with all things near the Trumpy White House vortex, Bessent went a little crazy. Crypto is crashing, the stock markets have had some recent bumps and Bessent is reduced to telling people that the way to fight inflation is to move to a red state where inflation is lower. Never mind that life spans and incomes are lower in those states, too.
“5. Being uncharacteristically professional during the transition so far. I hope he notices that going without putting constant petty fights in the headlines makes him more popular.”
That did last almost all the way through last December, but now a new petty fight erupts every week. Just yesterday, he was fighting with the Jewish Space Lasers lady and said he wanted to put to death a couple of senators and several House members. Consequently, Trump’s popularity has done what you’d expect.
I do stand behind the rest of the things I was thankful for, most especially the Supreme Court justices Trump gave us and his campaigns against the destructive Department of Education and disastrously one-sided university system.
But I think I should do better than 50% right on my Thanksgiving columns. Don’t worry, my wife will make sure I eat all the crow.
David Mastio is a national columnist for The Kansas City Star and McClatchy.
This story was originally published November 26, 2025 at 6:02 AM with the headline "I was thankful for Donald Trump a year ago. This Thanksgiving, I have to eat crow | Opinion."
