TRUMP’S STRANGE LEGACY
Historians will say of Donald Trump that he was one of the most consequential people in world history despite being the worst president in American history. Why? Because of his extraordinarily massive personal corruption, violations of law, divisiveness, and his unnecessary war in the Middle East. He has reshaped American politics and imposed his stamp on this country and the rest of the world. Yet Donald Trump is losing his superpower.
What is Trump’s superpower? His ability to impose HIS version of reality on the world-at-large.
Trump successfully dictated reality at the start of his second term when he had an approval rating from Americans of 47%. But he lost the narrative with the advent of three big errors of judgement: 1) the rising cost of living (resulting in large part from his tariffs), 2) the Epstein file cover up of elites including himself, and 3) the war in Iran.
Trump could have been the ultimate reality show creator for much longer. At the start of his second term our country was his shocked, appalled, or thrilled and cheering audience with episode after episode of the Trump “Reality” Show occurring in rapid succession. Every episode took the truth and turned it upside down, or inside out, or minimized or enlarged it beyond recognition to comply with Trump’s need to “looks good”:
- There is nothing to see in the Epstein files.
- We won the war against Iran.
- Affordability problems for Americans are a hoax.
- Anyone who says he is breaking the law is on a witch hunt motivated by political ill will.
- There is no climate change.
- Immigrants vote in our elections.
- “Nobody gives a shit about housing” [What Trump said to MAGA Mike yesterday, June 24th, before pulling the bipartisan housing bill that would have helped Republicans get elected in the midterms.]
Trump’s power to shape reality could only last as long as millions of people wanted to believe the reality he was selling- just as when he sold willing rubes on his Trump University, Trump steaks, and other ventures. Always, positive and certain, Trump has been telling us stories to shape our perceptions. The makeover of reality was done to make him appear always to be the winner and the victor in everything he undertook.
That works until it doesn’t.
Trump’s effort to shape reality is failing him now.
WHY NOW?
Americans cannot avoid the reality that Trump is responsible for creating in this country even if Trump wants to try to put it off on Joe Biden. Too late, buddy. You have been in office and clearly in charge of everything for 17 months now. Americans are coming smack up against the reality Trump created on his watch. He micromanaged everything he could including the Kennedy Center, the east wing demolition, the reflecting pool he turned into a swamp, and now the country’s 250th anniversary that has become a Trump rally instead of a national celebration. Trump and his MAGA filled congress led by MAGA Mike Johnson deserve the blame for this big mess.
Americans who go grocery shopping or buy gas for their cars come face-to-face with a reality that defies Trump’s magical efforts to portray things otherwise. Those voters who thought they were getting a populist who was on their side, are seeing for themselves that Trump is all in on making the lives of the rich and powerful even more rich and powerful. Their Medicaid is gone, they can’t afford health care, their rural hospital is closing, and the giant data center being built next door is forcing electricity bills higher and using up large amounts of water. Requiring vaccines for measles is dropping, and the incidence of measles is rising, putting children at risk of lifelong disabilities. There is so much more. I could go on. But you get the picture.
At this point, anyone who doesn’t know that Trump is the opposite of Robin Hood, taking from the poor to give to the rich, has been in a coma for 17 months. Look no further than your shopping cart receipt and the amount you are shelling out at the gas pump.
BAD NEWS FOR TRUMP: Americans Don’t Like You
Nate Cohn reports the following:
The latest Times/Siena poll finds just 37 percent of Americans approve of President Trump’s performance, putting his ratings in new political territory. While recent presidencies have often been unpopular and polarizing, no president’s approval rating has been under 38 percent for more than a few days in the last 17 years, according to our average. If there has been a floor during this partisan era of politics, Trump’s ratings today have fallen to it.
Trump’s approval ratings are underwater in every single poll including the Fox poll and those of other rightwing pollsters. The range in which he is underwater varies from 12 to 36 in these polls but the fact that all of them show Trump down under for this long a period of time is telling.
People don’t name their kids Donald anymore.
According to data from the Social Security Administration, the popularity of the name Donald has declined over the years, with it being at its lowest in 2025. The name has Scottish origins and means “ruler of the world.” It was very popular in 1934, with many American parents naming their babies Donald. The popularity extended until 1990, with the name being placed in the top 100 ranks. However, it’s now the 690th most popular name.
Even parents who are huge Donald Trump supporters are unlikely to name their child Donald these days.
Even Q’Anon has had it with Trump!
The Q’Anon movement, was, at one time, convinced that Trump was a godlike figure who would literally bring about heaven on earth. But the halo is gone. Believers are sick of him.
“We’re done being treated like shit!” wrote QAnon promoter Liz Crokin, saying Q believers’ lives had been destroyed while Trump did nothing.
WE ARE LUCKY THAT TRUMP HAS FAILED AT BEING KING
To be successful, autocrats must beat the clock to consolidate power before they lose the support of the people. Autocrats always eventually lose support because they are so corrupt–taking from the people and giving to themselves and their cronies. Eventually The People figure out they were had. Donald might mean “ruler of the world” but Trump has turned out to be bad at ruling anything. We found that out faster than a lot of other countries.
