The pro-democracy movement is bringing Trump down

The debilitating dictator has no one to rein him in. And that’s killing his presidency faster than imagined.

Many of us worried before and after the 2024 election that our democracy would be destroyed completely by Donald Trump, who was hellbent on giving his presidency over to Project 2025 zealots, Christian nationalists, corrupt billionaires, and all kinds of grifters and fraudsters.

His actions from day one reflected that, as he dismantled government and struck terror in the hearts of millions with masked thugs and armed military on city streets. And none of us can rest, as there’s plenty of time for Trump to do us in.

But something else is also happening, ironically exactly for the reasons stated above: Unlike in his first term, Trump has no one around him with any political savvy or moderation, nor anyone with the ability to actually talk him out of his most extreme actions. There is also no one who can help make him appear to the MAGA masses as someone who seems crazy but may just be crazy like a fox. This takes skills with Trump, and there is no one in the White House with that ability.

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There are instead mostly loyal devotees who’ve been deeply embedded in MAGA conspiracies for years and crave approval from Trump—from FBI director Kash Patel and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Or there are unhinged bigots like Stephen Miller—who are able to appeal to Trump’s racist instincts, getting what they want from him—or self-serving opportunists like JD Vance and Marco Rubio, who do not care about Trump.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tries on TV, but often comes off like a blathering, incoherent mess, like several others in the Cabinet who aren’t ready for prime time. Again, it takes skill to sell Trump’s madness. Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, had been overrated from the beginning as someone who might be the moderating force in Trump’s ear. But instead, she is more like a babysitter, making sure Trump gets fed what he desires.

Johnathan Lemire of the Atlantic, who often quotes White House sources, wrote of “The Bubble-Wrapped President:”

Trump remains in the MAGA echo chamber even when he’s alone in the White House residence or the private dining room off the Oval Office. Yes, he occasionally checks MSNOW or CNN, but his TVs are almost always tuned to Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax, which practically never run negative stories about the president. (Fox did not even carry the recent news conference featuring Epstein victims.) Same with his phone: Truth Social provides a stream of praise from adoring disciples, as well as AI slop and other provocative posts that play to the president’s basest political instincts.

That has allowed for the pure, unvarnished ugliness and sloppiness of Trump, which, ironically, is even now turning some of his own MAGA base against him on some issues, and is causing a crack-up among the MAGA political leadership. New polling shows that Trump’s voters are increasingly blaming Trump for the affordability crisis, while Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation and scathing send-off have opened the floodgates for other MAGA politicians to sound off.

MAGA nut bags like Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York and now Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina are suddenly also trashing Speaker Mike Johnson—who is of course just taking orders from Trump—and exemplify those Republicans in Congress who see Johnson as not allowing Congress to do its job as a co-equal branch of government, handing the keys over to Trump. They may still be too afraid to name Trump directly, but attacking Johnson for refusing to lead is attacking Trump for taking over from Johnson while Johnson allows it.

Meanwhile, Republicans are finally investigating this administration, making demands, whether it’s on the Epstein files or Pete Hegseth’s war crime.

All of this came after the months of Hands Off and No Kings protest, which helped fuel the massive election blowout in November, where Democrats surged in New Jersey, Virginia and across the country, running on Trump’s failures on the economy and the danger he posed to democracy. The special election for a House seat in deep red Tennessee’s 7th district on Tuesday, where Republican Matthew Van Epps won by only 9% in a district Trump won by 22% in 2024, only underscored this.

Every presidential and mid-term election since 2016 saw the presidential candidate (Trump) or the congressional candidate winning that district by 22% or higher. And turnout in the special election was so high it matched the 2022 mid-term, so it can’t be blamed on low turnout and enthusiasm of the party out of office.

Republicans in Congress and all throughout political office are deathly afraid. Politico quoted one Republican leader saying before the Tennessee results were in, “If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged.”

And yet, there is no sign that Trump got the message in any meaningful way. No sign that anyone has been able to tell him he needs to change course, as his poll numbers continue to plummet, with Gallup showing him at 36% approval. He’s still pressuring Johnson, who’s refused to schedule a vote on extending Obamacare subsidies, even as many Republicans in the House want to do so to avoid massive losses—and as it’s leading to Johnson’s downfall, with Stefanik predicting he will lose the speakership.

Trump is still pardoning fraudsters and drug traffickers while he’s trying to start a war with Venezuela (claiming Venezuela is helping drug traffickers!) and has watched his Pentagon committing a war crime before the war even started!

Trump is still defending his tariffs as companies are suing and as Americans, including his base, are feeling the impact as the economy declines. He called the affordability crisis a “scam” and “con-job” by Democrats, even as its winning them elections because Americans are experiencing it.

Trump is laser-focused on his ballroom—and making it bigger—and doesn’t give a damn about anyone else. Lemire reports that there was a plan to get Trump back out on the road in the fall, doing rallies, but it never happened. He went on foreign trips, engaging in corrupt deals, or hunkered down in the White House.

That’s because Tump is tired, and he’s sick. He’s had two MRIs within a year that his doctor called “preventative,” which is just pure bullshit. Any doctor will tell you there’s no routine screening using an MRI, even for someone 79-years-old. There’s a reason why someone has an MRI.

He’s sleeping in Cabinet meetings and the ugly stuff coming out of his mouth is more frequent and more vile. Calling a reporter, “piggy,” and another “stupid.” Calling Somalis “garbage,” including a sitting Democratic member of Congress, Ihan Omar. Trump always made gross and racist comments, but most of them were attributed to him from things he said in private.

Now, like some men whose brains sadly deteriorate with age, he has less of a filter, and says more of the ugly stuff out loud.

If Trump had people around him, as in the first term, who could talk him out of things and appeal to a sense of political survival, he might weather all this better. And that’s the twisted upside of his having surrounded himself with extremists. Don’t get me wrong: I’d not in a million years wish it were this way, and would rather there were people who talked him out of things. Too many horrible things have happened to the country, too much brutality has been unleashed, too many lives have been torn apart—and there’s more to come.

But that there is no one there to help stage-manage the horror show means people are seeing it more clearly. That’s speeding up Trump’s downfall and Democrats’ ability to bring down Republicans. It’s a long road, and a year between now and the mid-terms. And even then, Democrats may stop the bleeding and have oversight and even impeachment power—but Trump will still be in office. And the damage he’s done is incalculable, with so much that can’t be undone.

So we are not by any means out of the woods. But we should be glad the MAGA unravelling is happening much more quickly than any of us had thought.