The disintegration of MAGA is underway. Trump gets 100 percent of the blame.
Eight Huge Unforced Errors
- War in Iran
- Excessive Tariffs
- Loyalty-Based Politics
- Gestapo Ice Tactics
- Mass Self-Serving Corruption
- Vanity Projects
- Lies and Arrogance
- Trashing of Allies and Sucking Up to Dictators
Great Unraveling of Trump’s Working-Class Coalition
A Washington Post Op-Ed by Gabe Fleisher discusses The Great and Unnecessary Unraveling of Trump’s Working-Class Coalition
Some Democrats, optimistic about their midterm prospects, are already daydreaming about building a political supermajority. A new book by a prominent party operative purports to offer advice on achieving “lasting power.” If that sounds familiar, that’s because it is: Only two years ago, Republicans were saying the same thing. Therein lies a lesson.
Donald Trump narrowly won the White House in 2024, but he did so in a way that seemed to preview a formidable Republican coalition. By marrying his typical success with White non-college-educated voters to a new increase in support from Black men, Hispanics and young voters, Trump seemed to push the GOP toward becoming a party of working-class Americans of all races and ages. That placed it within reach of capturing what has long been a white whale of modern American politics.
Yet after Trump won his second term, such a multiracial working-class coalition seemed to finally be gelling on the national level. The GOP is now struggling because the president has spent the subsequent two years making decisions almost perfectly engineered to disillusion each component of this coalition.
To young voters, who are disproportionately isolationist, Trump promised “no more wars,” and then launched one in Iran. A majority of Hispanic adults, regardless of their own legal status, report being worried that “they, a family member or a close friend” could be deported. Working-class voters of all ages and races were drawn to promises of lower prices only to see tariffs and the war drive up costs and inflation outpace wages.
The latter are also the voters most likely to be disaffected by the political system and suspicious of corruption. Yet far from “draining the swamp,” Trump has openly stewed in it, offering pardons to campaign donors and ritzy dinners to investors in his meme coin. He also seems to have forsaken the economic program that had attracted the working class. It’s hard to call a president who is building a gilded ballroom and siding with tech billionaires on artificial-intelligence policy a paragon of populism.
Recent polling lays bare the consequences. Pew Research Center’s validated voter study found the president winning 64 percent of White non-college-educated voters in 2024. Its most recent polling shows that only 49 percent of that constituency, long a cornerstone of Trump’s base, now plans to vote Republican in this year’s midterms. Congressional Republicans have run behind Trump before, but those hoping his 2024 victory would translate into long-term dominance downballot will be disappointed to find that the party’s increases among key groups haven’t even lasted one cycle.
The aforementioned 15-point drop is exceeded by the decline in GOP support among 18-to-29-year-olds (39 percent to 23 percent) and Hispanics (48 percent to 24 percent). Support from Black men has dropped off a cliff, too, from 21 percent to 11 percent.
Midterm losses by the president’s party are considered an “iron law” of politics, proof of political gravity working its will. But what’s striking about these declines is how avoidable they were. According to the New York Federal Reserve, without the president’s tariffs, consumer prices would have “fallen slightly.” In an alternate universe in which the administration deployed more targeted tariffs, used a less aggressive deportation campaign and stayed out of the Middle East, it’s difficult to imagine Republicans struggling to keep control of the Senate.
Loyalty Politics Texas Style
Gabe Fleisher touched on five of my eight ideas to some degree. He failed to discuss loyalty politics, corruption, and lies and arrogance.
In a GOP-splintering move, and against core Republican advice, Trump backed John Paxton over incumbent Senator John Cornyn. Trump trashed Cornyn on a loyalty Test.
Paxton is one of the most corrupt politicians in the country. Polls show Paxton’s ratings are going down in Texas, but barely. If so, it took two things for this to happen.
Those things are Gestapo ICE tactics and Paxton corruption. Hispanic or Latino residents make up 40.9 percent of the total population in Texas, according to the recent U.S. Census Bureau. Trump will lose the Hispanic vote. Southern Texas lives in fear.
Loyalty Politics Past Mistakes
Trump’s loyalty mistakes previously cost two Senate seats in Georgia, one in Pennsylvania, and another with Kari Lake in Arizona.
Jon Ossoff, who barely won in Georgia, is now viewed as a possible Democrat contender for President. Trump made Ossoff!
Loyalty Politics in North Carolina and Iowa
Trump demands 100 percent loyalty 100 percent of the time. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst did not seek reelection because they both had enough.
Democrats are now over 90 percent likely to win the North Carolina Senate seat as a result. I rate Iowa as a tossup. That’s at least one more seat Trump cost Republicans.
Loyalty Politics Maine and Michigan
Trump battled Senator Sue Collins in Maine enough over the years for that to possibly matter.
She is up for election and may have lost anyway, but Trump’s idiotic feud with Canada may be the final straw, my point number eight.
Trump now belatedly recognizes the problem and is throwing Collins some tariff tidbits, but it may be too little, too late.
There’s a similar setup in Michigan whose auto industry is very dependent on Canada. Democrats nominated a weak candidate, but so did Republicans. Trump backed Rep. Mike Rogers, and that was that.
What may have been with a stronger Republican candidate (minus the inane feud with Canada) is unknown. But that is another potential Senate seat Trump pissed away with his loyalty tests and tariff mistakes.
Lies and Arrogance
MAGA cheers the lies because they are too stupid to realize lies for what they are.
Alternatively, they view the lies as some sort of 5-D chess play to get Democrats riled.
I do not believe lies and arrogance ever won Trump any votes. Instead, I propose he won despite the obvious lies.
Look at the gift candidates Trump ran against. Hillary, Biden, and Harris.
But this is not 2016 with Trump running against a widely despised (by Republicans and Independents) Hillary Clinton. Nor is this 2024.
Voters know damn well that Trump ran on an anti-war platform then went to war anyway. And voters know damn well that Trump ran on a pledge to reduce gasoline and energy bills in half.
It was relatively easy to beat Kamala Harris on those promises, but now the entire country can see what a liar Trump is.
Corruption
Fleisher failed to note that corruption is the number one issue in one recent 2026 midterm election poll and a top-ranked issue in many other polls.
The rise of corruption as a prominent campaign issue follows intense messaging strategies by Democratic candidates looking to tie ongoing affordability frustrations directly to federal accountability.
They have amplified scrutiny regarding the personal business dealings of President Trump and his administration allies, promising deep investigations into federal contract allocations and campaign ethics complaints if they regain control of Congress.
Looking Ahead
Trump’s eight key mistakes will cost Trump all of the youth vote, Hispanic swing vote, and independent swing vote that he won in 2024, and then some.
All Trump now has is a pack of lies coupled with arrogance about how well he thinks he is doing and how great he thinks he is. He has resorted to name-calling, fearmongering, and bragging because that is all he has.
In practice, that is all Trump ever had, but now the king has no clothes. Everyone but MAGA can see it.
Senators are elected for six years. So the impact of Trump’s economic tariff illiteracy and reckless warmongering will last for a decade at least.
Yet, it is up to Democrats to do something sensible with the chance.
Article posted with permission from Mish Shedlock
