You’d have gone broke betting against the resilience of the Trump phenomenon this past decade. He has survived two impeachments, one insurrection, one plague, one lost election, one incredibly close assassination attempt, several major lawsuits, and the passionate, undying hatred of 40 percent of the country. None of it counted.
He’s had, of course, some very lucky breaks: the mass migration and cultural extremism under Biden, along with the epic fuck-up of Joe’s attempt to stay in power as a near-corpse. But there are some signs that the entire MAGA operation is beginning to fray — as its manic transgressions, dumb overreach, and intensifying contradictions become harder to ignore.
Take immigration. It’s a big success if you look at the border. So why has Trump’s approval on this issue reversed itself almost entirely from 51 percent approval in February to 51 percent disapproval now? Or look at his other signature issue, trade: 56 percent disapprove, up 16 points since February. On inflation — critical to his re-election — over 60 percent now disapprove. On the economy, it’s 58 percent. Only 25 percent of Independents approved of Trump’s performance in an AP poll this week.
However loud the Fox News propaganda, this is not a political success. Trump’s overall disapproval rating took a sharp tick upward as he wantonly demolished the East Wing of the White House, in favor of a massive ballroom in the style of a Gilded Age brothel. Americans oppose it 2 to 1. Last night, after calling Republicans demanding the Epstein files “stupid,” he invited the heads of Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock to a private dinner at the White House. He’s going to Davos next year. Quite the populist.
The visuals are, more and more, less William Jennings Bryan than Marie Antoinette. Trump has been rounding up hard-working illegal migrants at Home Depot and cutting off SNAP benefits for the poor while cavorting with the British royals and hosting a “Great Gatsby” party at Mar-a-Lago. His haughty dismissal of the “Epstein hoax” makes no sense either: if he has nothing to hide, why fight his base and refuse to release all the files? It’s beginning to break MAGA’s brain.
And the problem with a cult movement built on constant transgression of norms, decency, and reality is, of course, that the cray-cray is infectious. When turbo-charged by social media, it’s unstoppable. These are not the 1950s or 1960s, when William F Buckley could simply expel Birchers and Jew-haters from the pages of National Review and polite society. This is 2025, when there are no media guardrails, and polite society is six feet under. And so MAGA is in a hard-to-stop, self-radicalizing loop.
And so we have this dweeby little onanist, Nick Fuentes — a previous dinner guest at Mar-a-Lago, remember — making the world safer for Tucker Carlson’s neo-Nazi turn. We also have the official White House press department sending out memes and posts that are indistinguishable from 4chan white-supremacist slop. We have Kevin Roberts trying to stay relevant by refusing to draw a line between Heritage and Carlson, and old-school Heritage types quitting en masse.
We have Candace Owens claiming to her soaring 3.6 million audience:
Pedophiles are in power. … [M]any of them [were] raped when they were children. It’s not a coincidence that Justin Trudeau is gay, Obama — gay, Zelensky — gay, Emmanuel Macron — gay, and married to a trans man who molested him when he was a child.
We have Laura Loomer and the DOJ going after James Comey’s daughter — a federal prosecutor who handled the Epstein and Maxwell cases — because in authoritarian regimes, you punish the families of dissidents as well. And let’s not forget Trump’s insane pardon machine, which is gutting the rule of law in a frenzy of partisanship and corruption. Many of those freed are already back to committing crimes, including child sexual assault and plotting to murder FBI agents. The woke right, in other words, could do to the GOP what the woke left did to the Dems.
The overreach aspect of the second term is best seen in trade. Trump’s core policy plank — a wave of protectionism — rests on an extremely weak constitutional foundation. With no real legislation — despite having both chambers under GOP control — and a cockamamie far-right theory of executive power, he could see his entire tariff regime collapse if SCOTUS does what it surely must.
His impulsive incoherence is also beginning to take a toll. How does an “America First” foreign policy include $12 billion to facilitate Israel’s razing of Gaza and a promised nation-building exercise there? That’s neocon crack. How does America First square with sending more weapons to Ukraine and a new naval war on Venezuela — with no Congressional authorization? How was bombing Iran’s nuclear program — something neither Obama nor Biden ever did — America First? Why, for that matter, is a president who was elected to take care of the home-front now bragging (ludicrously) of intervening in eight foreign conflicts in eight months? Or sending billions to bail out Argentina?
I could go on. And I will! Why does a “free speech” administration target TV hosts and sue newspapers? Why did it launch an AI surveillance program to monitor foreign students’ speech in order to deport anyone critical of Israel — a foreign country? And what on earth is our policy toward Russia? I can’t make it out — as I discuss with Fiona Hill in this week’s Dishcast.
Even on immigration, Trump has been all over the map. This past week he was telling MAGA that he backs 600,000 visas for Chinese students — compared to the 372,000 peak in 2019–20. How’s that for America First? He’s backtracked on farm workers. He backs H1-B visas — because, he insists, there isn’t enough talent in America. No wonder Marjorie Taylor Greene is pissed off in one direction and Elon Musk in another.
