Although Donald Trump's victory in the United States' 2024 presidential election was far from the "landslide" he claims it was — he defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by roughly 1.5 percent in the national popular vote — the now-president showed his political resilience. Trump was facing four criminal indictments, one of which found a jury convicting him on 34 felony counts. But he not only won the popular vote for the first time — he also made inroads with Latinos, Generation Z, independents, swing voters, and the tech industry.
Trump has ran for president four times, starting with a marginal Reform Party campaign in 2000. And 2024 was his most successful thanks in part, according to polls, to his heavy emphasis on the economy and inflation.
But the New York Times' Michelle Goldberg, in her December 26 column, argues that Trump is doing everything he can to sabotage his own presidency.
"It has been a gruesome year for those who see Donald Trump's kakistocracy clearly," Goldberg warns. "He returned to office newly emboldened, surrounded by obsequious tech barons, seemingly in command of not just the country, but also, the zeitgeist. Since then, it's been a parade of nightmares — armed men in balaclavas on the streets, migrants sent to a torture prison in El Salvador, corruption on a scale undreamed of by even the gaudiest third-world dictators and the shocking capitulation by many leaders in business, law, media and academia."
The liberal columnist adds, "Trying to wrap one's mind around the scale of civic destruction wrought in just 11 months stretches the limits of the imagination, like conceptualizing light-years or black holes. And yet, as 2025 limps toward its end, there are reasons to be hopeful."
Democrats were feeling demoralized after Harris' narrow loss. Yet Democrats have enjoyed some major victories in 2025 elections, from double-digit wins in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey to three Democratic justices winning Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention elections. And Trump's approval ratings are weak in poll after poll.
Trump, Goldberg observes, "ends the year weak and unpopular" — and she argues that politically, he can be his own worst enemy.
"Much of the credit for the reinvigoration of the resistance belongs to Trump himself," Goldberg writes. "Had he focused his deportation campaign on criminals or refrained from injuring the economy with haphazard tariffs while mocking concerns about affordability, he would probably have remained a more formidable figure. He's still a supremely dangerous one, especially as he comes to feel increasingly cornered and aggrieved."
Michelle Goldberg's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).