Sorry, Trump isn’t a lame duck (yet)

The last few weeks have not been very kind to Donald Trump and the Republican Party — and Democrats are jubilant.

It began when the party trounced the GOP in last month’s elections. The president’s approval ratings are collapsing fast, with the most recent Gallup poll showing only 36% of Americans approve of his job as president, a five point decline since the last poll was taken in October and an historic low for his second term. According to the survey, 60% disapprove. Trump is underwater on nearly every major issue, including the economy, inflation, Ukraine, the Middle East and Venezuela, as well as his mass deportation of immigrants and his threats to deploy military forces in Democratic-led cities.

The last time Trump was this unpopular was at the end of his first term, when his followers overran the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and his approval rating stood at 34%. If these current trends continue, Democrats will be on track to retake both the House and the Senate in the 2026 midterms.

The Epstein scandal continues to grow. In more bad news for Trump, congressional Republicans voted to release thousands of emails and other potentially damaging documents related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Trump, who had opposed the legislation, was forced to relent and support it. This reflects a broader trend: Congressional Republicans are increasingly breaking ranks with Trump and publicly disagreeing with, if not outright defying, him.

As Bill Kristol recently told Tim Miller on “The Bulwark” podcast, “There’s some signs of cracks. And what we’re seeing in Congress is that fear of Trump is starting to turn into a loathing of him.”

Reality-denying conspiracist and former super-MAGA loyalist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia recently announced she is retiring from Congress. Rumor has it that other Republican politicians will follow her lead and not seek reelection because of a desire to distance themselves from Trump.

These events have led many Democrats and prominent commentators to declare that one year into his second term as president, Trump is now a lame duck. “The MAGA coalition shows signs of cracking,” Heather Cox Richardson recently wrote. “Something fundamental has shifted,” the American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner argued.

They’re right. Something does increasingly appear to be off with Donald Trump. He resembles a prizefighter doubled over from a gut punch — staggering, grabbing the ropes, looking to the referee for help. But I am deeply worried that, being eager for change, we are jumping to inaccurate and shortsighted conclusions about Trump and the GOP. If such hopes do not come true — MAGA is not falling apart, and if he regains some semblance of control — we risk being left in a far worse place emotionally and politically than when we started.

Here’s the inconvenient political truth: Donald Trump is far from a lame duck, and the future of American democracy and society is far from certain.

The original definition of “lame duck” describes a weakened politician or other leader rendered increasingly irrelevant by their party and the public because they are in the final months of their time in office. In all likelihood, Trump will be president for at least three more years.

The very use of the term also reflects a dangerous normalcy bias, one that ignores how far the country has slid toward autocracy and authoritarianism. Trump and today’s Republican Party and broader right-wing do not care about real democracy and the will of the people. They are anti-majoritarian and will use a range of means to stay in power. After Trump’s attempts to stay in office following the 2020 election, the ballot box and the vote are no longer — to the degree they ever were — the final check and balance in America against absolute power. 

Even if America were a healthy democracy, the conclusion that Trump is now a lame duck would still be greatly premature because it is a function of recency bias, or the tendency to give greater weight to recent events.

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Political scientists and other experts use measures such as legislative activity and successes, speech patterns and language, elected representatives’ voting patterns and whether an executive is successful in advancing their agenda to determine lame duck status. Based on these factors, much more data and time is needed to issue a definitive verdict about Trump’s power and the trajectory of his presidency.

Trump has not yet publicly retaliated against Republican leaders he deems “disloyal.” Based on previous examples involving Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who dared to cross Trump, once the president targets Republican officials, they will quickly fall back into line and obsequiously obey.

As for the supposedly growing fissures and a civil war inside Trump World and the GOP these are mostly disagreements about personalities and power. The ultimate goal of ending America’s multiracial democracy and replacing it with a form of White Christian authoritarian plutocracy is not in real dispute. 

Put differently, the American right isn’t debating whether to cook American democracy, but how to do so — if it should be steamed, boiled, barbecued or fried. One would be wise to know the difference and not get confused.

Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, also has also warned that far from being a lame duck, Trump “doesn’t care who he burns” as he tears down the country to stay in power. “I don’t think he has any motivation right now other than arson and chaos,” Wilson told MSNOW’s Ali Velshi last week. “He’s not a guy who has ever looked at this and said, ‘I want a legacy of dignity. I want to be considered a great and meaningful president.’ He just wants to be the center of it all. And if he can’t be, I predict he’s going to be more chaotic and much more dangerous.”

Before embracing the lame duck narrative, we should instead be asking two simple questions.

First, we should ask the people who have lost their jobs and income because of Trump’s policies — or whose family members or neighbors have been deported or disappeared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — whether he feels like a lame duck to them.

Second, we should survey the damage inflicted by Trump and his allies on the country in just one year. Are these the actions of a lame duck, or of a leader who continues to wield great power?

We cannot underestimate Donald Trump. Even if he is a supposed lame duck, he remains profoundly dangerous. The Trumpocene is not going to end any time soon. Far better to accept this reality and plan accordingly — and hopefully be pleasantly surprised — than to be beguiled by the comforting narrative that Trump and his MAGA coalition are falling apart.