Perhaps it's time for Donald Trump to prepare three envelopes and stick them in the top drawer of the Resolute Desk.

What am I talking about? There's an old business joke about a company's new president inheriting a mess. His predecessor leaves behind three envelopes for "when things get tough." Three months later, with performance tanking, the CEO opens the first one: "Blame your predecessor." It buys him six months. When conditions worsen, he opens the second: "Reorganize." He replaces some of the team and restructures, but the slide continues. Six more months pass, and he opens the third: "Prepare three envelopes."

After a decline in the GDP in the first quarter of 2025, Trump said, "This is Biden." But now after the Commerce Department reported a paltry 0.5% gain in the fourth quarter of that year, blaming his predecessor doesn't work anymore.

Since last summer, he's restructured the Forest Service and ordered its headquarters to be moved out of Washington, tightened top-line control of the Department of Justice, focused the Department of Homeland Secretary on enforcement, and rejected disaster requests from blue states. Following the advice of that second envelope, Trump has fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Gregory Bovino, the point person on the Border Patrol's immigration crackdown.

After following the recommendations found in those first two envelopes, Trump's popularity is being buffeted by an unpopular and mismanaged war and the resulting high prices at the gas pump. Inflation has soared to its highest level in three years, right along with the measles rate.

Amid these crises, plans for marble and gold monuments bring to mind the old story of Emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burned. It is a strange paradox: a president sitting at a desk made of timber salvaged from the frozen north while his administration goes up in flames. He poses for photographs behind wood from the sailing ship Resolute, abandoned in the Arctic before the Civil War, as if unaware the ice is once again closing in.

Turning the head of the Roman Catholic Church into a fall guy by accusing the pope of being "weak on crime" shows more signs of desperation. Posting a picture of himself as a Jesus-like figure moves beyond a mere political misstep, condemned even by close supporters as "blasphemy" and "idolatry."

When a president begins losing the pews and the public square simultaneously, the markets notice. It's no surprise, then, that the prediction site Kalshi shows the odds of the Democrats taking over both the House and Senate at over 50%.

Trump has to be shaken by the defeat of the man who inspired MAGA's authoritarian playbook. A political tsunami washed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban from office after 16 years. This was more than a mere election result in a country with under 10 million inhabitants. The defeat of Orban, the MAGA prototype and ally, is a repudiation of the very playbook Trump is using and a major psychological blow to his administration.

If America were a parliamentary democracy, Congress could force new elections. However, under the rules of the American Constitution that Trump so often disregards, he has two and a half more years in office even if the Kalshi betting site predicts there's more than a 40% chance he doesn't serve out his term.

Wild attempts to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office are destined to fail. Despite everything, Trump maintains the support of about 90% of Republican voters. Crossing him is too risky for his congressional supporters who still eagerly seek his endorsement and approval.

The opposition to the Trump administration must continue to fight against undeclared wars, erosion of NATO and other alliances, election meddling, masked federal agents, drastic cuts in university research, appeasement of Russia and illegal tariffs.

Deliverance, however, cannot come until Jan. 20, 2029.

A renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started a successful internet software company, and had six books published including five novels and a collection of his columns. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. You can learn more about him at keithraffel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com.

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