Stop Rushing. Start Waiting. How Delay Will Beat Trump.
But political delay takes a lot of work
But political delay takes a lot of work
As of today, there are only 969 days left in President Donald Trump’s final term. That’s just a little more than two and a half years. In politics, that’s practically no time.
As we come upon the last midterm election of the Trump era, we inch closer and closer to Trump becoming a lame duck president, the term traditionally given to presidencies after the last midterm election of their final term. Though Trump has flirted with the idea of trying to run for a third term, it is constitutionally not allowed and would require a dramatically overreaching Supreme Court decision.
That might be in the realm of possibility these days, but let’s circle back to that thought a little later.
Trump is historically unpopular, and falling further every day. American voters are finally starting to chafe under his incompetent rule. The tariffs, the Iran War, the out of control ICE operations, the endless partisan favoritism, and eye popping gas prices are all serving to finally break the spell Trump has had on the country.
The best weapon Democrats and the left have against Trump right now is time.
The guy will either die (of natural causes), or leave office in the near future, and American government works slowly.
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He is going to get trounced in the midterms. Barring some unforeseen development, Democrats should take back the House, even with all the cheating gerrymandering schemes southern red states have launched in the last few weeks. The Senate is a tougher hill to climb, but Democrats don’t need both chambers of congress to gum up the works.
Trump and his lackeys know this, and they’re going to dump out all the policy priorities that they can before getting swept out of office. And they will look very desperate while doing so.
Expect even more attacks on trans rights, and more sycophantic government interference on behalf of gas and oil companies. Look for yet another escalation to banish undocumented migrants and immigrants from the country. Look for a show of force at this summer’s World Cup, and the Summer Olympics two years from now.
As Trump’s popularity falters, he will have less and less to lose, and if his underlings smell the end coming, they may double down.
But this also means we can run out the clock on him and the policies he’s proposing now. Without laws passed by congress and signed by Trump into law, the president is limited to taking executive action, like federal agency rules and executive orders. That means the next president can simply undo it with executive action.
The government is not designed for speed, even though Trump has repeatedly bent the American bureaucracy to his will. Last week, former FBI Director James Comey had reportedly told career staffers at the Department of Justice to just wait out the last of the Trump term. The president lashed out in response, calling Justice staffers “scum” and promising to redouble efforts to purge anyone not completely loyal and committed to the Trump project from the department.
Things still take time to implement. There are judges who still care about things like administrative procedure law. Despite the conservative majority on the Supreme Court and its speedy shadow docket, the court system is still a tool available for delaying and slowing down the Trump policy onslaught.
If ten new federal rules were announced today, some may end up on the books, but between lawsuits and admin law procedures, most will not. And that window to do things moves closer and closer to closing with each passing day, every minute that ticks by. Tick tock, Trump is on the clock.
That puts time on our side here.
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This was the strategy congressional Republicans ran on Obama starting on his inauguration day. They blocked everything, they challenged everything in court, they protested, and they campaigned their butts off.
Mitch McConnell even delayed the nomination of a Supreme Court justice for over a year in a brazen end run around usual Senate procedure.
Rather than accepting defeat, they fought for every inch of ground.
That is the model that Democrats should mimic here in 2026. Delaying alone won’t lead us to victory, it is merely a means to an end. Democrats should also be out campaigning, and building presidential election infrastructure, and delaying every nomination for every Trump position and organizing against every Trump judge.
We the people should keep protesting, keep petitioning the government, and keep letting Republicans know of our disapproval.
Now here’s the risk in delaying: what if Trump doesn’t leave office, or the Supreme Court allows him to run for another term? That is a legitimate concern, but there’s no way the guy would win another election without major fraud. The sheer unpopularity of the guy would almost certainly lead to the end of the American state as it exists now if he somehow managed to rig things in a way that kept him in office for another term.
I don’t think John Roberts wants to be the last Supreme Court Chief Justice.
There is, however, a more relevant danger. What if Democrats fail to take back the White House in 2028? It’s not a sure thing by any means that the party as it stands now will both nominate an effective candidate that can break through with voters and also manage it in a way to win.
Democrats have always been experts in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and another Republican taking the presidency next election cycle will be a disaster for so many constituencies that Democrats profess to care about.
If that comes to pass, not only will any federal action Trump proposes be implemented, but they’ll have another four or eight years to continue beyond what this administration is doing now.
But those are all tomorrow problems, not today problems and right now the best thing we can do is delay and prepare for a better day ahead. The country’s most vulnerable people need every inch of ground we can hope to maintain until the next presidency.
