The President’s erratic and self-indulgent second-term governance has alienated much of the coalition he assembled in 2024. He won a second term on the promise to repeat the economic success of his first. But this time he insisted on imposing universal tariffs, often willy-nilly, that have raised prices for many goods and been especially damaging in Iowa, Kansas and the Farm Belt. His senseless trade war with Canada hurt Republicans in Michigan, Maine, even Texas.
His 29% job approval on the economy in the second term tells much of the story. In the first term he stuck mostly to the traditional GOP policy mix of tax cuts and deregulation, with a smattering of tariffs. It worked. In the second he went all-in on tariffs in April 2025, and even after his tariff defeat at the Supreme Court he continued to impose them in different ways. The public didn’t approve from the start, and among Hispanics the disapproval for tariffs in October was 81%....
The Iran war added to the cost problem on fuel prices in particular. But the bigger trouble with the war is that Mr. Trump has never explained his strategy or been consistent in his war aims. He changed, sometimes by the day, on whether peace or more war was at hand. Voters have stopped supporting the war because they aren’t sure Mr. Trump knows how to win it.
Voters also rebelled against Mr. Trump’s seeming preoccupation with his pet personal causes—the ballroom, the arch—and how he and his family have grown richer during the second term. No less than 88% of voters mentioned “corruption” as their top concern in an October Fox News poll, a higher percentage than the 85% who said inflation....
Most important for the GOP Congress, the man in the White House failed to provide the leadership and salesmanship to help the party’s narrow majorities do more than the one big tax bill. He was preoccupied with exacting revenge on his political opponents, attempting to vindicate his claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and promoting dubious worries about voter fraud this year. But the voters said in resounding fashion that the Presidency isn’t about him.
Republicans tried countless times to refocus his attention, but he always veered into political retribution, or talking about the Reflecting Pool, or something. His only notable proposal for the next two years was a political bribe—$5,000 to every American if Republicans kept the House and Senate. Republicans in turn had nothing of note to say that they wanted to accomplish in the next two years.
The Republican wreckage left by this defeat doesn’t foretell what will happen in 2028. But it does call for soul-searching....
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on November 4, 2026, 18:06:00, in reply to "