Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Reality waits. And sooner or later, reality always has the final word.
Donald Trump hates America.
What could be worse for a democracy than a president who has spent years persuading millions of ignorant Americans that elections are fundamentally fraudulent unless he wins?
Trump has presented us with an insane choice.
Trump has asked us to believe simultaneously that we live in the greatest democracy on earth, the greatest country on earth, the best place ever, compared to which everything else is nothing, but also in a country where democracy no longer functions.
Such contradictions cannot be sustained forever.
Eventually, they begin to destroy the very movements that created them.
Thus, MAGA has doomed itself and needs to be doomed in order for us to survive.
Let me explain.
History is full of leaders who discovered too late that their lie-based propaganda has a price.
The lie that mobilizes an ignorant crowd of followers today becomes the prison from which tomorrow’s supporters cannot escape.
If people truly believe, for instance, that their votes never count, why would they vote?
If every election is rigged unless their leader wins, defeat becomes proof not of political failure or the need to change your mind or grow or evolve, but of some sort of shadowy cosmic conspiracy.
At that point, politics gives way to mythology.
Trump has now reached that point.
My recent podcast guest on my show, In Conversation with Frank Schaeffer, which is available on YouTube, was the journalist David Frum.
Frum, who is also an editor at The Atlantic, observed that Trump first demonstrated this self-destructive instinct after losing the 2020 election.
Republicans entered the Georgia Senate runoffs in early 2021 with an excellent chance of retaining control of the Senate.
Instead of encouraging his supporters to vote, Trump devoted himself to convincing them that the election system itself was hopelessly corrupt and rigged against him.
So many Republican voters simply stayed home while Democratic turnout increased.
Republicans lost both seats and, with them, any chance of controlling the Senate.
This was a prime example of the fact that Trump has been, and is, destroying the future of the Republican Party as we approach the midterms.
Why?
Because most politicians place their priority on their party first when elections approach.
Trump only places a priority on himself.
Normal political leaders tell supporters that every vote matters because they need their coalition to remain engaged.
Trump tells supporters that the entire system is rigged and corrupt because his emotional needs require that.
Otherwise, why would his poll numbers be in the toilet unless it was a conspiracy?
Why did he lose an election to Joe Biden?
Why are all his policies backfiring today or being overturned by courts of law as unconstitutional?
And most of all, why is his war of choice on Iran now costing Iran little compared to what it has cost the world economy and the United States, making Trump look as foolish and inept as he is?
Trump has lost that war.
Iran is now more powerful than it was before he attacked it.
Everyone knows that but him. (I think he knows it too, but won’t admit it.)
Since none of this could possibly be Trump’s problem from his point of view, or a reflection of his monumental stupidity, it must be some sort of evidence of a deep, shadowy conspiracy.
This is one of the defining characteristics of narcissistic leadership, whether it’s in business, or a father in a home, or a teacher in a university, or a president.
Everything becomes autobiography.
In this instance, national politics ceases to be about schools and health care, and wages, and foreign policy, and inflation, and ordinary families, and the strength of our nation, and the military, and choosing wars that you can win. Instead, it becomes a stage upon which one man struts his grievances, which he then endlessly performs.
That is why Trump so often abandons Republicans running for office.
Their campaigns matter only insofar as they reinforce his personal mythology.
If they lose because his rhetoric discourages turnout or turns people off, or an ICE agent shoots somebody in the face in a town where they are running or live, so be it.
Republicans exist to serve Trump, never the reverse.
The larger tragedy is that millions of decent Americans mistook Trump’s perpetual, terminally narcissistic, psychotic breakdowns for leadership.
But real leadership encourages courage.
Narcissism encourages despair.
Leadership enlarges people’s sense of responsibility.
Narcissism teaches hopelessness.
Genuine leaders say your actions matter.
…
In the end, and this is the thing Republicans have forgotten, reality has remarkable patience.
Reality waits.
And sooner or later, reality always has the final word.
frankschaeffer.substack.com/p/trump-dooms-the-republican-party?utm_source=youtube
Reality waits. And sooner or later, reality always has the final word.
