Christopher Caldwell declared “The end of Trumpism” in the latest issue of The Spectator. But as Donald Trump’s political career has shown, it’s a pronouncement easier made than manifested.
The article goes something like this: The war in Iran is bad, just like a ton of other things Trump has done. The difference this time — Caldwell claims — is that Trump’s “luck” has run out.
“Having Donald Trump as President probably resembles being a heroin addict: you undergo regular episodes of sweating terror and mortal danger, the end result of which is to get you — at best — back to normal. A year ago, the Liberation Day tariffs nearly caused the American economy to seize up, before China mercifully let the matter drop. Then came the even more reckless decision to join Israel in bombing Iran’s Fordow nuclear installation; Iran agreed to halt hostilities just as it was figuring out how to penetrate Israeli airspace with its missiles,” Caldwell wrote.
“But now the President has pressed his luck,” Caldwell continues. “He has joined Israel in a campaign of aerial assassination and bombardment against Iran — this time of an almost incredible violence — and has wound up trapped.”
It’s similar to the claim Carrie Prejean Boller made recently when she asserted that “MAGA is dead.”
“It is deader than dead, and Americans are furious. We don’t recognize President Donald J. Trump anymore,” she said. Prejean Boller lost her place on the White House Religious Liberty Commission in February after she allegedly became disruptive during a hearing on antisemitism.
To be sure, there are legitimate concerns about the war with Iran. As The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson points out, there seems to be no clearly messaged end goal from the Trump administration. The potential for U.S. ground troop deployment seems more plausible now than ever, and rising oil prices are causing concern.
But having concerns about the war is not the same as MAGA being “dead” or Trump being “trapped.” In fact, one of Trump’s defining political abilities is his ability to come out on top when all the odds are stacked against him.
The media all but guaranteed Americans in 2016 that Hillary Clinton would be the next president. The HuffPost said Trump “has essentially no path to an Electoral College victory” while The New York Times said the probability of Clinton losing is “about the same … as an N.F.L. kicker [missing] a 37-yard field goal.”
Trump went on to win 304 electoral votes while Clinton managed to get 227.
After leaving office in 2021, Trump faced a series of indictments and lawfare, with pundits declaring his political career dead. A Salon op-ed gleefully cheered on the lawfare as a sign that Trump is “done for.” The Ottawa Citizen ran an opinion piece declaring, “It’s not that complicated. Donald Trump is done” in 2023.
Yet Trump went on to win all seven swing states and the popular vote in November of 2024 (after he survived a near assassination).
When it comes to policy, Trump has proven the doubters wrong time and time again. Trump pursued the Abraham Accords and normalization of Middle Eastern relations despite years of insistence from Washington think tanks and insiders that a deal could not get done without first solving the Palestinian issue. Then-Secretary of State John Kerry said as much in 2016: “The Arab countries have made clear that they will not make peace with Israel without resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” But Trump later got the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan to agree to deals.
Similarly Trump was told he could not move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The Brookings Institution, for example, said in 2017 that moving the embassy would be “dangerous and unwise” and cause “irreparable damage.” But no such “damage” materialized as a result of the move.
Time and time again, Trump has defied the odds and the experts — and MAGA has come to expect that.
Being part of the MAGA coalition requires a high degree of trust in the president, his instincts, and his plans even when things seem to be going awry. That doesn’t mean his plans will always work, especially when there are real and fair concerns. But to declare “MAGA is dead” or this is the “end of Trumpism” is to tacitly admit you have never understood MAGA in the first place.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
