The crack in MAGA's armor —and why Americans are turning on Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump upon his arrival to meet Irish President Catherine Connolly at Aras an Uachtarain, in Dublin, Ireland, September 12, 2026. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

Trump’s Maka America Great Again movement has stood as a bulwark against flubs, scandal, mishaps, stagnant paychecks and sky-high inflation.

But now, something appears to have cracked the shell, reports the Atlantic. And everybody is surprised it was not the economy.

“One fundamental truth of politics is that ultimately all voter decisions come down to money. That’s why Dwight Eisenhower blew out Adlai Stevenson in 1956; it’s what James Carville meant when he declared, ‘It’s the economy, stupid,’ in 1992; and it’s the reason that Joe Biden tried in vain to convince Americans that they were doing better than they believed during his presidency,” reports Atlantic staff writer David A. Graham. “This was also why some Democratic politicians and strategists counseled candidates not to place Donald Trump and his scandals at the center of their campaign. Better to focus on ‘kitchen table’ issues, such as inflation and housing costs, they argued.

Economic worries have been a reliable argument for countless midterms, and this one is helped along by President Donald Trump, who has “not only dismissed worries about affordability as a ‘hoax,’ but has also gone out of his way to worsen inflation by launching a war in Iran,” said Graham.

So how are new polls showing corruption having outstripped the economy in Americans’ minds — especially surveys from conservative sources like Fox News.

A Fox News poll found corruption to be voters’ new top issue, edging out health care, inflation, and even gas prices.

CNBC got the same result, said Graham, with voters now more concerned about government corruption than any other issue, including high grocery and gas prices. And the Financial Times had similar findings, he said, with roughly 69 percent of registered voters, and almost 50 percent of those who voted for Trump in 2024, saying they were ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ concerned about ‘corruption, self-dealing or conflicts of interest’ in the Trump White House.

“My colleague Anne Applebaum has been foremost among many observers who have deemed this the most corrupt presidency in U.S. history. Even as the president and his family have made billions from his office, no single story seems to have broken through: no Teapot Dome, no Watergate, not even a Whitewater,” said Graham. “The new polls on corruption, combined with Trump’s steadily declining favorability, suggest that rather than any single news story producing an inflection point — like the swift turn on Joe Biden after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan — voters have just been steadily souring on the president, with corruption as one main reason.”

And there’s plenty of ammunition for somebody gunning for a Republican incumbent to draw from, said Graham. From Trump’s promotion of AI and data centers, his obsession with White House projects funded by shady, hidden donors, to his antagonistic policy toward Ukraine, which Graham and other critics argue is influenced by Russian business ventures. Similarly, Trump’s hugely unpopular Iran war appears “encouraged in part by Middle Eastern allies with whom Trump family members have business relationships,” said Graham.

And if a certain party manages to ride Trump’s corruption train all the way to Congress it would then behoove them to keep the train chugging away with investigations into Trump’s more controversial dealings.

“But a House majority alone would have investigatory power, and could use its reach to delve into Trump-administration actions that threaten both rule of law and voters’ pocketbooks,” said Graham.

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