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Exactly one week from today, Donald Trump will remove the word “former” before “president.” MAGA supporters see it as a revival of the old Bachman Turner Overdrive hit, “Takin’ Care of Business,” which became a GOP anthem in the 1980s. To liberals, it’s Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back.”
Whatever your take, Trump will be a fixture on this index for the foreseeable future.
Speaking of which, Trump’s stock continues to climb this week as he plows forward with a MAGA mandate. In addition to having his 2024 victory formally certified, both the House and the Senate overwhelmingly advanced pro-enforcement measures related to containing criminal illegal aliens – which was a centerpiece of Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The U.S. House passed H.R. 29 – the Laken Riley Act – by a 264–159 tally. The bill is named for Laken Hope Riley, 22, an Augusta University nursing student savagely murdered on the morning of Thursday, February 22, 2024 by illegal alien Jose Antonio Ibarra. A Senate version of the bill – S. 5 – cleared a key procedural hurdle last week by a lopsided 84–9 vote.
“Democrats feel Biden’s border madness,” a headline in The New York Post noted.
For Trump, that’s winning.

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Next up was the anti-climactic sentencing in connection with Trump’s New York criminal hush money conviction. Given the judge in this case previously stated Trump wouldn’t be getting jail time, the outcome landed like a proverbial wet noodle on a polyurethane floor.
To put it another way: When you’re no longer worried about winning swing states as a candidate but are instead focused on adding Greenland and Canada as new states in your role as commander-in-chief… things are looking up.
As of January 10, 2025, 47.4% of Americans had a favorable opinion of Trump, per FiveThirtyEight. That’s his best mark in years – and nearly ten percentage points above his nadir of 37.8% back in December of 2022. Meanwhile, Trump’s unfavorable rating has fallen from 57% eighteen months ago to 47.6% this week.
That’s also his best rating in years…
While many of Trump’s enemies are becoming allies, challenges remain. A battle royale is expected over Senate confirmation of some of his more controversial administration nominees. Exhibit A: Senate Democrats recently delated the scheduled hearing on Tulsi Gabbard‘s appointment as director of national security.
Nonetheless, the president-elect heads to Washington, D.C. in a much stronger political position than he was in January 2017. The coming weeks will tell whether Trump gets an extended honeymoon with the public or an abbreviated moment of bliss more commonly associated with shotgun weddings.
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GAVIN NEWSOM
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STOCK: FALLING
Before we go any further, let’s all concur the devastating wildfires racing through Southern California are a nightmare of epic proportions. However you measure it, this is a massive tragedy. At last count, at least 24 people have lost their lives, more than 12,000 structures have been incinerated the damage total is pushing $250 billion.
Like the destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene, we are confronted by a true humanitarian catastrophe.
While we must always bear that in mind, it’s a fundamental fact that major natural disasters carry significant political consequences for those in charge. Nothing reveals leadership — or the lack thereof — quite like a crisis. For example, Florida voters rewarded governor Ron DeSantis for his handling of several major hurricanes. Conversely, did you ever hear from Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin or FEMA Director Michael Brown (he of “Brownie, you’re doin’ a heckuva job” fame) following Hurricane Katrina?
Today, California governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass are facing withering criticism for their performance during this massive blaze. Bass had the bad fortune to be traveling in Africa when the sparks ignited, while Newsom – who’s widely viewed as a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination – is being pilloried over his state’s lack of preparedness and inadequate response to the emergency.
How is he responding? He launched a page on his campaign website Saturday dedicated to addressing what he refers to as “misinformation and disinformation” being spread online “by so-called leaders and partisan media outlets who seek to divide this country for their own political gain.”
In short, Guv Gavin is plunging into full-blown damage control mode.
We get that his 2028 prospects are on the line right now. But does Newsom really want going hyper-partisan in the midst of a horrific calamity to be his lasting legacy?
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U.S. ECONOMY
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STOCK: RISING
“Success has many fathers,” the old saying reminds us. A lot of elbows get thrown in Washington whenever officials scramble to take credit for good news.
Such was the case late last week when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) reported 256,000 new jobs were created in December. The icing on the cake? Unemployment dropped to 4.1%.
As we learned over the last four years, economic stats coming from the Biden administration should always be taken with a bag of salt. For they are often significantly (and usually silently) “revised” several months later.
Still, having more jobs is always a reason to celebrate. So, who gets the kudos? Joe Biden quickly took a curtain call as he prepares to shuffle off to Delaware.
“I believe the economy I’m leaving is the best in the world and stronger than ever for all Americans,” he said Friday. “We’ll see what the next president does.”
