Apparently it doesn’t count unless somebody gets arrested

Princess Diana finally came back Thursday.

After three weeks away touring the various provinces of her vast kingdom, I told her I felt abandoned. Half my brain was gone. I couldn’t think properly without her.

She responded by calling me the “sledgehammer of truth” and the “prince of perspicacity.”

So obviously we got right down to serious business.

And Princess Diana brought a list.

She had started talking about it on Saturday because she was getting irritated by something I have noticed too: Republicans — Trump voters, in particular — complaining that nothing is happening.

Where are the arrests?

Why aren’t the deportations happening faster?

Wake me up when something happens.

Some have taken it all the way to: Why bother voting? That last one drives Diana crazy, and I understand why. So she started making a list of what the Trump administration has actually done.

The border. Deportations. Tax cuts. Energy. Deregulation. Federal workforce reductions. Manufacturing. NATO. Changes in immigration policy. The rollback of DEI policies throughout the federal government. Efforts to bring industry back to the United States.

She kept going.

And going.

At some point I realized we could spend the entire hour doing this, which wasn’t the point anyway.

The interesting question wasn’t whether Trump had done anything.

It was why so many people who voted for him seem convinced that he hasn’t.

I think part of the answer is that politics has become television.

People aren’t waiting for policy anymore. They’re waiting for the scene.

They want somebody marched out in handcuffs. They want the perp walk. They want the dramatic indictment, the congressional hearing where somebody finally “destroys” somebody else, the giant moment that lights up social media and proves that everything changed.

If that doesn’t happen, apparently nothing happened.

Then Trump told a story Thursday that perfectly illustrated the difference.

He said a friend was trying to buy a Gulfstream jet and told him Canada wouldn’t certify Gulfstream aircraft.

Gulfstream is American. Canada has Bombardier, its own competitor.

According to Trump, Gulfstream had spent years and millions of dollars trying to get certified in Canada while Bombardier had access to the American market.

Trump heard about it, talked to Gulfstream and decided he wasn’t interested in another decade of lawyers sending letters back and forth.

He threatened tariffs.

Suddenly Canada called.

“What seems to be the problem?”

I laughed when I heard that.

What seems to be the problem?

According to Trump, the problem had existed for about nine years.

And then, he says, it disappeared in a matter of hours.

You can argue about tariffs. You can argue about Trump’s methods. You can argue about whether every fight he picks is worth picking.

But at least argue about what he is actually doing.

That’s what gets lost when every discussion about tariffs begins and ends with: Tariffs bad. Prices up. Trump crazy.

Why was the tariff threatened?

What was the other country doing?

Was an American company being treated fairly?

Did the threat change anything?

Those questions matter too.

And Marco Rubio made a larger point Thursday that I think explains much of what Trump has been trying to do.

Rubio said America made a terrible mistake after the Cold War when our leaders decided it didn’t really matter where things were made.

Let somebody else manufacture it.

Whoever can make it cheapest wins. American consumers get inexpensive products. Corporations increase profits. Everybody gets rich and the entire world eventually becomes one big happy free-market democracy.

There was just one problem.

The world didn’t cooperate.

China remained China. Nations continued acting in their own interests. Borders still mattered. National interests still mattered.

Meanwhile, America woke up and discovered that we had outsourced the ability to make some of the things we actually need.

Not just toys and T-shirts.

Critical components. Industrial capacity. Things tied to our economy, our defense and our national security.

That’s a much bigger discussion than whether you like Donald Trump’s personality or Marco Rubio’s politics.

What does a country need to be able to do for itself?

What happens when the nation supplying something essential decides it doesn’t like you anymore?

And how much is national independence worth?

Those are questions Americans should be debating.

Instead, too many people are staring at their phones waiting for somebody to get arrested.

Princess Diana’s list wasn’t interesting to me because I wanted to sit there reading accomplishments like a campaign brochure.

It was interesting because of what caused her to make it.

“What have you done for me lately?”

That’s a dangerous attitude in politics, particularly when it becomes an excuse not to vote.

You can be disappointed.

You can demand more.

You can complain that something isn’t happening fast enough. Lord knows I do.

But before deciding that nothing has happened, it might be worth looking around.

Sometimes government changes quietly. A regulation disappears. A factory gets built. A company gets access to a foreign market. An immigration policy changes. A trade barrier comes down.

None of that makes particularly exciting television.

There are no handcuffs.

Nobody gets frog-marched past CNN cameras.

There isn’t even a mugshot.

Apparently, these days, that means it doesn’t count.

I disagree.

And if you’re still convinced nothing is happening, Princess Diana has a list she’d like you to see.

It’s a long one.

Trust me.

— Bo Snerdley