This is hardly breaking news. It’s not like some horrifying new information has been uncovered about the President of the United States in recent days.

(Although I think he didn’t help himself by posting ape photos of the Obamas and refusing to apologize.)

Then I started thinking about this issue some comments By Ross Douthat, a moderately conservative New York Times columnist and, shall we say, often critical Donald Trump.

“I want to tell you a secret,” Douthat said in the video. Well, that sounds exciting.

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Center-right New York Times columnist Ross Douthat believes President Donald Trump has “lost the country.” (Al Drago/Getty Images)

“Most conservatives on the internet don’t want you to know this. Donald Trump lost the country just one year into his second term as president.”

Is this true?

He’s not just saying that Democrats will defeat Republicans in the midterm elections like the Seattle Seahawks obliterated the New England Patriots in the midterms. super bowl.

He played clips of experts analyzing the latest polls, such as Trump’s approval rating of 37 percent and a majority of Americans saying the country is in worse shape than a year ago.

But is this the rare opinion of the Asela Corridor intelligentsia? Doesn’t it reflect the “silent majority” — a term popularized by Richard Nixon and now embraced by Trump?

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Let Douthat make his case: “All of this was predictable. From the first days of the Governor’s administration to the crushing defeat in Minneapolis, the Trump administration has governed as if swing voters were not in its league. And now, guess what? They’re not.”

Let me offer some warnings:

Over the past decade, Donald Trump has been declared politically dead with alarming frequency. in his “Access Hollywood” comments about his attitude toward women. After paying hush money to Stormi Daniels. So did most of their fellow Republicans after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Not to mention four indictments, one of which resulted in a conviction, which undoubtedly ultimately helped Trump because they were seen as overkill.

How many political geniuses at the time thought Trump could come back and win re-election?

Few among the political intelligentsia are truly prepared for a Trump comeback. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo credit: Reuters)

While I agree that Democrats face a hurricane of pressure heading into the midterms, we are still nine months away and there are many unknown variables, especially the state of the economy following Trump’s tariffs.

What’s more, Trump’s divisive governing style remains focused on pandering to his “Make America Great Again” base while doggedly denouncing Democratic leaders (Tim Walz is a “serious r—–d”) and their cities (Baltimore is a “hell”) and saying Somalis are “trash” and should be sent home.

“But that’s the way it is,” Douthat said. “When the Trump administration becomes unpopular, it’s not moderates and swing voters who lose. It’s people on the right. People like me, and certainly people who support many of the things the Trump administration is trying to do, from securing the border to pressuring U.S. institutions to be more ideologically diverse to resetting and rolling back DEI. All of this, all of these agendas will disappear if republican party Cannot win elections. “

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After proposing various explanations, I have to say that I think Ross Douthat has a point.

We’ve lived through a period in which the president kidnapped the leader of Venezuela (although Nicolás Maduro is a dishonest thug), threatened to take over Greenland, alienated Canada with his 51st State of the Nation speech, deposed the East Wing, ordered his name to be engraved on the Kennedy Center, and presided over the longest government shutdown in U.S. history at 43 days.

He is still haunted by the Jeffrey Epstein documents, even though I think they confirm that he personally did not engage in sexual misconduct.

Trump has also made no effort to conceal his retaliatory actions against political opponents, although such attempts have often been rejected by the courts (such as when judges dismissed the charges against Jim Comey and Letitia James).

Jeffrey Epstein’s dossier is a lingering burden for the president. (Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)

I think it’s something more visceral than that.

Horrible brutality by ICE has fueled a backlash against federal forces who are enforcing Trump’s signature campaign issue, the mass deportation program. The violence against these agents is certainly condemnable.

Yet every few days, Americans hear or see phone calls about ICE detaining a 5-year-old boy, ICE dragging a man in his underwear into the snow and returning him, ICE pulling an American citizen from a car, ICE breaking a car window after learning there was a one-month-old baby in the back seat, covering the baby with shards of glass.

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Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, told me in an interview Video Podcast Interview She maintains her view that Renee Goode is a domestic terrorist.

But it was the killing of Goode, who had just dropped her children off at school, and especially Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse who worked with veterans, that truly shook the country and turned Minneapolis into something like a war zone.

The president toned down his rhetoric, saying ICE should take a “softer approach,” express sympathy for dead Americans and begin a partial troop withdrawal from minnesota.

Sometimes the accumulation of problems reaches a point where they get stuck in people’s throats and refuse to let go, causing lasting damage.

The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti turned Minneapolis into an effective war zone. (Stephanie Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

So did Trump lose the country? it’s complicated.

The tipping point issue can easily become a microcosm of all the other characteristics people dislike about politicians. The economy is indeed not that bad, with the unemployment rate at 4.4%, but many Americans believe they are worse off.

ICE engages in sometimes brutal tactics that are supposed to target illegal immigrants and the so-called “worst of the worst,” but are increasingly used against U.S. citizens.

An internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by CBS shows that less than 14% of the nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by ICE last year were charged or convicted of violent criminal offenses.

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There are also children trapped in this net. According to a lawsuit, 18-month-old Amelia was taken to the hospital with life-threatening respiratory failure and then returned to a Texas detention center, where she allegedly was denied daily medication prescribed by her doctor. An immigrant rights advocate at Columbia Law School said the toddler was “already close to death” when she struggled to breathe, NBC reported. (Amelia was released after a lawsuit was filed.)

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I would never rule out Trump’s ability to stage a comeback. But anxieties about ICE and attacks on this country’s citizens have left indelible scars on his presidency.