Supporters of his successor have a different take. They argue those jobs were added in December after Trump’s reelection and, therefore, are a coming attraction for a “Trump Bump” the economy will soon experience.
Which view is correct? We’ll find out in the months to come…
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WOKE IDEOLOGY
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STOCK: FALLING
It’s one thing when a behemoth retailer like Walmart and a fast-food giant like McDonald’s walk away from Woke ideology in their employee ranks. But things rise to an entirely new level when a social media giant like Meta (proprietor of Facebook, Instagram and Threads) jumps on board.
Founder and company face Mark Zuckerberg dropped a bombshell last week when he announced Meta’s romance with DEI is over, and its internal programs promoting it are being canceled PDQ.
That’s more than merely recalibrating a new business plan; it’s a magnitude 10 earthquake shaking the Woke movement to its very foundation.
Fact Checkers (who more accurately resembled Orwellian Thought Police) are out. No more DEI training (indoctrination?) for incoming hires. The company is even dropping its policy of demanding business suppliers pass a litmus test of loyalty to the divisive social construct.
Zuckerberg insisted those changes weren’t political pandering to the incoming Trump administration. Rather, a close read of the tea leaves revealed an overall shift of public opinion on the matter, bolstered by recent U.S. supreme court rulings. So he’s trimming his ship’s sails accordingly.
“Meta has the privilege to serve billions of people every day,” a company memo announcing the changes concluded.
“And we don’t want to continue pissing off a sizable chunk of them,” it very well could have added.
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JUSTIN TRUDEAU
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STOCK: FALLING
This is the first time a foreign leader has ever appeared on our index. And judging by the way many Canadians feel at the moment, it’s likely Justin Trudeau’s last appearance.
Why is Trudeau walking the plank after nine years as Canada’s prime minister? Well, how much time have you got?
In a nutshell, Trudeau lost control of his own liberal party. It’s fractured and splintered twelve ways to Sunday. We could spend a lot of time delving into the internal politics of our neighbor to the north, but it all boils down to this: His fellow Liberals wanted him gone.
It seems having the Pretty Boy of international relations as their country’s leader has worn thin for many Canucks. Long seen as an enthusiastic poster child for the same progressive causes mentioned above, the disaffection with Woke extremism we’re witnessing down here is becoming apparent up there as well.
Topping it all off, Pierre Poilievre, the popular and populist conservative party leader, is heading into March’s election with a commanding lead in the polls. Hanging on till then would have invited a wholesale slaughter at the ballot box for both Trudeau and his party.
Which brings us back to Trump’s musings about Canada becoming the 51st state. As Canadians sort through their own messy politics, this much is certain … nowhere from Newfoundland to British Columbia is there a hue and cry clamoring, “boy, we sure would be better off if we only had two senators and five dozen representatives on the Potomac!”
The Canadians we’ve talked with of late took a break from their annual winter ritual of trying to stay warm to gleefully remind us of what happened the last time Uncle Sam moseyed above the 49th parallel during the War of 1812. (Spoiler alert: we got our clock cleaned.) That says all you need to know about Canadian interest in updating the song title to “Fifty-One Nifty United States.”
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MICHELLE OBAMA
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STOCK: FALLING
A familiar face was missing among the power pews down front inside Washington D.C.’s National Cathedral during Thursday’s funeral services for president Jimmy Carter. The Bidens were there, the Clintons, the George W. Bushes, and the Trumps. Sitting all by himself like the lonely Maytag Repairman? Former president Barack Obama.
Glaringly conspicuous by her absence was his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama.
While her staff released a statement sending “her thoughts and prayers to the Carter family,” her advisers privately told CNN she was in Hawaii on an extended family vacation — a vacation Barack could apparently interrupt but Michelle could not.
The political world was soon buzzing with a different reason why she skipped the send-off. Protocol dictated the former chief executives and their wives were seated in the order of their terms. That would have placed her shoulder-to-shoulder beside Donald Trump. And she was not going to fly nearly 5,000 miles to do that.
“It was selfishness and pettiness personified,” one South Carolina-based political strategist told us.
We’d be hard-pressed to disagree.
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1 comment
Funny how when there’s a mass shooting conservatives are quick to point out “this isn’t the time to talk about it” yet when an ongoing natural disaster happens in a blue state (whose tax revenues subsidize many red states) they are quick to make it political. Hypocritical assholes.
Job numbers are always revised, something this blahg will stop pointing out during the Trump years.
It’s not great victory for Trump avoiding prison time for a white collar crime hardly anyone does time for. He is still a convicted felon and sexual abuser.
Have a nice day!