2026 Is the End of the Trump Era

0:00Irreverent news talk, opinion, satire. It's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. And as more conservatives continue to jump ship, as it becomes increasingly clear to all of them that Trump just doesn't have a care in the world at this point and his second term is all about him, they are slowly waking up to the fact that Trump sold MAGA down the river along with the rest of the country as he slowly rides off into the golden sunset years of dementia. But you've never had a better friend in the Oval Office than me, and I'm proud to officially name the undisputed. When did this come out? 2026 is the year that they all turn on Trump because he's showing his true colors once and for all.

0:39And because he's about to hand the GOP the biggest losses they've ever seen in the midterm since 2006 when Republicans lost both the House and the Senate under G.W. Bush. Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. Today, it's Navy SEAL conservative talker Sean Ryan that has publicly renounced his allegiance to Donald Trump. Yesterday, it was Marjorie Taylor Greene, and soon it's going to be the vast majority of conservatives who follow suit. Because make no mistake, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sean Ryan were both power players in the MAGA movement, and now they're absolutely done with this clown that we call our president.

1:18Here's just part of what Sean Ryan had to say. You're going to protect pedophiles. you're going to protect pedophiles rather than go after them and hope that everybody's happy that the dow hit 50 000 are you out of your mind i guess the whole drain the swamp campaign promise was another bullshit lie huh man the lies are stacking up fast i've never seen so many lies appear in what a year it's only been a year look at all the lies i only try to bleep the f-bombs because I try to keep things kind of PG-13 around here. It always warms my heart to watch somebody like this come around to the truth, and it's only February, so conservatives like this are already starting to drop one by one, and I'll tell you something else.

2:03I've had my foot in the door with conservative rank and file for years now. Can't tell you who these people are exactly because there's no reason I've been in this business for this long, but I can promise you that you all know exactly who they are. I'm talking about household names, and I'm talking about big ones. And this novelty of Trump has worn off for them. And now they're just sitting around waiting for the right moment to come out of the closet, so to speak, as anti-Trump. You know, welcome to the party, folks. Better late than never, I say. A year ago, these conversations were all the same about Trump, going all the way back to before and during his first term in office.

2:37When a lot of smart and powerful and the most influential conservatives talked about Trump being an absolute jackass behind his back. But they always insisted that it was worth the pain because they could at least get what they wanted out of him. It's no secret. Ask any insider. Conservative thinkers know that Trump is a tool. And that's precisely why they fell in love with him as our president. Because he's easy to manipulate. I mean, at least he was. Not so much in the first year of his second term. All you had to do before was to kiss his ass. Kissing my ass. And they all lined up to do the dirty deed.

3:12And they did it with a smile because they knew where their bread was buttered. I'm sorry. If our intrepid representatives want to bring any dump trucks full of cash back to their districts, they had better line up to pucker up. That's how it works in this kingdom. And in that sense, I think we should all show them a little bit of pity, because to defy Trump still continues to be career suicide at this point, but those dynamics are changing rapidly. It all falls apart if you dare question the old man, and they all know that he's absolutely insane. But they also know that his word is worth somehow increasingly less as he focuses on his own private agenda of self-congratulatory behavior and lining the pockets of his family before he kicks the KFC bucket.

3:56Now, make no mistake, the modern Republican is keenly aware that the cost of living has skyrocketed and that their constituents are broke despite their empty smiles and hollow eyes that tell a different story. The one man they naively believed was here to fix everything is missing in action. We will end inflation and make America affordable again. We're going to get the prices down. We have to get them down. It's too much. Groceries, cars, everything. We're going to get the prices down. But prices will come down. You just watch. They'll come down and they'll come down fast. Not only with insurance, with everything.

4:31Tomorrow I will end inflation. Cut your taxes. End inflation. Slash your prices. And then he had the nerve to turn around and claim that everything he had promised on that campaign trail had been a complete hoax all along. This whole thing is, they use the word affordability. It's a Democrat hoax. Dear Lord, please forgive Donald Trump because he does not know what the hell he's doing. Look, there's a moment, I'm not praying anymore, there's a moment when outrage that we're all feeling becomes kind of like a form of denial. And I've clearly reached that moment with Donald Trump. Now this isn't forgiveness in the sentimental or biblical sense.

5:08It's not absolution, it's not reconciliation, or letting go so I can heal myself. It's something cold and a lot more sobering. It's the realization that the conditions required for accountability have deteriorated so far beyond repair that continuing to demand them no longer makes any sense. For years, us Trump critics have been told to calm down and to move on and accept that this is just politics now. Meanwhile, his supporters have been asked to excuse every single behavior they normally condemn when it hails from the left, while constantly being reassured by their dear leader that the ends somehow justify the means.

5:48Forgiveness here is not mercy. It's pulling your emotional investment from a president who no longer operates within the basic standards that make accountability possible. Forgiving Trump doesn't mean excusing his idiotic and criminal behavior. I forget how many felonies he racked up with, 34? It just means recognizing that the anger directed towards him isn't productive. And if anything, it probably feeds his disease. The kind of forgiveness I'm talking about means demoting him from antagonist to wallpaper. And I promise you, it's the last thing he wants. But I tell you what, it's the only thing he's actually got left.

