TITLE: Why hasn't Trump collapsed, so far?
SUBTITLE: The uncomfortable truth is that the things YOU view as disqualifying are exactly the things his supporters view as necessary.
AUTHOR: Peter Banks
DATE: 2026-01-21
URL: https://peterbanks.org/essays/why-hasnt-trump-collapsed-so-far
SOURCE: https://peteribanks.substack.com/p/why-hasnt-trump-collapsed-so-far

I think it would be fair to argue that 2026 has been off to a very Trumpian start. There was, of course, the shooting of Renee Good by ICE officers in Minneapolis on January 7th, and Trump’s most recent, apparently sincere, attempt to conquer Greenland. In fact, so much has been occurring at such a blinding pace we have already forgotten about the kidnapping of Maduro and the apparent reduction of his old regime to an American client state in all but name.

Not only has there been chaos in the news, but Trump’s net approval ratings have continued to slide, particularly on issues like inflation and the economy, which were most important back in November of 2024.

His polling oversells his problems—see the title of this article—but it also hides others like the magnitude of his attacks on the constitutional foundations of this country. I really think his options are now either to stay in power, through some successor, in 2029 or to spend his final years in a supermax in Colorado.

Still, despite all of this, the Democrats have completely failed to become the ascendant political faction, and MAGA remains, by far, the most potent political force in America.

You can see this in the generic ballot for 2026, which remains, extremely tight.

Compare the ~4 point lead democrats currently have to the numbers in 2018 around this same time.

Taking the average in the screenshot would give the democrats almost a 10 point advantage back then. 

Of course, the polling in 2022 was even closer than the numbers today. At the time, the Republicans only had roughly a 1.3 point advantage, and a large number of polls even showed Democrats leading. But 2022 was hardly a red wave, with the Republicans only picking up 9 seats compared to the Democrats’ haul of 41 back in 2018, and because of the way districts are drawn and the extreme concentration of Democratic voters in urban areas, Republicans retain a persistent structural advantage.

When you look at the projection for 2026 from the Cook Political Report for example, this is what you get.

I haven’t even mentioned the Senate because the map means Democrats have functionally no hope of reclaiming that chamber.

The only state where I could see a plausible Democratic pickup happening is Maine, and they could honestly still lose Georgia in that universe. 

If I had to guess what will happen in November, I’d anticipate the Dems pick up probably 5–6 seats and, in turn, secure the narrowest possible House majority while the Senate stays unchanged. Polymarket is broadly in agreement with this guess, and it even prices in a serious possibility(21%) that Republicans manage to hold onto a trifecta—something that has not happened since 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11—except that, at that point, George Bush had above 60% approval ratings and the nation was on the warpath; in short, it looked very little like the current map.

Today I wanted to dig into “why” behind this.

 “Why” has Trumpism not dissipated despite wave after wave of controversy and declining polls?

“Why” have the Democrats  failed to materialize on this frustration?

And “why,” despite everything which has happened, is Trump still, by far, the most influential politician in this country?

I feel like I’m uniquely positioned to talk about this because of my audience and social life, which contains significant numbers of both pro- and anti-Trump people. I can honestly say that I think I understand the emotional realities of both sides, at least in aggregate, and can explain at least one perspective on the permanent intransigence of our politics.

Note: we at The Boyd Institute are currently running an essay contest with a top prize of $2,500 to answer the following question: “How can America improve its problem-solving capacity?”

If, after reading this article, you feel inspired to tackle that question, please go check out our article with more information. Submissions close March 15th.

Boyd Essay Contest: Call for Submissions — The Boyd Institute

The short answer to these questions is the following: 1) a general perception of Democratic incompetence, 2) a belief among many Americans that the alternative to Trump is the demographic transformation of America, and 3) the unique charisma of Trump.

The perception of Democratic incompetence:

To frame just how catastrophic the public perception of the Democrats is right now, I would invite you to look at some recent polling from the Wall Street Journal.

As you can see, in January the polls show roughly a 4 point advantage for Democrats in the generic ballot, about in line with the polling average, but when you dig into the details it becomes extremely brutal.

The only topics that congressional Democrats are ahead on are healthcare, vaccines, “looking out for middle-class families,” and “caring about people like you.” On every other issue, including immigration and Ukraine, congressional Republicans have an advantage.

You can see this preference for the Republican basket of policies reflected in where people choose to migrate internally.

We have now reached the point that West Virginia is attracting more local migration than almost any Blue state, a fact which would be almost impossible for someone in 2009 to internalize.

Part of this isn’t the “fault” of Democrats per se — there is less land for infill suburbs around LA than Austin, and many of the cities which are attracting migrants have progressive mayors — but it is also undeniably true that Democratic policies push up the cost of living substantially. There is no reason, for example, that Chicago could not have a similar housing market to Texas; the land is quite flat there also, but the fact it does not is important for people to internalize. On other issues like gas prices there is basically no argument to be made that the cost difference isn’t at least mostly the result of conscious environmental policy.

When people are paying more than a dollar premium at the pump in California relative to Arizona, they notice this.

On education, many progressive states like Oregon and California score offensively poorly by any reasonable measure, and this reflects badly on the party. Perhaps this diagnosis is unfair — Massachusetts and New Jersey both do extremely well — but it is a narrative that exists for a reason. Again, imagine trying to explain to someone that Mississippi had a better educational system than Portland only a few years ago.

