U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event to sign executive orders related to beef, in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 4, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Over the course of his second term, President Donald Trump has inflicted so much wide-ranging “damage” on the United States that it may be irreversible long into the future. This is according to former congressional senior advisor K. Ward Cummings, who took to Newsweek on Monday to lay bare the scale of Trump’s harm.
“Some experts believe that all the harm Trump has done to the country could be locked in, perhaps, for decades to come,” warns Cummings. “In fact, they think Democrats will need to win control of both houses of Congress during the midterms, and repeat the victory in 2028, while also winning the White House to reverse the damage.” According to Cummings, “This is because much of the harm is intentionally designed to be difficult to reverse. Consider the White House Ballroom. Despite court challenges, construction continues apace. Soon it’ll be complete, and there’ll be little anyone can do about it. We’re also powerless to reverse the billions in Crypto Trump and his family have already collected or the controversial pardons Trump has issued. Even his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein may never be fully known.”
Cummings argues that Trump’s reshaping of government functions will be difficult to correct, writing, “Trump cut hundreds of thousands of employees from the federal workforce, knowing Americans would never tolerate the huge expense of reinstating them. He’s neutered the government’s ability to police his actions, and to enforce regulations. To ensure that this damage endures, he’s actively replacing what he calls a liberal ‘deep state’ in the U.S. government with a very real one, composed of his acolytes.”
Trump’s goal, according to Cummings, has been to take actions that will be too financially and politically costly to overturn. The ballroom, for example, may be an endeavor that proves impossible to reverse. “But others don’t have to be,” asserts Cummings. “Especially if Americans come together to do something about it. If Democrats win the House in November as projected, they’ll undoubtedly hold hearings and conduct investigations, but that may not be enough to undo the damage Trump has already done. Even a narrow victory in the Senate may not be enough.”
The only hope of stopping Trump from inflicting further damage, says Cummings, is a Democratic victory in both chambers of Congress by a significant margin, which will require three things. First, a major turnout by Black voters. Second, ‘disgruntled’ Latino and independent voters who cast for Trump in 2024 need to be brought back into the Democratic fold. And finally, Cummings argues that “Democrat candidates need a message that is greater than mere opposition to Trump.”
After the grim politics of the past decade, writes Cummings, voters “want more than safety, or affordability, or justice — those are things they should expect from their leaders anyway. This time, they want something more: They want the America they believe they deserve. They want a country where if they work hard, and follow the rules, they will have an honest shot at the kind of life their parents and grandparents were able to build. They want to look forward to the future, and know that better days lie ahead. In a word, Americans want to feel hopeful.”
“Of all the crimes Donald Trump has committed while in office — more than the incompetence, the cruelty, the selfishness, or the greed — his worst crime may be robbing Americans of hope,” Cummings concludes. “But November is coming. We can do something about that.”