Can Democrats Erase Trump?

By Steve Huntley

March 1st, 2026

Is Donald Trump, as his MAGA base hopes, a transformative president, one who will be succeeded by a favored Republican, cementing as lasting his disruption of business-as-usual in Washington?

Or, as progressives dream, will he be followed in the White House in 2029 by a Democrat who will work tirelessly to erase Trump’s agenda, making his presidency a flash in the pan, a tale full of sound and fury signifying not much?

It may seem early to speculate about all that with the 2028 election still 2 1/2 years in the future.

Yet Trump has big ambitions and limited time to accomplish them as the Constitution restricts him to this final term in office. And he faces challenging mid-term elections in the fall that may increase Democratic power in Washington.

Trump bestrides the world like a colossus- as dramatically demonstrated Saturday when he ordered “major military operations” against Iran. The attack- supported by air strikes by Israel and expected to last several days- targeted the radical Islamist leadership of the country as well as military objectives.

As always, Trump has ambitious goals. The military strike was aimed at ending forever the threat of Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons and, in Trump’s words, to “defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats” from Iran. The president said the operation also gives the Iranian people an opening to overthrow a murderous regime that has killed tens of thousands of it citizens.

Even before this weekend’s attack on Iran Trump was dominating the world stage, reordering alliances, upending trade with tariffs, dispatching mighty warships, stealth bombers and elite troops to work his will, having leaders of countries large and small currying favor with him, invoking U.S. dominion in the Western hemisphere with his Donroe Doctrine, all the while lusting for a Nobel Peace Prize.

In a recent speech to allies in Europe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio eloquently described Trump’s, and his, mission of standing up for Western civilization — defending, celebrating and promoting its history, values and ideals, and America’s role in it.

At home, Trump’s aims are no less grand: Close borders and deport millions of illegal aliens, gut the “swamp” Washington bureaucracy, exert White House supremacy over so-called “independent agencies,” restore the buying power of the family wallet, return manufacturing to towns and cities crippled by unfair trade practices, among other goals.

Many Trump initiatives were surefooted and much needed. Others were ham-fisted or counterproductive — government ownership stakes in private companies, suspect vaccination policy, trying to muscle the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, being too soft in opposing Russian President Putin’s war, alienating allies. And there’s no escaping the ugly side of Trump’s personality, his gratuitous and petty insults.

To call Trump unpredictable is a staggering understatement. Any day can bring a new goal, a new ambition or a new outrage.

Trump’s brash personality and equally brash political style were on full display in the State of the Union speech last Tuesday night.

He bragged about a recovering and expanding economy, boasted about closing the border, complained about a U.S. Supreme court decision limiting his tariff initiative, declared time is running out for Iran to give up its nuclear program or face the consequences.

Ever the showman, he introduced to cheers and applause American heroes. First up was the Olympics champion U.S. hockey team. Then came members of the armed services who risked their lives in combat or in rescue operations. Emotional moments erupted in his recognizing the suffering of victims of crime and illegal immigration.

But perhaps his best move, politically, occurred when Trump asked everyone — senators and representatives — to stand who agreed with this statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal immigrants.” Republicans leaped to their feet applauding while the foolish Democrats remained sitting in their seats — landing directly in the trap he had set for them.

Democrats shouldn’t be surprised if videos of that moment show up regularly in political ads in heavily contested elections in the fall.

And Republican candidates will need all the help they can get then. Trump’s sunny view of “we’re winning so much” — inflation slowing, employment remaining strong, Wall Street hitting records — isn’t reflected in polls. Families don’t see all that winning when shopping at their supermarkets, while paying bills for goods and services, and in their hopes of buying a home. Turmoil and violence in ICE raids arresting illegal aliens haven’t worn well in polling either.

Mid-term elections, nearly always a loser for the man in the White House, are looking glum for Trump. Democrats are favored to take the House of Representatives, leaving the president with a divided Congress and a House eager to frustrate him, investigate his government and maybe impeach him.

Worse, the political climate now is deemed bad enough for Trump that the betting is starting to edge up that Democrats might even corral the Senate, confronting Trump with an openly hostile Congress.

So, with those rosy prospects, Democrats are looking to the future.

