There are two kinds of grit. One is true grit The other is gritting your teeth. The second is what President Trump seems to be doing in the wake of his Trumpcare disaster. This was the week that Trump was going tp reintroduce that failed measure. He instructed the House to get back on the case. There were some perfunctory beginnings. As the weekend dawned, it seems that Trump has cold feet, advisedly so.

Now he has, as one might have predicted, reintroduced taxes. Why? Because the president is desperate for a win and seems incapable of getting one. And thereby hangs a very disturbing trend.

The man who can't be straight

The trend is revealed by recent polls that show that Trump is in decline on the two issues more important to his success as the leader of the free world and President of the United States of America. Faith in Trump's ability to keep promises is in decline. Confidence that Trump can get things done is also falling. Axios reports findings from PSB and Gallup. The President, of course, will discount their findings if they are disturbing enough to get wide media coverage.

The basic mode of operation of the man who made his recent reputation as a reality show star on TV has been to regard all negatives as a chance to deny their truth ant attack the messengers who conveyed them. This has led to his skewering of the mainstream media. One result has been the population of the White House press corps with often unknown reporters who have proved to be friendly to the President.

Dismal Figures

Today's figures are not the sort of thing that Trump can affirm. You can access them at the tweet below. Their message is that now only 45 percent think Trump keeps his promises, down from 62 percent in February. The drop in confidence that Trump can get more things done than expected has declined nearly 20 points in the same time period.

Turning on a dime

One gets a sense that things are closing in on the President. The health care gambit is clearly not emerging as anything that has much chance of passing. And he now describes a tax initiative that resulted in a page one story in this morning's New York Times as merely parameters. In other words, he is offering no more than he did with Trumpcare, delegating the nuts and bolts to his cabinet or legislators like Paul Ryan. Trump can turn on a dime and this move to taxes is certainly in that category. But if the polls are correct, the Emporer's clothes may achieve a transparency as unwelcome as Trump's lack of same has proved to his critics.