Don’t underestimate the power Trump still retains

There’s much talk about there being a new sheriff in town, but that sheriff won’t be issued with a badge and keys to the cells until January.

Unravelling the challenges now facing the American people after last week’s so-called ‘blue tsunami’ is indeed a head-scratcher, to say the least. Firstly, despite Schumer and co. doing their predictable lap of honour to sell the false narrative that the American people have returned to the Democratic fold, the truth tells a very different story.

Politicians might like to think they rule the roost, and they do, until they don’t. That was on full display on November 3rd. What I need people to understand is that election day was NOT about politics; it was about what politics has done to destroy the prosperity of the many in service of the few. It was about the American people codifying their lack of trust in the political class. Democratic leadership is simply deluding itself if it thinks voters are providing a vote of confidence in their ability to deliver change.

I’m long past thinking about what people think of my brand of unvarnished truth, so I’ll explain my thinking in terms of reality versus this insipid belief that everything will be OK in the end. It will only be OK if we make it so, and I’m afraid that is going to take a gargantuan effort, not only in navigating a careful path to liberation, but in gaining a broad understanding of the obstacles that need to be overcome to restore the soul of a nation.

Someone said in a comment to my post on Sunday, “If you’re so smart, explain it to us”. Firstly, I’m not professing to be smart; that’s for others to judge, but I would respectfully suggest that if you read my work, I have invested a significant amount of time explaining a great many things, especially when it comes to US politics and the challenges faced by people whose only crime appears to be that they are not part of the asset class. I’ve discussed the wealth gap in detail and the challenges of the tax code, and the cancer that is Republican propaganda.

If you’re sitting around thinking, ‘we won, it’s all over’, I suggest you go to the bathroom, splash your face with cold water, and listen up. This will be a marathon, not a sprint, and nobody can run a marathon without training and preparation; otherwise, it all ends in tears halfway to the finish line. If you’re unlucky, it ends in a hospital emergency room.

The science of politics is real, and before we can implement a strategy, we have to understand the new political landscape. This is not about Republican vs Democrat, and I suspect it hasn’t been for a long time. In a report by Mary Lou Cooper on October 20th for KSFR (101.1 FM), Santa Fe Public Radio in New Mexico, which partners with the BBC World Service, she noted:

According to the latest Gallup poll, 45 percent of U.S. adults identify as political independents, a record high. Only 27 percent of US adults identify as Democrats and 27 percent identify as Republicans. Furthermore, almost 60 percent of Americans give both parties unfavorable ratings, according to the PEW Research Center.

In an interview, Professor Samara Klar at the University of Arizona School of Government and Public Policy answered a number of questions, the first of which was:

Who are the independent voters of 2026? Her answer?

They don’t come from any specific demographic group. They’re young, old, previous D’s and R’s, liberals and conservatives. It’s hard for independent candidates to win because independent voters are diverse. Most independents have political preferences that align left or right, but they don’t identify with the partisanship characterizing American politics.

The follow-up gives us a better insight:

Are truly independent voters a myth, or do they really lean R or D?

A book from political scientists in the early 1990s called “The Myth of the Independent Voter” [by Bruce E. Keith, David B. Magleby, Candice J. Nelson, Elizabeth Orr, Mark C. Westlye, and Raymond E. Wolfinger last updated in 1992], found that independents usually do prefer one party over the other and consistently vote for one party over the other. The implication was that independents are just Republicans or Democrats in disguise. Klar’s research took it a step further to look at why people call themselves independents. She found that independents usually do favor one party, at least a little, but they don’t do a lot of the things that we need partisans to do—like put up yard signs, volunteer, or talk to friends and neighbors about who they’re voting for.

I want to step in here, because this is important and points to part of what happened last Tuesday. If you look at detailed research, between 85% and 90% of independents lean towards one party, even though they self-identify as independents, which is an important distinction.

