View / How Trump’s politics returned to Earth

It’s a familiar cycle with President Donald Trump: The laws of political gravity seem to be suspended for him, and analysts develop theories that we’re in a radically changed world. Then, just as those theories develop — about hyperpartisanship, AI-intensified filter bubbles, Trump’s immunity to scandal, his control of the media — gravity returns with a vengeance.

As my colleagues Burgess Everett, Shelby Talcott, and Eleanor Mueller wrote Saturday, Trump appears to be following the path of past American presidents bleeding power after their first year, and reliving his own disastrous 2018. He’s trapped in rolling crises of his own making and is struggling to sell voters on the idea of a strong American economy.

Trump’s political standing, which has evolved over just a few months from dominant to desperate, is a good reminder of a few things conventional wisdom has gotten wrong.

1) Real videos

Remember the deepfake panic? Last year, many were convinced American politics would be destabilized by videos manipulated by artificial intelligence, or lulled into a post-truth stupor by AI slop. Or perhaps the White House’s apparent mastery of the new social video platforms would allow the Department of Homeland Security to define its own work with slickly-produced action films.

But it turns out that the political story of 2026 has been real videos on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube: Recordings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents roughing up immigrants and American citizens, crashing their cars into suspects’ vehicles, and confronting crowds from behind their masks.

Those videos, especially in the case of Alex Pretti’s shooting, drowned out both the slop and slick government productions. Now polling suggests the public, and even Republican leaders in Congress, have stopped buying the White House’s claims that federal agents’ paramilitary-style raids only target violent criminals.

As for the AI-generated videos? The only one destabilized by them so far has been Trump, who spent the weekend explaining why he’d shared a crude animation depicting the Obamas as apes.

“When working-class people are now basically coming out and chanting anti-ICE statements, it means that Republicans are losing and they should get back to where the mainstream is,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., told Semafor after, anti-ICE chants broke out this week at a wrestling event.

2) The Epstein disaster

The files related to the investigation of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are an oil spill, oozing through global politics and discrediting elites and would-be counter-elites alike. I’ve been veering between exasperation at wild X-borne theories seeping into the mainstream press (He’s a Russian agent! No, wait, he can’t seem to get a Russian visa…) and the irresistible reality that Epstein is a powerful metaphor for elite corruption.

And the truth of the Epstein files is that, like an oil slick, once you’ve got it on you, there’s no washing it off. That’s somehow intensified by the fact that most of the people mentioned in the files, like Paul Weiss’ now-former chairman Brad Karp, aren’t really accused of anything specific. Much of it is guilt by association — on the grounds, if nothing else, that elites should have known better than to associate with such a man.

And the narrative is eking out slowly, defying the notion that contemporary scandals are contained within brief news cycles. Early efforts by Trump’s aides to suppress the files made it worse; the new effort to flood the zone with files that feature Epstein talking constantly about his old friend Trump is also making it worse. Two Cabinet secretaries are in the files, as are Trump allies like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, and they’re all doing their best to redirect attention to prominent Democrats who are also implicated, like Democratic donor Reid Hoffman. The oil winds up all over everyone, and planned congressional hearings will only intensify Trump’s exposure.

3) The media takeover

Trump’s other early source of power last year was a cowed media. The president’s lawsuits, and the pragmatism of billionaires and diversified conglomerates, appeared to shift the landscape in Trump’s favor. The Washington Post, with its rapid pivot toward a Trump-curious editorial posture, seemed to be a case in point.

The Post is a cautionary tale for two reasons. First, the publication appears to have fired its audience without acquiring a new one. Readers who appreciated its aggressive confrontation with the White House do not appear to have been replaced by a cadre of center-right readers interested in measured criticism of Trump.

And second, while owner Jeff Bezos may have protected his space company from presidential retaliation, there’s no sign the Post won any benefits from the president or his movement. When I canvassed people in and around the administration after last week’s deep cuts, I found schadenfreude, not sympathy.

“Scorn at entitled journalists is a prevailing sentiment — but not applause for Bezos,” said one person close to the administration. Another said the Post is “like CNN. Will never get any grace from us.”

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal — owned by a more experienced operator in politics and media, Rupert Murdoch — has filled the role the Post occupied during Trump’s first term by breaking huge stories about investment in the Trump family business that, perhaps even more than the Epstein story, are unlikely to wash off.