“Donald Trump is temporary. He’ll be gone in three years,” said California Gov. and perhaps presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom recently, voicing to European allies the Democrats’ hopes of erasing the Trump presidency.

Former Democrat White House official Susan Rice went even further, assuming the role of Madame Defarge by threatening retribution against anyone — businesses, law firms, universities, media — whom she finds guilty of taking “a knee to Trump.” She said “it’s not going to end well for them.”

But Democrats hoping to roll back America to some pre-Trump idyll are dreaming. Whatever may come, Trump has changed the way America and the world work.

There’s no returning to the corrupt bargain where American taxpayers do the thankless labor of Atlas in shouldering the cost of defending Europe while that continent’s nations spend ever-increasing sums to fund generous welfare state programs for their populations.

The days of wide-open American borders are over. A new Democrat president might resume the flow of illegals crossing into America and feasting on government aid but never at the astonishing levels seen during the Biden presidency. It’s a ballot box loser. Even former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have recently acknowledged that sovereign nations must control their borders.

A new Democrat president could open the federal spending faucets but never at the gushing Inflation-Reduction-Act levels of the Biden presidency. That debacle decimated household wallets with a cumulative and crushing 20 percent jump in the cost of the living. Another ballot box killer.

The era of climate panic is over. Lower gas prices, cars free of expensive environmental mandates and the need for reliable energy will temper progressive ambitions to use the environment to pummel the American standard of living. Costly U.S. climate-change measures have done nothing to reduce global greenhouse emissions.

A new Democrat president would no doubt try to rebuild the administrative state bureaucracy that Trump has taken a sledge hammer to. But Trump has reestablished the constitutional principle that “executive power shall be vested” in the presidency — the White House is the boss of those myriad agencies and can fire virtually anyone.

Since his first term, Trump’s three appointments to the Supreme Court have solidified the high court’s return to a sensible reading of the Constitution, ending the progressive trend of viewing it as a “living document” that can mean almost anything liberals want it to.

A new Democrat in the White House might be tempted to “reform” the court by adding justices. Such judicial packing would mark the death knell of the court as an independent governmental body, a move that’s been a red line for those moderate Democrats who can still get elected.

And evidence of the court’s vital independent role in our system of government was reinforced only a little over a week ago when a majority of the high court, including two Trump appointees, ruled against what the media termed the president’s “signature” approach to tariffs.

Identity politics, racial and gender preferences, and hatred of American history persist in too many of our cultural institutions, but it’s hard to see a big future for men in women’s sports or the chemical and surgical mutilation of children in the name of “gender affirming care.”

These are just some of Trump’s accomplishments so far. Even if the Democrats’ best hopes are realized in November and he faces a troublesome Congress, he still has the enormous executive authority of “I’ve got a pen and a phone” as Obama put it.

The modern presidency has a lot of power, as Trump showed in making war on Iran this weekend without consulting Congress. And he sees lots of work ahead. For example, he is bringing tremendous military/and/or economic pressure on some of the worlds bad actors- Cuba Venezuela, as well as Iran. Who knows what changes may come to Tehran, Havana, and Caracas in the months ahead? And there’s the unfinished business of ending the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Constitution grants a president wide latitude in foreign affairs. Trump is pushing that to the limits- and he surely will be challenged in Congress, by some Republicans as well as Democrats. But for the moment at least, he is in the driver’s seat.

Yes, Donald Trump will be gone in three years, but a hundred years from now historians will still be writing books about his transformation of the presidency. Add to that the political earthquake he triggered in tapping into the discontent of tens of millions of Americans unhappy with the status quo.

More history — good and bad, for the country and for Trump — will be made in the next couple of years.

Given his ground-breaking and convention-defying deeds and actions as well as the chaos he’s brought to Washington, there’s no denying Trump will loom large in the history books-as the most consequential 21st century president to date.

Steve Huntley is a retired Chicago journalist living in Austin, Texas, who spent most of his career, almost three decades, with the Chicago Sun-Times, where he was a feature writer, metro reporter, night city editor, metropolitan editor, editorial page editor and a columnist for the opinion pages. Before that he was a reporter and editor with United Press International (UPI) in the South and Chicago, and Chicago bureau chief and a senior editor in Washington with U.S. News & World Report. Northwestern University Press has issued soft cover and eBook editions of Knocking Down Barriers: My Fight for Black America by Truman K. Gibson Jr. with Steve Huntley, a memoir of a Chicagoan who was a member of President Roosevelt’s World War II Black Cabinet working to desegregate the military.

