Alan Zendell, March 22, 2026

Donald Trump’s greatest weakness and vulnerability may be the way he oversimplifies things. We all do it at times, but Trump seems to stop there. He doesn’t have the attention span to get into the weeds and details. The fact that he constantly contradicts himself makes it appear that either he never actually considers details until they come out of his mouth or he does it deliberately because he thinks it makes him unpredictable. Either way, in his desperation to look strong and maintain his power, there’s little or no substance behind his bluster, insults, and threats.

Trump loves to put on a big show. He urgently needs to project a greater-than-life image of himself. He never suggests reforms or moderate changes. Everything he does has to make a big splash to satisfy his ego, like knocking down the East Wing of the White House or shuttering Kennedy Center to avoid the embarrassment of people simply not buying tickets to protest Trump’s takeover.

Consider Project 2025, which history will view either as a bold attempt to completely remake America into a Fascist oligarchy or a classic case of far-right overreach that failed just as previous attempts have. Think big. Create a massive federal secret police force that follows its own rules and ignores the Constitution. Remove millions of alleged murderous and rapacious illegal immigrants from our nation. Pursue the most extreme possible gerrymandering to rig the midterm elections. Throw around America’s military might at the whims of a totally deranged narcissist. How’s all that working out, Donald?

Allowing an unfettered ICE to run wild creating havoc in America’s cities removed more than a half-million undocumented immigrants from our country in 2025. But at what cost? Aside from the injuries and deaths of innocent American citizens at ICE’s hands, the policy horrified most Americans and left Trump’s approval rating severely underwater.

His attempts to steal Congressional seats in red states while claiming similar actions by blue states were illegal collapsed in the courts, leaving the Democrats with what pollsters predict will be at least a two-seat gain in the House. Worse, for MAGA Republicans, their over-generalized analysis was based on the assumption that Trump would retain the support he received from Hispanic voters in 2024. Recent polling and special elections in Texas, for example, show that support badly eroded, with the likely outcome that Texas’ gerrymandering will have far less impact than Trump hoped.

Trump’s war of choice with Iran shows a similar lack of detailed planning with the likelihood of unpleasant outcomes increasing daily. Trump’s expectation that our militarily might would so intimidate Iran’s leaders that they would come crawling back to the negotiating table were nothing more than a fever dream. People who truly understood the issues in the Middle East knew the war would not go as Trump hoped. They understood that no matter how many (non-nuclear) bombs we dropped on Iran, it would retain the ability to throw the entire world economy into chaos, and with the near-suicidal dedication of the Ayatollahs’ hatred for the west means there would be no surrender any time soon. Trump’s need to take full credit for everything combined with his compulsion to constantly surprise everyone alienated us even further from the alliances which have kept us safe since World War 2.

So here we are, seven months out from the midterm elections involved in a catastrophically costly military venture that is slowly spinning out of control and having exactly the reverse effect Trump expected it would on world opinion. Far from creating worldwide awe over American military power and sophistication, (the world was already aware if it,) the war has diminished us in the eyes of our allies while enriching Russia which was struggling to pay for its war in Ukraine.

In a desperate attempt to save his Congressional majority in November, Trump and his friends at the Heritage Society trotted out the Save America Act, which will require every voter to produce both a photo ID and proof of citizenship. That sounds almost reasonable until you drill down into the realities. In order to pass it, the Republicans will have to kill the filibuster, but John Thune and the other senior Republican Senators won’t do that. They understand that what goes around comes around, and even if they passed the bill and Trump signed it, it’s highly likely that the Supreme Courts would find that it violates Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution.

But suppose MAGA somehow overcomes those obstacles and passes the Save America Act. Who will really benefit from it? Proof of citizenship requires either a birth certificate or passport. Do you have ready access to either? Do your friends and family members? And more to the point, are people in red states more likely to have either than people in blue states? Draw your own conclusions, but I’m convinced that this is another example of overgeneralizing without understanding the details. I hate the idea of the Save America Act – it’s nothing if not unAmerican – but if it passes, I’m confident it will hurt MAGA voters far more than Democrats.