It’s only a little more than a month into the second year of President Trump’s second term, but it’s turning out to be a MAGA disappointment. Fortunately, there’s still time ahead of the November midterm for Trump to get his administration back on course, make substantial progress on his campaign agenda, and make the coming elections at least not as bad as they’re set to be right now.
There have been big wins in 2026, to be sure. The administration turbocharged its deportation operation, crime rates are still falling, and the economy continued to recover from the dismal Biden years. Trump even fired Kristi Noem from Homeland Security, mercifully sparing the nation from more of her Barbie-Goes-To-The-Border looks. On the global scene, Trump took out a problematic despot in Venezuela and strong-armed the Mexican government into more aggressive policing of its narco state.
And virtually all of 2025 was nothing but wins: Trump righteously pardoned Jan. 6 political prisoners, ended the USAID scheme, and eliminated corrupt, racist DEI operations from the federal government, pressuring other institutions and businesses to do the same.
But the tides have turned in recent weeks. Trump relented to some degree on the highly necessary immigration enforcement initiatives in fraud-riddled Minnesota. He announced he’s attending — for the first time — this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which only serves to legitimize the most manipulative, dishonest people in the country.
And, well, he just started an indefinite war in the Middle East, largely at the behest of Israel, which is one thing he said he’d never do. (By the way, you and I can’t say it was largely at the behest of Israel. Only Trump can. But he denies it.) On top of that, it looks like Trump is probably going to endorse Texas Sen. John Cornyn for reelection over his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, even though Cornyn has proven to be, at best, a typical lazy, mediocre RINO.
It’s all, in a word, demoralizing. This is not what we had in mind when we voted to Make America Great Again. What we had in mind was de-escalating international conflict, kicking out illegal aliens, and bringing down prices. Double orders of kicking out illegal aliens, if possible. It’s not that Trump isn’t doing those things; it’s that they’re taking a back seat to his newfound preference for reordering global affairs and designing a White House ballroom. There’s room for those things. All work and no play makes Trump a dull boy. But the big things aren’t done, and time is slipping away.
The good news is that it’s not too late. The midterms are still eight months from now, and all it takes is a little focus and the will to push Trump’s team and Republicans in Congress to do the work.
Republicans need to pass the SAVE America Act — the legislation enhancing election security. Trump should force them to do it and threaten to withhold his endorsement from every incumbent who won’t vote for it. They also, at a minimum, need to force Democrats to vote against bills that would continue bringing down the cost of living, making cities safer, and keeping out foreigners who are likely to become welfare dependents. They can also attempt to cement the bureaucracy cuts executed by DOGE into law.
For Trump’s part, he’s the businessman whose No. 1 strength was always the economy, though that strength is now in doubt as prices remain way too high. Promoting new free money giveaways isn’t going to work. He’s tried that multiple times already, and it’s dumb because years of free money is the whole reason prices are what they are today.
Trump can instead direct every federal agency to propose new initiatives that will incentivize more housing development, spur more energy production, and save more taxpayer money. That should be second to nothing on his daily agenda between now and November.
I’m not even going to refer to what “the polls” say. To borrow a cliché, there’s only one that matters, and that poll told us exactly what voters wanted out of Trump when they elected him for a second time in 2024. What they wanted isn’t what we’ve been seeing of late.
