U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Turning Point USA event at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., April 17, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
Republicans hoping to salvage what’s left of President Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda or do it without the chaos is a fool's errand, according to a scathing new column.
In what some are calling the effective end of Trump’s presidency, Tuesday’s midterm wipeout handed Democrats control of both chambers of Congress and effectively began the GOP’s scramble for a 2028 presidential candidate. With Trump constitutionally barred from another term, Republicans will need to find a new face to the MAGA legacy.
The New Republic’s Matt Ford predicts the party will be tempted to pitch voters on a cleaner version of Trumpism, one that delivers the movement’s goals without the blunders of Trump’s second term. He argues that such a move is doomed from the start.
“Trump’s mistakes were not a deviation from Trumpism; they were Trumpism,” Ford wrote, continuing: “His political movement is, at its core, based on a rejection of knowledge and expertise. As a result, it is inherently self-destructive.”
He referenced Trump’s first term, when GOP veterans could control his worst instincts to an extent, such as in 2019, when Trump threatened to shut the U.S.-Mexico border to all trade, only to back down after advisers warned of the economic fallout. Ford also mentioned how Trump backed off his tariff war threats back then at the urging of his aides.
He also didn’t follow through on his threat to “obliterate” Iran after they shot down an unmanned U.S. drone after being warned of the economic consequences.
He writes that in his second term, those guardrails were gone, with his Cabinet filled with loyalists who won’t dare challenge him, and Ford argued that the result is the Iran war, which has all the hallmarks of another prolonged Middle Eastern conflict that yields no results, along with oil prices hiking up the cost of living.
Voters who hoped Trump would bring down grocery bills instead got sweeping tariffs that he repeatedly claimed foreign governments would pay, when in reality American businesses and consumers foot the bill.
Ford also wrote that the administration’s biggest wins backfired, pointing to January’s raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. He says the success of the raid caused the Trump administration to underestimate Iran, believing it would be another quick victory.
Ford warned that a Republican presidential hopeful who would eventually campaign on keeping the supposedly good parts of Trumpism without the flaws would be lying to voters: “All of this damage flows naturally from an exaltation of ignorance and the demonization of expertise. They will merely be promising easy solutions to make a quick buck and hoping to outrun the harms they cause.”
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