With the US midterm elections now about 40 days away and the campaign entering the home stretch, time appears to be running out on the era of President Donald Trump\u2019s absolute dominance and omnipotence in American political life; the institutional checks and balances of the American democratic order are beginning\u2014albeit belatedly and somewhat sluggishly\u2014to function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defeat after defeat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While the 42nd US President managed, during his first two years in office, to impose his agenda and largely implement policies that were radically conservative, xenophobic, and corrosive to the rule of law, deep cracks have recently begun to appear in the image of absolute control over the country\u2019s political life and direction\u2014an image he and his team had carefully cultivated. A key piece of evidence for this shift is the Federal Reserve\u2019s recent decision regarding lending rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This reality became starkly apparent this week: the clash with his own nominee for the Fed, Kevin Warsh, was preceded by a Supreme Court decision blocking Trump\u2019s plan to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections. The announcement of the decision sparked an angry outburst from Donald Trump; the former president lashed out at the justices he had appointed during his first term, describing the Supreme Court as an empty shell that bears no resemblance to what it once was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump launched a scathing attack on Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett for siding with the majority that blocked his attempt to sow discord regarding mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections. “These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the Supreme Court,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Added to the above\u2014and carrying a distinctly pre-election flavor\u2014is the practical dismissal of Donald Trump\u2019s promise to issue a $5,000 check to every American should the Republicans win in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The President\u2019s idea was rejected both by officials within his own administration\u2014notably Vice President JD Vance\u2014and by Republicans on Capitol Hill, who immediately distanced themselves from Trump\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another humiliation\u2014one that, this time, also reflects poorly on the Republicans themselves\u2014is the decision by House Speaker Mike Johnson, a close Trump ally, to adjourn the House early (a day ahead of schedule) to avoid a vote on whether to initiate impeachment proceedings against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The icing on the cake, of course, was Kevin Warsh\u2019s decision to raise the Fed\u2019s lending rates\u2014for the first time since July 2023\u2014rather than adopting a conciliatory stance toward the wishes of the man who effectively selected him for the role: Donald Trump. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For months\u2014dating back to the time when Jerome Powell, the US President\u2019s sworn enemy, was Chair of the Federal Reserve\u2014Trump had been demanding significant cuts in borrowing costs, disregarding the risk of rising inflation\u2014a risk exacerbated by his policy choices regarding the economy, foreign policy, and the war in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The worst is likely yet to come for Trump<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this\u2014combined with the recent double legal setback regarding the visa restrictions Trump sought to impose (on journalists and students) and the rules concerning benefits for green card applicants\u2014demonstrates that the vital “space” President Trump had carved out for himself and his extreme policy choices ahead of the election has begun to shrink noticeably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Analysts believe this situation could have a twofold impact: on the one hand, it may negatively affect his election outcome, while on the other, it will lay the groundwork for the net to tighten even further around Trump in the post-election period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the US midterm elections now about 40 days away and the campaign entering the home stretch, time appears to be running out on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[390,819],"tags":[655,779,8406,70],"class_list":["post-30385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-usa","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-institutional-defeats","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30387,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30385\/revisions\/30387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}