Donald Trump entered this year with an aura of invincibility, with Democrats disorganized, his GOP doubters once more united behind him, and the president himself emboldened to throw his weight around and bend law firms and media companies to his will.
Almost a year into his presidency, though, that’s all changed, Jonathan Lemire wrote for The Atlantic.
“Ten months into the president’s second term, Trump 2.0 is for the first time starting to resemble the chaotic original,” wrote Lemire. “And that new sense of political weakness in the president has not just emboldened Democrats who have been despondent for much of the past year. It’s also begun to give Republicans a permission structure for pushing back against Trump and jockeying for power with an eye to the elections ahead.”
The irony, he noted, is that Trump and his hardcore supporters engineered everything to try to make sure that didn’t happen this time around.
“Trump and his inner circle used their four years out of office to create a policy blueprint — drawn substantially from Project 2025 — and form a disciplined team of true believers who used their experience with the levers of power to dominate their political opposition,” wrote Lemire.
“The beginning of Trump’s second term was marked by an unprecedented display of executive authority, as the president dominated a subservient Congress and defied the courts, brought to heel some of the nation’s most formidable institutions and wealthiest people, fulfilled long-held conservative wishes to dramatically shrink the size and influence of the federal government, reoriented the nation’s relationship with the rest of the world, and rammed through legislation that benefited the rich over the working class and the poor. Trump has been a steamroller.”
Now, however, Trump’s plans have been stalled in many courts, some institutions that caved to him are walking it back, the Epstein scandal has fractured and divided his own base, and Democrats, fresh off massive election wins, are rallying to go on offense in the 2026 midterms.
And ultimately, Lemire concluded, there’s just a broad sense among both sides that the last hurrah for Trump may have already happened.
“Each day closer to next year’s midterms is a reminder that Trump is a lame duck whose time governing with Republicans in charge at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue could soon be coming to a close,” Lemire wrote. “Even before then, his sway within his own party appears to be ebbing. One official who worked in both Trump administrations told me, ‘The president has had absolute loyalty from Republicans this year.’ But, the official added, ‘losing that would be the first step toward losing power — and relevancy.’”
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