Then there’s the simple and most decisive fact: it is no easier for working-class Americans to make ends meet, many of whom voted for Trump in a sad belief that he could bring back the boom before Covid. Inflation is resilient and ticking up again. The jobs market — in so far as we can tell what’s happening during the shutdown — seems to be weakening fast. Groceries are still very expensive, AI is making everyone nervous, and Trump’s favorite policy, tariffs, is raising prices — as even he conceded to Laura Ingraham this week. There’s a reason the Dems did so well in the elections we just saw.
And Trump’s usual device to get out of trouble — aggressive lying — is finally not working. His dismissal of the jump in the price of groceries as a “con job by the Democrats” provoked the following from MAGA stalwart, Marjorie Taylor Greene:
Gaslighting the people and trying to tell them that prices have come down is not helping. It’s actually infuriating people because people know what they are paying at the grocery store, they know what they’re paying for their kid’s clothes and school supplies. They know what they’re paying for their electricity bills.
Not long ago, no one on the right would have ever used the term “gaslighting” to describe — accurately of course — the blizzard of bullshit that usually comes out of Trump’s mouth. Now, not so much. And if he doesn’t ignore the 22nd Amendment, he’ll soon be quacking lamely in the rearview mirror, leaving a party created and unified by a cult leader … without that cult leader. The GOP that Trump has remade entirely in his own image has an obvious vulnerability: what happens when the Supreme Leader passes from the scene? No one — certainly not JD Vance — will ever match Trump’s cray-cray, brazenness, or talent. No one will be able to put the lid back on.
So political gravity may be returning. And a future beyond this authoritarian madness foreseeable once again. I haven’t written this a lot lately, but I feel myself slightly emboldened this week.
Know hope.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a chat with Fiona Hill about Putin’s war and populism in the West; reader dissents over my jeremiad on Dick Cheney; listener dissents over the pod with Cory Clark on sex differences; eight notable quotes from the week in news, including two Yglesias Awards for principled statements; 20 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break of Chinese folk instruments; a regal window from upstate NY; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a new paid subscriber:
As a left-leaning UK green nerd, I love the honesty and openness of the Dish. One day I’d love a pint and gab with you. I know I’d learn something, and I’m guessing you’d be open to learning from me.
Another writes, “Okay, your send-up of that sonuvabitch Dick Cheney has persuaded me to resubscribe.” And another: “Ok, ok, I came back.”
Back On The Dishcast: Fiona Hill
Fiona was an intel analyst under Bush and Obama, and then served under Trump as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. Currently a senior fellow at Brookings and the chancellor of Durham University, her books include Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin and There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century — which we discussed on the Dishcast in 2022.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on Russia’s imperial war, and a comparison of Putin and Trump. That link also takes you to commentary on recent pods with Cory Clark on sex differences and Charles Murray on religion. We also hear from many readers on Dick Cheney, and a detransitioner shares a heartrending story. I respond throughout.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Mark Halperin on US politics, Michel Paradis on Eisenhower, Shadi Hamid on US power abroad, Jason Willick on trade and conservatism, Vivek Ramaswamy on the right, George Packer on his Orwell-inspired novel, and Arthur Brooks on the science of happiness. As always, please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
Was it really necessary to contrast the substance and style of Dick Cheney with Donald Trump? It’s not just you, but 90% of the media feels compelled to anchor every story with a Trump comparison, whether it makes sense or not.
Cheney can be critiqued on his own merits as a dark Machiavellian figure whose influence as GHWB’s defense secretary and GWB’s VP greatly expanded the footprint of the global American empire. You could have just as easily tied Clinton’s Bosnian adventure or Obama ordering the assassination of US citizens overseas to the tools Cheney left behind. It’s not all about Trump.
No one championed unfettered executive power before Trump more than Cheney.
Read three more dissents here, for paid subscribers. More on the pod page. As always, please keep the dissents coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com. And follow more Dish debate in my Notes feed.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as the shutdown ending, climate progress, and obesity. Below are a couple of examples, followed by a new substack:
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday at 11.59 pm (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month sub if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the VFYW). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. Here’s an entry from last week:
Back in March 2022, you kindly linked to my first book about antique skyscrapers, MultiStories. Imagine my surprise and delight during last week’s contest when I spotted some sleuths sharing stuff from my second book, Highrises Art Deco!
That book is a team effort: stories by me, and stunning skyscraper art by Chris Hytha. They’re not simple photos; Chris shoots a series of high-res images by drone and then stitches them together digitally. The resulting artistic composite is a cross between an architectural rendering and a yearbook photo from skyscraper high school.
In fact, here’s Chris and me in the downtown Kansas City parking lot flying the drone to create the very same Power & Light Building image your reader shared last week! I’m the old guy on the left, spotting, while Chris pilots the drone:
Since last week’s sleuth so kindly recommended our book, we’d love to offer VFYW readers a 20% discount if they want to order a copy of the book here — just use the code “FRIENDS20” at checkout. And our Highrises Collection website is a fun free browse, with 200 buildings from across the USA to sift through and read about.
The resident architecture of the VFYW replied, “Please let Mark Houser know I’ve purchased his skyscraper books and look forward to reading them.”
