2026 is not turning out to be such a great year for this President. Last year he pretty much had his way with Congress. But as the year wound down Congress was pushing back and America was getting sick of the s**t show called the Trump administration. Republicans got clobbered in the November election, showing the country what is possible in the midterms. Since then it’s only gotten worse for Trump.
Trump’s Retribution Parade is Failing
- His cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James failed.
- He didn’t get Fed Chair Jerome Powell to quit or acquiesce to lowering interest rates.
- He couldn’t make former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith cower with threats of prosecution.
- His accusations of sedition against Sen. Mark Kelly and five other Congress members failed to result in an indictment.
Trump’s Performance is Failing
No, not that kind of performance. We’re talking about his performance running the government and how well he’s doing with the all the lawsuits that his administration is generating, given their proclivity to ignore the law.
- Trump’s illegal tariffs were killed by the Supreme Court. The Court ruled (6-3) against his use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to authorize his imposition of tariffs without Congressional approval.1
- Trump is losing with voters. According to CNN’s Poll of Polls, 60% of voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance and only 39% approve. The latest poll in this group had 62% disapproval and 36% approval.
- Trump is losing in the courtroom. He’s issued 228 executive orders, as of Jan 16, 2026. This has resulted in 359 lawsuits, of which 150 (42%) were fully or partially blocked, 107 are still pending and 102 (28%) were left in effect.
What This Means
What does all this mean? He’s having a bad day, for sure, but more importantly, it means Trump knows Republicans are looking to get buried in November, maybe worse than last November.
He knows the best hope is to suppress the vote in the 2026 and 2028 elections. The big danger is The SAVE Act, a bill that would make it harder for millions of people to vote.2 For more information about protecting voting rights, scroll to the bottom of this page.
Our job is to jump on this challenge and “do the thing” that we each do, and have been doing, to protect our democracy and to support each other.
1 His loss on this is actually a win for democracy and for the country as these tariffs and Trump’s arbitrary imposition of them has caused major economic problems and allowed him to extort our trading partners.
2 This bill would “disenfranchise Americans of all ages and races, but younger voters and voters of color would suffer disproportionately. Likewise, millions of women whose married names aren’t on their birth certificates or passports would face extra steps just to make their voices heard.”, according to the Brennan Center, one of the nations leading legal and policy institutions.