What Would It Mean for Trump to Lose?

I’m not sure it means we win.

Tyler Merbler, CC

At Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall looks at the current polls—the worst of any president on record at this point in the term—and argues that Trump has already lost.

…I see the signs all around. He’s doubling down on things people don’t like. He’s fomenting a growing political backlash. The more signs we see of the limits of Trump’s power, the more people show signs of bucking that power. All power is unitary. We see signs of it everywhere. You simply cannot impose an autocracy if a clear majority of the country opposes what you are trying to do at the outset, when you are trying to do it.

Marshall points out that many of the things people hate—like tariffs, rising prices, massive economic downturns, product shortages, collapsing tourism, widespread food poisoning—haven’t taken full effect. Trump does scramble backwards sometimes when he encounters resistance, but he shows little if any capacity to learn from mistakes or proactively change direction. His numbers are terrible, and likely to get worse. As he loses standing, he’s going to lose the ability to intimidate people, because they won’t believe he’s going to be in power forever—and they may well believe that, for instance, capitulating to Trump may get them in trouble with a Democratic controlled House. (This is going to be a problem for the law firms that signed deals with Trump.)

That all sounds hopeful. But does it mean that Trump has lost? What exactly would it mean for Trump to “lose”? And if he does lose, does that mean we win?

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Losses aren’t always forever

Marshall argues that Trump has lost because he’s not going to be able to impose an autocracy. To impose an autocracy, Marshall believes, Trump would need continued public support. Instead, he’s facing escalating pushback.

I think Marshall is overall right that a permanent Trump dictatorship is considerably less likely than it looked like it might be at the outset of Trump’s term. Trump could not win an election right now; it seems unlikely things will improve for him as his term goes on. If he really did run for a third term, it seems likely he would do very badly. That gives the GOP a lot of incentive to discourage him from trying (perhaps by backing a thorough loyalist who would promise to pardon him, like Vance, or Trump’s son.)

There are a couple of caveats. First, autocrats are not immune to public opinion, but they do sometimes attempt to stave off the effects of unpopularity by resorting to open terror. It’s not exactly clear what that would look like for Trump. But he’s intimated that he’d like to impose martial law, using the military to police/murder political opponents on American soil. That would be flagrantly illegal; it also might well backfire, since the military is not necessarily thrilled with Trump; Defense Secretary Hegseth is reportedly loathed. Also, it seems very possible that the army would not open fire on civilians.

So all is well, then?

I mean, no, obviously all is not well. The fact that martial law is an open possibility, and the fact that the best hope at that point is widespread military refusal to obey civilian leadership, is pretty fucking terrible. A military coup ousting Trump would be a resounding loss for him. It would not, to put it mildly, be a victory for our democracy going forward.

I think this is the case with a lot of plausible Trump outcomes. It’s very possible that Trump’s attack on democracy and the constitution ends with him being badly humiliated and roundly despised—which is, after all, what happened after the January 6 coup attempt. There was a broad, bipartisan rejection of Trumpism; leaders in both parties denounced him; corporations rushed to do the same; so did members of his own staff. It was an enormous, monumental loss for Trump.

And yet.

That loss didn’t ultimately prevent the long term slide into authoritarianism. Trump’s attack on elections and election integrity helped radicalize the party and pave the way for more election denial. Trump’s Supreme Court picks effectively blocked election reform, or any move to hold Trump accountable or prevent fascism. So did the Republican party, which shuffled towards a non-Trump fascism before acquiescing in fascism with the Trump brand attached.

Trump’s loss didn’t put a spine in the Democrats either, or prevent them from fash-curious dithering on immigrant rights or copaganda. It didn’t make them question their disgusting genocidal bargain with Trump-buddy Netanyahu either. And it didn’t lead them to prioritize holding Trump accountable in any way. They thought Trump’s loss would delegitimize him and send him into a wilderness of irrelevance. Instead, it gave him a victimization narrative which he was able to ride back into power.

Autocracy isn’t yes or no

Predicting the future is difficult, and the past doesn’t generally repeat itself. So I’m not saying that Trump’s woes now will inevitably lead to him, or some MAGA successor, gaining more power.

What I am saying is that autocracy and democratic erosion aren’t an all or nothing enterprise. Trump’s all-out assault on the Constitution may not result in a lifetime tenure for autocrat Donald Trump. But it can still leave our democracy severely damaged in a wide range of ways—especially if the Republican party in the courts and Congress refuses to repair the damage. Especially if Democrats refuse to hold those who damaged it accountable, and refuse to fight to restore and protect the rights of those—like trans people, like Black people, like immigrants, like the disabled—who are most affected.

I think Marshall is correct that Trump is likely on the way to losing in some sense. But (and I’m not really contradicting Marshall here) even after that happens, we could still have a country in which politicians target students for deportation; in which there is no social security; in which pregnant people—in some states or nationwide—cannot get abortion or reproductive care; in which teachers—in some states or nationwide—cannot discuss LGBT people, or Black history, or Palestinian liberation; in which the media is afraid to criticize the sitting president. Trump could lose, and we could still all end up living in a poorer, crueller, more violent, and less free nation. It’s happened before. We can’t count on Trump’s polls alone to keep it from happening again.