By Kenneth Tiven
Most Americans understand that the national mid-term Congressional elections on November 3 will help determine whether the United States remains a citizen-led democracy or moves further towards a political system in which right-wing oligarchs exercise extraordinary power and a president accumulates increasingly monarch-like authority.
The world has already had a preview, critics of the Trump administration argue, of what happens when foreign and domestic policies are driven by the right-wing political zealots guiding Donald Trump’s second term as US president: the kidnapping of leaders, the waging of wars, the gunning down of boats at sea, threats against nations with annihilation, arbitrary trade tariffs and the taking of another nation’s oil.
Beyond the MAGA hats—the loyalists who insist that wearing a baseball cap everywhere is a true sign of devotion—an unusual assortment of moderate voters made the difference in Trump’s 2024 victory. Now, just two years later, polling suggests that some of those voters are confronting what they see as the consequences of having believed that the host of a fake reality TV show possessed the leadership capabilities required to run the United States.
They feel it at the grocery store. They feel it when filling the car’s tank, with energy costs and gasoline prices becoming a persistent political issue. They worry about the cost of heating their homes through a cold winter. And, lacking what they regard as an acceptable rationale, they see Trump’s war with Iran as a conflict that has little serious public support and is steadily depleting America’s global reputation—good news, from this perspective, in Beijing and Moscow.
Recent polling bears out at least part of that political concern. A Washington Post poll in July found that about two-thirds of Americans said the war with Iran had not been worth fighting, while only about two in ten wanted military action to continue. By late August, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that just 31 percent supported US military action against Iran. In September, the Washington Post reported that support had fallen to roughly one in four Americans.
The problem, critics say, begins inside Trump’s own administration. His core advisers are portrayed as ideological and unwilling to disagree with the boss. Even if they know better, the argument goes, they will not tell an 80-year-old president who has demonstrated a willingness to fire people for much less.
Sean Spicer is a lifelong Republican operative: relentless, quick-witted and loyal. He built his career working passionately on campaigns, administrations and for the Republican Party before becoming Trump’s first White House spokesman. Spicer realized he wasn’t going to last the term on Day One, when Trump forced him to claim that the inaugural crowd was much bigger than it actually was.
Defections revealed in polling of voters—and the exodus of people from the administration—help explain why Spicer is now more worried about the softer voters: those who pushed Trump to victory in 2024 without ever buying the hat.
The cult was never enough to win, he has argued. The people standing next to the cult were vital.
Senior MAGA hats are now leaving the ship, an admission, according to the argument advanced here, of just how bad 2027 could be if Democrat-controlled Congressional committees mount dozens of investigations into money raised and spent, deals done, the Epstein papers in full, questionable Department of Justice civil-rights behaviour, and acts by President Trump and his administration. Republicans understand that such investigations could produce what one might call a political bloodbath.
Agreement is now coming from some of the diehards who have followed Trump from city to city, sleeping on the pavement outside arenas so they can be the first faces behind him on camera. These people built their lives around him.
Trisha Hope bought an RV and sold a book of Trump’s old tweets to help pay for the gas. Now she calls him a “fraud and a liar”. She says she lost faith after watching him melt down about Epstein at a cabinet meeting, telling Politico’s Playbook that it felt like “a veil lifted, and I saw him for who he was.”
Rick Frazier, a founding Trumper with more than 100 rallies under his belt, isn’t even planning to vote in November. Epstein and the Iran war did it for him. “He promoted himself as a no-war president. That didn’t work out.”
While Trump’s first term became a revolving door, this one is moving faster, with more than two dozen Senate-confirmed officials gone in less than half a term. Previously, Republicans often trashed Trump only after they had safely left office. Now, those running for re-election are five weeks from a mid-term election and are paying attention to their consultants’ internal statistics.
One House Republican told MS NOW: “We’re gonna get crushed. The only question is by how much.” The lawmaker blamed food and gas prices—a polite way, the argument goes, of blaming the president whose war helped push up both. This reporter’s observation is that angry MAGA supporters usually stop just short of blaming Trump by name.
