GD POLITICS: Judging Trump 2.0 By His Own Standards

Host: Galen Druke
Guest: Gabe Fleischer (Author, "Wake Up To Politics" newsletter)
Date: January 21, 2026
Podcast link

Episode Overview

Galen Druke and Gabe Fleischer analyze the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency, evaluating his accomplishments and failings according to the standards and promises he established. They delve into rapid changes in executive power, Trump’s approach to deliberation and policy, public opinion, Congressional and judicial constraints, policy areas like immigration and the economy, as well as the ongoing culture wars. The conversation is both rigorous and conversational, weaving together polling data, institutional reactions, and the shifting political mood of the country.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of Trump’s Second Term: “Unleashed” but Constrained

• Fleischer’s model: The Trump presidency is "unprecedentedly unleashed" in terms of quick, personal decision-making—less filtered through advisors and agencies. But implementation is constrained by Congress and the courts.

  • “We have never seen a president who's been more unleashed in that sort of period of everything from coming up with an idea to saying it out loud.” (B, 02:37)
  • Example: Late-night social media posts about topics as varied as NATO allies or AI-generated images of Trump on Greenland.

• Effect: Creates a "chaotic swirl" that's both disorienting and overwhelming for government, Congress, and citizens.

  • “...it leads to just, I think the effect has been of immense chaos and strain on kind of, you know, our governmental system...” (B, 04:58)

2. Public & Institutional Response: Exhaustion and Disengagement

• Public mood: Despite deep unpopularity, the resistance to Trump feels muted compared to 2017; more protests exist, but the opposition feels less urgent, possibly due to institutional exhaustion or a normalization of Trump’s style.
  • "The volume has turned all the way up, but nobody's still in the room listening." (A, 09:58)
  • Many, including dedicated Trump-watchers, have disengaged for their own sanity. (B, 10:03)

3. Judging Trump by His Own Promises

• Key campaign themes: Inflation, immigration, and backlash against elites.

• Immigration: Trump’s “promise made, promise kept” is closing the border—illegal crossings down to “near zero.”

  • “That, that was, that's a promise made, promise kept. Donald Trump promised to close down the border and that happened.” (B, 12:20)
  • Net-positive approval on border security, the one major policy area where he outperforms.
    • “That is the one area on which Trump still gets net positive approval ratings...” (A, 12:42)

• Deportation policy complexity: Sharp rise in deportations, but the focus on criminals versus law-abiding long-term residents is blurred, and not always consistent with public preferences or expectations.

  • “Trump never made that distinction and has not governed with that distinction.” (A & B, 15:31)

• Thermostatic opinion: Once campaign promises are enacted, the public often pulls back, swinging opinion against the new policies.

  • “...part of the reason it is so predictable in a sense, is ... executives overinterpret their mandate... Trump has way overplayed his hand...” (A, 18:26)

4. The Economy & Eroding Trust

• Trump began the term with a rare, above-50% approval rating, winning trust on immigration and the economy. Rapid overreach (e.g., new tariffs raising prices) eroded this quickly.

  • “...he completely squandered it so quickly with tariffs, with deporting many more people... he did not govern nearly in the way that I think a lot of his voters imagined.” (B, 22:05)

• Polling delta: Republicans poll better on most policy areas, but not always because independents are moving their way—often, Democrats withhold approval from their own party, skewing the results.

  • “...you have to look at the party ID data... Democrats are so disillusioned ... they are saying they don’t trust the Democratic Party either.” (B, 26:43)

5. Matchup Effects: Choice vs. Referendum

• In generic polling, Democrats lead by ~4 points, but actual special election results show larger overperformance. Partly, this reflects voters' ongoing dissatisfaction with both parties.
  • “Democrats aren't doing as well on the generic ballot. In actual special elections... they're still doing quite well.” (A, 23:21)

6. Executive Power and Judicial Checks

• Vertical vs. Horizontal Power:

  • Vertical power (over the executive branch) is where Trump wins in court, especially with the conservative Supreme Court’s support.
  • Horizontal power (impeding on Congress’s authority, e.g., tariffs, National Guard deployments, birthright citizenship, election law changes): courts frequently block him.
    • “On these cases... Trump has asserted a lot of power over the executive branch, and the courts have given it to him. When he's asserted more horizontal power... it's been a lot more mixed...” (B, 42:20)

• Supreme Court is a key arbiter, with major pending decisions on tariffs, Federal Reserve, and birthright citizenship likely to define the limits.

