Readers may disagree with the cover line of this issue. Pronouncing “the end of Trumpism” feels somewhat similar to declaring “the end of history” – a provocative, albeit less grandiose, statement that risks being mocked in the near future. We should start by saying we hope that we are wrong. Trumpism, as this magazine understands it, has been a boon to America. As Christopher Caldwell argues, the rise of Donald Trump was a healthy democratic response to a fetid political system.
On many fronts, the Trump administration, now in its second and more dynamic term, has made great progress. It has fought illegal immigration with vigor. It has tackled the politically correct shibboleths which have done so much to derange America’s elite institutions, from the horrors of DEI to the self-defeating dogma of global environmentalism.
The real worry for MAGA is that Trump is right: after him, the movement must fall apart
It has confronted China’s increasingly malign influence on the world stage and exposed the Democratic party as a self-serving cadre of shallow opportunists and ideologues. “Trumponomics,” the President’s protectionist agenda, is a mixed bag, though Trump’s tariffs and other policies can at least be justified as a daring attempt to improve the lives of America’s lower and middle-classes.
But the President’s war in Iran could end up destroying all that success. He has, as Caldwell says, “pressed his luck” and the consequences for his political legacy already look disastrous. For all America’s energy abundance, the instability in the Middle East – and Iran’s choking of the Strait of Hormuz – will mean higher gas prices at home, a concomitant inflationary spike, and perhaps a global economic downturn from which the US will not be immune. The President’s party will suffer as a result in November’s midterms as Trump’s Make America Great Again movement begins to unravel.
Thanks to his unique character, courage and remarkable survival instincts, Trump has, throughout his life, managed to snatch victory from the jaws of disaster. Yet, as Enoch Powell said, “all political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure.” In his preposterously ambitious bid to reshape the Middle East, Trump may finally have stumbled into a mess from which he cannot entirely escape.
The Iranian regime has not yet crumbled and now the United States finds itself edging toward a protracted conflict that could impose unbearably large costs in terms of blood and treasure. Trump’s “America First” credo promised to make him distinct from his predecessors. But Trump has made a similar mistake to George W. Bush in his conviction that the awesome tactical power of the US military can bring about formerly unthinkable strategic ends.
Trump has already convinced himself that, in forcing allies and even China to confront their vulnerabilities in the Strait of Hormuz, he has done the world a favor. The President and his colleagues now talk about Operation Epic Fury as if it were a noble exercise in nettle-grasping: a painful process that had to be undergone in order to achieve, as Trump puts it, “everlasting peace.” By this logic, in decapitating the Iranian leadership, Trump has finally cut off “the head of the snake.” But the oil-rich Middle East has always been an impossible nest of vipers.
It’s increasingly evident that neither America nor its regional allies had a coherent plan for replacing the Islamic Republic. Talk of a brave democratic revolution in Iran, which Trump mooted as he launched the war, now sounds naive at best. Short of regime change, the hope now must be that, through ever more bombardment, America and Israel can compel their adversary to accept peace on more humiliating terms than Tehran was willing to accept last month.
That is a gamble that has not yet paid off, to put it mildly. The White House and the Pentagon can insist that the extensive air campaign has surgically removed Iran’s ability to project power, and no doubt it has. But as long as a hostile Iranian regime survives, and remains defiant, the destruction of its assets can only ever be a short-term win. America instead seems to be creating the conditions for a failed state while urging a network of international and regional partners to contain the inevitable bloody chaos. That is a morally flawed and impossibly complicated project, one that could take decades to complete. Trump has less than three years left in charge.
Much has been said about the President betraying voters who believed that he and Vice President J.D. Vance represented the peace ticket in 2024. “I am MAGA,” replies Trump, when asked about that. Le Trumpisme, c’est moi. He draws comfort from polls that indicate Republican voters continue to back him. There is already evidence, however, that his successful coalition, representing as it did a number of independents and former Democrats, is coming apart. The podcast sphere, so often credited with helping Trump win, is at war with itself over Israel’s influence in American affairs. Joe Kent, the head of Trump’s National Counterterrorism Center, has resigned in protest. The real worry for MAGA is that Trump is right: after him, the movement must fall apart. The war on Iran has only hastened its demise.
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