A weekly composite of ten objective measures, each scored 1–10 and oriented the same way — 10 = steadiest, 1 = most chaotic. Every component is scored against his own trailing 8-week baseline. Version 1.0.
The Read. The inaugural number lands at 65 — Choppy Air. It’s propped up by an unusually quiet governing week on paper: zero executive orders, a court calendar whose losses didn’t land until the following week, and approval holding steady. What drags it down is the Iran messaging — a cluster of false or misleading claims and a documented reversal, denying a $300 billion reconstruction fund days before signing a memorandum that contained one. External theater over inward chaos is what kept it out of the red. Five of the ten components are provisional this week (marked *), pending feeds that settle over the coming days.
Welcome to the first Trump Stability Index.
I don’t normally like to print his name — he says it quite enough for all of us, and the world hardly needs another voice adding to the glut. But I’m making an exception, because some men spend a lifetime building a brand, and this is the rare case where the name truly belongs on the thing. His goes right on the masthead.
I built this Index to chronicle, in a sadly humorous way, the week-by-week deterioration of Daffy Don — and to commiserate with you over whatever we’ve all just lived through with the self-described very stable genius, who somehow manages to grow less stable and less genius by the news cycle. Consider it a weather report for the national nervous system.
One scheduling note: this is a trailing index, and deliberately so. The numbers need about a week to fully settle, so each Friday’s issue chronicles the week that ended the previous Thursday. We could fire them off raw and same-day — but unlike the current administration, we prefer to get our facts straight before we broadcast them to the world.
If you’ve got thoughts on how to sharpen it, send them along. The Index, unlike its subject, is a work in progress — which means it’s actually capable of improvement.
Below is a breakdown of how the whole thing works.
The Component Key — what each label measures
The snarky label rides the public chart; the formal definitions in the methodology doc (v1.0) govern any challenge. A critic gets pointed to the definition, not the joke.
Winston Churchill once said that if you were not a liberal when you were young you had no heart, and if you were not a conservative when you were older then you had no brain. I know I have both so what does that make me?
Blame it on Rio
The Trump Stability Index
A weekly composite of ten objective measures, each scored 1–10 and oriented the same way — 10 = steadiest, 1 = most chaotic. Every component is scored against his own trailing 8-week baseline. Version 1.0.
The Read. The inaugural number lands at 65 — Choppy Air. It’s propped up by an unusually quiet governing week on paper: zero executive orders, a court calendar whose losses didn’t land until the following week, and approval holding steady. What drags it down is the Iran messaging — a cluster of false or misleading claims and a documented reversal, denying a $300 billion reconstruction fund days before signing a memorandum that contained one. External theater over inward chaos is what kept it out of the red. Five of the ten components are provisional this week (marked *), pending feeds that settle over the coming days.
Welcome to the first Trump Stability Index.
I don’t normally like to print his name — he says it quite enough for all of us, and the world hardly needs another voice adding to the glut. But I’m making an exception, because some men spend a lifetime building a brand, and this is the rare case where the name truly belongs on the thing. His goes right on the masthead.
I built this Index to chronicle, in a sadly humorous way, the week-by-week deterioration of Daffy Don — and to commiserate with you over whatever we’ve all just lived through with the self-described very stable genius, who somehow manages to grow less stable and less genius by the news cycle. Consider it a weather report for the national nervous system.
One scheduling note: this is a trailing index, and deliberately so. The numbers need about a week to fully settle, so each Friday’s issue chronicles the week that ended the previous Thursday. We could fire them off raw and same-day — but unlike the current administration, we prefer to get our facts straight before we broadcast them to the world.
If you’ve got thoughts on how to sharpen it, send them along. The Index, unlike its subject, is a work in progress — which means it’s actually capable of improvement.
Below is a breakdown of how the whole thing works.
The Component Key — what each label measures
The snarky label rides the public chart; the formal definitions in the methodology doc (v1.0) govern any challenge. A critic gets pointed to the definition, not the joke.
The Stability Scale — what each level means
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Winston Churchill once said that if you were not a liberal when you were young you had no heart, and if you were not a conservative when you were older then you had no brain. I know I have both so what does that make me?