Donald Trump is about to find out how it feels to be powerless. It may take a while before the reality of his situation fully sinks in past the hairspray (and his rapidly encroaching dementia), but it will. Because this president has screwed up epically — or as he would say: “Like no one’s ever seen before.”
For starters, Trump and Defense Secretary (“War is Gel!”) Pete Hegseth blundered the country into a calamitous $50 billion war with Iran that they don’t know how to end — a conflict that’s alienated our allies, enriched our enemies, and jacked up the price of fuel oil for the entire world.
Then there’s Trump and Stephen Miller’s performative $150 billion immigration crackdown, which unleashed poorly trained, masked “agents” to terrorize hundreds of communities, destroy thousands of families and businesses, and got dozens of people killed — on the street and in hastily constructed prison camps.
Several major agricultural-industry groups recently wrote to tell Trump that his deportation policies were hurting the nation’s food-supply chain — including farmers, processors, and delivery systems — and raising grocery prices. About 66 percent of the country’s farmworkers are/were foreign-born, they noted.
So how did Trump respond? He promoted Miller to chief of staff, making him arguably the second-most powerful man in the country. Way to read the room, Donny.
And make no mistake, the room is pissed. Last week’s midterm blue tsunami delivered a clear message (at least to any normal politician): America has had enough of this administration’s bullshit. It was a complete and utter butt-whipping. Counties and districts and states that have voted GOP for eons turned blue. Governorships and Congressional and Senate seats flipped from coast to coast. Women, Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQ candidates won — even in Southern states. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott, who delighted in shipping planes full of Hispanic immigrants to distant blue cities, got his ass shipped out of Austin by a woman named Gina Hinojosa. African-American Scott Colom won a Senate seat in Mississippi. In New Mexico, Deb Haaland became the first Native American woman ever elected governor. The message to the GOP was the same all over the country: Enough of this, bitches.
Trump has spent the past two years hanging giant posters of his face on federal buildings all over Washington, D.C. He’s created a coin with his image on it. He’s put his signature on all newly minted American paper money. He’s trying to put his name on more public buildings in the nation’s capital, including a proposed “Arc de Trump” that will loom over Arlington National Cemetery, and that stupid White House ballroom.
Trump has also sought to impose his will, often via selective legal prosecution by his “Justice” Department, on the tech industry, law firms, universities, the media, museums, national parks, the energy sector, environment protections, and nonprofit foundations.
Trump’s hand-picked Health and Human Services director, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has dismantled much of that department’s infrastructure, including many common-sense health regulations, drug-testing controls, and vaccination protocols. Millions of dollars in medical research has been cut. Then there are Trump’s impulsive, misdirected tariffs, which have raised the price of most imported consumer goods sold in the U.S.
Given all of that, the blue wave shouldn’t have been a surprise.
And Democratic leaders are now quite aware of what heads of state all around the world — from Iran to Ukraine to France to Canada to Mexico, and anywhere else you can name — have learned: Donald. Trump. Can’t. Be. Trusted. There is no treaty, ceasefire, truce, alliance, deal, or law he won’t break if it suits him. His word is worthless. He lies like he breathes. It is his go-to move.
With this awareness top of mind, I expect the House and Senate to start reversing any harmful or illegal actions Trump has taken that are within their power to reverse. They have a clear mandate: Cut funding for the war and ICE. Issue subpoenas. Investigate the cyber-grift, the insider deals, and the no-bid contracts. Hold hearings. Expose Trump for who he is: a modern-day Wizard of Oz, a petty, delusional man operating behind a curtain of smoke, mirrors, and deception — an con act the spineless Republican Party refused to do anything about, and for which they just paid the price at the polls.
The ultimate irony is that by provoking one of the greatest political defeats in modern U.S. history, Trump and the GOP may have finally managed to Make America Great Again.
