I know Venezuela is taking all the oxygen of our attention spans, but take a break for a moment from that chaos and digest on these reflections on the last year with me.
TRUMP FAIL #1: D.O.G.E. was a giant mess largely defeated in courts across the judicial system.
It cost more money than it saved, and it needlessly gutted popular programs that earned America extreme returns on soft power while saving tens of thousands of lives globally.
Imagine being Elon Musk, the richest person on the planet, and spending a month just hardcore fucking over the world’s poorest people. What a real piece of shit. Remember when he told the UN he’d pay for ending world hunger if they gave him a plan, and then they did, and Elon ghosted them.
D.O.G.E. also started off the blue wave special election trend with a stunning swing in Virginia toward Democrats thanks to D.O.G.E. fucking over of so many people working and living in the Virginia suburbs north of Washington D.C. That wasn’t smart politics!
Has any president in history so quickly squandered so much political capital after an election victory? D.O.G.E. was really Trump stepping on a rake right out of the gate, and the lasting impact is that Elon Musk fucked over all the departments and agencies that were regulating him. Even MAGA fans have to shake their heads at the self-defeating handicapping of his own administration! To this day there’s a lot of bureaucratic jobs that aren’t filled. The DOJ is down a lot of lawyers, which do a lot of the executive branch’s work legally establishing the president’s policies.
FAIL #2: A year out, Trump’s approval rating is hovering in the mid-30s.
His voter are consistently telling pollsters he has broken his promises on lowering the cost of living and battling inflation, and his foreign policy is anything but “America First.” I’m hearing many anecdotal stories online (as well as seeing in real life) about our collective neighbors taking down their Trump flags and no longer wearing their MAGA hats out.
FAIL #3: Trump oversaw the longest government shutdown in US history.
Despite having a GOP trifecta in the federal government, Republicans couldn’t keep their own government open. There are student government representatives in high schools across the country who would do a better job at governing.
When Democrats got a trifecta in 2009–2010 they passed the massive Obamacare overhaul of public healthcare, the ’09 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and various other stimulus packages, the auto industry bailout, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP), Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’s repeal, and a new START treaty with Russia among other accomplishments. Isn’t it quaint to remember a time when Congressional majorities passed substantial legislative laws?
This current crop of Republicans’ only big accomplishment is the draconian social cuts in exchange for tax cuts for the rich in the Big, Beautiful Bill. The BBB was so bad and destructive they named it to have the exact same acronym as Biden’s Build Back Better plan to both steal acronymal credit for the factories and supply chains built by Biden’s investments, and let the GOP’s economic poison pills and industry destruction get confused with Biden’s legacy.
Democrats deserve to win a giant landslide these midterms. Republicans have done very little with their majorities.
Fail #4: Trump is so bad at leading Congress that Democrats are passing discharge petitions around Speaker Mike Johnson’s back.
Trump is losing control of his party, and Congressional Republicans have ominous blue wave fears to jump ship on Trump’s plummeting approval ratings. They ignored Trump’s objections and voted nearly unanimously to release the Epstein Files, and some normy Republicans nearly pulled the same maneuver to protect 20 million+ Americans’ healthcare subsidies.
As 2026 goes on, Republicans will start to worry more about saving their own seats than protecting Trump’s delicate, lame duck ego. He won’t be on any more ballots, and at some point they have to acknowledge that they will soon find themselves in a post-Trump era.
Fail #5. Trump picked an incompetent cabinet and staff.
There are rumors Trump is considering firing some top staffers in January, or cleaning house after the midterms. Here are the likeliest firings:
Kristi Noem is constantly ridiculed for wasting taxpayer money playing dress-up barbie and motivating countless lawsuits against the government.
Pete Hegseth is in over his head, and the orders to kill survivors of Caribbean boat strikes is certainly illegal. Doing that kind of war crime is what makes other countries want to kill our own surrendering and incapacitated soldiers. Why does it need to be explained to Hegseth and Trump why that’s bad?
Pam Bondi has failed multiple times to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, and fortunately the Epstein Files are much too big for her to cover up completely.
Kash Patel is blowing through money at the FBI and using the job to impress his girlfriend and her 20-something friends with the same vibes of a 30-year-old trying to impress high school girls. Kash is 45 and ugly, and his girlfriend is 27 — is anyone convinced yet that she isn’t some kind of spy catfishing him? I’m not saying she is, but he’s definitely an easy target for catfishing.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was accused by Olivia Nuzzi of still using drugs, and he’s creating bipartisan outrage over his dismantling of our public health system while defunding life-saving medical research.
HONORABLE MENTION FAILS:
- Foreign countries keep calling Trump’s bluff on the tariffs and are hastily America-proofing their economies. Domestically the Supreme Court is likely to rule he has no executive authority to willy-nilly tariff other countries based on personal grievances without Congressional votes. His “Liberation Day” was a global laughingstock, and most ridiculous of all excluded Russia, Belarus, and North Korea. He also apparently learned the hard way that tariffs will won’t make the US grow its own coffee and bananas.
- Trump hasn’t ended the war in Ukraine despite vowing for months he’d end it on day one. He’s literally a dumber, meaner, uglier Monorail Man, and contemporary Republicans will be historically dishonored for constantly falling for Trump’s over-promise/under-deliver schtick.
- Measles is coming back.
- Tourism across the US plummeted thanks to Trump’s unpopularity and border and customs related chaos.
- Trump tore down the East Wing without permission and with no finished plan to replace it. The project is now being sued while struggling to find an architect who is willing to contribute to a gaudy monstrosity that trashes the aesthetics of the White House property.
- Trump cut student visas, then backtracked somewhat and insulted American workers.
- Trump is bribing farmers with a $12 billion bailout for their continued support after demolishing their soybean and pork export markets by losing the trade war to China.
- Consumer confidence is the lowest it has been since COVID.
- Jim Beam has stopped distilling whiskey at its main distillery amid a Canadian boycott over Trump’s dumb trade warring, and large auto manufacturers along with many other manufacturers are slowing production and laying off workers nationwide.
POTENTIAL SUCCESS #1: He might stroke out, be forced to resign, and stop fucking over our country and the global post-war order that made everyone not hate America being the hegemonic hyperpower as much. 🥃
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The Halfway Post 