Is Peak Trump Past

 by Rod Williams, Nov. 23, 2025 - Is it possible that Trump is a lame duck and that Trumpism is past its prime, and we are turning the page? I don't know, but it feels like it. Of course, I thought after the Trump-encouraged coup attempt of January 6, 2021 that Trump was done, and I was wrong. That being said, this is the most encouraged I have been since Trump got reelected that people are tuning on Trump and his power is waning. 

This past week was a very bad week for Trump. Writing in The Dispatch, this is how Rachael Larimore described it. 

On Tuesday, Congress voted almost unanimously to approve the release of the Epstein files. The same day, a federal court blocked Texas’ newly drawn congressional map, a move made at Trump’s behest to help the GOP pick up seats in the 2026 midterms. (The matter is now before the Supreme Court.) On Wednesday, a federal judge criticized the government’s handling of its prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, saying that “government misconduct may have tainted the grand jury proceedings,” and ordered prosecutors to turn over records from the grand jury proceedings to Comey’s legal team. On Thursday, the September jobs report, unreleased until now because of the shutdown, showed that unemployment ticked up to 4.4 percent, its highest level since October 2021. And Trump has spent the last week rolling back some of his signature tariffs in an attempt to bring prices down.

That is bad, but she is only speaking of the most recent week and missed some other bad news for Trump. This is also the week in which Marjorie Taylor Greene officially broke with Trump. While I think MTG is a certifiable nut-job with her crazy talk of Jewish space lasers causing California wildfires and similar nutty stuff, I think she is a person of integrity, and she is authentic. While many Republicans are playing to the base and know Trump is a con artist and his policies are insane, they go along to avoid Trump's wrath and a primary challenge. Marjorie Taylor Greene really believes the Trumpy stuff. I suspect she really wants to "drain the swamp," believes there is an international cabal of pedophiles controlling the world, and really is a committed isolationist. She is a True Believer and is more MAGA than Trump. Marjorie Taylor Greene is representative of a lot of people within the Trump movement.

Marjorie Taylor Greene represents one rebellious faction in the Trump movement that is unhappy with Trump. There is another faction that is also in rebellion, and that is those who are disgusted by the tolerance of neo-Nazis within the movement. Many were shocked in early October to learn of an email exchange among Young Republican leaders in which they joked about gas chambers and expressed pro Nazi sentiment. If you missed this, see Hitler Loving Young Republicans.

The expose that some significant Young Republican leaders view Hitler favorably caused a ripple of revulsion in Trump world but quickly faded. Then, in late October, America's leading pundit, Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, a self-described white nationalist known for antisemitic and racist comments. The interview went on for over two hours and Carlson asked only softball questions of this young man who had praised Hitler and denied the Holocaust. The interview sparked immediate backlash within Republican and conservative circles, including from people like Senator Ted Cruz. 

Then Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts posted a video defending his "close friend" Carlson and denouncing his critics as a "venomous coalition" and "globalist class." This was met with strong opposition and outrage within the Heritage Foundation and much of the Trump movement. Roberts apologized and issued a stronger condemnation of Fuentes's views and some people within Heritage who had advised Roberts were forced to resign.

All of this stuff about the pro Nazi email exchange and the Carlso-Fuentes-Heritge episode may not seem significant, but I think it is. There is a civil war going on within MAGA. It is only going to grow. Without unity within the movement, there will not be the same enthusiasm to work the polls, knock doors, give money, and defend Trump and Trumpism on social media. The worker bees of the movement may just sit out the midterms and by the 2028 presidential election, MAGA may be split between different candidates, opening a path for a normie pre-Trump type Republican. 

Another reason to be of good cheer about the demise of Trumpism is that the Democrats swept the recent off-cycle elections. Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey won by double-digit victories with margins that exceeded expectations.  In Georgia, two Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, and Democrats flipped a couple of Republican-held state Senate seats in Mississippi. And, of course, Mandomi won big in New York City. The New York race was an expected win for Democrats, but for Democrats to win in Mississippi and Georgia is a sign of a Democratic resurgence. I think those votes are as much a way to express anti-Trump sentiment as they are a vote in favor of Democratic policy positions. 

Another thing going wrong for Trump is that Republicans got the most blame for the recent government shutdown. Another is that prices are up, and Trump had to tacitly admit that tariffs raise prices and had to remove tariffs on over one hundred common grocery store items. And, the mass deportation is causing people to turn against Trump. This is especially true in the Hispanic communities where Trump had made gains. Many people who believed Trump would go after the worst of the worst are unhappy to see people like their lawn care guy or the nice lady who also has a child in the same daycare as their child get deported.

There is also an indication that the Republican Party in Congress is finally getting some backbone and may stand up to Trump. They exhibited this in defying Trump in voting for the Epstein files to be released. Equally important, I think, is that Trump pressured the Senate Republicans to abolish the filibuster in order to end the shutdown and they didn't do it. Republicans know that without the filibuster, once Democrats come back into power, Democrats will grant statehood to Washington D. C. and Porto Rico, giving Democrats four more Senate votes, they will pack the Supreme Court, and make the right to abortion the law of the land.  The filibuster protects the interests of the minority party and prevents a temporary, tiny minority from exercising its will. Trump is only concerned with his legacy, but it seems Republicans can see beyond Donald Trump, and that is a good thing.

While all of the above I see as good news, indicating Trump's peak popularity and power are past, that is not to say that all is well. Given Trump's disregard for the Constitution and norms, he may become more dangerous when he feels power is slipping away. Also, we don't know what comes after Trump. I am going to put those concerns off for another day and bask in what I see as the beginning of the end of Trumpism. We are on the downward side of the Trump curve. Let us acknowledge it and enjoy it. 

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