Over years and years of covering politics, the last decade of which has been spent covering Donald Trump specifically, I’ve learned you can never really count him out.
It’s been a painful, exhausting, and deeply disappointing lesson, but an important one nonetheless. He keeps on keeping on. The things I find disturbing, revolting, and utterly disqualifying are inexplicably the same exact things that a not small number of Americans find appealing. Racism, incompetence, corruption, to name a few.
The things that would end any other politician’s career for good seem to have the opposite effect on his — instead of diminishing his power they only seem to embolden him. An impeachment, an insurrection, a criminal conviction, to name a few.
It’s been said many times, but the rules — of law, of political gravity, of general decency — just don’t seem to apply to him, and he’s taken extreme advantage of this phenomenon. And moreover, he seems to delight in his invincibility, flaunting the double standards and hypocrisy of one set of rules for him and another for everyone else, almost taunting his opponents to try getting away with what only he can.
So I almost never say what I’m about to say, because I’ve lived this exhausting reality for so long. But it feels like it’s finally true: this might just be the beginning of the end for Trump.
To be clear, this isn’t mere wishful thinking — though, for the good of the country I very much want to be rid of Trump and Trumpism once and for all.
It’s based on the inarguable reality of what we’re all witnessing — the walls are closing in on him.
Let’s take the polls to start.
A brutal new poll from Gallup has Trump’s approval in the gutter — he’s at -24%, down from -1% in January. Only Richard Nixon had a worse approval at this point in his second term, and he never recovered. Many other polls show similar, or even worse news for Trump’s standing among the electorate, where support from independents, Gen Z, and Hispanics has eroded significantly since his reelection. He’s even losing support among his base.
Then, there’s his economy. The signature pitch he made to voters was that he’d end inflation and make housing, energy, and consumer goods more affordable. Thanks to tariffs, DOGE cuts, profligate spending, and incompetence, Trump’s exploded the national debt and deficit, inflation has risen since January, unemployment is also up, consumers are seeing higher, not lower, prices at the grocery store, small businesses are seeing increased costs of operating, and more Americans believe Trump has been worse for the economy, not better.
Then there’s his personnel. Trump has been fending off serious issues of incompetence inside his administration since Day 1. His secretary of defense is being accused of war crimes. His head of the FBI is rumored to be on the chopping block. His attorney general is routinely mocked for her ineffectuality. Scientists from nearly every field of study have called for his head of health and human services to be replaced. His homeland security secretary may be prosecuted for contempt.
Then there’s his party. One-time staunch allies like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace are ignoring his threats and breaking with him on issues of America First, Jeffrey Epstein, and the shutdown. At least five Republicans have announced they are retiring or will not seek reelection. GOP senators ignored Trump’s urging to end the filibuster, and state lawmakers have rejected his redistricting efforts.
Finally, there are his media surrogates. Top MAGA influencers, who mainly reach Trump voters on Youtube and other platforms, are intentionally alienating the normies in the center-right by elevating neo-Nazis, excusing pedophilia, and engaging in some truly bizarre conspiracy theories.
But the biggest red flag that not all is well in Trump world? Trump himself. Monday night, Trump flooded Truth Social with more than 160 posts in five hours — an unhinged mix of high and low, from posting his cameo in “Home Alone 2” to demanding disgraced Colorado election official Tina Peters be released from prison.
It was a disturbing look at someone who’s clearly lost control — of his presidency, of his party, of his messaging. Flooding the zone with utter nonsense to distract us all from his obvious failures is seemingly all he has left.
Again, it’s never wise to declare Trump dead, politically. Somehow he always manages to slither back into a place of power and protection. But this time, with midterms around the corner, it feels different. This time, it feels like it might be the end.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.