In an off-the-record remark to his adoring Leftmedia propagandists 10 years ago, Barack Obama summarized his guiding policy principle: “Don’t do stupid sh*t.” Of course, that is all Obama did for eight years — leaving a record of colossal domestic and foreign policy failures in his wake, not the least of which was inviting the first Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Not to be outdone, his vacuous understudy, Joe Biden, left a much broader and deeper swath of disastrous domestic and foreign policy failures, not the least of which was inviting the second Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Biden proved there are no limits to “stupid sh*t” a sitting president can do.

Enter Donald Trump, who is tasked with cleaning up not only the mess Biden and Harris made but, as I have noted previously, the mess that made Biden and Harris.

As I wrote in “Trump’s Vibrant Return,” my analysis of his address to a joint session of Congress six weeks into his second term, “The Demos were broadsided with Trump’s 2024 election victory and have been caught flat-footed by the blizzard of his executive orders and actions since 20 January.”

Trump is off to a great start, and as he said, to clean up the mess Biden made, “It turned out that all we really needed was a new president!”

But allow me to repeat one caveat I noted in “Trump 2.0 — Attack of the Disruptors”: Organized chaos, Trump’s strategic specialty, is very difficult to manage and can backfire if not managed at all levels well. My biggest concern about Trump’s fusillade of executive orders and actions is that the administration is at risk for executive overreach, too much too soon, resulting in the erosion of public approval.

Evidence of softening public support for the flurry of Trump initiatives is emerging in his RCP job approval average, which indicates a three-point decline since he took office, from 51.5% to 48.8% approval, and a corresponding rise in his disapproval, from 43% to 47.5%.

Yes, polls can fluctuate significantly from one month to the next, but I pay attention to average polling trends, which matter. Thus, in the coming weeks, it will be interesting to see what happens with Trump’s approval trend given some agenda setbacks, including his tariff plans, his USAID cuts, and growing resistance across party lines to massive cuts in government jobs that are perceived as too arbitrary.

To be clear, I support all of Trump’s measures, though I do think that federal job cuts should be made by Cabinet heads rather than by Elon Musk and his DOGE team.

All said, there have been surprisingly few “optics fails” by the Trump administration over the last six weeks. Among the most obvious would be last week’s “big reveal” of the Epstein Files by Attorney General Pam Bondi — which turned into a laughable clown show flop. It was a minor flop, but the optics were big and bad because Bondi promised something big and bad.

Some social media communications staffer in Bondi’s office thought this non-reveal stunt would be a clever idea. Hopefully, they are back in whatever conservative media echo chamber from which they were plucked.

That being said, given the massive wave of administration initiatives, a few mistakes are to be expected.

Folks will forget about that Epstein reveal falling flat.

But the restoration of famous military base names will not be forgotten — so when making those changes, it’s important to get it right.

One group that has always given Trump favorable approval ratings is our military ranks and Veterans.

Military recruitment and morale suffered heavily under the Biden/Harris regime, but as Trump noted correctly last week, “The U.S. Army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years.” In fact, since Trump’s election, the Army has had a succession of record recruiting months.

I suspect morale and recruitment will continue to be strong.

But in recent weeks, the Fort Bragg and Fort Benning rebrands have tested Trump’s strong support from one group: Vietnam Veterans.

For context, in March 2021, as a component of Biden’s race-bait agenda, Congress authorized a “Naming Commission” to review Department of Defense inventory (including bases) commemorating by name any person who served within the ranks of the Confederate States of America, regardless of their prior U.S. military service, and evaluate name changes. That mandate was codified under NDAA 2021 Sec. 370.

Ironically, the mandate references those who “took up arms against our nation,” which is, in itself, an egregious historical revision. Anyone who knows the history of former West Point Superintendent Robert E. Lee, who was a distinguished U.S. Army officer for decades before refusing Abraham Lincoln’s offer to command the Union Army of the Potomac in 1861, knows that Lee’s loyalty and motive was the defense of his home state of Virginia, not taking up arms against our nation.

With that in mind, ahead of World War I, several famous Army posts in the South were founded and named for historic U.S. and Confederate military leaders, including the two most famous bases, Fort Bragg in North Carolina for General Braxton Bragg, and Fort Benning in Georgia, named for General Henry Lewis Benning.

Among the other most notable Army bases that have carried the names of U.S./Confederate officers would be Fort Hood in Texas, named for General John Bell Hood. That has been renamed Fort Cavazos.

On historical principle, I opposed the Commission’s renaming of Bragg (“Fort Liberty”) and Benning (“Fort Moore”), much as I have opposed the “historical cleansing” of regional history when the cancel culture mobs tear down statues and monuments and rebrand historical institutions.

While Bragg was given the generic Fort Liberty name, in the case of Fort Moore and Fort Cavazos, I have previously profiled the outstanding Veterans honored by those name changes. They are legendary Vietnam Army LTG Hal Moore and Korean War Medal of Honor recipient Army GEN Richard Cavazos.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hinted at the name restorations before being nominated, and there were broader conversations about the merits of bringing back Bragg and Benning, among others.

On first pass, when Hegseth approved the Fort Bragg and Fort Benning name restorations by finding two heretofore unknown Veterans with those last names and claiming the restoration of the base names is to honor those Veterans, it seemed as if this might be another “stupid sh*t” optics fail. But on closer examination, the name-restoration strategy is to maintain compliance with the congressional mandates of NDAA 2021.

In the case of Fort Bragg, they found Army PFC Roland L. Bragg, a Silver Star recipient who served with the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment during World War II. As for Fort Benning, they found Army CPL Fred G. Benning, a World War I Distinguished Service Cross recipient who served with the American Expeditionary Forces.

I mean no disrespect to PFC Bragg or CPL Benning, but it is unfortunate that Hegseth did not restore the base names on historical principle. Still, the fact is, had Hegseth done that, the next Democrat president could have just swapped the names again, objecting to the connection to Confederate officers as outlined in NDAA 2021 as approved by Congress. But now, given the names are associated with distinguished Veterans, the swap back would be more difficult.

Over the last week, I have checked in with many current and former Special Forces and Ranger officers who are now or have formerly been at Bragg and Benning. The consensus among all in their broader circles is almost universal support for the historical name restorations, regardless of the contortions to get there. The only hedge has been expressed by some Vietnam-era Fort Benning Rangers, who believe that removing LTG Hal Moore is something of an insult. I would hope that Hegseth would find a fitting way to memorialize LTG Moore at Benning.

Moving forward, I presume that Hegseth is reviewing other base name restorations, including the return of Virginia’s Fort Lee, utilizing the same strategy.

One suggestion: Please do NOT find an unknown Veteran named “Hood” in order to remove Medal of Honor recipient GEN Richard Cavazos’s name from the former Fort Hood. Fort Cavazos, the largest military installation in the nation, is already nicknamed “Ft. Cav” because it is the home of the 1st Cavalry Division. And in this case, keeping Cavazos is a fitting compromise.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

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