Sunset of Trump?

That orange glow you see on the horizon may be Donald Trump setting in the west.

God knows, we’ve been here before. I was sure of several things. Trump could not be elected in 2016. Trump could not be reelected in 2024. And along the way, on numerous occasions, I was absolutely certain that he had signed his own political death warrant: calling John McCain a loser when Trump himself had dodged the draft, inciting a riot on January 6th, using language almost exactly the same as Hitler, blatantly using his office to line his own pockets and those of his family, using the Justice Department and FBI to persecute his opponents.

And yet, Trump has always defied political gravity. I think that’s because people like me tend to underestimate how much people like me are despised by a good chunk of America. People hate liberals. They hate our know-it-all condescension. They hate our endless virtue signaling. And so they love Trump for driving us crazy. The more apoplectic we become, the more we scream breathlessly about “existential” threats to democracy or the planet, the more they love him. They know exactly who and what Trump is. But they hate liberals so much that they’re willing to support a corrupt authoritarian who is pursuing policies contrary to their own economic self-interests. This prompts liberals to ask why they’re so dumb when, in fact, it should prompt us to ask how we’ve earned that level of disgust.

But now the fuel of resentment that powers Trump may finally be burning out. For one thing, it’s hard to blame liberals when liberals control nothing. The White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court are all held by Trumpy Republicans. And how’s the cost of living treating you?

Trump regained power in 2024 for three reasons. Biden had not controlled the border, he was clueless about how people felt about the economy and the Democrats had taken unpopular stands on a host of social issues. Trump has closed the border, but then he went too far in deporting otherwise law-abiding people who may have been here illegally but who were also working hard and paying taxes. He way overplayed that hand.

Trump has taken mostly popular stands on social issues, some of which I welcome. DEI, for example, needed to be rolled back and reconsidered. But, in doing that, he’s actually done Democrats a favor. Social issues have fallen down the list of public concerns. Now, if you want to obsess over men in women’s sports, people will ask you what that has to do with the cost of ground beef.

But the big one is the economy. Prices are not much lower and Trump’s tariffs are making things worse. If Trump had one mandate it was to fix that problem and he’s failed spectacularly. Moreover, as he pursues one obsession after another — blowing up boats in the Caribbean, sending an aircraft carrier to threaten Venezuela, building a ballroom, fighting to keep the Epstein files secret and on and on — Americans are wondering if he’s lost sight of their concerns.

Power is like bitcoin. It has value because people think it has value. Trump has power because Republican lawmakers fear he could take away their jobs in a primary. Once that fear goes away, he’s done.

So, I’m watching Marjorie Taylor Greene. She loudly broke with Trump over Epstein and over the government shutdown. “The five-alarm fire is health care and affordability for Americans,” Greene told Politico. “And that’s where the focus should be.” Wait a minute. That makes sense. But this is Marjorie Taylor Greene. Not computing. Circuits overloading. System shutting down.

My sense is that she sees blood (or some orange substance) in the water. And now she’s put Trump in a spot. If he makes good on his threat to primary her, then he has to win. If he doesn’t challenge her, he’ll look like he’s conceding that his power is waning.

Add to this the fact that Trump is, at least according to the Constitution, a lame duck. I’m starting to think that my blogs musing about Trump stealing a third term may soon look like paranoid ramblings. I hope they become just that.

Here’s an iron rule of politics: successful politicians care about themselves. When the wind blows orange they’ll color themselves orange. When the wind picks up from another direction their internal weathervane will move with it. Since Trump shows no loyalty to anyone else, nobody has any loyalty to him. They will march along with him only so long as they fear him.

Taylor Greene, God love her, may be the leading edge of the fear breakers. Who would have thunk it?