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Irreparable damage, Trump's mental health, investing in Texas, and voter suppression
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Trump has done irreparable damage to so much. He has caused major splits in families and friendships that won’t be forgotten or fixed. He has caused a life-altering decrease in funding for healthcare, education, SNAP, Social Security, Medicare, infrastructure, clean affordable energy and so much more. He has murdered American citizens in our streets with his ICE military. His tariffs have destabilized our relationships with our allies. His war on Iran has caused extreme damage in the Middle East and he has murdered thousands including girls at school. The list continues to grow every day. A reckoning may be coming for Republicans as Matt has said but the damage he has done will be an albatross for all of us for decades to come.
(Matt) This is an edited and abbreviated version of a comment on my Monday post where I claimed that the Republicans are in an accelerated death spiral because of their continued support for Donald Trump. This reader makes an important observation, so I’d like to address it here. There is no question that Trump has done immense damage to the country and the world—to our rights and liberties, our economy, our health, our government, and our relationships with other nations. Some of this damage will take years to address. Some of it is irreversible. The suggestion behind this comment is that even if a reckoning is coming for the Republican party, we still have to live with the damage Trump has done.
There is no way to deny this. What I can hopefully offer is perspective. As difficult as it is to admit, Americans chose to go down this path on November 5, 2024. Whether or not voters expected it, Trump is acting the way those of us who warned about him knew he would behave. There was never a doubt after the election that he would cause grave harm. The only questions at that point were how much damage would he do and how much could we prevent.
While Trump’s destructive impulses were inevitable, the harm he is doing to his party was not. Imagine a world where Trump did not impose tariffs and just took credit for the improving economy he inherited from Joe Biden. That would have removed the initial reason why voters turned on him and one of the main drivers of his sustained decline in public support. He would likely be unpopular, but the intensity of opposition to his presidency that’s fueling the development of a blue wave might not have developed so quickly or as strongly.
Instead, Republicans are facing an electorate where voters are enraged and engaged, with no way to defend their role in fueling that anger. Our best outcome after the last presidential election was to ensure the Republican party would be held accountable for the inevitable suffering to come. That appears to be happening, and it’s why we need to continue pushing back against this administration.
I was just reading about a leaked secret draft 17-page executive order that would give Trump unprecedented power to control the midterm elections. The plan is to concoct an “outside interference plot” by China (or some country) that would justify “federalization” of the election. How can we fight this insider extremist plot?
(Chris) The leaked draft executive order you are referring to is a document put together by allies of President Trump that would effectively give Trump total power over our federal elections. PBS has an article discussing the draft order which you can read here.
The White House and Donald Trump both deny any involvement with the draft memo, for whatever that’s worth. They describe it as entirely an outside effort.
Since the memo is unconstitutional on many levels, the one and only thing that would happen as a result of this memo is that it would be quickly blocked in federal court, just as Trump’s earlier executive order on elections was blocked in court. And that would be that.
I have in my possession a full-page New York Times ad from 10/24/24, headed: “A letter from 225 mental health professionals on Trump’s dangerous psychopathology,” with a lot of chilling detail on what that means. How could the democratic voting process elect such a person and not just once, but twice? What might be wrong with our democracy?
(Matt) This is something I have wondered about as well. Although I am not a mental health professional, Trump’s behavior is such that it shouldn’t be difficult for those of us who are not trained in psychology to recognize that something is dangerously wrong. Why, then, did the electorate miss it or overlook it?
Within MAGA, I believe there is a psychological connection between leader and follower that I do not feel qualified to discuss because I am not trained in the behavior of cults. But I can give you a political answer.
Trump’s 2024 coalition consisted of his MAGA base and voters who were dissatisfied with the post-Covid economy. The latter group was unhappy with the status quo, and Trump was their only alternative. Was it reasonable for voters to doubt Trump’s promises about lowering prices considering his history with the truth? Or ask if they really wanted to return to power someone who had fomented an insurrection against the United States? Sure—but voters can overlook a lot when they’re dissatisfied with the incumbent party and want to make a change. And neither Republicans nor Biden or Harris disqualified Trump as an alternative, which gave voters facing this choice permission to support him.
Now MAGA—that’s an entirely different story. And here I will venture out of my lane slightly and speculate that Trump’s pathology is part of his political appeal. Consider what Trump has promised them and what they want. He said he will defend them against dramatic demographic and cultural changes, privileging people who are white, male, straight and Christian at a time when the country is becoming more diverse. This is a reactionary promise that cannot be achieved through regular political means. Countless tens of millions would have to be displaced and disempowered, as we are witnessing now. No “normal” politician would attempt a program like this. At its core, there is a pathological component to MAGA politics that dehumanizes others in pursuit of its goals. It requires a certain kind of politician to carry it out.
