Editor’s Note: I can easily defend either of this equally valid perspectives on Trump’s first six months.
So, this is the Golden Age?
We have bombed Iran for Israel.
Trump is tweeting “Watch Mark Levin on FOX News! NOW!”
He is posting Bomb, Bomb Iran videos like John McCain on Truth Social.
He endorsed Lindsey Graham while trying to purge Thomas Massie from Congress.
The president is taking victory laps over bringing back cane sugar in Coca Cola, but has failed to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Instead, he has chosen to send more weapons to Israel and Ukraine.
He is calling the Epstein Files a Democrat Hoax made up by Obama and condemning his “past supporters” for wanting justice and transparency in the case of the worst pedophile in American history.
I could easily write a 20,000 word article on all the stupid shit Blumpf has said and done over the years and call it a day. We could dwell on every cringe and grating Boomer tweet, but the problem with Trump 2.0 runs much deeper than his unfiltered posts on Truth Social. Most of us who supported Trump in 2024 who are not part of his personality cult accepted that we would be annoyed for four years. It is a price we were willing to pay to stop the invasion of our country by brown Third World hordes.
Donald Trump has caught political lightning in a bottle twice in 2016 and 2024.
As everyone here remembers, Trump got distracted by the Mueller probe, lost focus and frittered away his populist energy and political capital in his first term. He bombed Syria. He had a falling out with his populist allies like Steve Bannon. He did the First Step Act. He endorsed “Big Luther” Strange and managed to fumble a ruby red Senate seat here in Alabama which hamstrung his legislative agenda. He destroyed Jeff Sessions’ political career while endorsing his avowed enemies like Mitt Romney. He listened to Paul Ryan and spent his political capital on traditional unpopular GOP priorities like repealing Obamacare and passing the tax cuts. Democrats were rewarded for their opposition to his accomplishments in the 2018 midterms. He ran on KAG and the Platinum Plan and lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
After a strong start based on a meticulous and well executed plan, Trump 2.0 in July 2025 feels like it is rapidly reverting to the first term. Epsteingate is becoming the new Russiagate. Trump is aligning with Lindsey Graham while lashing out at his populist allies like Steve Bannon, Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson. Trump’s attempt to purge Thomas Massie from Congress is reminiscent of his purge of Jeff Sessions. Having learned nothing from the 2018 midterms, Trump has signed his big tax cut package into law which is paid for by unpopular cuts to Medicaid. The GOP is a prisoner of its obsession with tax cuts.
The pessimistic view of Trump 2.0 is that after over a decade of Donald Trump dominating the Republican Party he has barely changed the GOP. Trump’s personality cult has simply floated on the surface and occupied and wasted our time. It is still addicted to paying for unpopular tax cuts with spending cuts to popular entitlements. It is still addicted to absurd and unjustifiable levels of military spending. It is still obsessed with Israel. It is still addicted to cheap labor. It is still addicted to foreign interventionism in Eurasia. It is still addicted to culture war kabuki theater. Fundamentally, Trump hasn’t changed the DNA of the party. He was only interested in commanding its loyalty which it gave without changing its priorities. In fact, the people he ran against like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Israel) are still there and have the same ideology. They are waiting in the wings to reclaim their control of the Republican Party in 2028.
What will the GOP look like when Donald Trump steps down and is no longer the president in 2028? How can a cult of personality organized around one man function without his personal leadership?
The people who grudgingly paid lip service to Trump like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Israel) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Israel) will revert to form after biding their time and waiting out the storm. The unreliable lackeys who Trump will leave behind in his wake in Congress never had any real ideology or principles and advanced their political careers purely through flattery and loyalty. They will trim their sails. We are headed toward a world where MAGA is reduced to Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House amid a sea of basic Republicans because Trump was never interested in the long term and failed to stock Congress with ideologues to carry on his movement. The long term is 3 and 1/2 years from now and Trump is endorsing the likes of Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. This is his last chance to shape the future of his movement.