• Lower courts have blocked many orders on DEI, university funding, and law firm regulations. The Trump administration avoids appealing many defeats to the Supreme Court to stave off precedent-setting losses.

  • “...almost none of the cases about law firms ... have reached the Supreme Court ... a lot of that’s because they’ve lost at the lower court level...” (B, 48:05)

7. The Culture Wars: No One Wins

• Trump’s executive moves against DEI and ‘woke’ policies had a momentary effect, but public culture adapts; politics struggles to dictate deeper shifts.

  • “Trump came into office declaring that woke is dead... but ultimately, the culture is more decided by the public...” (A, 50:10)

• On topics like immigration, Democrats unlikely to return to “decriminalize the border” politics; on gender, public remains mixed—moderate libertarian attitudes dominate.

  • “...on free speech issues. I don't know that either party is really winning that argument. Cuz I don't know that either party really can have a strong claim to being pro free speech...” (B, 51:36)

8. Open Questions for Year Two

• Druke: Will accumulating diplomatic, institutional, and international “little breaks” trigger a major crisis, especially regarding NATO and Greenland?

  • “How many things can break in small ways before something breaks in a big way?” (A, 59:11)

• Fleischer: Will tariff-driven inflation spike and damage the economy as predicted? Will the politics of AI and tech backlash gain real traction?

  • “Trump's numbers on inflation are so low and dissatisfaction with the economy is so high... runs a little bit different than to kind of the core economic data that we're seeing...” (B, 56:11)

• Both: Healthcare is a sleeper issue; how will millions losing ACA subsidies play heading into the midterms?

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the state of politics:

  • “By the end of the 2024 elections, the speakers had already been blown out... now they're completely blown out.” (A, 06:28)

• On executive power:

  • "...presidents overreach. And I do think one interesting thing you mentioned also earlier, you know, all the kind of business elites... did not believe that Donald Trump could ever be elected again. And then he was... he completely squandered it so quickly with tariffs, with deporting many more people..." (B, 21:24 & 22:05)

• On polling and party dissatisfaction:

  • “...a lot of times they are saying they don't trust the Democratic Party either. And I think that's kind of messing with the numbers in ways that make those polls not necessarily wrong, but at least complicated by that party id.” (B, 26:54)

• The culture wars:

  • “...no one in our politics is really anti woke and everyone is just kind of woke for their own identity... both parties, once they're in the majority, tend to enjoy using those sorts of powers.” (B, 53:16)

Segment Timestamps

| Time | Topic/Segment | |----------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:36 | Episode premise; describing Trump’s first year of the second term | | 02:37 | Gabe’s framework: “Unleashed” presidency in idea generation | | 04:58 | Impact: chaos, strain, institutional confusion | | 08:57 | Why resistance feels muted despite high protest numbers | | 11:30 | Judging Trump by what he promised: Inflation, immigration, anti-elite | | 12:20 | Immigration: Border security as a “promise kept” | | 19:21 | Once Trump enacts policies, public opinion shifts against them | | 22:05 | Trump’s rapid erosion of rare majority support with overreach | | 26:43 | The effect of party ID in interpreting polling post-Trump/Biden | | 32:57 | Effects of party trust and special election outperformance | | 36:54 | Populist “shock to the system” and the limits of Trump’s change | | 42:20 | Judicial checks: Distinctions between vertical and horizontal executive power| | 48:05 | DEI/university/law firm executive orders: mixed to unsuccessful in courts | | 50:10 | The culture war battlegrounds and shifting “wokeness” | | 55:54 | Unanswered questions: Economy, AI, healthcare, international relations | | 61:24 | Quick betting on Greenland: Does anything really change? |

Tone & Language

• Conversational but data- and process-driven; candid about the psychological and institutional burnout.
• Plenty of humor, as in analogies like “the volume’s up but no one’s in the room.”
• Willingness to own ambiguity: “Maybe I'm going to look like an absolute idiot. But no, I don't think the United States gets Greenland.” (A, 61:40)

Concluding Thoughts

The episode is a nuanced, numbers-driven analysis of Trump’s second term thus far, charting how his own expectations and promises have crashed into political, institutional, and public realities. The podcast underscores a paradox: Trump is both less constrained in certain respects and yet more “leashed” by old and new checks on power—while a fatigued and polarized public (and opposition) struggles to keep up. Both hosts leave listeners with open questions about whether the cumulative effects of “chaotic swirl” leadership might eventually snap some core strands of the American system.