Here’s Lawrence O’Donnell, via Alison Detzel on MS NOW, making the call, as they say in the elections analysis room on Election Night, in reaction to President Trump’s sudden reversal in regards not to the Epstein Files, but the election of Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York City:
“There is no more vivid image of the decline and fall of Donald Trump than the image that was created on Friday with Donald Trump slumped in the Oval Office at the desk in defeat, offering a political surrender to the man who stood beside him,” O’Donnell said, referencing Trump’s meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. …
As O’Donnell pointed out, before the mayoral election, Trump had threatened to withhold federal funds from New York City if Mamdani was elected. But on Friday, Trump backtracked on that threat.
The MS NOW host called Trump’s flip-flop “a complete surrender” and described it as “the kind of reversal a politician offers only in defeat.”
O’Donnell said the reason behind Mamdani’s warm reception at the White House wasn’t because Trump was “charmed by his smile,” arguing it was instead a political calculation by the president.
“Donald Trump is losing, and Donald Trump knows it,” he said. O’Donnell suggested Trump was using Mamdani as a “political sign” to show the American people that he understands the issue that was at the center of the mayor-elect’s campaign: affordability.
However, according to O’Donnell, the president’s play did not pay off. “It was pure, pathetic, losing political calculation by a loser — by a president who presided over a party that just had its worst Election Day imaginable.”
And so, like so many other pundits on this and other subjects, O’Donnell is calling it the beginning of the end for President Trump, if not in so many words. Doubt it? Add the Mamdani loss to President Trump’s many miscalculations resulting in failures, from tariffs[1], judicial nominations[2], and political endorsements[3] to Putin’s War[4], inflation[5], Rep Greene’s repudiation[6], nomination of fourth-raters to the Cabinet[7] and his failure to expel extremists from MAGA (Make America Great Again, Trump’s organization for his base of supporters)[8], and there’s very few achievements of a positive nature. One might point to the Abraham Accords of his first term, and, if you’re a bit ballsy, his Gaza strategy of the second, but, to be honest, the first shouldn’t be given a final evaluation until twenty years on, and the second is not the success that many would like to claim. National bullying is a touchy game to play, at least for us. Russians and Chinese do it better.
OK, is it the beginning of the end? If my reader wants more tea leaves to read, the next special election of note, so far as this working dude can discern, is December 2nd in Tennessee for the seat of former Rep Mark Green (R-TN), who resigned in July to take a job in the private sector. The former Representative won his seat a year ago by 21+ points, and I read here that Trump won the district by 22 points.
Now?
Emerson College Polling gives Republican Van Epps a 2 point lead over Democrat Aftyn Behn.
Well, we saw the inaccuracy of polling last year, so it doesn’t pay to get too excited. But if a twenty point loss in support for the GOP in Tennessee is confirmed on December 2, the GOP may turn on the President, even if Van Epps still wins, despite Lead Toady Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) apparently undying support (see his behavior during the Epstein Files debacle, I shan’t restate it). And remember, the Senate may have already started to turn on him, with Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) less likely to feel kindly towards the President than Johnson.
Is this the beginning of the end? It’s a slippery question. I do not think Trump was capable of picking better candidates for his Cabinet and aides than he did due to his psychological inadequacies, so in that sense a disastrous end to the Trump Administration has always been inevitable. A constant, if you will.
So what’s the variable? Our response. The electorate’s response. Do we replace Trump and his minions with similar people? The Democrats have had a dismaying lean towards arrogance and, yes, autocracy. Will we be smart enough to demand small-d democrats run our government, or will we lean towards disastrous defaults that we may regret for decades?
1 President Trump’s insistent repeating tariffs are working as predicted does not make it so; his retraction of tariffs on beef, coffee, and other items in an attempt to win the electorate back disproves the claim.
2 Those nominees who’ve won confirmation by the Senate have not been the undiluted success expected, and perhaps assumed, by the right. A number of them have ruled against the President on critical issues, most notably tariffs. My suspicion is that a number of them, on review of judicial history and applicable law, decided that they are not invulnerable if accused of judicial malpractice, as the Senate has the power of impeachment and removal, and they had best rule properly, rather than ideologically. While some have ignored precedent and proper procedure, most notably Judge Aileen Cannon, others have objected to President Trump’s methods, leaving SCOTUS with the unsavory task of rejecting the President, and thus risking his childish wrath and possible consequences, which are almost necessarily going to be of an extra-governmental and violent nature, given their protected position; or acceding to his wishes and recording decisions which will reflect poorly on their legacy.
3 For a long while President Trump proclaimed his endorsements were a magic wand, that he was batting 100%, etc etc. None of that was true; an early example was his endorsement of Senator Luther Strange (R-AL), the appointed replacement for his AG, Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL). Senator Strange, despite being the incumbent, albeit appointed, did not even make it out of the primary, losing to (former State Supreme Court) Judge Roy Moore (R-AL), who went on to lose the general election to Doug Jones (D-AL). Recently President Trump has ceased to proclaim his endorsement is a magic wand for those receiving it, or so it seems. For example, in the New York City Mayoral race, he endorsed Democrat Andrew Cuomo, not Mamdani, the victor, and virtually ignored the conservative in the race, Curtis Sliwa. As a measure of fading political power, this loss, and its acknowledgment, as O’Donnell observes, is hard to beat.
4 During his reelection campaign, President Trump notoriously proclaimed he’d solve Putin’s War on Day 1 of his Administration. It’s still going on and President Putin’s disdain for President Trump is clear from his actions.
5 President Trump’s failure to cut inflation is so apparent that he’s been reduced to using a lie from Walmart concerning the price of Thanksgiving meal in a play to get consumers to not believe their eyes, harping back to one of his first plays for their attention (“don’t believe your lyin’ eyes”). Add in a huge jump in ACA premiums, which could have been avoided through negotiations during or before the recent government shutdown, and President Trump looks like someone who prefers what he sees as political revenge over being a wise leader.
Or a willful, selfish child.
6 The repudiation of the President by Rep Greene (R-GA), a long-time pillar of his support, may indicate the collapse of his support in Congress, especially given how the GOP voted to support the Epstein Files legislation in the House in nearly 100% portion, with only Clay Higgins (R-AL) discordant. There is no way for the GOP to normalize pedophilia, and Rep Higgins may have inadvertently terminated his political career with that vote.
7 Sure, go ahead, go through Trump’s Cabinet, US Attorneys, and his advisors and aides. Do you see even one who can be called competent to their job? Instead, they do battle to be the least worthy: Kennedy, Hegseth, Bondi, Miller, Bessent, McMahon, Vought, Noem, Halligan, Cannon, Luttnick, Vance, good lord is there any doubt that Trump is held in deep contempt for his foolhardy selections? The best of the lot may be State’s Rubio, and as I’ve noted before, his selection to that position might be a peculiar form of revenge on the former rival by President Trump.
In general, Trump’s people is a clown show worthy only of a life-long grifter and pathological narcissist.
8 The admission into MAGA and/or the GOP of such names as Fuentes and others has badly damaged the reputation of MAGA, which was already struggling with QAnon conspiracy theories of little plausibility. Basically, MAGA has become a residence tower for those who not only do not trust government, which is not without reason, but then choose to believe the impossible, implausible, or unproven, most usually because of confirmation bias. Trump’s failure to screen such dubious personalities out of the GOP and MAGA marks him as a political amateur who destroys most of what he touches.
