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Donald Trump is historically unpopular and only trending downward. But even at this late date, Republicans have to pretend the exact opposite is true because their big orange cult leader still has the power to turn their voters against them and end their careers.
To get some expert insight on how that dilemma will play out in the midterms and beyond, we connected with old friend of the newsletter Rick Wilson, the longtime Republican strategist who these days is best known as an always colorful Never Trump commentator as the co-founder of The Lincoln Project.
“The delusion, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption — it’s all adding up to an ugly picture for Republicans,” he told us. “If they’re through their primaries, the last thing they want is to hear Donald Trump say their name. It’s a very tough equation for them, because if Trump gets angry at them and he goes on Truth Social and starts blasting them, that still will have an effect on Republican voters.”
Wilson pointed out that Republicans ultimately have to “own his madness,” including his psychotic obsession with turning the White House into a tacky Mar-a-Lago clone while Americans feel deep dissatisfaction with economic conditions.
“His obsession with gold leaf in the White House and covering statues in gold and all the weird ballrooms and triumphal arches — it’s really disconnected with the American voter,” he said. “They’re suffering, and he’s worried about how much gold leaf is going to go on to the statues in Washington, or when is the reflecting pool going to be redone for the second time? None of that connects.”
Wilson and Public Notice contributor Thor Benson also discussed how Trump’s shambolic war of choice against Iran is a political anchor for Republicans, why Hispanic voters have already soured on MAGA, what Democrats should do on day one if they retake power, and much more.
A full transcript of the conversation, lightly edited for clarity, follows. If you’d like to read the full thing and aren’t already a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one. This newsletter (and my work in general) is entirely funded by readers, and paid subscribers are the only reason I’m able to keep everything we publish Monday through Friday free for everyone.
Without further ado, here’s the interview.
Thor Benson
The midterms are coming up, and Trump seems to be in a state of delusion. He thinks his poll numbers are high, the economy’s great, and we’re in the “golden age,” and yet at least some Republicans seem to be aware that not everything’s as rosy as he believes. How do you see that dichotomy playing out?
Rick Wilson
Republicans live in a world where they are always bifurcated, and that split is now colliding with political reality.
There was a long time where you could sort of look at Trump as a net positive if you were a Republican. If you were in a primary, his endorsement was decisive. If you were in a general, he could help you really turn out the Republican base. And sure, maybe Democrats hated him, but on net, you could have argued for a while that Trump provided a lift for a lot of Republican candidates.
You can’t make that same argument these days, because Trump is so deeply unpopular on so many issues. He is now a source of great political harm for Republicans and a drag on their ticket.
The delusion, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption — it’s all adding up to an ugly picture for Republicans. If they’re through their primaries, the last thing they want is to hear Donald Trump say their name. It’s a very tough equation for them, because if Trump gets angry at them and he goes on Truth Social and starts blasting them, that still will have an effect on Republican voters.
It’s a tough spot for Republicans. It’s a bind they don’t really want to be in, but there’s very little way they can escape it.
Thor Benson
I’ve seen people say Trump doesn’t really care about the results of the midterms, but he’s constantly talking about the SAVE America Act. He seems to care, but only insofar as it impacts him personally.
Rick Wilson
I think that’s right. The idea that Trump has any commitment to victory for the Republican Party is not true. He wants to protect himself. The one thing he really cares about is that Democrats don’t get a runaway election that accrues a big enough majority in the Senate to really screw with him. He knows if he can hold the filibuster line in the Senate and keep the Democrats from getting to 60 votes, he has a survival mechanism.
I don’t think that he’s got a deep understanding of what’s going on in the country or with the economy and why that’s hurting Republicans so badly. I don’t think he understands it. I really don’t. Trump has become a crazy old man yelling at the clouds. But I really don’t think he understands how bad it is for people in the country and how much political damage the war and tariffs have done to his own party.
Thor Benson
Speaking of the war, it’s going on longer than he wanted and he seems to be unable to end it. How much do you think that’s going to have an impact in the midterms?
Rick Wilson
Well, the war has been a military disaster, first and foremost, and made the country less safe. But the war has also had a meaningful impact on the economy that people have begun to directly associate it with.
Trump is waging a war, we’re not winning, and gas prices are higher. That’s a triple whammy for the candidates who blindly support him and who have to go out and say he’s a military genius so that he doesn’t turn on them.
We know that wars tend to decline in popularity with time. But the telling number here is that by the time we left Vietnam — this is in 1974 when the helicopters are coming off the roof of the embassy — the Vietnam War still had a 29 percent approval rating in the country. The Iran War is at roughly 26 percent right now and falling.
So Trump has gotten us to where we were at the end of Vietnam, which cost 58,000 American lives.
