MAGA Trumpism is Failing. Here are Ten Examples.
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The first year of Trump’s second term did not wind up as it had started. Early in 2025, the White House launched a blitz that attacked and traumatized the nation. It illegally froze billions in federal funds. It rounded up immigrants, labeling them all gang members, and rendered them to a torture prison in El Salvador, defying a court order to turn the planes around. Brutal ICE raids began on immigrant communities. Trump’s tariffs on our major trading partners, and later all the world, sent markets reeling and manufacturers and importers scrambling. There were mass layoffs of federal workers. He leaned on the TV networks to cancel his biggest critics. He caused America to turn its back on our allies, even threatening some with invasion, while rolling out the carpet for Russia. The White House even declared birthright citizenship invalid.
That’s an incomplete list, but you get the picture.
Today, on this last day of 2025, that picture is vastly changed. Opponents have struck back at every level. Blue state governors and attorneys general, along with valiant civil rights organizations, sued to block the regime on each of its egregiously illegal actions. Whistleblowers stepped forward, while brave career civil servants resigned rather than obey. Consumers revolted against the kowtowing media companies. Protesters filled the streets and town squares in No Kings rallies. Ordinary people became citizen journalists, documenting and stymying the Department of Homeland Security in its ethnic cleansing program. And voters turned out in special and general elections to punish the President’s party for abandoning democratic values and its own constituents.
There are a lot of feels here, admittedly. But feels aren’t facts. So today I want to discuss ten specific ways MAGA Trumpism is failing. I won’t delve deep into the details; that would turn this piece into a tome. And I don’t want to minimize the harm the regime has caused so many or the threats that still lurk. Instead, I want to show how some of the worst of what they threw at us in 2025 is in many ways behind us, with the White House and the GOP now on the defensive, thanks to the hard work of many.
So let’s throw a very flat stone and skip it across the 2025 pond. In no particular order, here are ten reasons to be hopeful at this year’s end.
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