6:24Outrage has become the most renewable resource in American politics. It powers the media and fundraising and social media. It also distracts us from the one axis that has ever produced real reform. Left versus right is proven useless. And bottom versus top is the only thing that's left. But here's the important part. That specific shift, it requires something that almost no one wants to do. It requires holding your own side to higher standards than your opponents. Screw equal accountability. Let's talk about greater accountability for a change. It requires refusing to excuse behavior simply because it advances your team's goals.

7:04It requires accepting losses now, rather than normalizing rot that becomes impossible to contain later. This is where forgiveness becomes strategic. Forgiveness, properly understood, is not virtue signaling or mental masturbation. It's the refusal to let outrage be weaponized against us. It's denying bad actors the fuel that they need to keep that machine running. Forgiveness, in that sense, is withdrawal. Being a conscientious objector and choosing not to carry anger that no longer serves any constructive purpose. I'm talking about hating your neighbor because they happen to be a Republican or a Democrat.

7:41It's gotta stop. It's the only way to step out of this rigged game. Otherwise, we're gonna keep producing the same kind of sucky leaders. as we keep telling ourselves that we had no choice and we'll keep acting surprised when nothing ever changes. Now, Trump should absolutely still be held accountable, but I'm not going to hold my breath or spend another one acting like it's ever going to happen. And listen, in all likelihood, based on what I've seen in the news over the last few weeks alone, it's becoming abundantly clear that Trump very well may have passed beyond the point of accountability due to his apparent cognitive decline.

8:14Understood. When did this come out? I mean, if he truly is as senile as some of us believe he is, I don't know how we suggest he be held accountable if he is beyond his faculties. And what are you going to do, put a senile old man in jail? Yes. Do you realize how long his lawyers could drag that out in court? Don't bother with impeachment, folks. In fact, we should all be forced to live with this mess for another three years so it becomes abundantly clear. — embarrassingly clear to every last diehard supporter — of what a truly awful mistake they made in re-electing this clown. No, forgiving Trump is not the end of the story.

8:53It's an admission that this chapter is not going to resolve itself the way we were promised. The question that remains isn't whether he was bad. That argument is exhausted. The real question is whether we learned anything from watching power protect itself while we fought each other on its behalf. We have a choice. We still do. I've been circling around this conclusion for a couple of years now, whether I realized it or not. Then early Saturday morning, it finally all just clicked into place. I know how narcissistic it sounds to get behind your microphone and tell you that I think I've figured out what our real problem is in the United States and how we might actually fix it.

9:31I know, who the hell am I? Normally I would agree with you. I would roll my eyes at me too. But this is different, because I'm not the only one seeing this. I keep running into it person to person in conversations and in comment sections. And that look that people give you when you finally put words to something they've been feeling in their gut for a long time too. People are starting to sense that this endless left and right war is bullshit. Excuse my language, but the word fits. That this outrage feels incredibly staged. That this constant pressure to pick a side and stay angry at the political opposition is doing something to us.

10:08It's exhausting us to death. while somehow conveniently, and dare I say suspiciously, never resolving anything that actually affects our daily lives. What has not happened yet on this front is a real grassroots coordination. Just a shared recognition of what's really being done to us, and a shared refusal to keep playing along with the rules of this bullshit game. Again, sorry for the language, I won't do it again. This is how we hack the system, folks. This is the crack in the armor. And if we're serious about the future of a free society, this is the moment we either nurture that awareness or watch it get hijacked by the nutjob extremists on the left or the nutjob extremists on the right, just like we witnessed before, during, and after the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements.

10:56The core realization is pretty simple once you see it. That the fight consuming America isn't about policy differences or morality. It's the economy, stupid. it, just like James Carville said in a slightly different context, but it's true nonetheless. It's about maximized incentives to reward division, outrage, and identity-based conflict through race, gender, privilege, and economic status. It's about systems that profit when we are emotionally dysregulated and tribal and constantly reacting like the cave dwellers that we still are. Rage is the fuel, identity is the cage, and your attention span is the harvest.

11:33It doesn't require an evil mastermind or sophisticated coordination. It just works because the incentives all point in the same directions towards media and fundraising and medical and pharmaceutical systems that benefit from chronic stress and financial markets that thrive on volatility. A calm, grounded, healthy person or population who feels connected to their community and capable of independent thought is hard to manipulate and hard to monetize. A population that's slightly unbalanced at all times is a little more predictable and profitable. And I hear a chainsaw in the background, so that must mean it's time for me to wrap it up.

12:08Look, the system does not need to break you completely. It just needs to keep you agitated long enough that you never step back and ask what you're really fighting for. That's it for today, and until we can do it again, it's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. Catch you next time. Bye. And we say bye-bye. Newsweek Radio is a member of the Trust Project. But you've never had a better friend in the Oval Office than me, and I'm proud to officially name the undisputed. When did this come out?