Donald Trump hates America.
What could be worse for a democracy than a president who has spent years persuading millions of ignorant Americans that elections are fundamentally fraudulent unless he wins?
Trump has presented us with an insane choice.
Trump has asked us to believe simultaneously that we live in the greatest democracy on earth, the greatest country on earth, the best place ever, compared to which everything else is nothing, but also in a country where democracy no longer functions.
Such contradictions cannot be sustained forever.
Eventually, they begin to destroy the very movements that created them.
Thus, MAGA has doomed itself and needs to be doomed in order for us to survive.
Let me explain.
History is full of leaders who discovered too late that their lie-based propaganda has a price.
The lie that mobilizes an ignorant crowd of followers today becomes the prison from which tomorrow’s supporters cannot escape.
If people truly believe, for instance, that their votes never count, why would they vote?
If every election is rigged unless their leader wins, defeat becomes proof not of political failure or the need to change your mind or grow or evolve, but of some sort of shadowy cosmic conspiracy.
At that point, politics gives way to mythology.
Trump has now reached that point.
My recent podcast guest on my show, In Conversation with Frank Schaeffer, which is available on YouTube, was the journalist David Frum.
Frum, who is also an editor at The Atlantic, observed that Trump first demonstrated this self-destructive instinct after losing the 2020 election.
Republicans entered the Georgia Senate runoffs in early 2021 with an excellent chance of retaining control of the Senate.
Instead of encouraging his supporters to vote, Trump devoted himself to convincing them that the election system itself was hopelessly corrupt and rigged against him.
So many Republican voters simply stayed home while Democratic turnout increased.
Republicans lost both seats and, with them, any chance of controlling the Senate.
This was a prime example of the fact that Trump has been, and is, destroying the future of the Republican Party as we approach the midterms.
Why?
Because most politicians place their priority on their party first when elections approach.
Trump only places a priority on himself.
Normal political leaders tell supporters that every vote matters because they need their coalition to remain engaged.
Trump tells supporters that the entire system is rigged and corrupt because his emotional needs require that.
Otherwise, why would his poll numbers be in the toilet unless it was a conspiracy?
Why did he lose an election to Joe Biden?
Why are all his policies backfiring today or being overturned by courts of law as unconstitutional?
And most of all, why is his war of choice on Iran now costing Iran little compared to what it has cost the world economy and the United States, making Trump look as foolish and inept as he is?
Trump has lost that war.
Iran is now more powerful than it was before he attacked it.
Everyone knows that but him. (I think he knows it too, but won’t admit it.)
Since none of this could possibly be Trump’s problem from his point of view, or a reflection of his monumental stupidity, it must be some sort of evidence of a deep, shadowy conspiracy.
This is one of the defining characteristics of narcissistic leadership, whether it’s in business, or a father in a home, or a teacher in a university, or a president.
Everything becomes autobiography.
In this instance, national politics ceases to be about schools and health care, and wages, and foreign policy, and inflation, and ordinary families, and the strength of our nation, and the military, and choosing wars that you can win. Instead, it becomes a stage upon which one man struts his grievances, which he then endlessly performs.
That is why Trump so often abandons Republicans running for office.
Their campaigns matter only insofar as they reinforce his personal mythology.
If they lose because his rhetoric discourages turnout or turns people off, or an ICE agent shoots somebody in the face in a town where they are running or live, so be it.
Republicans exist to serve Trump, never the reverse.
The larger tragedy is that millions of decent Americans mistook Trump’s perpetual, terminally narcissistic, psychotic breakdowns for leadership.
But real leadership encourages courage.
Narcissism encourages despair.
Leadership enlarges people’s sense of responsibility.
Narcissism teaches hopelessness.
Genuine leaders say your actions matter.
…
In the end, and this is the thing Republicans have forgotten, reality has remarkable patience.
Reality waits.
And sooner or later, reality always has the final word.
frankschaeffer.substack.com/p/trump-dooms-the-republican-party?utm_source=youtube
