Donald Trump’s second term is going no better than his first.
He has failed to end the war in Ukraine, failed to produce a credible healthcare plan, and failed to rein in government spending. Inflation remains elevated, unemployment is rising, and growth is slowing. Strip out AI investment and deficit spending, and the underlying economy looks dangerously weak.
His flagship economic policy — tariffs — has delivered exactly what critics predicted: higher prices, messy trade disputes, and a series of climbdowns. Even the Supreme Court has pushed back.
Meanwhile, the familiar Republican playbook continues: tax cuts for the wealthy, funded by more borrowing. America’s fiscal position is weaker, not stronger.
Abroad, the picture is no better. A fragile Middle East ceasefire, failed regime change in Venezuela, rising tensions with Iran, and growing friction with allies — including the UK — suggest a foreign policy driven more by impulse than strategy.
And yet, for all that, none of this is what really matters.
The Real Failure
Trump’s political strength has always rested on culture war dominance — not economic competence.
But even that may be slipping.
The much-hyped “realignment” of young voters and minority groups now looks fragile. These are voters who can switch quickly — and are already showing signs of doing so. A lesson British parties might want to take seriously.
The contrast is stark.
An estimated 130 million people watched Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show — performed in Spanish — with billions more viewing it online. Meanwhile, Turning Point USA’s rival “All-American” event drew just 6 million.
That gap tells you more about modern America than any polling data.
Culture was always America’s secret weapon around the world; from Disney and Elvis onwards America was the worlds cultural hegemon, challenged only the Britain in the days of the Beatles. But the vision of America that it’s cultural industries portray – confident, successful, tolerant and inclusive is at odds with the Trump administration and the voters who keep him on power.
If the culture war stops working, Trump has very little left. Instead what MAGA have to offer is this nonsense:
When Politics Fails, Power Fills the Gap
The response has been predictable: escalation.
Trump’s rhetoric has become more overtly racial, culminating in grotesque attacks on figures like Barack and Michelle Obama. But this isn’t just rhetoric — it is now being reflected in policy.
His administration has moved to strip references to slavery and racial injustice from historic sites, reframing American history in ways that are, at best, selective and, at worst, deliberately misleading.
At the same time, immigration enforcement has taken on a far more aggressive character. Raids, detentions, and heavy-handed tactics are no longer exceptional — they are routine.
The justification is familiar: if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.
History suggests otherwise.
When states begin exercising power arbitrarily — detaining, targeting, or intimidating without clear limits — the point is not justice. The point is compliance.
From Movement to Machinery
The deeper shift is structural.
The networks and militias that grew in the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan have not disappeared — they have been absorbed, formalised, and, in some cases, legitimised.
What began as a political movement increasingly resembles an enforcement apparatus.
That matters. Because once power is exercised this way, it rarely rolls itself back.
Not Hitler. Something More Familiar
People reach for comparisons with Hitler or Mussolini.
That misses the point.
Trump is not building a totalitarian state with ideological coherence. What he more closely resembles is something far more common: a mid-tier authoritarian strongman, governing through patronage, fear, and spectacle.
A leader who blurs the line between state and personal power.
Who tests institutions rather than abolishing them outright.
Who pushes, and pushes, until something breaks.
A poundshop Pinochet.
Final Thought
If you’re looking for a single thread that runs through all of this, it’s not ideology. It’s erosion.
Of norms.
Of institutions.
Of the basic assumption that power is exercised within limits.
That doesn’t collapse overnight.
It wears away — slowly, unevenly — until one day you realise it’s gone.