I’m on lots of lists for progressive engagement, and the biggest thing that has struck me is how many amazing groups there are doing a lot of the same things. I sign a petition from one organization, which is similar to a petition from another. They each have maybe 1500 signatures. Couldn’t they both get much further and consolidate people’s limited time and attention by uniting and having everyone sign ONE petition?
(Chris) I have received variations on this question for some time, so it seems only fair to address it.
I get that the dizzying array of Democratic and progressive organizations can be confusing and sometimes frustrating, especially when so many of them are doing such similar things. That said, there is simply no way to consolidate them all into a single organization, and it would not be desirable if you could.
For starters, one of the crucial aspects of a free society is that individuals and groups are allowed to form their own political organizations. Second, if every progressive and Democratic organization were consolidated into a single mega-organization, then there would be only a single point of failure for the entire Democratic and progressive space. A free market where they compete against each other is much better. Additionally, I could go on at great length and with real vehemence about the inefficiency that comes with larger organizations. You end up with multiple layers of management and scores of staff who spend their entire work days in Zoom meetings without producing any content at all.
So, I get that the large number of Democratic and progressive organizations is confusing and sometimes annoying, but it is a lot better than the alternative.
I love James Talarico’s message, and I loved reading Matt’s article about how that message can work for any Democrat running for office. But a Politico article written on the same day said, “Interviews with nearly a dozen high-dollar donor advisers and strategists poured cold water on the likelihood that the party would fully commit to the staggering price tag it’d take to finally flip Texas.” Do you think Talarico will get the support from national Democrats that he will need to win?
(Matt) Democrats have engaged in a self-defeating cycle in Texas for a long time. Because Texas is a vast and expensive state, it requires a huge investment to win there. But with the odds of winning exceedingly low—the last time a Democrat won statewide was 1994—the party has made the (not irrational) decision to spend elsewhere, like in the swing states that have determined the last three presidential elections.
This may make sense in any given election cycle where resources are finite and other battles loom larger, but it is self-defeating over the longterm because Democrats will never win in Texas without spending in Texas. And at some point soon, Democrats will need to be competitive in Texas in order to hold their own in national elections. Although redistricting after the next census is still half a decade away, population projections suggest Democrats will lose electoral votes from their core states while large sunbelt states like Texas and Florida grow in size and importance. The time to start preparing for that shift is now.
This is where Talarico’s candidacy can be a gift. If conditions align to give him a real chance of winning—and it appears they are—investing in Texas will take on an appeal that wasn’t there before. Skepticism will likely create stiff headwinds, but if Talarico looks like he can win then the money will follow. At that point, the investment alone will pay dividends in future cycles, regardless of the outcome of the Senate race.
I am looking ahead to the November elections and have some concerns. I am not worried about the potential for a blue wave, but I AM concerned about what MAGA will do to affect WHO votes. How are we going to communicate effectively to all American citizens about the potential for the November elections being drastically affected by the provisions of the SAVE ACT? About changes to the U.S. Postal Service and the dates that mail-in ballots will be stamped now that those rules have changed?
(Chris) I know that many Democrats and progressives do not believe me when I write this, and nothing I can say will ever change their minds no matter what, but Democrats are no longer hindered by laws that make registering to vote and casting a ballot more difficult. (For that matter, Republicans and conservatives don’t believe me when I write that, either.)
With college educated voters now heavily skewing Democratic, anything that Republicans do to make it more difficult to vote will actually cost them more votes than it will cost Democrats. This is a dramatic change from the pre-Trump years, when Democrats really were buoyed in presidential elections by higher turnout among typically low-propensity voters. However, Trump attracted a lot of those voters into the Republican camp, while repelling many college-educated and now former Republicans into the Democratic camp.
College educated voters turn out at much higher levels, and have their paperwork in far better order, than non-college voters. The result is that all of these laws which Republicans passed before Trump’s presidency to make it more difficult to vote, including voter ID laws, are actually a slight net negative for Republicans now. I addressed this at greater length last Saturday in an article called, “One Great Question: How Much Can Voter Suppression and Billionaire Money Impact the 2026 Midterms?“
Now, I still don’t endorse things like voter ID requirements, because such laws keep orders of magnitudes more Americans from exercising their fundamental right to vote than they do to stop fraudulent voting. And, that aspect of democracy is more important to me than the partisan outcome of any election.
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