Photo by Oliver Contreras / AFP
From afar, Donald Trump looks impregnable. In a matter of six weeks, he has brutally reshaped the US federal government and attempted to dismantle a global order that has stood since the end of the Second World War. He has fulfilled many of his campaign promises, such as slapping tariffs on Canada and Mexico, even going so far as to threaten the conquest of Greenland.
There is little, really, he doesn’t seem capable of. This is what an emboldened and vindictive American president looks like.
But reality, as always, is more fraught than the narrative Trump longs to impose on everyone. His many critics feed into his projections of power when they chatter about fascism or speak of him like he is an unstoppable and untameable weather event. Trump, like every other leader in the world, is still subject to political gravity. And that gravity will only get stronger as time goes on.
First, there’s his approval ratings which, for all the fanfare of his victory last year, remain low by historical standards. Though Trump is more popular than he was at the start of his first term, his approval ratings trail behind even Joe Biden at this time in 2021. The optimism Americans may have felt about his return to the White House is gradually fading. His average approval rating is already in negative territory, and if history is any indication, he has much further to slide.
Of course, Trump has governed as a deeply unpopular president before and he can always enliven politics, no matter the circumstances. But his political party – and his vice-president and possible successor, JD Vance – are bound to suffer.
Right now, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) has been wantonly slashing and burning the federal bureaucracy, which might have been appealing to some Americans in theory but is proving, in practice, deeply alienating. The federal government is the US’s largest employer and job cuts do not just impact highly-educated, left-leaning white-collar employees in big coastal cities. Conservatives and independents also work for the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Parks Service.
It might have been easy for Musk to obliterate the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) because most Americans do not care about global affairs; it’s why Trump won’t pay much of a political price for embarrassing Volodymyr Zelensky and seeking a swift end to the war in Ukraine, even if it is on Russia’s terms.
Domestic affairs are another matter. A top congressional Republican recently told his members he didn’t want them to hold in-district town halls any longer because so many enraged voters are showing up. Republicans believe, stupidly, many of the complaining constituents are Democratic plants, when in reality Musk is repulsive to a growing number of Americans, and Doge is doing little but sowing chaos.
The odds are growing that Democrats, only a few seats from a House majority, will control the lower chamber after the midterm elections next year. If Musk and Doge alone don’t sink the Republicans’ chances, it will be their ongoing attempts to cut Medicaid – the healthcare programme for adults and children with limited income and resources. Medicaid is the closest the US has ever come to universal healthcare. More than 70 million Americans are enrolled, and they are spread all across the country, including in rural areas that overwhelmingly vote Republican. Medicaid pays for about half of all nursing care in the US, and 40 per cent of all births.
In retrospect, the greatest achievement of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act might have been its Medicaid expansion. Under Obama, the federal government pumped a great deal of cash into Medicaid and a large majority of states Yet Republicans in Congress, many of them fiscally conservative and intent on enacting austerity to pay for fresh tax cuts for the wealthy, are now targeting Medicaid. They will pay a significant political price. Democrats have been inept at mounting a coherent opposition since Trump returned to the White House, but they do know how to craft a potent message around healthcare. Any serious Medicaid cuts, in addition to punishing the poor, will do great damage to the Maga brand and further erode whatever popularity Trump still has. For the Democrats running for president in 2028 – maybe against Vance, who for now is Trump’s heir apparent – there will be much to attack.
many of them run by Republicans – gladly accepted the new windfall to fund healthcare, nursing homes, and hospitals. As a candidate, Trump understood he could not campaign on cutting Medicaid and refrained, unlike past Republican contenders, from pledging to gut the social safety net many of his supporters rely on.
Yet Republicans in Congress, many of them fiscally conservative and intent on enacting austerity to pay for fresh tax cuts for the wealthy, are now targeting Medicaid. They will pay a significant political price. Democrats have been inept at mounting a coherent opposition since Trump returned to the White House, but they do know how to craft a potent message around healthcare. Any serious Medicaid cuts, in addition to punishing the poor, will do great damage to the Maga brand and further erode whatever popularity Trump still has. For the Democrats running for president in 2028 – maybe against Vance, who for now is Trump’s heir apparent – there will be much to attack.
Then there are the tariffs. Trump might not care about a sagging approval rating (fake news!) or locals turning up at town halls to hector their representatives (fake people!). But he does care about the markets. For years, the US has enjoyed a remarkable bull market, and even the corporatists who reviled Joe Biden knew they could keep turning profits under his presidency. Just as Trump has shown he is earnest about imposing nonsensical tariffs on Canada and Mexico, their governments have proven they are prepared to retaliate with tariffs of their own, making American products far more expensive abroad.
Wall Street is nervous. Most billionaires hate a trade war, and all market gains since election day have now been wiped out on the S&P 500. If there are reasonable arguments for tariffs against China, there are almost none for the nations that border the United States and have been reliable trade partners for decades. Either way, with inflation still persistent, tariffs make little sense. In fact, most of the moves Trump has made since becoming president again – restricting immigration, imposing tariffs, and potentially lowering taxes on the wealthy – could worsen inflation. Just as cost-of-living challenges doomed Biden, they can undercut and enervate Trump. There might be no second wind to his presidency at all.
[See more: Elon Musk’s hostile takeover]
Topics in this article : Democrats, Donald Trump