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In America this spring, seeds of political change are stirring.
In the middle of seismic events, it’s often hard to identify a specific pivot point. But politics is never still — even when omnipresent presidents believe they are in total control.
A turbulent political environment appears to be headed for a crystallizing moment. Will President Donald Trump continue to dominate the zeitgeist as he has for more than a decade? Or will forces he’s unleashed — and others beyond his control — consign him to lame-duck status and move the country toward a future where he’s no longer its dominant voice?
Take one enduring measure of Trump’s political strength: his stranglehold on Capitol Hill Republicans. It’s finally being tested as lawmakers express frustration about his leadership over Iran, following a revolt over the Epstein files late last year.
A more general sense of political malaise is likely to be deepened by long airport lines in a Department of Homeland Security crisis sparked by his hardline immigration policies. Government shutdowns rarely benefit either party — but impressions of a nation adrift often rebound against unpopular presidents.
People attend the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, on Thursday. Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters
And while Democrats might not yet have won back voters’ trust, they’re emerging from their 2024 debacle. Now, it’s Republicans who are fearfully eyeing voters on a streak of throw-the-bums-out elections. Splits in the MAGA movement are raising questions about its future potency, while generational tensions are boiling in the Democratic Party.
Worsening anxiety about high prices for food and housing — likely to be exacerbated by the Iran war — are curating a distinctly populist backdrop to the 2028 presidential election. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted Thursday that the war would send US inflation above 4.0% this year, up from the 2.8% it forecast in December.
So much for Trump’s claim to have solved the affordability crisis. He continues to seem indifferent to the struggles of many Americans, saying Thursday that the abrupt rise in gas prices “hasn’t been nearly as severe” as he’d expected due to the war.
Not every event that may reshape politics is about Washington. A Los Angeles jury this week delivered a landmark judgment against You Tube and Meta, ruling that social media bosses knew their platforms posed risks for young people and bore responsibility for a young woman’s mental health challenges.
The companies plan to appeal. But the ruling may open a small crack in the power of tech giants. It might tempt ambitious politicians to lean harder into parental concerns about social media — and its invasive cousin AI — in campaigns.
Not every seed germinates. But politics is evolving.
Reporters raise their hands to ask questions as President Donald Trump looks on during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on Thursday. Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
The US president, who turns 80 in a few months, has taken on the most profound challenge of his two terms in power by launching a war without winning over the country and clearly defining a rationale or an exit strategy.
A year ago, Trump was orchestrating the most aggressive display of executive power in modern history, crushing pillars of the liberal establishment with assaults on big law firms, Ivy League universities and media outlets.
Twelve months later, he’s sliding fast. Three opinion polls in the last week have his approval below 40% and voter disapproval at a perilous 60% or above. The CNN Poll of Polls puts the president’s approval at 38% — well below the safe zone for parties of incumbent presidents in midterm election years.
Trump’s war leadership has often been incoherent, unfolding in a flurry of threats, deadlines and red lines.
After predicting earlier this week that a peace deal could be imminent and saying he wanted a deal, the president snapped Thursday, “I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care.”
A few hours later — more whiplash. Trump suspended air strikes on Iranian power plants, designed to force the Islamic Republic to open the Strait of Hormuz, until April 6.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth inadvertently highlighted the danger of the political moment for the president Thursday during a Cabinet meeting.
“This is stuff for the history books. This is stuff for legacy,” Hegseth told his boss. He’s right: The war is now likely to define the president’s second term. If he can’t find a way to get out of it with a clear win soon, it will haunt him in posterity.
A logo of CPAC and an image depicting President Donald Trump during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, on Wednesday. Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters
A sense that the president’s political foundation is less robust is underscored by this week’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Normally a raucous victory lap for Trump, this year’s event seems overshadowed by MAGA fractures that may hint at a movement that is not just split over Israel but over its path to a post-Trump future.
In another sign of political change, a Florida Democrat won a state legislature seat Tuesday in a deep-red district that contains Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Pundits often tend to overreact to minor election contests, especially those with such obvious symbolism. But Democrats have flipped 30 seats in state legislatures in special and regularly scheduled elections over the last year. No wonder 35 House GOP members are retiring or seeking higher office this year — the most since at least 1930.