Comments 39

  1. Reflects my opinion perfectly. Love him or hate him he is a historic president that challenged and changed DC norms as well as the culture wars.
    He is doing what I wanted him to do. I voted for this. This is what pushing back looks like.

  2. When friends of mine would “get weak” whenever the President Donald J Trump would make a move, implement a policy, or berate the other side with some frank language, I would not get into a debate but fall back on my own knowledge and experience that in the end he will prevail. Thus with all the naysayers and soiled panty weak of heart whom think the midterms are a lost cause, ye doubting Thomases still have not learned a thing……don’t just dribble, just vote

  3. Forty-seven years of terrorism and Jew-hating fascism ended, by the President and our only constant ally Israel! Yet, idiots like Durbin, Duckworth and Democrats universal squall complaints and mince the truth.

    I will never vote for any Democrat again, blood-kin or no. BTW- I detest most GOP players.

    1. You’re succinct and wise as always, Pat. Maybe your blood-kin and mine should get together and stage the most complaint-squalled party ever.

    2. What amazes me id that the American Jewish population, mostly, continues to vote democrat, the democrats who often side with countries that harbor and condone anti-semitic policies.

      1. Growing up as a typical Jew in NYC metro area, I was struck by a subtle but real sense of self loathing and self guilt … all cloaked behind a philosophy of virtue, justice and equity. And yes, estimates are that approximately 30% of NYC Jews voted for Mr. Mamdani

  4. Not debating Trump or any other president. The problem with the flexing of the ***constitutional principle that “executive power shall be vested” in the presidency*** is that we US citizens & the world now get whipsawed every time there’s a presidential change. Each new president seems to now declare having a “mandate” to drive history book making changes. Celebrating executive power when your person is in power and bemoaning it when it’s not your person is not a way to run a society & country. The Legislative branch needs to start earning their paycheck as the checks & balances to the executive branch (campaign fundraising and short media clips don’t count) rather than partisan blabbering & rubber stamping the party line. I trust in and worship God, not any politician.

  5. Great work Steve. My question is, how consequential will Trumps effect on journalism be in the future, or will it be memory-holed. “Fake News”, “He’s sharp as a tack”, “Trump Guilty”, “It came from lab”, and “Stolen Election or Free and Fair”. Can the “paper” ever gain its reputation back? The Paramount / Skydance merger and now the purchase of Warner Bros./ Disney, has the ownership of CNN by a ‘conservative’. Ted Turner’s legacy is now over, and Rupert Murdoch’s FOX is also meeting the same fate. What is the fate of AP, Reuters, BBC, NPR, and other giants of the past? Whoever is able to monetize good journalism in the future, will determine if the America First populist movement continues, or is just a flash in the pan. Elon is trying with X but he has a lot of irons in the fire. John Kass, Real Clear, Just the News, and Substack give me hope, but we shall see.

    1. Well said. The Murdoch effect has infected the WSJ as well. One gets these simpy write ups, as per yesterday when some milk toast, so called reporter went weak in one paragraph. Can remember Royko when Murdoch bought the Sun Times that he wouldn’t line his bird cage with it. I wonder what he’d think of the modern Tribune?
      Haven’t watched Fox except for the occasional Gutfeld. Changed over to NewsMax, and News Nation.

  6. Thanks for the article – will give it more time later today (after church, with a fresh cup of coffee and some ‘thinking time’.) In the meantime, hoping that at least once in a while we’ll be given an up date on John. Will one of you great stand-in authors please be sure to give him our best, and let him know his fans and followers are eager to hear how he’s doing.

  7. On March 4. 1933 President Franklin D Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Though he said this because during the Great Depression, it aimed to rally a desperate nation by arguing that irrational panic and fear were greater obstacles to recovery than the economic crisis

    My only fear is the mindset of the Democratic party. Thought I strongly believe in our first amendment rights, I cannot believe in the things that party proclaims and displays on a daily basis. I see the current President as Steve described. Unpredictable would be a harsh understatement.

