What If Trump Is Weaker Than We Think—and America’s Finally Figuring It Out?

The strongman act is cracking, but as the cops, the crowds, and even the cult start to walk away, is this finally the moment his empire begins to fall?

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.”
—Edward R. Murrow

Kids and cops got tear-gassed in Chicago, a judge is holding ICE/CPB officials to account, Americans are horrified by the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, and even UFC fighters are starting to turn away from Trump.

What’s going on? Is he really as strong as he appears to think?

In 1999, I was working in a remote part of rural Russia for a German-based international relief agency; we were building housing and trying to teach peasant agricultural methods to people who’d only ever known massive, collective factory farms. I was staying in the home of a family of four with two young children; Dad was Russian and Mom — her name was Olga — was from East Germany, although she’d grown up watching West German TV.

The night before the first open and fair election in Russia’s entire history, we were watching Russian TV news and eating dinner in the midst of a huge snowstorm when a wild-eyed fellow came on the screen. He was giving some sort of speech, and his face was twisted with a kaleidoscope of extreme emotions. He pounded his fist and shook his finger at the camera, then became soft and soothing in his voice, then began shouting again.

He was followed by a news anchorwoman, sitting behind a desk, making commentary with a solemn expression. Olga suddenly broke out in laughter, although her husband’s face was serious, if not confused.

“What’s that about?” I asked Olga. (My German is pretty good, but not my Russian.)

“Vladimir Zhirinovsy [the extreme right-wing candidate],” she said in German. “He’s a candidate in tomorrow’s election, and he says that everybody who votes for him will get a liter of vodka and a turkey after the election. The news lady is wondering where he’ll get all the turkeys.”

“People fall for that?” I said.

She nodded. “Remember, Russia has been here nearly a thousand years. And this is the first democratic election ever. Ever! People have no idea what to do, how to do it, or what to believe. And he doesn’t really care what he promises; if he gets elected he’ll do whatever he pleases.”

Donald Trump seems to be bringing Zhirinovsky’s political strategy to America.

He made a simple, straightforward deal with his supporters. It included elected Republicans and his base voters, and was elegant in its simplicity.

He promised that he’d make life miserable for Blacks, Hispanics, women, queer people, academics, and people living in big cities. The deal was first offered when he came down the infamous escalator in 2015, and repeated in rally after rally, campaign commercial after campaign commercial, for the past decade.

He also promised to make life better for his white male base, saying he’d “end inflation on day one,” “make America affordable again,” “slash energy and electricity prices by half within 12 months,” “unleash American energy,” and “get prices down” on “groceries, cars, everything.”

In exchange, he asked them to let him steal as much as he could from the public treasury, get away with past and present crimes, ignore his marital infidelities, and look away from his associations with child rapists, his Miss Teen USA Pageant, and Jeffrey Epstein.

His loyal followers did their part. They ignored his payoffs to a porn star and a Playboy bunny, his bragging about sexually assaulting women, his adjudication as a rapist, his 34 convictions for stealing the 2016 presidential election by fraud, his hustling made-in-China campaign swag, and even the hundreds of millions he and his third wife made selling them nearly worthless digital tokens.

Loyal preachers and even business leaders groveled before him, basking in the glow of his base’s love. Apple’s Tim Cook embarrassed himself and his company by slobbering over Trump as he handed him a chunk of 24 karat gold. Thirteen billionaires in his cabinet simpered when the cameras came on, repeatedly and pathetically reassuring Donald of his brilliance and nobility.

Mike Johnson engineered a coverup of Trump’s association with Jeffery Epstein, and Republicans averted their eyes as Ghislaine Maxwell was moved from a real prison to a Club Fed where she lives in an unlocked dormitory and can entertain herself with tennis and puppy-training.

They disregarded his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, his placing his own personal lawyers in charge of justice in America, and his subsequent weaponization of the Justice Department against their own former lifelong Republican peers.

Now they’re defending his defilement of the White House, his depraved sons taking billions from foreign governments, and his betrayal of Ukraine in his never-ending deference to Vladimir Putin.

