Mounting woes could bring Trump presidency to 'nightmarish' end

U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 19, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

The Fantasy That Trump’s Presidency Will End Itself

A Forecast Built on Hope

Roughly six weeks before the 2026 midterms, Timothy Noah argues in The New Republic that Donald Trump may not complete the second term scheduled to end January 20, 2029. His evidence is a reported decline in Trump’s approval rating from 48 percent to 36 percent, an April 2026 Washington Post/Ipsos poll in which 59 percent said Trump lacked the necessary mental sharpness, and behavior Noah characterizes as increasingly erratic.

That establishes political weakness and public concern. It does not establish an approaching removal. Noah’s conclusion remains speculation, and his own inability to imagine Trump staying in office is not evidence that the institutions around Trump will act.

Help fuel the work. Independent analysis doesn’t fund itself:☕ Buy us a coffee

Republicans Hold the Relevant Power

The decisive actors in Noah’s scenario are Republican officeholders. By his account, they would move against Trump only after his approval fell far enough to make him a liability to their own careers.

That is the real power structure: public opinion supplies pressure, but officials decide whether pressure carries institutional consequences. Noah effectively concedes this when he cites Thomas Edsall’s argument that no removal effort will occur until Trump does something so damaging that forcing him out becomes an “inescapable necessity.”

“Inescapable” obscures agency. Republican officials would still be making a choice—first to tolerate Trump, then perhaps to abandon him when tolerance became electorally expensive.

Polls Are Not an Ejection Mechanism

Noah treats the decline from 48 percent approval to 36 percent as a trajectory that may eventually compel action. But polls do not act. They do not remove presidents, discipline political parties, or force officeholders to put institutional responsibility ahead of self-preservation.

Even the comparison with Harry Truman’s Gallup low of 23 percent in late 1951 and early 1952 proves only that presidents can become profoundly unpopular. It does not demonstrate that Trump is “on track” to reach that number, much less that crossing some imagined threshold would end his presidency.

The argument converts measurements of public dissatisfaction into a prediction about elite behavior without establishing the connection between them.

Decline Is Not Accountability

The article’s fixation on Trump’s alleged mental deterioration also risks turning a political system’s choices into a medicalized mystery. Noah raises a legitimate question about presidential capacity, grounded in polling and his assessment of Trump’s conduct. But his framing places the suspense inside Trump: How long can he continue?

The sharper question is how long Republican officials will continue enabling him. Under Noah’s own theory, their limit is not the public interest but the point at which Trump becomes dangerous to their seats. That is not accountability. It is a calculation about when loyalty stops paying.

The Comfort of Automatic Collapse

The Berlin Wall analogy supplies drama while concealing the weakness of the case. Trump’s presidency is not described here as nearing a demonstrated institutional breaking point. It is described as unpopular, increasingly alarming to many voters, and potentially burdensome to Republican politicians.

The larger pattern is institutional cowardice disguised as historical inevitability. Political coverage often imagines that sufficiently bad polling, sufficiently erratic conduct, or sufficiently obvious dysfunction will make powerful people do what they have repeatedly chosen not to do. That story comforts readers because it makes the system appear self-correcting.

Nothing in the reporting proves such correction is underway. It shows only that Republican officeholders may reconsider their allegiance if Trump becomes costly enough. A political order that acts only when complicity threatens incumbents is not repairing itself. It is protecting its personnel.

Thanks to Alter Net

Source: Mounting woes could bring Trump presidency to ‘nightmarish’ end

Systemic Error is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We warned them.We told them.We shouted from the rooftops.We plead.We begged.They didn’t listen.Now, we all will suffer.Y’all know what to do, right?VOTE BLUE! 💙Vote as if your life — nay, our country — depend on it.Because, this time, and every time, it does.