    His brash personality and showman style have made too made changes to note in this short response. Truly, he will be remembered 100 years from now when the other names of past Presidents are covered in dust on the cover of a book sitting on a long ignored shelf.

    Love him or hate him his changes will leave life changing differences for all of us. Many see them as positive while the few need them to be able to set up their next protest. Without these changes, actions and policies the Democrats would explode as if being hit with a phaser or disruptor as in Star Trek and a complete vaporization would take effect.

    God bless the President, God Bless America, God Speed the rest of this Presidential term!

  8. Barring some outstanding event [eg the Civil War, it is unwise to begin evaluating a president until he is out of office for at least 10-20 years. It’s only then that the public begins to know what he knew and how his policies and his reactions to events played out over time. In any event imperatives and constraints will determine a president’s actions more than any other factors.
    Most politicians’ actions can be described as either their least bad choice or the next logical step. President Trump closed the border and has begun mass deportations. Will this be as effective as the quotas of 1924? [14% foreign born in 1924 dropping to under 5% by 1970] Too soon to tell. Crime is dropping, inflation is falling, are these persistent trends or blips? Tariffs are reducing the trade deficit and beginning the reindustrialization of the country; trend or blip? Ibid for recalibrating US foreign policy toward the Americas and the Indo-Pacific and so many other issues. Things look good, but bumpy. Will the MAGA coalition endure and realign US politics or will it collapse after Trump? TBD!

    1. It will take time, but in 1992 Perot got 20% of the vote and was a sign of things to come. 2010 had the TEA Party, and the IRS put the screws too them. 2016 went full MAGA and it has morphed into America First. Little Marco is growing up so fast, and JD in the wings, something is defiantly changing. No Labels failed to launch, as the ‘Parties’ wouldn’t give them a seat at the table. Mitch McConnell is heading to the exit, along with the Bush’s in tow. Pelosi is retiring, on her pension, and the Clinton’s legacy is all but over. Obama is losing his luster, and the kids think he’s old. Today’s blue hair girls will eventually wash the dye out, like the hippies cut their hair. Politics is down stream from culture, and we haven’t been this divided since the 1960s. The future 1970s is coming back, I just hope Disco doesn’t.

  11. Nicely done! Wonderful to get a rare balanced analysis, instead of claptrap written by someone with severe TDS, or a fawning, Dear Leader-esque diatribe.

  13. I can only add that Trump should be credited with his promises made and kept reputation. Squishy Republicans almost killed their party by their failing to do so.
    I don’t forgive them for failing to use their congressional majority 2017 to 2019 to fund Trump’s wall promise. Drooling Biden/bama administration exploited that opening, and brought us the ICE optics we have today.
    I hope voters, and historians, don’t forget either.

    1. Great article Greg. I agree how you frame the Iranian threat. No matter what a President does or does not do, is fraught with risk. A “rock and a hard place” likely underestimates the problem as you imply. As such I think the President should have laid out to the American public the grave issues and risks of intervention vs non intervention, and then gone before the Congress asking for a declaration of War – since this is exactly what we are talking about. The War Powers Act IMHO is unconstitutional. But clearly the initiation of war – not the making of war – is a constitutional power explicitly reserved for the Congress. And yes, I bet you are correct: China is thinking, this might be a good time to put the moves on Taiwan.

  16. This Iran situation made me think of the Cuban Missile Crises. Similar predicament, different geography. With Cuba, one of two possibilities would happen: either Khrushchev would back down or Kennedy would invade. Had the latter happened I imagine the anti-Kennedy factions would have called it an illegal war. History notes Kennedy’s success. Thinking it’ll note Trump’s too.

  17. Democrats are trash. There is no reason to vote for them. You are correct. Trump will go down in History more like James K Polk or Andrew Jackson, but when it comes to actual promises kept, he’s a One eyed Jack, like Kass calls Obama.

    The president hasn’t worked for us since probably November 1963. There was a coup on the US presidency on that date.

    Was I hearing incorrectly when Trump promised no more foreign wars? The deficit is higher than Sleepy Joe’s. He’s part of the deep state, not dismantling it.