Trump is not helping Republican jitters by his failure to explain his war aims in Iran. House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers on Wednesday described “frustration on both sides of the aisle in the last few briefings” from top officials. He said members lacked adequate information about plans for ground troops, the end goal or the expected price tag of the war. Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, meanwhile, wants to know why more US Marines and airborne troops are being sent to the Middle East. “We do not have clarity at the moment, we do not, and we need to get it,” he said.
Democrats are still working through the generational and ideological churn unleashed after advancing age derailed former President Joe Biden’s bid for a second term. This tension is playing out in midterm primaries. In Maine, for instance, polls show the establishment candidate Gov. Janet Mills trailing oyster farmer and populist progressive Graham Platner in the Senate Democratic primary. The race is critical to Democratic hopes of taking back the chamber and finally pushing out longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer enters an elevator at the US Capitol on March 20 in Washington. Tom Brenner/AP
The relative youth movement also broke surface in the Senate this month following a Wall Street Journal report that some Democrats were tiring of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s leadership. The Journal said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy revealed at a private dinner last month that some colleagues had been conducting vote counts to see if there was enough support to remove the New York Democrat — the last remnant of an era of party leaders dating back to the days of former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Murphy told CNN’s Phil Mattingly on Wednesday that “Schumer has a very hard job.” But he added: “It hasn’t been, you know, a secret that a lot of us have wanted the caucus to fight harder and to hold out longer for our principles.”
Speculation over Schumer’s leadership is one harbinger of a future political era. The signs that Trump will one day no longer be the center of gravity are even more significant.
The new Washington is a ways off. But the political trends that will form its foundation are beginning to emerge.
A turbulent political environment appears to be headed for a crystallizing moment. Will President Donald Trump continue to dominate the zeitgeist as he has for more than a decade? Or will forces he’s unleashed — and others beyond his control — consign him to lame-duck status and move the country toward a future where he’s no longer its dominant voice?
Take one enduring measure of Trump’s political strength: his stranglehold on Capitol Hill Republicans. It’s finally being tested as lawmakers express frustration about his leadership over Iran, following a revolt over the Epstein files late last year.
A more general sense of political malaise is likely to be deepened by long airport lines in a Department of Homeland Security crisis sparked by his hardline immigration policies. Government shutdowns rarely benefit either party — but impressions of a nation adrift often rebound against unpopular presidents.
People attend the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, on Thursday. Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters
And while Democrats might not yet have won back voters’ trust, they’re emerging from their 2024 debacle. Now, it’s Republicans who are fearfully eyeing voters on a streak of throw-the-bums-out elections. Splits in the MAGA movement are raising questions about its future potency, while generational tensions are boiling in the Democratic Party.
Worsening anxiety about high prices for food and housing — likely to be exacerbated by the Iran war — are curating a distinctly populist backdrop to the 2028 presidential election. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted Thursday that the war would send US inflation above 4.0% this year, up from the 2.8% it forecast in December.
So much for Trump’s claim to have solved the affordability crisis. He continues to seem indifferent to the struggles of many Americans, saying Thursday that the abrupt rise in gas prices “hasn’t been nearly as severe” as he’d expected due to the war.
Not every event that may reshape politics is about Washington. A Los Angeles jury this week delivered a landmark judgment against You Tube and Meta, ruling that social media bosses knew their platforms posed risks for young people and bore responsibility for a young woman’s mental health challenges.
The companies plan to appeal. But the ruling may open a small crack in the power of tech giants. It might tempt ambitious politicians to lean harder into parental concerns about social media — and its invasive cousin AI — in campaigns.
Not every seed germinates. But politics is evolving.
Reporters raise their hands to ask questions as President Donald Trump looks on during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on Thursday. Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
Trump faces his biggest political test
Trump has commandeered American political life now for 11 years. But after a decade or more, even era-defining politicians in democratic societies begin to lose altitude — Britain’s late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel come to mind.The US president, who turns 80 in a few months, has taken on the most profound challenge of his two terms in power by launching a war without winning over the country and clearly defining a rationale or an exit strategy.
