Democrats Are About To Learn The Wrong Lesson From Trump’s Failure

How did Donald Trump finally become as despised as someone of his low character and conduct deserves to be?

Actually, let me clarify that: Trump should be significantly less popular than he is. Our curse is that we can’t wish away the burdens of polarization, tribalism, and propaganda. But Trump is nearing the point where his only remaining supporters are tribalists—an assemblage of undisillusioned cultists, and Team-Red Republicans who may not even like him that much, but will tell a pollster otherwise.

The real question I’m asking is, How did Trump sink close to the floor of support for a party leader in America? I’m asking because we should have a reasonably clear sense of what pulled him low. Was it that the unique traits that make him unfit for office caught up with him? Or did more considered aspects of how he’s governed do most of the work?

The story of how Trump regained support after leaving office in disgrace five-plus years ago is a long and infuriating one. That story has a lot to do with Democrats. Readers know it pretty well. But we should be clear eyed about what made the people who gave Trump a second chance realize they shouldn’t have.

Democrats surely want to avoid another failed presidency. For reasons that should be obvious, no Democrat is likely to fail quite like Trump has failed. The question is: How much have aspects of the Trump administration that some progressives find tempting—its aggression and envelope pushing—contributed to the steady erosion of his support?

I think the answer is: some, but not much. At least not per se. And moreover, what Trump lost by embracing a unifying-but-imperious ideological project was at least somewhat offset by fostering cohesion within his party.

A more focused, intelligent, mentally stable Trump would also have left some supporters disillusioned. Every president enjoys a honeymoon period. If he were a different kind of authoritarian, his probably would have started from a higher point, and the honeymoon would have lasted longer. His party wouldn’t be facing such immense backlash right now.

But he’s mostly been done in by things no leading Democrat would do.

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Start with the fact that, for all the LOL NOTHING MATTERS nihilism that has infected the broad left, and its irony poisoned millennial base, Trump’s ignorance, dishonesty, corruption, and casual slander have made it basically impossible for him to be popular. The economy was good for most of his first term, he claimed credit for it despite deserving little, and he was nevertheless very unpopular.

He then treated a narrow-plurality victory in 2024 as a mandate to transform the country, and, again rapidly drained the limited support he’d managed to rebuild. He made everything more expensive. He initiated a trade war with the entire world and nearly crashed the economy. His administration gloried in violence and white supremacy. His armed goons killed two Americans in the street on camera. He embraced diversionary antics that were particularly unimpressive against the backdrop of governing failure.

And that was before he went to war with Iran—something he promised he wouldn’t do.

The story that best fits the facts of this and similar approval trackers is: Trump’s erosion of support has been fairly steady. But whenever it’s threatened to level off or recover, he reignites it with some new, unnecessary assertion or abuse of power. “LIBERATION DAY.” His refusal to negotiate a budget with Democrats, and the ensuing shutdown. Minnesota and the failed Epstein Files coverup. Iran.

He could have simply not done some of those things. His second presidency, like his first, could ironically have been saved by embracing Barack Obama’s old foreign-policy mantra: Don’t do stupid shit.

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Conspicuously, none of those inflection points grew out of the shock-and-awe style that Democrats at least feel entitled to emulate.