    Dem incompetence and corruption is the only thing keeping him in play now. Israel has been running a blackmail scheme on every POTUS going back to Obama, at least. Obama had the Epstein info, as did Sleepy Joe. They didn’t use it because they were blackmailed. You don’t think the Clintons were blackmailed? You don’t think they have a binder on Trump? Bibi calls, Trump barks like a dog.

    Money laundering, drugs, blackmail, pedophilia, prostitution. Do any of you see the evil that runs our nation?

    The Deep State, CIA, Mossad, the oligarchs they work for. That is who runs the nation.

    Just for good measure, Bayer has immunity to poison our food with pesticides now, and Kennedy is trying to sell it instead of resigning. Tulsi Gabbard has joined the cause now instead of working for transparency and peace.

    The Democrats absolutely have no justification to hold any office, but this alternative is almost as bad.

    Charlie Kirk found that 10 million was unaccounted for. His “friends”, set up shell companies and were ciphoning money off. The murder weapon was conveniently found by the FBI wrapped in a towel.

    Now, American servicemen are dead, and for what? Trump is proposing 1.5 trillion for the military. We live in a surveillance state, they stop Americans in the street and ask for their papers, and you cheer this on.

  19. Excellent comments Steve. Whichever way 2026 and 2028 elections go, you can be sure the Dems and the msm including the now ultra liberal Chicago Tribune will do their best to erase as much Trump legacy as possible. It’s what they do as the arbiters of the progressive uni-culture. They have learned nothing except to disguise their goals by changing the language and banning dissent. Politics runs in cycles. We better be ready to defend what we believe

  20. Every day that goes by, every action and whine of democrats about Trump, just highlight the clear fact that the Democrat party of America has reached the point where they are working against America and its ongoing success.

  22. False prophets, the weaponization of fear, using religion, bastardizing the word of God, and using the teachings of Christ to justify the killing of hundreds of thousands of children in the Middle East and Africa. They even weaponize the Holocaust. How dare you question this far right government of Israel, led by elements that were banned from the Knesset 50 years ago, you ist, you ite, you phobe! Sounds just like cancel culture to me.

    The Masters of War who build the big bombs, the jet planes, hide behind words to justify killing for profit. They send our best and brightest half way across the world to murder on their behalf and then tell them to toughen up when they have a horse time dealing with the horrors of war. You do know that a large number of our homeless, our suicides, our drug addicted are veterans, right? How often does a veteran commit suicide?

    We are all just pawns in a game for the oligarchs, who buy and sell our government officials. I don’t think Trump is the devil. He’s a narcissist, and he can be downright kind, considerate, human. I’m sure at a party with a bunch of guys’s, he’s a an absolute riot. Bawdy talk, insults, raunchy stories, but he’s not qualified to run the nation. Our system is not set up to recruit our best, brightest, and most honest. If it were, we’d have open primaries, public funding of campaigns, term , limits, we would not allow the heads of FDA, or Pentagon to work for the industries they have oversight of.

    Instead, we get this clown show in DC, and the even bigger clown show in Illinois. It is not Democratic in the least to allow Pritzker to buy his office and those of the Speaker, Senate President, AG, etc. He should not be allowed to fund Darren Bailey’s campaign, thereby picking his opponent. He does not want to get in the arena of ideas with Ted Dabrowski. He knows he would be crushed.

    The media is used to divide us. Anyone who questions the narrative pushed by the oligarchs, Covid, Iraq War, Financial crisis, Immigration, Israel, is defamed, discredited, even killed. Julian Assange and Snowden are heroes, but they almost paid the ultimate price for what 60 years ago would have generated dozens of Pulitzers. A young guy in the Mass National Guard hacked the Pentagon computers and exposed laws and procedures being trampled on and the NYT and WAPO trun him in instead of reporting what he uncovered.

    Our host, husband, father, Greek Orthodox Christian, has seen fit to self edit and stay away from any of this Epstein business and the rank corruption this has revealed. He prefers to stay in the left/right arena, going after Democrats, who while they certainly deserve it, are just playing the game the Republicans played for years, namely, selling out American workers left and right.