A year ago, Trump was orchestrating the most aggressive display of executive power in modern history, crushing pillars of the liberal establishment with assaults on big law firms, Ivy League universities and media outlets.
Twelve months later, he’s sliding fast. Three opinion polls in the last week have his approval below 40% and voter disapproval at a perilous 60% or above. The CNN Poll of Polls puts the president’s approval at 38% — well below the safe zone for parties of incumbent presidents in midterm election years.
Trump’s war leadership has often been incoherent, unfolding in a flurry of threats, deadlines and red lines.
After predicting earlier this week that a peace deal could be imminent and saying he wanted a deal, the president snapped Thursday, “I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care.”
A few hours later — more whiplash. Trump suspended air strikes on Iranian power plants, designed to force the Islamic Republic to open the Strait of Hormuz, until April 6.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth inadvertently highlighted the danger of the political moment for the president Thursday during a Cabinet meeting.
“This is stuff for the history books. This is stuff for legacy,” Hegseth told his boss. He’s right: The war is now likely to define the president’s second term. If he can’t find a way to get out of it with a clear win soon, it will haunt him in posterity.
A logo of CPAC and an image depicting President Donald Trump during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, on Wednesday. Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters
Trump’s grip on the GOP is loosening
Trump’s power has long been based on relentless control of the Republican Party. Recent polling shows the president’s decision to go back on a promise not to wage new foreign wars hasn’t scared off his most loyal voters. But he’s fractured the expanded coalition that brought him back to power in 2024, with independent voters especially peeling away. A Quinnipiac University poll this month showed 68% of that cohort disapproving of the president.A sense that the president’s political foundation is less robust is underscored by this week’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Normally a raucous victory lap for Trump, this year’s event seems overshadowed by MAGA fractures that may hint at a movement that is not just split over Israel but over its path to a post-Trump future.
In another sign of political change, a Florida Democrat won a state legislature seat Tuesday in a deep-red district that contains Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Pundits often tend to overreact to minor election contests, especially those with such obvious symbolism. But Democrats have flipped 30 seats in state legislatures in special and regularly scheduled elections over the last year. No wonder 35 House GOP members are retiring or seeking higher office this year — the most since at least 1930.
Trump is not helping Republican jitters by his failure to explain his war aims in Iran. House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers on Wednesday described “frustration on both sides of the aisle in the last few briefings” from top officials. He said members lacked adequate information about plans for ground troops, the end goal or the expected price tag of the war. Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, meanwhile, wants to know why more US Marines and airborne troops are being sent to the Middle East. “We do not have clarity at the moment, we do not, and we need to get it,” he said.
Democrats gird for an intra-party duel
The political terrain is also shifting on the left.Democrats are still working through the generational and ideological churn unleashed after advancing age derailed former President Joe Biden’s bid for a second term. This tension is playing out in midterm primaries. In Maine, for instance, polls show the establishment candidate Gov. Janet Mills trailing oyster farmer and populist progressive Graham Platner in the Senate Democratic primary. The race is critical to Democratic hopes of taking back the chamber and finally pushing out longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer enters an elevator at the US Capitol on March 20 in Washington. Tom Brenner/AP
The relative youth movement also broke surface in the Senate this month following a Wall Street Journal report that some Democrats were tiring of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s leadership. The Journal said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy revealed at a private dinner last month that some colleagues had been conducting vote counts to see if there was enough support to remove the New York Democrat — the last remnant of an era of party leaders dating back to the days of former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Murphy told CNN’s Phil Mattingly on Wednesday that “Schumer has a very hard job.” But he added: “It hasn’t been, you know, a secret that a lot of us have wanted the caucus to fight harder and to hold out longer for our principles.”
Speculation over Schumer’s leadership is one harbinger of a future political era. The signs that Trump will one day no longer be the center of gravity are even more significant.
The new Washington is a ways off. But the political trends that will form its foundation are beginning to emerge.
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