It was supposed to be quite a wonderful summer for President Donald Trump and MAGA, but instead, commentators are coming to see it all unraveling, a movement no longer able to carry its own weight, one beginning to rot from the center out, and – like anything that ages- unable to return to its former self. Whereas Trump was supposed to be able to take some kind of a victory lap over the Big Beautiful Bill and all those tariff letters, he is now engulfed in one of the largest scandals of either of his administrations (Which says something). The Epstein matter has shaken MAGA to the core, and many red-hats are apparently looking at Trump a little differently now, perhaps more like an aging politician who played them for suckers (And now we see that he has a 37% approval rating as proof). Conservative columnist Matt Lewis and I agree that there are three signs that MAGA is about to implode, with the Epstein matter being only a catalyst to the kindling already littering the floor.
Three maxims point to MAGA’s implosions. First, and most important, Trump is starting to look like a lame duck for the very first time. As the summer heats up, the early work of the administration – the most productive of the term- is done. He now stares ahead, having already cut taxes on the rich, sent undocumented people to Alligator Alcatraz, and not taken over Greenland; there is a sense that the administration has served its purpose and is done. To be sure, the country has to ready itself for the 2026 midterms, but there are open questions as to how many Republican candidates even want Trump campaigning for them. We know that MAGA loses whenever Trump isn’t on the ballot, and a blue wave is expected next year, opening the floodgates for real investigations. The “lame duck” reality is starting to creep into MAGA, made worse by the fact that there’s no clear successor waiting in the wings.
Second, the Epstein matter has exposed Trump’s corrupt nature to the MAGAs themselves, some of whom – because of the “lame duck” thing above – now feel free to go after Trump like they never would have in the past. As Lewis writes:
Then there’s the Epstein connection, which didn’t just put a fresh stink on an already scandal-soaked politician. It found him on the wrong side of a definitive MAGA narrative. It’s one thing to be indicted multiple times; it’s quite another to be entangled in the biggest conspiracy theory of our era.
Yeah.
I am not sure it’s the biggest conspiracy theory of our era, but it is big enough to be sure. It is tragically ironic that a movement born of people who believed that Democrats operated child sex-trafficking rings may die in part because Donald Trump himself engaged in the sex trade. It all comes full circle. Not for nothing, but Trump himself couldn’t have handled this worse. Of course, it’s fair to ask how he could’ve handled it better. Either way, how his supporters can be shocked by all of this is mystifying. It is most certainly a game-changer, though. His supporters may never see him in the same light.
How MAGAs see Trump matters more than ever because the third prong, according to Lewis and my account of the matter, is that Trump simply looks old and sounds tired.
But there’s something else in the air: Trump looks old. We may have grown accustomed to his ALL CAPS rants, but the physical symptoms are harder to normalize — the swollen ankles. The makeup caked awkwardly on his hands.
Ah, yes. The bruising on his hands, covered in makeup, the “cankles” that look more like hamhocks. I never body shame but I will appear to do so in noting that part of Trump’s mystique among his voters is that he transcended normal humanity, Trump was always bigger, smarter, invulnerable – he dodged bullets and yelled “Fight fight fight,” on and on. Fine. But he is president now, he’s a lame duck, he keeps hiding the files in which he’s mentioned, and he looks like a regular, very old man at this point. Indeed, he’s aging quite quickly, something that will happen to a president that age. Ask Joe Biden, who started the presidency in much better shape than Trump has ever been in.
The three “signs” fall nicely into one devastating conclusion. MAGA isn’t any fun anymore, and that fact is an amalgamation of the above three and the most devastating of conclusions. “Owning the libs” energized the masses with nuclear power, and that energy allowed it such that Trump could do anything he wanted, including calling for a coup, so long as he was shocking us liberals, making MAGAs laugh. But there is no shock anymore. There are only attempts to preserve human dignity among Trump’s victims. Liberals aren’t screeching on “X,” no “freaking out,” fewer memes, fewer websites, fewer articles. It is more about just passing time, looking at the calendar, thinking about what we can do to stop the worst abuses at the human level, but not pulling our hair out. We aren’t giving them the satisfaction. And that’s too bad for them because, like any addictive process, it took more and more to get the MAGAs high, more liberal “tears,” until it soon became not worth it (Many of them are older, too, and see some of the charade they once fell for). It is just hard to get all excited about anything “Trump” anymore. He won. He is getting filthy rich and they aren’t. As Trump gets more aggressive in monetizing the office, more of MAGA will see themselves as the real suckers, catfished in the biggest political OnlyFans movement.