Chart: Gallup

As noted in a piece by Jeffrey M. Jones for Gallup on January 12th 2026, which features the graph above, the landscape has changed. It’s an important read that I highly recommend, and one in which he notes:

The recent increase in independent identification is partly attributable to younger generations of Americans (millennials and Generation X) continuing to identify as independents at relatively high rates as they have gotten older. In contrast, older generations of Americans have been less likely to identify as independents over time. Generation Z, like previous generations before them when they were young, identify disproportionately as political independents.

With this in mind, it’s also worth taking a look at the age demographics, because this will play into my explanation of the challenges ahead as we navigate this journey of understanding together.

Chart: Gallup

Professor Klar notes:

Ten to 15% of voters at the most say they genuinely don’t prefer either party. But most independents say they usually vote for one party or the other. These “leaners” don’t want to be called partisans or wear the buttons or put the stickers on their cars. The “leaners” have grown exponentially over the last several decades.

So if we accept the numbers, jointly, 54% of Americans identify as Republicans or Democrats, and 45% identify as Independents, and in my view, these are the sleepers that were activated to effect change, so this assumption that Democrats came home is utter nonsense, and it should be recognised as such.

It is absolutely imperative that NOBODY partakes of the political Kool-Aid that Washington is swimming in this week as the House returns. Pragmatism and objective thinking must lead the way, because this is about to become a game of 4-D political chess that may get extremely ugly before Democrats take over the House and the Senate.

Let me first address the orange elephant in the room. Over the next two months, Trump is likely to be at his most dangerous because he can’t run again and his legacy is slowly turning into a global joke. There needs to be no legacy, because if there is, this could all happen again. More disturbingly, I want to draw your attention to something called the Nero Decree. For those who are avid readers of history, its official title was ‘the Decree Concerning Demolitions in the Reich Territory’ or ‘Befehl betreffend Zerstörungsmaßnahmen im Reichsgebiet’.

This scorched-earth order was written on 19th March 1945 and assigned to the Gauleiters (Reich Defence Commissioners) and military commands. However, Albert Speer, Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, took charge of the implementation, prior to Hitler committing suicide in his bunker (I’m not sure if there was a ballroom above it at the time). To his credit, Speer tried to ensure the order was NOT carried out, but it still caused significant infrastructure damage because some regional commanders did follow it. Hitler was a malignant narcissist, as, in my view, is Trump.

My greatest fear right now is that Miller has been chosen for a 21st-century reenactment of Hitler’s Nero decree. He is a man with no conscience who shares Trump’s racist ideology, and I believe him to be a clear and present danger to the upcoming transfer of power. There won’t need to be a repeat of the 2021 insurrection because Trump will already have the levers of power to sabotage any chance for Democrats to pass any meaningful legislation. The end result will be that they will be left holding the political IED when it explodes in January. The Big Beautiful Bill’s Medicaid work requirements must be in place by 1 January 2027. In my view this was a poisoned chalice designed for exactly this scenario.

Be in no doubt, I would not be surprised if Trump attempted to burn the government to the ground so there’s nothing left to deliver anything but pain to the American people, all in the hope that Democrats will pay the price in 2028. It’s a natural instinct to want to hold those who seemed involved in corruption while in office accountable for their actions. The reality of achieving it is a whole other matter. For me, it’s silly for Rep. Robert Garcia to engage in retribution talk. It’s childish and unhelpful. Ultimately, it enables Republicans, as they are now doing, to play the victim, because they have years of experience doing it.

The secret is to plan how to take investigations forward in a way the public sees as a necessary process rather than vendetta politics, which is totally predictable, I’m afraid. With the majorities of the scale Democrats have, there’s no need to engage in performative action; let the majority do the talking, and approach the situation with carefully crafted ethics legislation designed to provide more long-lasting protections against corruption and self-dealing. Get Jamie Raskin on the job.

In the next episode, I want to explore why the danger to the American people doesn’t come only from Trump and what he might do, but from not-fit-for-purpose leadership within the Democratic Party that, once again, appears focused on the same old, same old approach to politics.

If you would like to support my work but can’t commit to a paid subscription, you can now make a one-off donation by clicking the image below. Your donation helps cover research costs and keeps my independent reporting FREE for all. It also now helps support Truth Matters.