After a long, unpleasant summer and fall, the holidays are just around the corner.
For some, it's turkey season.
For others, it's eggnog season.
For President Trump, it's starting to look a lot like losing season.
He has less than a year left before power in Congress is likely to change hands, putting a much-needed brake on his reign of terror against American institutions, immigrants, science and medicine, political enemies, and free speech.
(Sadly, even if the House of Representatives flips, Trump's war on good taste will continue. Am I the only one who thinks Trump, with his penchant for covering every surface in gold rococo, is a 21st-century version of the Bond villain Goldfinger, who murdered his victims by slathering them in gold paint?)
Signs of failure increase as Trump's popularity falls. His party was defeated in this month's off-year elections. Inflation, which he promised to combat, has not decreased. Prices remain high. Consumer confidence has plummeted. Health insurance premiums are about to skyrocket. The Supreme Court does not seem to view his tariff schemes favorably, nor his plan to end birthright citizenship. Lower courts have defied him at almost every turn, most recently dismissing absurd criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and the New York prosecutor. General Letitia James.
Now members of his own party are beginning to stand up to him. In fact, he was forced to sign the bill requiring the release of Epstein's files, something he had fought against for months. During the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Trump demanded that the Senate end the filibuster. No dice.
“There are some signs of cracks,” Bill Kristol said in a recent conversation with Tim Miller on The Bulwark Podcast. “And what we're seeing in Congress is that fear of Trump is starting to turn into hatred of him.”
Exhibit A: Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once Trump's most ardent acolyte.
What an impressive breakup. Trump called Greene a “traitor” for criticizing his attempts to block the release of Epstein's files, for accusing him of abandoning his commitment to “America First” principles, and, in my opinion, for being aware enough to see that Trump's populist posturing is a fraud.
“If I am sidelined by MAGA Inc. and replaced by neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, the military-industrial war complex, foreign leaders, and the class of elite donors who can't even relate to real Americans, then many ordinary Americans have also been sidelined and replaced,” Greene wrote in her four-page resignation letter released Friday night.
Small cracks are also appearing in the MAGA coalition due to Trump's escalating and potentially illegal war against drug cartels in the Caribbean. It turns out that one of the lines a handful of Republicans won't cross is pulling human beings out of the water without due process, or even reliable evidence that they are drug dealers.
His party is also not entirely satisfied with his desire to overthrow the Venezuelan government. His willingness to capitulate (at least so far) to Russian President Vladimir Putin's conditions for peace in Ukraine has angered many Republicans.
Trump's pursuit of the elusive Nobel Peace Prize? I would have to assume that's not going to happen.
It seems the weaker Trump becomes, the more extreme his rhetoric becomes. Last week, after six Democratic elected leaders with military or intelligence experience made a public service announcement urging members of the military to remember that they have an obligation to refuse unlawful orders, Trump accused Democrats of “seditious behavior punishable by death.”
Our comically underqualified Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, announced Monday that he wants to court-martial one of the six, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy pilot who flew 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm and has plenty of medals to show for it. (In X, Hegseth made fun of Kelly for having his medals out of order.)
But honestly, is there a better metaphor for the Trump era than calling for the death penalty for the “crime” of speaking truth to power?
Trump isn't just alienating his allies in Congress. He has also lost a portion of the voters who played an important role in his return to office.
In 2024, more Latinos voted for Trump than had ever voted for any previous Republican presidential candidate, about 48%, up from 36% in 2020 and 28% in 2016.
Experts spoke of a historic and potentially lasting “realignment” of Latino voters, who have traditionally favored Democrats. But since then, Trump's popularity among Latinos has plummeted. Mainly, it's the faltering economy. But his mass deportations have discouraged many Latino voters. It turns out that they don't like the idea of being racially profiled on their own streets, nor do they like seeing photos of brown-skinned people thrown to the ground or carried away by faceless, anonymous government agents.
A new Pew Research poll puts it starkly: More than two-thirds of Latinos (68%) are pessimistic about their standing in the United States, and more than three-quarters (78%) say Trump's policies hurt Latinos more than they help them. In August, the Latino polling organization Equis Research found that about a third of Latinos who supported Trump last year have no plans to vote Republican in next year's midterm elections.
That realignment surely didn't last long. Quack.
Blue sky: @rabcarian
Rags: @rabcarian
