As the 2026 midterms get closer, Donald Trump is facing a political landscape that is slipping out of his hands. His approval rating has dropped to 40%, which is 16 points lower than when he first entered office, according to The Economist.
Many Americans now say they are tired of his domestic and economic policies. Even Republicans are beginning to pull away from him, and the most visible example came when they strongly supported the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Trump’s administration tried to stop the bill and even pushed people like Rep. Lauren Boebert to vote no. The bill still passed and showed that Trump no longer controls his party the way he once did.
To former Republican strategist Rick Wilson, this moment is critical. Wilson, a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, wrote on Substack that this shift does not mean the country is moving back to normal. Instead, he warned that Trump becomes more dangerous when the support around him fades. Wilson said many people keep waiting for a quiet end to this chapter, but Trump is not planning to fade out.
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“Trump is not planning a quiet sunset,” Wilson wrote. “He is planning a siege.”
Wilson pointed to the decisions Trump is making inside his administration. One of the clearest examples is his choice to appoint people who pushed the false claims about the 2020 election to important roles in the federal government.
Heather Honey is one of them. She is now Trump’s deputy assistant secretary for election integrity at the Department of Homeland Security. Honey once worked for a Pennsylvania group that fought against voting access and repeated the false claim that Trump lost because of widespread voter fraud. That claim has been debunked many times, but Honey continues to push it.
Wilson explained that this is Trump’s early preparation. He wrote that Trump is already using the federal government to shape the path toward the midterms. Wilson said that anyone who doubts how much damage a lame-duck president can cause should remember 2020. That period gave Trump and his allies time to plan the attempt to overturn the election.
Wilson warned that the next step will not come from Washington alone. He said the real danger will appear in red-state legislatures and courts. According to Wilson, these lawmakers and judges may follow Trump’s orders to throw out election results he dislikes. He even pointed to the possibility that House Speaker Mike Johnson might refuse to seat newly elected members if Trump tells him to.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
