U.S. President Donald Trump looks towards the demolished East Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump is in a political death spiral as his disastrous Iran war poisons his brand, but don't count him out yet. Writing for The Nation, Sasha Abramsky warns that while GOP lawmakers take "baby steps" away from their unraveling strongman, "his authoritarian ambitions have not yet been corralled."
For the first time in both of his administrations, Trump has lost his stranglehold on the average MAGA voter. It happens as Trump’s favorability rating cratered to the mid-to-low 30s on specific issues.
"Put simply, Trump has overdrawn his political capital by attempting to construct an authoritarian Fortress America. He has turned ICE into a rogue, almost paramilitary, agency but at the cost of his political credibility," wrote Abramsky, citing Venezuela, threats to Greenland and the Panama Canal and now Cuba.
"Strongman leaders don’t necessarily need the stamp of public approval to warp the political system in their image. But they do need to maintain their grip on key constituencies to divide and rule a populace," Abramsky explained.
It prompted her to wonder if this was the beginning of the unraveling not merely of the coalition Trump built for 2024, but of the GOP in its entirety.
A startling New Yorker report by Antonia Hitchens said that young men, once a Trump stronghold, are abandoning their loyalty to the man. Instead, they want a tougher Trump, willing to show off neo-Nazi ideas and the "white nationalist politics of Nick Fuentes and his Groyper movement."
Meanwhile, Trump is facing off against some of his own former allies. Conservative influencers like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson are throwing the conspiracy theories back in Trump's face, particularly as it pertains to the investigation files for trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
At the same time, he has alienated his evangelical base by posting an AI-generated picture of himself as Jesus Christ. Catholics are aghast that Trump started a war of words with Pope Leo XIV.
All of it is prompting Republican lawmakers to take a few "baby steps" away from Trump, Abramsky wrote.
"They understand that Trump’s ability to impose retribution on them is weakening, and, consequently, they are starting to ignore some of Trump’s diktats," she continued.
A good example is the war in Iran, where Republicans have been blocking the war powers resolutions, but as the election nears and his popularity continues to sink, they're not jumping up to support him the way they were. "They have chosen silence, the path of least resistance. In truth, most are simply hoping the problem will disappear," said Abramsky.
She closes by recalling the Thermidorian Reaction of the French Revolution, in which Maximilien Robespierre's sycophants feigned loyalty while plotting his downfall. The prediction is that in Trump world, people like Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rubio and JD Vance will stay silent over the fiasco, prioritizing self-preservation over public defense.
It was less than a year ago when right-wing firebrand Steve Bannon was cracking "jokes" that Trump would remain for a third term. Even those fantasies have vanished. The rats abandoning the sinking ship are now looking for a post-Trump future in politics. It's leaving him further isolated and irreparably damaged.
"The man remains a menace, and his manifest lunacy only compounds the dangers. But Trump has, these past months, inflicted such harm on his own political brand that it’s increasingly likely he is irreparably damaged," Abramsky closed.