Most successful autocracies take over a country more slowly, over many years, compared to the coup that we are wrestling with. Maybe history will conclude that Trump’s mistake (along with Project 2025 and Musk’s DOGE bros) was trying to trash our government and wreck this democracy way too fast.
I think Trump’s lust for vengeance and retribution also tripped him up. Americans don’t like it that James Comey gets indicted for taking pictures of seashells on a beach walk even if the seashells spell out 86 47, (a wish that Trump be ejected from power). Americans value free speech and humor. Humor requires the unfettered ability to speak freely.
Speaking of humor, Trump has lost so much support, he is being mercilessly mocked on social media by former followers for the way he looks (puffy eyes and ankles), the way he cannot walk straight, how he had to have a towel placed under his butt when he sat on the couch in his most recent live appearance on Fox and Friends (fecal incontinence?), has trouble remembering names and mixes things up. Trump has symptoms of cognitive decline that are getting worse every day. He may have had a stroke. He may be failing mentally because of dementia. Whatever is going on, it is evident when Trump tries to speak and slurs his words or can’t articulate words he tries to say as happened a few days ago in his speech at the Great American State Fair. https://www.rawstory.com/great-american-state-fair-2677120632/?utm_source=msn
Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and other influencers are rejecting him along with the MAGA movement. This matters because these influencers track the mood of their followers and must stay one step ahead of them if they hope to keep making money off of them. Tucker Carlson has even gone a step further, declaring that he is no longer a member of the Republican Party. That tells you something about the anti-MAGA Republican discontent Carlson has tapped into on social media.
TRUMP AND THE MAGAS ARE TOAST
As Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy has been saying something important in recent appearances on TV and social media:
Trump failed to consolidate power before losing his popularity. The result is that Trump is now leading a failed autocratic coup in America. Trump and the MAGA movement are toast whether or not they know it yet. The midterms will be a reckoning for our country. The MAGAS have nothing left but cheating to get a pretend “win”.
The pro-democracy movement is favored to win in the midterms. But they still have to get their candidates across the finish line, and it won’t be easy. Everyone who wants Trump to be contained in the last two years of his term will have to work as hard as possible to get out the vote to overcome the dirty tricks the MAGAs are rolling out.
Trump and the MAGAs are getting help from the 6 Christian Nationalists on the Supreme Court with the Callais (re-gerrymandering) decision and other decisions that consolidate power in the so-called “unitary executive”. These rightwing domestic terrorists wearing black robes are doing their best to install a king in America by our 250th birthday. The federal justices who decide cases on appeal from the district courts are working to maintain our democracy including most of the judges appointed by Trump. It’s the Supreme Court that has gone off the rails. Their extreme anti-democratic decisions will motivate a Democratic Congress to install term limits for these justices. By-the-way that could be accomplished by a simple majority vote.
A simple majority of Senators could pass a bill to impose term limits on Supreme Court justices. Whether it would be constitutional depends on how the law is structured and whether it conflicts with the Constitution’s “good behavior” clause in Article III, Section 1.
WHAT IS COMING
With Trump’s approvals in the dumper, negative partisanship will drive voters to show up to vote for Democrats whether they love them or not, to punish Trump and the MAGA Republicans for failing to take care of them after promising the opposite. An affordable economy? No more wars? Accountability for the elites in the Epstein files? None of that came true. And Trump claiming it’s true against the evidence won’t work anymore.
Americans were taught to be cynical about government BY the Republican Party that used that cynicism about government to win elections over Democrats who were believers in government. Turns out the MAGAs are great at attacking government but terrible at governing. That cynicism about government will backfire on Trump and the MAGAs now. Cynical Americans don’t trust Trump or the MAGAs to govern. And for good reason! They have mucked it up so bad.
NEXT CHAPTER: 10th AMENDMENT STATES POWER AGAINST FEDERAL OVERREACH
Former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman wrote in a Friday piece for his Talking Feds Substack that Judge Schlitz’s recent rebuke against the Trump administration has opened the door for states to rely on the “anti-commandeering principle,” a 10th Amendment doctrine.
“The anti-commandeering principle has been lying in wait. It is now in play,” Litman wrote. “It should be picked up widely and immediately, by lawyers and by states pushing back against every variant of the administration’s coercion campaign.”
Judge Schlitz relied on the 10th Amendment grant of power to the states to oppose overreach by the federal government. What is that power? The anti-commandeering principle, “means that the federal government cannot command the states or their officers to take any action to effectuate federal policy,”
The principle derives from a Supreme Court interpretation of the 10th Amendment’s reservation of powers to the states, Litman noted.
“That could have wide application in the efforts of states to push back on broad assertions of federal power,” Litman wrote. “The Trump administration, in other words, is now running headlong into a constitutional wall that its own judicial allies built.”
As I have written in prior Markin Report posts, the states should step up to create a bulwark against federal overreach in the next years of Trump MAGA rule. Unlike many European countries we cannot vote out a government we reject and that is deeply unpopular. We have to wait for our presidential election to change administrations. The next 2 1/2 years will be brutal because of the way our founders set up our republic. But if the Dems control one or both chambers of Congress after the dust settles this midterm, it will at least be a real fight instead of a flogging. States will need to help to protect their citizens by standing up to the federal overreach we can anticipate is coming. The worst decisions of this extremist government need to be tamped down, challenged, and exposed.