JD Vance was plucked from the Senate and tapped as Vice President because he was arguably the sole plausible candidate for a MAGA successor. This decision was due to the foresight and intervention of Tucker Carlson who stopped Doug Burgum and Marco Rubio. Trump has spent four election cycles endorsing the likes of Dr. Oz, Herschel Walker, Mark Robinson, Kari Lake, etc. who all lost their races. Vance doesn’t have the charisma or force of personality to hold together and command all of the disparate factions in the Republican coalition who have been cowed into submission by Trump. Even if Vance wins the Republican nomination in 2028, which is likely, politics as usual is destined to return. Vance will struggle to corral and mobilize a Republican Congress to advance any type of nationalist agenda. Trump will have done him no favors as a strongman by leaving behind so few natural allies to work with in Congress.
We shouldn’t discount the possibility that the public may have soured on Trumpism by then:
- Trump has unilaterally wielded tariffs as clubs to hammer other countries into submission to his will, not to revive American industry. The erratic and bipolar way that Trump has wielded tariffs in fits of rage, which is totally different from how tariff policy was crafted by Congress in the 19th century with the national interest in mind, has made tariffs unpopular with the public. There is no reason to believe that Trump has even permanently convinced the GOP to embrace tariffs
- Trump’s decision to bomb Iran, cover up the Epstein Files and defer to Bibi Netanyahu has created the impression that he is puppet of Israel’s genocidal government. Unlike in his first term, the fallout from this extends beyond the alt-right and can be seen in a massive dip in support with young men, first term voters and Independents who have soured on Trump since Operation Midnight Boomer. The Millennial coded electorate has changed over the past decade and has much less tolerance for this. There are fewer older voters watching FOX News and more younger voters listening to brocasters who do not want to be involved in dumb wars in places like Ukraine or Iran
- Trump is doing immigration enforcement theater for FOX Geezers with publicity stunts like deporting handfuls of illegals to Guantanamo, El Salvador and “Alligator Alcatraz.” Trump administration officials recently toured Alcatraz itself with cameras in tow and boasted that it may be revived as an immigration detention facility. Jesse Watters boasted that the real Alcatraz was surrounded by shark infested waters. It appears the goal of the administration is to play into stereotypes that immigration enforcement is cruel and inhumane WITHOUT ACTUALLY DEPORTING ANYONE. The public is souring on mass deportations which haven’t even happened.
- The tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill like No Tax on Tips are a bunch of campaign gimmicks which expire in 2028 while the corporate tax cut is permanent
- Throwing poor people off Medicaid to pay for unpopular tax cuts for billionaires which have already failed at the ballot box or siding with student loan debt collectors over underemployed college graduates isn’t economic populism. It is a recipe for political disaster
- Add to this the list of Trump 2.0 failures like DOGE which mindlessly gutted NOAA to take on the Deep State or the FBI and DOJ restoring trust by covering up the Epstein files
Arguably, the biggest flop of the Trump presidency has been the rapid dissolution of Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk and the Tech Right, which had the potential to replace the GOP’s financial reliance on Miriam Adelson and the Republican Jewish Coalition aka “Z.O.G.” Six months ago, it appeared we were moving into a new Gilded Age with Elon Musk playing the role of Andrew Carnegie. We are still in a Second Gilded Age, but what is likely to happen now is the resumption of more turbulent “throw the bums out” cycles of backlash politics with the Democrats retaking the House in the 2026 midterms. This was the norm in the Gilded Age, not long stretches of political stability like the New Deal coalition.
Instead of building a new MAGA majority by expanding his coalition, Trump is already losing bits and pieces of his 2024 coalition. He is purging the libertarians with dumb rants on Truth Social. He has alienated the fiscal conservatives with the Big Beautiful Bill. He is losing White Nationalists and non-interventionists with his subservience to Bibi Netanyahu who he has called “the greatest man in the world.” He has alienated the schizos over the Epstein files. Disillusionment is starting to set in with swing voters and swathes of the MAGA base. It is enough to propel the Democrats back to power.
I can imagine a world where Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill has funded the creation of detention camps throughout the United States like “Alligator Alcatraz” and the hiring of thousands of new ICE agents, but where those detention camps are left to rust like the materials for the border wall in his first term because the Democrats have retaken Congress and the White House. I can imagine the Democrats defunding Trump’s new souped up version of ICE. I can see the thousands of new ICE agents being laid off like Trump fired the diversity bureaucrats. I can see the border being reopened by the next Democratic president who simply overturns Trump’s executive orders like Joe Biden. It is easy to imagine because this is what happened after Trump’s first term as a consequence of frittering away his coalition.