I’m not going to belabor this point anymore, but the perception that Dems are incompetent is everywhere and inescapable. Even supporters of the party are oft to express this opinion and it cannot be ignored. 

The alternative to Trump is the demographic transformation of America

Now I’ve already explained how Americans are frustrated with Democratic domestic policy, but there is an additional angle here which is often left unarticulated. That is the “fear” that if a Democrat is elected they will reopen the borders and, through executive fiat, change the demographics of this country.

Since we have a fraying taboo on people expressing a preference to retain the White majority, you probably won’t see many polls showing that one of the issues the electorate has with Democrats is the perception they cherish a diverse browning America, but anecdotally it is quite common, at least among right- and center-right Whites.

California again stands as a good example of this since it has been totally demographically transformed over the last 40 years. Roughly 28% of the state’s population is foreign-born, more than twice the share in the rest of the country (about 13%), and only about 1/3 of the population is non-Hispanic White. I’m stating this as fact without a normative claim, I love California it is my favorite state, but it is something many Americans despise. 

The Biden presidency in many ways confirmed this fear with their de facto opening of the borders prior to a pivot towards the end of their presidency. 

More than any stats though images like this showing federal agents destroying a Texan fence to allow illegal immigrants to enter in did catastrophic damage. 

America is still a majority White country, and many immigrants who came here have become so assimilated into that group that they view themselves as a quasi-extension of it, I think of someone like JD Vance’s wife and children as quintessential of this cohort, and so the idea that Democrats want to endanger this is still politically toxic. But there is no symmetrical toxicity to being openly racist against groups like Somalis or Indians, a fact it feels like Dems living in hyper-diverse cities simply do not realize.

Trump’s charisma

Look, Trump is Trump. He has been a figure in American cultural life for decades, and not for no reason. Long before politics, he was a walking archetype: the brash New York tycoon, the dealmaker, the tabloid villain-hero, the living symbol of American excess. He is instantly legible in a way almost no modern politician is.

This matters a lot since not only is Trump legible, he is also, by far, the most emotionally resonant political figure since at least Obama. He projects dominance, certainty, aggression, humor, grievance, and theatricality all at once, and is able to act as an avatar of rage for millions of Americans who feel talked down to and disregarded by blue-state elites.

He is also genuinely funny in a way no politician has been in decades. I mean, just look at the photos of him at McDonald’s from during the election, or his iconic “only Rosie O’Donnell” quip in the 2015 debate.

Finally, there is the fact that often his ploys, such as the capture of Maduro, simply work, and the same people who had spent months explaining the impossibility of such an act are now left, dick in hand, to try and explain why it is actually undesirable.

If Biden had wanted to capture Maduro, this is how it would have looked. First, he would have made a statement to the American public about his crimes, then he would have appealed to the UN to get a General Assembly vote; conditional on that passing, he would have appealed to the Security Council, where Russia and China would have vetoed it, and finally he would have gone to Congress to get approval. Once all of this had been done, a coalition force of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops would have descended on Caracas and toppled the regime in an Iraq-style invasion, inevitably resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and the importation of millions of refugees.

The fact that the above routine is how you are “supposed” to do things and also so obviously idiotic isn’t lost on people, and so Trump’s perception as being able to cut the irrational Gordian knots of procedure which have log-jammed American politics is seen as a boon by most voters, not a slight against him, even when it does the most to rile up his opponents.

This also combines to answer the question of why, despite running as an anti-war president, his constant stream of interventions haven’t soured the public. When Americans say they don’t want war, what, I believe, they mean is they don’t like caskets coming home and pictures of Iowans in tanks in Kandahar. They don’t mean they don’t want us to blow shit up with no losses, and that is how Trump has operated thus far.

Compare this to the Democrats’ bench. Who is the charismatic counterweight? Who is the emotionally compelling figure that makes people feel something other than managerial competence, moral superiority, or technocratic concern? There is no equivalent. There is no Democratic Trump, and there can never be one.

Much of what I’ve said is the core to his charisma is precisely why people hate him so much, but the uncomfortable truth is that the things YOU view as disqualifying are exactly the things his supporters view as necessary.

Conclusion

The through-line here is that Trumpism is seen by a large share of voters to be the only force that is actually willing to break things, ignore taboos, and act decisively in a system they increasingly view as rigged, stagnant, and dishonest. Anyone who thinks that this will dissolve via appeals to the past or to rules and procedures is blind to reality.

Of course, Trump is not invincible, and an obvious, unambiguous failure or sign of weakness can still substantively topple him; the Epstein field in particular seems very dangerous to his brand, but that has yet to happen, and I simply do not see anything on the horizon which seems plausible to do it.

Recently I had lunch with a friend who is morally repulsed by Trump, and I was making the claim that I didn’t know one person who loved Trump in 2024 who has since soured on him, and I think this can be hard for people to fully grasp. We are in a post-January 6th world, and everyone who voted for him in 2024 was willing to vote for a man who had done that; nothing else he has done to date rises to that level, and so no one’s opinions have really changed much. The core policy baskets which are being offered remain broadly the same, and while the options remain a commitment to demographic transformation, local governance incompetence, and an insistence on abiding by all procedures — no matter how irrational — or megalomania and authoritarianism, our elections will continue to be a 50/50 affair.
