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One of\u00a0President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0greatest political talents is bending the rest of his party to his will. After the 2024 election, he went into overdrive on that front, claiming his \u201clandslide\u201d victory gave him an \u201cunprecedented and powerful mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n The results<\/a>\u00a0don\u2019t indicate that, but the GOP swallowed it whole. Some lawmakers even argued they\u00a0should relegate themselves to vassals<\/a>\u00a0for Trump\u2019s agenda. (\u201cWhatever that is, we need to embrace it,\u201d Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas said. \u201cAll of it. Every single word.\u201d)<\/p>\n But that might not have been the wisest strategy for Republicans hoping to keep their seats in the 2026 midterm elections.<\/p>\n Trump has used that wide latitude to say seemingly whatever he pleases and to pursue policies that the American people decidedly dislike, most recently with the Iran war.<\/p>\n It\u2019s almost as if he doesn\u2019t care that what he\u2019s doing could torpedo the GOP\u2019s hopes in less than seven months \u2014 because Congress doesn\u2019t matter much to his view of power.<\/p>\n Republicans might want to proceed accordingly.<\/p>\n Trump has always conducted business in his way \u2014 he once called it \u201cmodern-day presidential.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n But as the\u00a0New York Times\u2019 Peter Baker puts it well<\/a>, the president\u2019s recent conduct has \u201cturbocharged the crazy-like-a-fox-or-just-plain-crazy debate\u201d that has stalked Trump.<\/p>\n The Iran war is a case in point. Trump launched it without bothering to build a consistent case for it to the American people. The\u00a0objectives have regularly shifted<\/a>, and Trump\u00a0seems unfamiliar with basic details<\/a>.<\/p>\n He has threatened Iran with\u00a0apparent war crimes<\/a>\u00a0and even warned last week that\u00a0\u201ca whole civilization will die tonight\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 before averting that course.<\/p>\n \u201cOpen the Fuckin\u2019 Strait, you crazy bastards, or you\u2019ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,\u201d Trump said in one missive on Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also exacerbated a\u00a0feud<\/a>\u00a0with the popular and American-born Pope Leo XIV over the war.<\/p>\n As part of it, he even posted a seemingly blasphemous AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ. When even allies started criticizing that, Trump deleted the post and bizarrely claimed he\u00a0thought the image showed him as a doctor<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a contention now the butt of endless social media jokes.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s hardly an isolated incident.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s behavior continues to push the bounds. He has also in recent months posted extremely callous thoughts after the deaths of two nemeses: Hollywood director Rob Reiner (suggesting the murder victim had instead\u00a0died from \u201cTRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME\u201d<\/a>) and former FBI Director Robert Mueller (\u201cGood, I\u2019m glad he\u2019s dead<\/a>\u201d).<\/p>\n And the president spent the early part of 2026 engaged in a public but ultimately failed effort to gain control of Greenland, an idea that nearly everyone dismissed as a joke when it was first floated years ago.<\/p>\n The most recent events have led even some former Trump allies \u2014 like ex-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Candace Owens and Alex Jones, as well as first Trump administration employees Ty Cobb and Stephanie Grisham \u2014 to warn that the president is crazy or insane. Some of them and others on the right have even floated the unlikely solution of\u00a0removing Trump from office using the 25th Amendment<\/a>.<\/p>\n A majority of Americans seems to notice his behavior too. A recent poll from Reuters and Ipsos showed 61% \u2014 and even 3 in 10 Republicans \u2014 agreed that Trump has \u201cbecome erratic with age<\/a>.\u201d Other polls suggest\u00a0rising concerns about Trump\u2019s mental acuity<\/a>, though not to the same extent as with former President Joe Biden a couple years ago.<\/p>\n If Republicans skeptical of the Iran war thought Trump might back down amid rising gas prices at home and declining poll numbers, they might want to think again. On Monday, the US began a blockade of Iranian ports.<\/p>\n And while there could soon be another round of US-Iran peace talks, Trump made clear before last weekend\u2019s negotiations that his militarism wasn\u2019t going anywhere. \u201cOur great military is loading up and resting, looking forward, actually, to its next conquest,\u201d Trump said, without specifying what that would be.<\/p>\n He\u2019s repeatedly floated forcing regime change in Cuba, saying he could \u201cdo anything I want\u201d with the island. If that happened, it would be the third \u201cconquest\u201d in just a few months in 2026, after the US ousted and captured Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in January.<\/p>\n This is a pattern with Trump. Nearly all of the major policies he\u2019s pursued have been rather predictably unpopular. The Iran war\u00a0polled very poorly before it began<\/a>\u00a0but so did Trump\u2019s tariffs, his big agenda bill, his pardons of January 6, 2021, defendants and a series of convicted fraudsters, and\u00a0much more<\/a>.<\/p>\n And even when the policies started with more support, the Trump administration\u2019s implementation has often made them more unpopular. That\u2019s been most notably the case with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts to popular programs and the administration\u2019s harsh deportation campaign.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown, which many Americans long thought\u00a0was too heavy-handed,<\/a>\u00a0blew up after two protesters were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in January. But the writing had been on the wall\u00a0for months<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear that Trump has given up on Republicans in 2026 \u2014 and he\u2019s got plenty of reason not to.<\/p>\n If Democrats won the House, they could launch politically dicey investigations of the Trump administration using their subpoena power, for instance. And Republicans would very much like to hold the Senate to fill any Supreme Court vacancies.<\/p>\n But Trump certainly seems to care more about doing what he wants in the time he has left in office rather than the political consequences for his party.<\/p>\n And even if Republicans conclude that the president doesn\u2019t have their best interests at heart, their options for keeping him in check are limited.<\/p>\n Some of them are starting to\u00a0stand up for their legislative prerogatives<\/a>\u00a0and push back on certain administration actions they don\u2019t like. On the war, for example, some Republicans have signaled they won\u2019t agree to the administration\u2019s requested $200 billion funding package. But that\u2019s a far cry from truly limiting Trump\u2019s authority to prosecute the war.<\/p>\n And even if more in the party embraced Greene\u2019s view that Trump has lost it, it\u2019s nearly unthinkable that enough Republicans would back impeachment or using the 25th Amendment.<\/p>\n What could be telling is if more Republicans \u2014 especially those who fear for their careers \u2014 start to carve more distance from Trump.<\/p>\n His poll numbers are hitting new lows, in some cases even worse than after January 6. He\u2019s alienated a\u00a0large swath of 2024 Trump voters<\/a>. And Democrats are over-performing in special elections, like the one for Greene\u2019s old seat last week, by\u00a0larger margins than ever in the Trump era<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been nearly a decade since Sen. Lindsey Graham, now a Trump ally, posted his infamous tweet.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed\u2026\u2026.and we will deserve it,\u201d the South Carolina Republican said.<\/p>\n Fast forward to 2026, and the GOP has a bad situation that, like Graham previewed, it can see coming: A president who is more emboldened than ever to do whatever he wants \u2014 which is regularly hurting his party.<\/p>\n The question is increasingly whether Republicans can do anything about it \u2014 or even convince Trump to try.<\/p>\nTrump\u2019s unhinged behavior<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s not just unhinged; most of it is also unpopular<\/h2>\n
What Republicans do now<\/h2>\n