Alan Zendell, November 15, 2025

A year ago, the Trump-driven MAGA machine felt indomitable. The threats Trump made during the transition from Biden to his second term screamed of a President who intended to flood the zone with policies that would increase presidential power at the expense of every check and balance in our Constitution. His Cabinet would be filled with people from the Heritage Society, who wrote Project 2025, and loyal sycophants who had sworn to support every crazy thing he did.

MAGA cheered. The anarchists in Qanon, if in fact they exist, and every elected official who ever stood up to Trump or supported his impeachments would be targets of what Trump himself referred to as a revenge tour. It was frighteningly similar to the cult-like response of his followers to his loss to Joe Biden in 2020. The blind loyalty of the thousands of people who participated in or abetted the January 6^th insurrection at the Capitol seemed fully intact as Trump bragged that he would be a dictator on Day 1 of his second term. It was the fervor usually found in lynch mobs, only this time they were coming after our democracy.

To the groups that comprise MAGA, it sounded wonderful. Under Trump’s leadership they would finally reap the rewards they deserved after being suppressed by radical left media, socialists, communists, and generally, everyone Trump hated, which was equivalent to anyone who dared to oppose him. The Kool Aid they drank convinced them that they were all victims, that their failures or lack of wealth, their failed marriages and dysfunctional children were all the fault of Democrats. It was time to get even.

If they couldn’t kill the bastards, at least they could bankrupt and imprison them. And all those nasty countries who, like China have been undermining our wealth and standing in the world – the U. K., Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, and half of Central and South America – would be punished with tariffs that would result in billions of dollars in MAGA supporters’ wallets. Inflation would be vanquished, wars would be ended, and the world’s most dangerous autocrats, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, would bend the knee to King Donald. The delusional in MAGA viewed it as the second coming, a righteous if totally disingenuous Christian revolution. Too bad, it turned out to be Satan eating their souls and converting them into wealth for Trump and his billionaire friends.

Trump’s base has had ten months to see how his promises turned out. The Democratic sweep in the elections, two weeks ago, showed that virtually every Independent who voted for Trump in 2024, and most of the Hispanic voters who thought Trump might improve their lives, have turned against him. Without them, Trump’s base does not command anything close to a majority.

But what about the True Blue MAGAs? They still needed to feed their families and put gas in their cars, especially since Trump has done his best to trash the electric car market (essentially handing it to China) as well as most renewable energy initiatives, like the wind farm off the coast of New England. New England virtually defines the opposition to Trump – it’s consistently blue all the way down to Virginia. His MAGA base, for all their bravado, don’t want to see their sons and daughters caught up in new wars, and even hard core haters have to be cringing at the sight of Palestinian civilians being killed and starved, and Russia, with Trump’s blessing, virtually destroying Ukraine.

MAGA supporters must wonder how far Trump will go if no one stops him from attacking Venezuelan boats and murdering civilians because they’re suspected of smuggling drugs (the same drugs his former mafia friends got rich selling to addicted Americans) without any regard for international law or due process.

Many in Trump’s base have had enough. Congress is showing signs of re-asserting its Constitutional role, and with the growing scandal around the Epstein files, and the specter of a Sodom and Gomorrah-like cesspool of immorality within their ranks, they’re starting to have buyers’ remorse. Thus, former powerful supporters who voted with Trump nearly 100% of the time signed the discharge petition that would force the release of everything the government knows about who was involved in the trafficking of prostitutes and underage girls, some reportedly as young as junior high schoolers.

People like Kentucky’s Thomas Massie and Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene have made it clear that they want the perpetrators revealed and prosecuted, no matter which party they support. Greene asserted that she does not worship Donald Trump, and political observers expect the discharge petition vote, which Trump is frantically attempting to derail, to succeed by a two-to-one margin with over a hundred Republicans defecting.

With the likelihood that the Supreme Court will rule that most of Trump’s tariff decisions were illegal, necessitating the return of all monies collected to the American businesses and individuals who paid them, even Trump’s most loyal followers can see that Emperor Donald is buck naked. Once the bubble of Trump’s invincibility breaks, so will the dominance of MAGA. The threat to our republic is still serious, but the inevitable destruction of our democracy seems far less likely today than it did a few months ago.