Asked by CNN if anything could turn the situation around, a Trump staffer reportedly gave a blunt answer: “Go back in time and never start the war with Iran.”
Longtime Republican political consultant Frank Luntz offered an even more chilling assessment: “While public polls are horrendous for Republicans, the private ones are worse.”
And a Washington Post poll found support for the Iran war at roughly one in four Americans by September.
Thirty-six House Republicans aren’t running for re-election this year, a figure higher than the usual level of retirements and, according to the argument here, a pattern worth watching because it may indicate who is listening to voters. One political-science expert suggested that Republicans are “staring down the barrel of being a minority party.”
Mike Rogers is a Republican congressman from Michigan seeking a Senate seat, but he has begun distancing himself from Trump’s position on Iran. Michigan presents a particular political problem for Rogers: Trump’s anti-Canada position is potentially damaging in Detroit, which borders Canada and is deeply interconnected with Canadian automotive manufacturing.
Rogers’ opponent is a high-energy Progressive Democrat, Abdul El-Sayed, a medical practitioner with charismatic appeal who presents a sharp contrast to Rogers’ conservative, pro-Trump voting record. Rogers has recently begun saying: “The war with Iran needs to end and end quickly.” His campaign has also tied the war to rising gas prices and the financial strain on Michigan families.
Assuming Republicans lose majority control that has enabled Trump’s domination of Congress, there is a further constitutional and political question: what happens during the transition between the election and the seating of the 120th Congress?
The argument advanced here is that the administration could do everything possible to challenge or overturn unfavourable results, potentially including attempts to interfere with the swearing-in of new members. Creating chaos during the roughly 60-day period before the 120th Congress convenes would be dangerous because a fatal level of confusion within NATO could expose the United States to a wider global confrontation.
Politicians distancing themselves from Trump include those in high-profile races such as Florida’s governor’s contest. Republican Byron Donalds has loudly proclaimed his endorsement of Trump while leaving Congress in the hope of becoming governor in a state filled with elderly Republicans.
Then the very MAGA Donalds suddenly wiped his website clean of Trump’s name and endorsement.
Other candidates around the United States who won primary races with Trump’s endorsement are now behaving as though they have never met him. They have seen the internal polling research.
And then came the student-loan rule. Inexplicably, on the eve of a national election in which younger voters are expected to be an important constituency, the Trump administration has moved to restrict access to federal student loans for students in programmes leading to lower-earning occupations.
The policy takes effect next year and uses earnings and repayment considerations to determine which programmes qualify for particular federal loan limits. Critics argue that the approach effectively declares professions such as social work and other public-service fields less worthy of federal educational support because they do not produce high enough incomes.
The administration’s defenders describe the policy as an accountability measure: students should not be encouraged to take on large amounts of debt for programmes whose graduates have consistently low earnings. Critics counter that the economic value of a profession cannot be measured solely by the salary earned by the individual performing it. Social workers, teachers and health-care workers provide services communities require, even when those services are not highly compensated.
The consequences could be enormous. By the Education Department’s own calculations, more than 8,25,000 students are in programmes that could fail the new test.
The dumbest part, critics argue, is the logic.
Social workers and teachers are often underpaid partly because their salaries are determined by government and public-sector budgets. The government then turns around and penalizes the educational institutions and students preparing people for the very professions government-funded institutions require.
That is not personal accountability; it is short-changing taxpayers through government stupidity.
Nurses, teachers and social workers may make relatively little when starting out, but can experience steady growth later.
The policy also recalls Trump’s own controversial history with higher education. Trump once operated Trump University, which was the subject of fraud lawsuits and ultimately resulted in a $25 million settlement. He has now become the man deciding which college degrees are worth the paper on which they are printed.
It is, critics say, the Trump University business model applied to an entire country: the value of a human being is whatever appears on a W-2, and anyone doing work for reasons other than money is a sucker.
The larger question is not simply how much a social worker, nurse or teacher earns. It is what a society chooses to value.
And critics of this administration argue that the consequences of treating public service purely as an economic calculation could be fatal for America.
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post,
NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels
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