    You have rape, murder, prostitution, drugs, money laundering, and top officials in government, education, military, industry, media, all involved and voraciously consuming pizza and grape soda. Nothing to see here! This is the Swamp, which he promised he would take on. Now, he’s become more of them.

    This Iran offensive is poorly thought out. We do not have the industrial capacity to support the military. We shoot down drones that cost a few hundred dollar with missiles that cost a quarter of a million at a pop. We cannot produce them fast enough, and this is not financially sustainable either. Yet, we allow the Israelis to put their own people in danger, massacre children, terrorize people in the West Bank, all on our dime.

    Keep fighting the radical left. College kids get hassled and it’s a national emergency, but an international blackmail and sex ring is swept under the rug. How can anyone with a conscience justify this?

  23. I think you can strike “retired” from Mr. Huntley’s profile. Hardly so – and I hope this is right, that we can’t go backwards.

    And Susan Rice, wow – what a gal. I guess my support of both MAGA and the former Confederacy means that things aren’t going to end well for me.

    My response would be – Ms Rice, your job now, is to try and do something to us that has not already been done.

    In two years, no more than two – Iran will join the family of nations and will have signed the Abraham accords. MAGA indeed – and Ms Rice, you will have done NOTHING to contribute to the many good things to come, everywhere. Absolutely nothing

  24. If this drags out more than 2 weeks, our fleet south of Iran will need to be resupplied. All they have to do is wait us out. This is an existential threat for them. They will wait. Didn’t I see General Caine question this operation, and our readiness?

    Israel is getting pounded. The credibility of the USA is greatly diminished. It may even get so bad that Israel has to resort to nukes to get Iran to back off. Then there’s no telling where this will go.

    I sure hope whatever Israel has on Trump is good, because he sure is risking a lot here, just to save his own hide.

    As for the Confederacy, I don’t have a dog in the fight, but I do know the Jim Crow laws which followed and the statues of the generals were erected much later to keep black folks in their place, for intimidation.

    I know they weren’t treated that well in our northern cities either. Dr King said the racism in Chicago was worse than what he faced in the Deep South.

    I also know that Dr King was used by Democrats to gain support. When he spoke out against the war, he had to go.

    Malcolm X saw the same fate a few years prior. He didn’t like white liberals either. He said theyre phonies.

    Charlie Kirk asked questions. Was he murdered by the “radical left”.

    Candace Owens doing great journalism. Kim Iversen is also shedding light on our bullshit war on drugs, medical scams, the poisoning of our food.

    Our government is actually at war with us. Soon, we may rely on the mercy of the Islamists in Iran.

    They will show far more mercy to us than Israel shows to Palestinians.

  25. Sadly, instead of having to come up with actual policies to help workers, make health care affordable, increase the housing stock, improve public safety, infrastructure for Americans to use and benefit from, come with a sensible immigration policy that allows legal immigration and guest workers as needed, the Democrats can continue to be corporate stooges. Trump is erasing himself.

    Iran’s nuclear facilities were obliterated in June with the velvet hammer. I guess that was bullshit, or they needed to come up with some new bullshit to excuse the Israeli manipulation of our government and our military. It is clear that Trump has become a vehicle for a far right wing Israeli agenda that includes total domination of the Middle East. We should be competing with China for innovation and economic suoperiority instead of killing children.

    I was hoping that Trump would pivot and embrace the economic populism he ran on, but it is clear that he is just like any other politician, full of shit. It seems both of these corrupt mafia style parties just take turns screwing us. They look down on workers.

    I’m also disappointed in our political reporting. Why not call balls and strikes? When gas goes to 5.00 a gallon and the layoffs happen in earnest, watch out. Trump, Hegseth, Bondi, Noem, will all be gone. But the Democrats will do such a lousy job and Israeli influence is so vast with the over 60 crowd, they will instal Vance or Tom Cotton who will continue dragging us into wars we do not want.

    Huckabee, who is Israels ambassador to the US, admitted that Israel is biblically promise to rule from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean. That’s a lot of real estate, and I’m sure some nation or other will detonate a nuclear weapon to prevent this. If Israel runs out of Patriot Missiles and gets hammered for a few months by rockets and drones, they may turn to nuclear weapons themselves and vaporize a large swath of Iran to try to get them to stop.

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