U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a Team USA reception hosting athletes who competed for Team USA at the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games August 6, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
President Donald Trump is in a kind of last stand where a failure to convince his MAGA base to vote for Republicans will likely push him to become more volatile, according to The iPaper's Jessie Williams.
In a Friday column, Williams explained that Trump's aggressive behavior will grow worse in the last two years of his administration regardless of the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections.
"Increased instability and growing divides in American politics are probable, analysts have said. Trump could intensify restrictive immigration policies, issue controversial pardons and even escalate military action to try to oust regimes in Iran and Cuba that have so far denied him quick foreign policy victories," Williams wrote.
He also warned that Trump could challenge election rules and use talk of an unconstitutional third term to dominate the 2028 succession fight.
“[Trump] is someone who increasingly is showing signs of completely being unfettered in the way in which he approaches politics, life, business, corruption — a whole variety of different things,” Professor David Dunn, at the University of Birmingham, told Williams.
While Democrats are expected to take back the House in November, the Senate is up in the air.
There is a concern that Trump is already laying the groundwork to meddle in the elections and that his Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act is part of that. After the legislation didn't pass, Trump crafted his own version through an executive order. It is being fought in court and isn't expected to survive. Still, Trump is trying to use his authority over the U.S. Post Office to restrict mail-in voting and even threatened to withdraw federal funding from states that refuse to cooperate with his demands.
If Democrats continue to win in 2028, Trump could escalate more in his final months with another Jan. 6-style event.
The disruption “may even take the form of him instructing people in Congress not even to sit, not to accept the result. You may have a constitutional crisis,” Dunn cautioned.
Dunn also thinks that due to some of the redistricting battles and Trump's involvement in GOP primaries, what's left of moderate Republicans will likely be replaced by Trump loyalists. It applies to many states, but especially in Texas races.
"But it means actually both houses of Congress after the midterm elections will be the most pure MAGA Congress in terms of the Republican element of it that we’ve ever had," said Dunn.
It means less opposition to Trump's demands.
“So what we should expect in the post-midterm period is an intensification of the divisions and the strife at the heart of American politics,” Dunn added.
It's the same thing that former Trump administration official Miles Taylor fears will happen in the final two Trump years. He wrote earlier this week that "the worst is yet to come."