Trump Has Turned The Non-MAGA Electorate Against The Republican Party, Possibly For The Long Run

Trump is busy destroying himself. Unfortunately, he’s doing it by destroying the American economy. There is a bonus though; he’s also destroying his pusillanimous political party which doesn’t have the guts to stand up to him on behalf of the country. Trump will never run for anything again. Republicans have lots of elections ahead. Next year they’re likely to lose lots of them. Yesterday we listed a few dozen extremely vulnerable House incumbents, just based on the numbers— basically the numbers of independent voters in their districts who are abandoning the whole idea of casting ballots for Republican candidates.

Yesterday, Nate Cohn wrote that the next two years of American politics have begun coming into focus, and “it does not look like a MAGA or Republican ‘golden age.’ The special House elections in Florida and the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin confirmed that Democratic voters were not, in fact, stunned into submission by last November’s election. More important, Trump’s sweeping tariffs— and the economic downturn that may follow— have created enormous political risks for Republicans.”

He contends that the results last Tuesday “offer a plausible preview of the next few years of elections: major Democratic victories, including in next year’s midterm election. There might not have been anyone marching in pink hats, and congressional Democrats might have been ‘playing dead,’ but the Democratic special election strength looks just as large as it did in 2017 and 2018, before the so-called blue wave flipped control of the House.” [NOTE: When the Democrats have 40 seats wrapped up, Cohn will predict as many as a dozen.] He sees the tariff problem Trump has created for his party. “No party or politician is recession proof. Historically, even truly dominant political parties have suffered enormous political defeats during major economic downturns… Trump and the Republicans today could be especially vulnerable, as so much of his political strength is built on the economy. Throughout his time as a politician, he usually earned his best ratings on his handling of economic issues. He’s benefited from his reputation as a successful businessman and from effective economic stewardship in his first term [2 lies perpetrated by the media, the way Cohn is doing right now]. He won the last election, despite enormous personal liabilities, in no small part because voters were frustrated by high prices and economic upheaval that followed the end of the pandemic.”

Even before this week’s tariffs, Trump had squandered his post-election honeymoon. His approval rating had fallen back under 50 percent, back toward where it stood before the election. His early threats to raise tariffs, including on partners like Canada, Mexico and Europe, probably played an important role in diminishing his support. In a reversal of the usual pattern, the latest polls had found that Trump’s ratings on the economy were even worse than his overall approval rating. There were other indications that his actions had taken an early political toll: Consumer confidence was falling, inflation expectations were rising, and polls found that tariffs themselves were generally unpopular.

…[I]f the tariffs cause a recession and significant price increases, as many economic analysts expect, a plunging approval rating might be only the beginning of his problems. While Trump may not run for re-election (third-term dreams notwithstanding), many Republicans will be— and many of them were never entirely on board with tariffs in the first place. Already, a half-dozen Republican senators have supported legislation to rein in the president’s authority to impose tariffs. This is nowhere near enough to overcome a presidential veto, but it is an unusual level of Republican opposition to Trump, and the time for opposition to build is nowhere near over.

If the economic fallout is bad enough, the dissatisfaction with the Trump administration could combine with the longstanding Democratic turnout advantage to make seemingly safe Republican states in 2026— think Kansas, Iowa and Texas— look plausibly competitive, perhaps even along with control of the Senate. Congressional Republicans’ continued support of (or acquiescence to) Trump— whether on tariffs or his other excesses— could be in jeopardy.

Yes, Kansas, yes, Iowa and yes, Texas, but even more so, Nebraska. Time for billionaire Pete Ricketts to move along.

I don’t always agree with Adam Schiff but on Meet The Press yesterday he castigated the Democrats for not “thinking big” or “acting big” when asked to comment Cory Booker’s presidential campaign announcement/filibuster. “I think we were guilty of not thinking big and not acting big. One thing that we see, you know, with the Trump administration is you can move the country far and fast if you have the courage of your convictions, if you're willing to be bold. Now they're being bold in a horribly dangerous, destructive direction which is really hurting working families. But, that's no excuse for Democrats not being bold in our own ideas and pushing the country forward. We're going to have to do that. And there's nothing that succeeds like winning. We just won a big important race in Wisconsin. That is a real shot in the arm. The energy you're seeing now manifest around the country in these mass demonstrations show that, you know, the Democratic Party is waking up. And I think Cory Booker did a lot to help Democrats in Washington, in particular, wake up and see these are not normal times. We're not going to be able to fight what they're doing in a normal fashion. But in addition to pushing back aggressively and hard and hours in a row like Cory Booker, we're going to have to be pushing hard on our own big ideas.”