There seems to be no plan to lock in a MAGA majority. There are no new candidates running for office in the midterms to get excited about. The GOP has used power to reward traditional constituencies like the ultra wealthy, big business, defense contractors and Zionist donors. Nothing has really been done about inflation or the cost of the living which is what mattered to swing voters. Gas prices are decent and the stock market is doing great, but most Americans are not part of the investor class and those who can afford to live in affluent suburbs increasingly vote for Democrats. The mass deportations and arrests of evil elites which were promised during the 2024 campaign still haven’t been delivered.
We have boasted about “moving the Overton Window,” but the Iran strike underscored how little the GOP has changed. FOX News blasted out an avalanche of George W. Bush era propaganda about Iranian Islamo-Nazi mullahs armed with nuclear tipped ICBMs who were poised to blow up New York City in “under two weeks.” The U.S. military was ordered to take action on the basis of this nonsense. It had to be done to stop a “second Holocaust.” Sen. Katie Britt went on national television to save Western civilization from Iran which politely responded by notifying the president it was targeting Al-Udeid in Qatar with a few symbolic missiles. The official House Republican and Senate Republican accounts on X are a daily reminder of how little attention the people who are actually in power have paid to how Trump has changed the Republican coalition. It is true the base has changed and the Overton Window has moved, but the gravity of Trump’s personality cult has stopped the GOP from falling through the floor of political reality with its own voters. It still hasn’t been enough to save the GOP in the 2018 and 2022 midterms.
The MAGA endgame is already visible.
Trump will never appear on the ballot again to lift Republicans.
A disastrous midterm shellacking in 2026 will make Trump a lame duck president. This will be followed by a final unproductive two years of impeachment hearings and investigations. The daily rants on Truth Social are meaningful in that they show how the president is becoming distracted and losing focus again like in his first term. The Trump administration is drifting and failing to deliver on core campaign promises to the base. Even worse, the president is lashing out in anger at his own supporters many of whom went to prison for him over January 6. The whispers have already begun that Trump is blowing it.
We haven’t forgotten how the first term ended … in impeachment, in a spree of pardons for Jewish criminals and black rappers, in the Qtards who coped with the theory that Biden’s inauguration was an elaborate hologram and Trump leaving Washington in disgrace in a helicopter as the “That’s all, folks” credits rolled. There is a real danger that we are already on track to this happening again. We’re running out of time to “Make America Great Again.” Trump hasn’t created a new Republican Party. It is now or never with a Trump presidency and “never” is looking more plausible by the day.
What is to be done? Continue to push the Republican Party towards America First nationalism.
Defend the best Republicans, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, at all costs next election cycle. Give them donations, volunteer for their campaign, and vote for them.
Destroy the worst Republicans, such as Randy Fine and Lindsey Graham, next election cycle. Vote against them in the primary, and vote for a 3rd party or cast a write-in vote in the general election, even if that means that Democrats will win those seats.
Passively support the mass of the Republican Party, those who are neither particularly good nor particularly bad, with votes, but not donations or volunteering, in the next election cycle.
It would be a good idea for us to take over the Constitution Party from the Reagan Conservative Boomers who currently control it, and plan on running hard in the seven swing states in 2028 presidential election. If the Republican candidate gives solid promises on immigration and foreign policy, our candidate can drop out and endorse the Republican. If the Republican candidate is not firmly America First on both immigration and foreign policy, then stay in the election and let the Democrat win the seven swing states.
And as always, do not give your money to your worst enemies. Boycott Hollywood. Cancel your cable TV subscription, cancel your Netflix subscription, stop going to the movies, etc.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump is neither Huey Long nor Patrick J. Buchanan. Despite our wish-casting, he was a 1990s Manhattan liberal operationally, with civic nationalist tendencies, combined with a smattering of commo-man/common-sense paleoconservative notions. As it turns out, his decision to run in 2016, as compared to 2000 or 2012, was based on an accurate sense of timing as to the unserved nationalist/populist portion of the electorate giving him a narrow base, when combined with traditional republican voters, to sneak into the White House against a hated rival. His goal was to brandish the Trump Brand, combined with delivering an F-you to the Manhattan snobs.
