Donald Trump has spent a decade demonstrating the extraordinary power of political spectacle. He has won two terms in office, reshaped an entire party, and achieved feats his opponents believed impossible. Whatever his critics thought of him, the effectiveness of his methods couldn't be dismissed.
Until now. Trumpism is finally facing the cumulative consequences of its own design: relentless self-promotion, a refusal to admit mistakes, an inability to distinguish attention from trust, and an increasingly conspicuous gap between the victories he announces and the reality Americans experience.
Ahead of the midterms, things are not looking good for the president or his party. The most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found Trump’s approval rating had fallen to just 31 percent among American adults—the lowest of either presidential term. Democrats lead Republicans by 12 points, 47 to 35 percent, among registered voters asked which party they would support for Congress.
But it doesn’t really matter which party emerges victorious in November; the commander-in-chief is already a lame duck. Not because he has lost the formal powers of his office, but because the political formula that made him so formidable is yielding increasingly diminishing returns.
Running Out Of Steam
Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with a demolition crew’s enthusiasm for government. He signed 46 executive orders during his first month in the Oval Office, overturning Biden-era policies on immigration, energy and the federal workforce, and pressing congressional Republicans to move at his pace.
Whether one admired the agenda or feared it, the speed and sheer scale of his opening offensive were unquestionable.
That initial frenzy began to subside over the following months. Trump signed 30 executive orders in February 2025, 33 in March and 34 in April. By June 2025, it was nine, and October 2025 recorded a solitary signature. The slowdown persisted into 2026: five in April and May, and just two in July; though September saw him put pen to paper 11 times.
Admittedly, the frequency of executive orders is a blunt measure of any president’s political efficacy. They are often front-loaded to reverse the work of predecessors, or piled in the weeks and days before leaving office.
A better way to assess a president’s capacity to effectively lead might be to scrutinize his performance as the chief legislator. The president’s raw power is justly limited by checks and balances of Congress and the courts, but this relationship works both ways; it is the president’s job to set a political agenda, and turn political capital into durable legislation via Congress.
Given that his party controls both chambers, that should be a relatively easy feat. Yet the 119th Congress had enacted just 121 laws by October 14, according to the Pew Research Center: the second-lowest total at this stage in 40 years. Only the 118th Congress, which sat in the final two years of the Biden administration, was less productive, but that followed a far more prolific government from 2021-2023.
For all his boasts about deal making, Trump has even managed to make himself an obstacle to deals that were already done.
The debacle surrounding the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act offers a perfect case in point. In a country crying out for solutions to rising housing costs, Congress passed the bipartisan measure 85-5 in the Senate and 358-32 in the House. The president’s only contribution was to turn this rare display of overwhelming bipartisan agreement into a political confrontation, refusing to sign because senators hadn’t passed his wholly unrelated SAVE America Act.
Yelling Into The Void
In what is a rather curious cause-and-effect, chicken-or-egg teaser, the decline in the volume and efficacy of meaningful political activity in the White House appears inversely correlated with Trump’s commitment to his Truth Social posting schedule.
A Newsweek analysis based on data collated by Republican advocacy organization Defending Democracy Together found Trump’s personal account averaged 17 Truth Social posts per day from October 19, 2024—three weeks before his victory in the presidential election—to October 19, 2025. From October 2025 to October 19, 2026, that average increased to 22.6 daily posts. Yet Similarweb figures cited by The Washington Post claim the platform itself has experienced a significant decline in the average number of daily users; falling from a June 2025 peak of 420,000 to 260,000 in September 2026.
Like a bored retiree sharing his AI video creations to Facebook, Trump is producing more slop for a shrinking crowd. All the while, the gulf between the world according to Trump and the reality most Americans experience continues to widen.
The president has routinely promised to drive down inflation and "make America affordable again," while claiming he would put a stop to America’s "endless" foreign wars and solve major international conflicts like Russia-Ukraine. These bold claims were integral to a wider 2024 presidential campaign in which Trump styled himself as the only solution to an elitist political establishment that was no longer acting in the interests of the American people.
Two years into his presidency, he has proven himself wholly unable to deliver on the first two claims, and a hypocrite over the third.
Inflation reached 3.7 percent in September, while grocery prices remain elevated and the war Trump launched against Iran in February has sent gasoline and diesel prices soaring. Nearly eight months later, the conflict remains unresolved; Washington this week issued a red alert warning to its citizens across 12 countries amid concerns over a fresh round of escalation.
Americans are expressing serious discontent over the state of the economy—a recent AP-NORC poll found 79 percent of registered voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of living costs and cited the economy as the biggest issue at this year’s midterms. Yet Wall Street is on track for a record year, Trump and his family businesses have made billions in cryptocurrency profits, and Federal Reserve data shows the richest 10 percent of American households own nearly 88 percent of corporate equities and mutual-fund shares, while the bottom half hold just 0.6 percent.
Now, with alarm bells ringing at the RNC headquarters, one might expect some semblance of a plan to right the ship. Instead, the president has reacted the only way he knows how: by doubling down, being louder, and making yet more promises.
His solution to tame sky-high fuel costs? A dubious scheme to offer Moscow sanctions relief in return for a measly quantity of diesel that analysts almost unanimously agree will make little difference to American or global energy markets. It has already handed Putin a political victory while Russian missiles and drones continue battering Ukraine.
That followed a pledge to award a $5,000 "dividend" to every American adult if Republicans keep Congress, which could quite reasonably be described as a $1.2 trillion electoral bribe without a financing plan.
Trump is still willing to make the big promises, but the number of Americans who believe a word he says is dwindling fast.
Learning The Lesson
But however critical one might be of the commander-in-chief, dismissing him as a one-off affront to truth and public service is lazy.
He is as much a product of America's political culture as its architect. In a country divided into algorithm-fed tribes, provocation attracts attention, which in turn has become a key metric for success. Any good politician needs a penchant for storytelling, for charisma, and a capacity to shape a narrative in their favor. But these days, competence and substantive action have been relegated to optional extras.
Nor is disillusionment with the state of American politics confined to Trump's opponents. The same October AP-NORC poll that found widespread dissatisfaction with the economy also revealed that eight in 10 voters wanted substantial change or complete upheaval in how the country is run, irrespective of party allegiances.
When that many people want to overhaul the machinery, replacing the operator sitting atop it is only the first step.
Perhaps this article will prove to be another premature Trump political obituary. Between the January 6 Capitol riot, both impeachment attempts, and a litany of transgressions and legal proceedings in his personal life, his political career has been pronounced dead on many occasions; yet here he is, still swinging.
But if the last two years of his presidency finally teach us that American politics requires a serious overhaul—and inspire political parties to offer the electorate far better presidential candidates—then perhaps this lame duck will have performed one true act of public service, intentional or otherwise.