Alan Zendell, February 27, 2025

As long ago as the Reagan administrations, Republicans have argued that tax cuts and deregulation of the private sector would ultimately bring prosperity for all Americans. The last forty-five years, however, have shown that the trickle-down theory of economics never came close to delivering on that promise, and the primary beneficiaries of that theory were billionaires who became far wealthier than they were before, while the income gap between them and other Americans grew massively. Most of that wealth growth came at the expense of the other American taxpayers, who could ill afford it.

James Carville, the most astute political commentator Democrats have, understands that. He noted in a February 25^th New York Times Op-Ed, that the things Trump’s first administration will be remembered for are massive tax cuts that added $2 trillion to our national debt, over 80% of which benefitted the wealthiest Americans; 500 miles of border wall; and a wrong-headed approach to COVID that sacrificed over a half-million American lives to fight against the lockdown that broke the back of the pandemic. That sacrifice was a vain attempt to protect corporate profits.

Carville noted that Trump is great at making promises to the disaffected, who then go out and vote for him. But when it comes to governing, in Carville’s words, Republicans suck. He said George H. W. Bush was so out of touch with how most Americans saw the economy, it cost him re-election. His son, George W. Bush, reacted to nine-eleven by getting us involved in a nearly twenty-year-long war in Iraq and Afghanistan, while sucking up to the Saudi regime that produced the nine-eleven terrorists. And Trump left our economy in a shambles that resulted in the awful inflation inherited by the Biden administration.

Carville also notes that as the second Trump administration attempts to blitz the opposition into submission and re-write our Constitution, Democrats have no clear leader and no legitimate way to slow down the Trump juggernaut. His advice is to not even try. He thinks Democrats should “play dead.” Try to fight back and you’ll look disorganized and inept. Trump holds all the political leverage right now.

There’s a chance the courts will stop Trump from committing some of the worst mayhem he’s attempting. Lower courts have slowed or stopped the implementation of the most obviously illegal and unconstitutional of Trump’s Executive Orders, but appellate courts may take a more conservative stance. Mitch McConnell finally realizes his legacy requires him to speak out against Trump’s policies, though he spent the last decade enabling all this, stacking those courts with right-wing judges. Too little too late? McConnell’s past actions could be what enables Trump to destroy our federal government.

Some look to the Supreme Court and its six to three conservative majority which includes the three justices Trump appointed to reverse Roe v. Wade. They place their faith in Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts to keep the court on a relatively nonpartisan path, but his action yesterday, allowing the decimation of USAID to continue, makes that look unlikely. Having eliminated every other way to combat Trump’s power grab, Carville looks to the voters to solve this mess.

The process of voter disaffection is already underway. Trump began this term with an approval rating of more than 50% for the first time in his political career, but in five weeks, his approval rating is back where it used to hover, around 43%. The drop seems based on fears that his promises on inflation were lies and that his Cabinet picks seem based on pledged loyalty to the president with little regard to qualifications or past accomplishments, and especially the illegal role given to Elon Musk.

Carville sees the alienation of Trump voters growing quickly and crashing his approval rating back into the thirties, where it sat for the last year of Trump’s first term. He suggested that could happen by the end of March, but almost surely by the end of April, citing massive federal job cuts and reductions in federal spending that must result in large private sector job losses. Voters will soon feel the inflationary impact of Trump’s tariffs, which will hurt red states, where the bulk of Trump’s support lives, most.

A few months of this, and Trump’s plummeting approval ratings will cost him his majorities in Congress, as the midterm elections loom. The cowards in Congress who show no inclination to stand up for their oaths still want to be re-elected in 2026. They’ll stab Trump in the back as readily as he turns on them when it suits him.

There’s a governor’s race in November in Virginia. Glenn Youngkind, who was elected in 2021 on an aggressive MAGA platform, cannot run for re-election in 2025 because Virginia’s constitution prohibits anyone from serving two consecutive terms. But Virginia is home to almost 150,000 federal workers who all feel the threat Trump poses. Carville suggests that if the Democrats win in Virginia in November, that will spell the end of Trump’s ability to move his agenda forward.

The good news is that Carville is right a lot more often than he’s wrong.