While Trump’s allies in his 2024 push to recapture power made significant plans to use preexisting statutory, constitutional, and legal discretionary authorization to implement his agenda, such as it was, the lack of foresight that his enemies would use their control of the lower federal courts to totally stymie his policies was fatal.
Or maybe Trump naïvely thought “his” judges on the U.S. Supreme Court would rescue him, out of a transactional sense of duty for being placed on that judicial body. Of course, unlike New York City real estate wheeling and dealing, the split between business partners is not the end goal of federal politics. Exercising power to force the society to honor their values is the Democrat’s goal, while for Republicans, paying off donors with tax and/or regulatory relief is the only thing that matters.
The result is Trump is left to flounder from one impulse to another within those areas where he has essential unilateral authority to act, as in trade or foreign policy. But even there, he can’t keep focus to follow through, so the tariffs fluctuate as he discovers other countries have domestic or personal/political imperatives that allow them to weather the duties, forcing Trump to TACO.
And forget about withdrawing the Empire of Evil out of the Gangsters for Capitalism game by closing down the 130 military bases around the world or cutting the defense budget to a simple defense of the continental U.S., never mind continuing to be Israel’s bitch or maintaining the Ukraine grift. No, the War Machine is too valuable to the economy and maintaining the dollar as the world reserve currency allows Congress to fund everything without paying for it, which would cause those “patriotic” Fortune 500 firms and pools of investment capital like BlackRock to flee for more profitable sovereigns.
Finally, Trump’s age is relevant as well. Biden is not the only old man who cannot keep up with the power politics game in imperial Washington D. C. Trump has clearly faded significantly physically and mentally since returning to the White House. Now he’s just an angry old man screaming at his enemies.
The Epstein saga is a fitting coda to the Trump years. No doubt his actions bespeak of a profound sense of guilt over whatever is contained in the mass of U.S. federal and state law enforcement files, not to mention whatever the CIA, MI6, or Mossad have at their disposal.
So, in the end, there is nothing positive about the Trump years-literally nothing in the way of his important executive orders, the ones that would liberate us from the woke mind virus and the Great Replacement, cannot and will not be reversed by the next Democratic or establishment Republican president, whether AOC or J.D. Vance (his mentor Peter Thiel, he and others of the Panopticon Surveillance State, ensures a freedom-less future). So, let us not mince words: Trump was and is A FAILURE.
It sounds like Powell is going to resign as Fed Prez soon and Trump will replace him with some sock-puppet who will take interest rates to 0 and ignite another debilitating round of inflation.
I agree with this “pessimist” take on Trump much more than with yesterday’s Optimist” take. I had not thought about de “Platinum Plan” for some time until you mentioned it here. I recall when he pitched that raise the poor blacks Platinum Plan idea to the base, in mid 2020 as the niggas were toppling our monuments and burning cities.
It disturbs me that I can make a compelling argument in either direction
The most compelling observation you made above – but can’t quite seem to admit to its extent – is that Trump is a personality cult who take all the air out of a room but ultimately changes nothing, especially the GOP. MAGA – a slogan which Trump lifted from the Boomer Idol Reagan – is an empty cult. It’s basically no different than the National Justice Party in terms of end results, just more successful in raising and spending money to get elected and occupy chairs.
> The people who grudgingly paid lip service to Trump like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Israel) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Israel) will revert to form after biding their time and waiting out the storm. The unreliable lackeys who Trump will leave behind in his wake in Congress never had any real ideology or principles and advanced their political careers purely through flattery and loyalty. They will trim their sails. We are headed toward a world where MAGA is reduced to Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House amid a sea of basic Republicans because Trump was never interested in the long term and failed to stock Congress with ideologues to carry on his movement. The long term is 3 and 1/2 years from now and Trump is endorsing the likes of Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. This is his last chance to shape the future of his movement.
They don’t even have to revert to form. It’s not Lady G and Cruz who changed. Both are the same worthless cucks and shills for Israel and the entire Globo-Pedo imperium as they have always been. It’s Trump and the Magatards whose supposed position morphed from being against foreign adventures into Neo-Klownery worldwide.
trump is complete and total jeeish bullshit and was from the beginning.
he wasnt some kind of mr. smith goes to washington.
