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Donald Trump is weak and leading the Republican Party into political ruin. He wants us to think he’s more powerful than he is, but his failures have never been more evident.
Let me explain.
I’m an independent journalist who has been covering Trump for over a decade now. I’ve made appearances on MS NOW and CNN, and my work has been cited in The New York Times and The Washington Post. I documented every day of Trump’s first term and was among the first to cover Project 2025 back in 2023. Now, I run a best-selling Substack publication called Ahmed Baba News.
It’s been a while since I did a dedicated video on Trump’s political weakness. And let’s just say, things have gotten worse for him and the Republican Party.
Annualized inflation just hit 4.2% for the first time in over 3 years. It was about 3% when Trump took office. And now, President Trump is bogged down in a costly, unpopular war that has resulted in a more extreme Iran that has realized the full extent of the leverage it has over the global economy. With the Strait of Hormuz still closed, energy prices remain high, as everything from fuel to fertilizer causes direct hits to the pocketbooks of Americans.
Meanwhile, Trump’s authoritarian overreach has also backfired. His ICE raids have resulted in the separation of countless migrant families and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Trump’s grifts have taken center stage as he uses the White House as just another asset on the Trump family balance sheet. Whether it’s Trump himself making 3,700 stock trades in Q1 of this year, including in companies that benefit from his moves, or insiders using the Iran War as a pump and dump scheme, Americans see through it. This is why Trump is a historically unpopular president.
When you look at Trump’s approval ratings over time, you see the story of a president burning through his political capital at a rapid pace.
Take a look at his polling averages in The New York Times. You can literally see the story of his descent. As the early months went on, the story of Trump’s second term quickly shifted from a wannabe authoritarian consolidating power into a lame duck president whose toxicity led to a politically ruined Republican Party and a revitalized opposition.
Trump started off his term with a surprising amount of support, with Americans seemingly believing his campaign promises. It becomes clear, pretty quickly though, that he was lying about reducing costs, lying about his ties to Project 2025, lying about wanting to release the Epstein files, and lying about no new wars.
Trump immediately hired multiple authors and contributors to Project 2025, including one of its main architects, Russell Vought. Trump then unleashed the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, to gut the federal government.
As someone with a deep knowledge of Project 2025, I saw in real-time how he was botching its implementation by moving with a ferocious incompetence and triggering a cascade of court losses. My article at the 10-day mark of Trump’s second term was literally titled: “Trump’s Incompetent Overreach Is Already Backfiring.”
It was clear to me from the start where all this was headed.
You can see during the months of February and March, Trump’s political fortunes change pretty quickly as Americans watch Trump and his cronies enrich themselves as he unleashes tariffs that unilaterally raise prices on the American people.
Then comes the Big Beautiful Bill, which is the largest legislative wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in American history. Trump’s refusal to release the Epstein files resulted in real fractures in his base, which worsened into the fall as right-wing figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene defected from the President and the House forced a vote to release the files. Then, we have the ultimate betrayal of Trump’s “no new wars” promise as we entered 2026, and the bottom really fell out, with multiple polls having Trump’s approval in the mid-30s.
Underneath Trump’s terrible approval numbers, you see what’s driving it. Trump is underwater on all key issues.
Harry Enten at CNN this week found Trump’s net approval rating on inflation is negative 50 points in at least 8 polls this year. Trump also has an 80% disapproval rating on gas prices.
Now I know what the pushback to this often is. That Trump remains popular with MAGA Republicans. But that is an increasingly shrinking subset of people. I’ve been laying out this case forcefully.
In an appearance on MS NOW’s The Weekend Primetime last month, I pointed out that Trump keeps touting 100% support among MAGA Republicans but that same NBC poll previously found that the number of Republicans who identify as MAGA is dropping. It fell seven points to 50% of Republicans. So, Trump has consolidated total control of a base that is actively contracting. Congratulations, Donald. You have 100% of a shrinking pie.
Trump’s unpopularity has resulted in seismic shifts not only in the November 2025 elections, but in special elections across the country. Now, as we head to the midterms, Democrats lead Republicans in the generic ballot, with the House likely to flip and the Senate realistically in play.
So, we’ve established that Trump is incredibly unpopular, and it’s weighing down Republicans. You might be thinking, why does this matter?
It matters because anyone with an understanding of history knows that authoritarians cannot consolidate power with this level of unpopularity. This is something historians like Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Heather Cox Richardson have often talked about. When you overreach before you’ve taken over all the institutions necessary to maintain control, you will lose the people, and lose power. Look at Viktor Orban in Hungary.
And as I’ve reported, when it comes to Trump’s clear attempts to lay the groundwork to interfere in the midterm elections, those efforts have no basis in law or fact. They will be struck down just like they were in 2020. Also, when it comes to redistricting, Republicans can redraw districts all they want, but if all demographics are increasingly opposing you, you’re just reconfiguring your demise.
These gerrymandering efforts will only give them a handful of seats this year, and will not save Republicans in the midterms. In 2028, it will have a larger impact, but again, Trump and Republicans are so unpopular, and have lost so much ground with the Latino voters many of these redrawn maps rely on, they could end up diluting more of their districts than they anticipate. While this is a historic assault on Black political power, as I’ve reported before, many of their efforts could backfire.
How this all plays out moving forward is up to how the pro-democracy coalition organizes. But overall, I remain hopeful that the vast majority of American people have woken up to the most self-serving, corrupt president in American history. Trump is not invincible. He never was. The numbers prove it.
If you liked this video, smash that like button, follow me, and share. And I hope you consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to Ahmed Baba News. With right-wing consolidation of mainstream media accelerating, independent media is more important than ever. Thank you for watching. See you around.
