How Trump is setting GOP up 'for defeat' in 2028: conservatives

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as he and Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney (not pictured) meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 7, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Editor’s Note: This story originally misstated Ross Douthat as being "on the extreme right." Read the updated version below.

Although New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and Brooklyn-based blogger/software developer Curtin Yarvin are both on the right, there are major differences between their viewpoints. Douthat is traditional conservative but not far-right, and he is a Donald Trump critic who wants the United States to remain a democratic republic — whereas Yarvin is on the extreme right and openly calls for the U.S. to abandon liberal democracy and move to an authoritarian system."

In his October 7 column, however, Douthat finds some common ground with Yarvin: Both see Trump's second presidency as problematic — although for different reasons.

"It seems that Curtis Yarvin and I agree: The Trump administration is not making the most of its mandate, and it may be setting conservatism up for defeat in 2028," Douthat argues. "Where Yarvin, the great proponent of absolute monarchy, and I differ is on where and why the administration is struggling. I think the Trump White House is leaning too hard into an unpopular form of post-liberalism — deploying Caesarist power on behalf of the president's longstanding obsessions (tariffs!) rather than the issues that actually elected him (inflation!), and turning too forcefully and obsessively against internal enemies while the concerns of swing voters are neglected."

Douthat continues, "Yarvin, predictably, thinks the administration is not being post-liberal enough. In a recent Substack post, he argues that going after specific enemies is a poor substitute for, say, abolishing the entire judicial branch by fiat, and that the only thing lamer than what the Trump administration is doing already would be some sort of desperate pivot to 'bread-and-butter governance.'"

Douthat goes on to examine Trump's influence on U.S. politics, arguing that Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Republican Ronald Reagan were the most influential American presidents of the 20th Century. And he expresses doubts about how much power the MAGA movement will have in the future.

"This is where the Trump administration is obviously falling shorts: It has acted aggressively, but it hasn't persuaded the majority of Americans that those actions mostly serve the general good," Douthat argues. "It has consolidated presidential power, but it hasn't consolidated the potential majority coalition that was within view in 2024. Which means that all those bold actions will be vulnerable, and all those powers could pass to a liberal president in four short years, unless Trump or his would-be heirs can do the work that Yarvin disdains, and persuade more of the public that popular issues and anxieties are actually central to this populist presidency's work."

Ross Douthat's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

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