That’s because it is theater and done that way by design. Think rationally for a second here.
Trump used to watch Tucker Carlson in 2017. Now it’s Mark Levin.
Mr. President, you are an idiot! And stop posting on truth social like you are a modern day version of a 1970s Muhammed Ali before a fight. “I must be the greatest President ever!” (LOL)
Vance will have no nationalist agenda? I disagree. He will. An Indian nationalist agenda. He will bring over 10 million of them, at least.
Well I might as well say it, since it is true, and everyone will know it in a few years. The Trump that went uo to Canada and me with PM Carnage is not the same Trump that came back down. They have switched him out. And you know what I mean by “they”. Lutnick is the actual Oresident at this time.
If any of the big platforms allowed as much free speech as You Tube and Twitter did in 2015, this would all be widely known.
The replacement Trump has little time. Vance will soon be President, and he is a radical left wing, Globalist, Technocratic, open borders fanatic.
Even Mike Huckabee is sensing the change in the zeitgeist.
lol.
Einsatzgruppen Huckwaffen was not that far fetched after all. The Boomekorps death squads will save us all. Amen.
The American political system is nothing but corruption and power-seeking. It will solve nothing. It is going to take historical or natural events of a monumental scale to change anything.
Oh yeah, that’s some bleak right there. But the democrats are such insufferable corrupt trash and having them run anything would be an unmitigated disaster (believe me, I live in CA) that this regime feels like a vacation. Get off your fondle slabs 3 second attention span America, an IRA-like party is the answer and not more silly bourgeois communism Dungeons and Dragons. For how Americans complain how things are so tough for them yet they spend all their time and money on frivolous nonsense. (Degenerate gamblimng is a big one that comes to mind).
Trump is just a delay for the worst to come.
No one really ever helped the South from the outside. At least Trump did stop the flow of illegals that Biden unleashed on us but as soon as the Dems get control it will be “borders are racist” again and the “flood” of those deported will seep back in quickly.
The North robbed us, invaded and made us a captive consumer market for their manufactured goods only plus their required high tariffs. England refused to help us to get away from the North. France refused to help us b/c England refused to help us. What’s new?
Since the South appears to seem to favor going down when this Yankee Empire goes down If there is another outbreak of war in the South I do hope that the South will be ready locally because no one else is going to help us.
We need to be like the Ukrainians and use drone warfare, 3D printers to print drone parts, get all the other drone parts stockpiled, specialty cameras, etc necessary for assembling locally, signal jamming (offensively/defensively), fiber optic cable drone options for precision no-signal-jamming hits. Each Southern county/parish/etc needs a defensive/offensive drone unit for aerial surveillance and protection for their territory. Signal jamming might be so bad we will have to use drones like carrier pigeons to communicate county to county.
South needs to help themselves and rely on God for what they can’t do.
May God Save the South!
The big question is do you think any of this is by accident because Trump is just an emotional buffoon or is this all just theater? I think at this point, if you don’t understand that this is theater, then you must have missed something. And the only way to win is not to play because all you’re going to do is give your stamp of approval for them to make the rope which the “next” administration will hang you with. And you already know that the system will blame the fallout of Trump’s decisions on his base for electing such an evil person. Trumpers will have to be punished. This is how the whole thing works. Wake up.
I think Trump is extremely talented at campaigning and fighting his way to power, but governing is a different story. We saw this in the first term where the electrifying 2016 campaign was followed by his underwhelming presidency. He is not an ideologue. He is content to be in power. He is settling into the office, getting comfortable, drifting and wasting time like in his first term.
I don’t think it is just theater. This is authoritarianism in practice. The great leader surrounds himself with a court of lackeys and cronies. Most authoritarian leaders have no real vision beyond their own comfort and glorification. Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize and to be on Mount Rushmore. Most authoritarian regimes are corrupt. Look at North Korea where everyone has to kiss Kim Jong Un’s ass and pretend he walks on water and is the greatest at everything. The same is true of Trump’s Plan Trusters. Trump has a cult of personality. There has never been a “plan.”