I have written about Trump for almost ten years now, and I have been predicting his downfall for a long time. I was wrong then. I am right now.
I know I am right because I have a calendar, I can read, and I have eyes. Trump is becoming a lame duck faster than anyone can imagine, and that’s baked into the calendar (EVEN if Trump wanted a third term, he’s too damned old anyway, the ultimate “term-limit”). I can read the responses on “X” about burying the Epstein files and see the cross-talk and know that this particular scandal is hurting him among the CT-Reds over on the Right, a first. And last, I can see the pictures of his hands, of his ankles, I can see his birthdate, like he’s done all this before and just can’t… well, “get it up” one last time to get over this hump.
MAGA begins to crumble. It would have started happening now anyway. The Epstein matter is a catalyst, the gas on top, but the calendar dictated all this would happen eventually. Wait on the economy. You will not believe how fast Trump will be run out of Washington if the economy begins to fall apart. We have had it pretty good for the last couple of years after the COVID hangover. It is time for things to slow down, and Trump will be the first and biggest victim.
It will be no fun at all, not even for liberals watching Trump take it on an episode of South Park. There will always be the victims to think about, the girls used on Epstein Island, the undocumented who were never heard from again, and those who died due to insufficient healthcare in Medicaid cuts. Etc. Etc. Trump is failing now, and it’s no fun, even for liberals.
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He’s losing because ‘his people’ are hurting, and ‘those others’ aren’t. Worse, they’ve realized that ‘those others are actually themselves after all – specially if they’re not really rich.
And they are suffering while the already rich get incomprehendingly richer.
“Trump was always bigger, smarter, invulnerable – he dodged bullets and yelled “Fight fight fight,” on and on.”
Interesting you mention this but yesterday (very early Saturday am as I’m typing this but should time-stamp as late Friday pm) I was watching a YouTube video–a full video but only about 2 or 3 minutes–that compared the damage done to Evander Holyfield’s ear after Mike Tyson’s “love bite” with the “damage” to Dotard Drumpf’s ear following the “assassination” attempt. And given there was NO indication that Drumpf underwent any kind of “reparative surgery” to his ear (pictures of which show virtually NO difference between pre-shot and post-shot ear) and Drumpf’s behavior after the shot (especially that “fight, fight, fight” bit), the video host (sorry, can’t recall the guy’s name/handle) noted, somewhat humorously, that there had to be some level of set-up involved.
But, yeah. It’s surprising that there’s still not been any in-depth investigation into the Secret Service people’s inability to pull Drumpf back down to the ground–even if they had to punch him out to do so–to avoid any more harm. At the time, they did NOT know if there were other shooters and yet they didn’t seem to be doing too much to get Drumpf under cover and better protected–very much as if Drumpf had scripted the whole endeavor. (The fact that the shooter just so *conveniently* died–almost as if it was designed to keep him from talking–really did NOT help. I’m just surprised the MAGAts didn’t compare this to Oswald’s “convenient” murder while in “protective custody” but, I suppose, since “their” guy survived the assassination, they didn’t consider there might well have been a conspiracy. Especially given the shooter had expressed very PRO-Drumpf attitudes before and, seemingly, felt that Drumpf had “betrayed” the cause–which does tend to happen among cultists.)
Coently wrtten and absolutely spot on but for “You will not believe how fast Trump will be run out of Washington if the economy begins to fall apart.” Not IF but WHEN. No need for tin hats any more but tin cups and back to “Buddy, can you spare a dime?”