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Greg Sargent: Trump Is a Weak and Failing President, and It's Time to Say So (The New Republic)
https://newrepublic.com/article/200096/trump-polls-approval-rating-weak-failing-presidentTrump Is a Weak and Failing President, and It’s Time to Say So
It’s possible for Trump to be an inept buffoon—but still extremely dangerous. And it shouldn’t be so hard to make that case.
Greg Sargent
September 8, 2025
-snip-
Trump relentlessly runs his messaging through a strong-vs.-weak frame. He constantly uses the word “strongly” in descriptions of everything he does. For years he has attacked his foes as sickly and enfeebled. Trump’s most deranged displays—the silly claims about crowd sizes, the dumb imagery of his face attached to cartoonishly steroidal bodies, the vile agitprop about occupying U.S. cities—have an over-the-top quality that itself seems designed to convey an overbearing, resistance-is-futile aura.
Trump regularly runs his performance on issues through this frame, too, but reality is shattering the illusion. Trump insists Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine with him as president—and blusters that his feckless predecessors gave Ukraine away—but Vladimir Putin has humiliated Trump by keeping up the killing. Trump’s propagandists glorify his militarization of cities, but while it does constitute a massive abuse of power, Trump’s lawyers are unprecedentedly struggling to indict people swept up in his crackdown.
-snip-
“Democrats need to attack this dimension of Trumpism—the essential story Trumpworld tells about him being ‘strong,’” says Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, who often argues for this. “The way they see politics is they operate in the strong-weak, winning-losing framework. We have to understand that and take it away from them.”
-snip-
There is a way to reconcile this authoritarianism-vs.-failure paradox. Democrats can denounce Trump’s abuses for the Rubicon-crossing threat they pose—while also asserting that his multiplying failures are exactly why those abuses are growing more menacing and unconstrained. In short, Trump is a floundering figure of buffoonish incompetence who is simultaneously consolidating authoritarian power, which is precisely what makes this situation so combustible and dangerous. And Democrats can say exactly that.
It’s possible for Trump to be an inept buffoon—but still extremely dangerous. And it shouldn’t be so hard to make that case.
Greg Sargent
September 8, 2025
-snip-
Trump relentlessly runs his messaging through a strong-vs.-weak frame. He constantly uses the word “strongly” in descriptions of everything he does. For years he has attacked his foes as sickly and enfeebled. Trump’s most deranged displays—the silly claims about crowd sizes, the dumb imagery of his face attached to cartoonishly steroidal bodies, the vile agitprop about occupying U.S. cities—have an over-the-top quality that itself seems designed to convey an overbearing, resistance-is-futile aura.
Trump regularly runs his performance on issues through this frame, too, but reality is shattering the illusion. Trump insists Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine with him as president—and blusters that his feckless predecessors gave Ukraine away—but Vladimir Putin has humiliated Trump by keeping up the killing. Trump’s propagandists glorify his militarization of cities, but while it does constitute a massive abuse of power, Trump’s lawyers are unprecedentedly struggling to indict people swept up in his crackdown.
-snip-
“Democrats need to attack this dimension of Trumpism—the essential story Trumpworld tells about him being ‘strong,’” says Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, who often argues for this. “The way they see politics is they operate in the strong-weak, winning-losing framework. We have to understand that and take it away from them.”
-snip-
There is a way to reconcile this authoritarianism-vs.-failure paradox. Democrats can denounce Trump’s abuses for the Rubicon-crossing threat they pose—while also asserting that his multiplying failures are exactly why those abuses are growing more menacing and unconstrained. In short, Trump is a floundering figure of buffoonish incompetence who is simultaneously consolidating authoritarian power, which is precisely what makes this situation so combustible and dangerous. And Democrats can say exactly that.
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