This Time, Trump Is the One Who Defeated Himself

I have been writing since March 2025, specifically since the chaotic Signal chat incident involving Defense Minister Pete Hegseth, articles that repeat the same idea: “Trump is wasting everything again.”

Fortunately, these elections may be the last electoral confrontation between Trump and himself; that is, the last election in which Democrats can ignore the chaos and political dysfunctions within their own camp simply because Donald Trump stands against them.

Perhaps at least one of the two parties, namely the Republican Party, will find a final reason to reconsider that rare decision that paved the way to this moment. In one of the worst partisan decisions ever, Joe Biden’s Democrats decided that Trump would be their means of re-electing an unpopular, elderly president who appeared unable to continue his duties.

Trump wanted to be on the ballot this week, and he indeed was. However, if his second presidency is compared to the opportunity afforded to him, it represents a colossal failure. His victory in the 2024 elections could have become a historic triumph justifying his political career. He had already won his fundamental battle on immigration, after Biden, in his final year, reimposed control over the southern border in an attempt to save his presidency.

Democrats effectively surrendered the 2024 race, though they did not realize it, when they used their judicial power to help Biden choose his opponent. Their plan was akin to a desperate attempt to save Biden’s presidency, which revealed itself as a political sham; “Moderate Joe,” driven by personal weakness, sold his voters an active left-wing agenda they never wanted in the first place when they chose him.

But the plan failed. Trump, the beneficiary of this, inherited an economy that was beginning to recover from the COVID pandemic and an artificial intelligence boom. He was unable to erase the inflation left by Biden, but he could have declared victory over it.

More importantly, he could have left his opponents, rather than himself, appearing as the source of chaos. But he went off course due to his excessive rigidity on immigration, his unnecessary tariff wars, his gratuitous provocations against friends and allies, his risky adventure in Venezuela, and then his handling of that adventure’s success as proof of his ability to repeat it in Iran.

Trump’s defenders argue that the battles he chose to fight in his second term were of exceptional importance and worth it, even if they led to shrinking or dismantling his electoral base.

But they must realize that the United States will remain long after Trump’s departure. His political adventures will not be the final word on any issue. The country would have benefited far more if Trump had been able to leave the White House in 2029 with approval ratings exceeding disapproval, leaving the political class with a clear message that the public does not want new socialism or racist identity politics, but rather something resembling peace, prosperity, and traditional American national strength, which Trump sought to embody.

Trump had the opportunity to change the country by pushing his opponents toward the center, as he did on the border and police funding issues. In a highly polarized political environment, he only needed to raise his approval rating above 50 percent to make many Democrats in swing states less enthusiastic about opposing him.

In his first term, Trump expanded his base simply because he was not the man who replaced him. Let us recall how the stock market surged when investors spontaneously recognized the damage that the Obama administration’s regulatory campaign had inflicted on the spirit of initiative and investment.

He had the same opportunity in 2024. All he needed to do was act and say less. But his war on Iran, as I noted at the time, embodied Trump at his most extreme, regardless of how Tucker Carlson’s supporters dismissed it as betrayal. It stemmed from the illusion of absolute success that had accompanied his media image since he entered public life. It is enough to see him constantly invoking the Nobel Prize he will never win, as if talking about it gives him a pleasure akin to winning it.

But, America, fate has its ironies. Trump’s successes and failures together have brought a group of voters into the spotlight—a group mistakenly characterized as the “white working class.”

We will see this clearly in the fierce conflict that will divide Democrats in the coming period. The confrontation will be between those who want a pro-America, prosperity-oriented party that represents ordinary people, and those who see contempt for the American middle class as the core of their self-respect.

Trump may have lost, but his voters could reap future gains, potentially becoming the swing bloc around which future electoral battles revolve.

The biggest deficiency revealed by Tuesday’s results is the absence of a Democratic leader—a figure capable of transforming the party into a force committed to responsible governance, rather than leaving it merely as a party united only by its opposition to Trump.