Next November, will voters take a wrecking ball to the Oval Office?

Do you want to know the difference between Reaganism and Trumpism?

Ronald Reagan stands before freedom-loving West Germans at the Berlin Wall, and says, “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The wall comes down, the Soviet Union collapses, the Cold War is won and millions of people in eastern Europe go from dictatorship to freedom.

Donald Trump stands on the South Lawn of the White House with demolition crews. “I as President say Tear Down the East Wing!” The East Wing comes down, his press secretary says Trump is the “builder-in-chief”, a ballroom is erected, thousands of uber-wealthy Trump contributors come to party, and America goes from democracy to autocracy.

The premier of Ontario, Canada, had the temerity of placing an ad quoting President Ronald Reagan decrying the destructive effects of tariffs. Trump immediately raised his punitive tariffs on Canada by 10 per cent.

Trumpism has eclipsed Reaganism.

We are nearly one year past the election that brought Trump to unprecedented presidential power. We are one year away from the last chance by the American people – the midterm elections for Congress in November next year – to check Trump’s exercise of authoritarian power.

Trump has changed the world and is changing America. The United States is no longer the leader of the free world because the free world is no longer following America. As historian Niall Ferguson recently wrote, “the US-led system of collective security is dead”.

Trump has destroyed the economic and trading architecture erected after World War II to promote growth and prosperity. The United States no longer has trading partners but trading victims – including Australia and US allies Canada, Mexico, the EU, the UK, Japan, India and South Korea.

On the world stage, Trump has failed to succeed in his role as master of the art of the deal. More than 275 days after Trump said he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, there are no peace talks with Putin. The outcome of the war in Gaza is also not resolved.

China and the US are talking, but there is no certainty on where Trump and Xi will land on trade and Taiwan. China is deadlocked. That trade war has resumed. There is no clarity on where Trump wants to land on trade or Taiwan.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s meeting with Trump was among the best bilaterals with Trump – better than those with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, the UK’s Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron. There were zero points of contention. Trump had nothing but high praise for the PM. There was no fawning over Trump by the PM. No Nobel Prize talk.

They sat side by side in the cabinet room as true partners – not across the table as negotiators. Australia got AUKUS and billions for rare earths. Trump lavished praise on Albo.

While there was no gain for Australia on the existing Trump tariffs, Trump was never going to retreat on those.

At home, Trump is running the US as an authoritarian. The constitution established three co-equal branches of the government: Congress, the executive and the judiciary. They are no longer co-equal. The presidency is now paramount. The other two are yet to place checks on his power.

Trump is most powerful and effective when he acts unilaterally. On foreign policy and trade, he can strike militarily (such as the attacks on Iran and on boats from Venezuela) and impose trade tariffs at will. He can unilaterally cut and terminate foreign aid programs, slash funding to the UN (after telling the member nations in the General Assembly in September that “your countries are going to hell”) and leave international institutions such as the World Health Organisation, the Paris climate agreements and many others.

On domestic policy, Trump’s masked and well-armed agents are arresting and deporting thousands of people. Trump is exercising the power of the purse that belongs to Congress under the Constitution by impounding funds appropriated by Congress. He is closing government agencies and departments – such as the Department of Education and the Consumer Protection Finance Bureau, the Agency for International Development and many more – all enacted by Congress and signed into law. Trump is putting more troops in US cities.

Trump is viciously attacking those in the media he views as his enemies – from Jimmy Kimmel to The New York Times, the television networks, and public broadcasting, which he defunded.

The legal challenges to Trump’s unilateral exercise of such power are slow. But there will be judgments in the Supreme Court over Trump’s tariffs, his deportations, his removal of the heads of the independent agencies in the executive branch, his impoundment of funds, the deployment of troops in American cities and the treatment of universities.

Trump’s style of government is marked by retribution. Many of the prominent officials who either investigated or prosecuted Trump since he first became president have been or will be indicted on orders by Trump to his Department of Justice.

In the five midterm elections since 2006, the average swing of seats in the House of Representatives against the party sitting in the White House is 31. The Republican edge in the House today is three. The gerrymandering of electorates in Republican states, offset by more Democratic seats in California, could yield them a net gain of at least a dozen seats. Neither party is confident they have this.

Much will turn on the state of the economy. The current government shutdown and job-slashing does not help. Tariffs and stagflation are not election winners.

Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump learnt that huge defeats in their midterms elections stops their legislative agenda cold. Congressional committees suddenly erupt with hearings, investigations, oversight and subpoenas.

Trump gets it. Last week, he told Republican senators, “if you have a great presidency, it only makes sense that you win the midterms”. If not, everything would be “taken away by the radical left lunatics”.

In November 2026, will voters take a wrecking ball to the Oval Office?

A year is a long time. Anything can happen, and it probably will.

Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.

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