Republican politicians who for years warned about “jackbooted thugs” as they waved “Don’t Tread On Me” flags are suddenly fine with masked secret police openly and brutally beating American citizens as they build a massive network of concentration camps across the country.

It’s been a good run and a great grift. But scams like this — even well-engineered ones with the power of a corrupted government behind them — usually don’t last.

Nixon went down in flames, and his attorney general went to prison. Warren Harding’s health was destroyed, many biographers claim, by his association with Teapot Dome. Bill Clinton lost his law license and was impeached for his lies about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Now, it appears, it’s Donald Trump’s turn to pay the price for his cozenage. Although all but a small handful of elected Republicans don’t yet seem to realize it, Trump is losing his grip.

Four Republicans in the House of Representatives are demanding to know the details of his association with child rapists. Five Republican senators yesterday voted to block his illegal and unconstitutional tariffs against Brazil.

Several Republican senators have voiced concerns about his illegal murder of “drug traffickers” in the Caribbean. The public is aghast at his destruction of the historic “people’s” White House.

His approval in every category is underwater. Seven million or more people poured into the streets two weeks ago to defy him. His ICE and CPB thugs are pursued by citizens with whistles and apps to identify their locations.

Instead of fixing inflation, his tariffs have caused it to take off again. Instead of increasing employment, jobs are increasingly hard to find.

Instead of making groceries and housing more affordable, Trump’s policies have made things worse.

Instead of cutting energy prices, his killing off Biden’s green energy projects in exchange for fossil fuel campaign money is jacking electricity prices sky-high nationwide.

About the only thing holding up so far is the stock market, and most of that is being driven by an AI boom (which may be a bubble) that started under Biden; 21 states are in or near full-blown recession now as a result of Trump’s tariffs.

Republican politicians openly worry about the 2026 elections as they desperately try to rig them with outrageous and transparently corrupt gerrymanders and widespread voter suppression, mostly by voter roll purges in Red states.

Meanwhile, America’s allies around the world are recoiling from Trump’s embrace of Putin and Netanyahu, his betrayal of Ukraine, and his saber-rattling against Venezuela. His misguided tariff policies have devastated our relations with our nearest neighbors and traditional partners, while China and Russia play him for a sucker.

Most importantly, the racist, homophobic, misogynistic base Trump made his original deal with — the deal that put him into office twice — is turning away from him, disillusioned.

His “get the brown people” deportation scheme is wreaking havoc with the economy, devastating farmers and low-wage industries, and causing even the most hateful racists to admit he’s shooting America in the foot.

The LA Times, owned by a Trump-humping billionaire, is even pointing out that Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, and podcasters like Andrew Schultz have “caught the scent of blood in the water” and are turning against him.

Even MAGA Republicans in the US Senate turned against Trump’s most recent nominee, Paul Ingrassia, because of his pro-Nazi postings.

How long can Trump hold things together?

That’ll mostly depend on what happens with the larger economy. If prices continue to rise, employment stays paralyzed, and Republicans do nothing about healthcare and housing costs, there’ll be a huge reckoning in November, 2026.

Similarly, if the media continues to desert him over corruption and foreign policy, and even deals like Don Jr.’s spiffing Fox’s primetime host Laura Ingraham fail to hang onto network loyalty, his fall could be spectacular. No matter how many networks David Ellison buys, he and Rupert/Lachlan won’t be able to cover up the wreckage.

America is not Russia or Hungary; both were ruled by dictators for millennia while we’ve practiced democracy for 250 years. Most of us believe in it. We want it to continue.

Sophocles famously said, “Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.” Trump thought he could invert that, but three thousand years of history taught us that the truth generally triumphs over lies and corruption.

It’s just a matter of time.

Louise’s Daily Song: “What if Trump is Weaker Than We Think?”

The song that was inspired by this article is here.
My reading this article as an audio podcast is here.
My newest book, The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink is now available in bookstores nationwide.
You can follow me on Blue Sky here: https://bsky.app/profile/thomhartmann.bsky.social