Be Careful: We're Winning

by Rick Wilson - Feb 16

Something has changed in America. There’s a wind shift and a sea state, both more promising and more perilous than before.

You can see it in the polling crosstabs that the MAGA consultants pretend not to read too closely. You can feel it in the way Republican members are suddenly racing for the exits and seeking more satisfactory employment at the local chicken processing plant or working with more dignity as the piano player at the local brothel.

You can feel it in the forced snippiness and over-torqued smiles at White House briefings, stretching just a little too tightly across Botoxed faces. You can see it when the Fox panels realize mid-bit they’re mocking the victims of sexual assault in the Epstein case. You could smell it in the rank musk of fear under Pam Bondi’s hateful gymnastics before the House Oversight Committee last week. You can see it in the dead eyes, slack posture, and gravid jowls of a failing and flailing President.

For the first time in a long time, the pro-democracy coalition in this country has the wind at its back.

And that’s exactly when things get dangerous.

Because Donald Trump and the machine behind him do not lose quietly. He does not fade gracefully. He does not accept reality. When the walls close in, he reaches for the accelerant and sets a fire. We’ve seen it before. He may be older and sicker, but he still commands the levers of power, and as his political fortunes wane, he’ll demand one last conflagration.

A year ago, the narrative was inevitability. Trump was a juggernaut. Trump was a strongman. Trump was the immovable object before which institutions would once again crumble. The base was loud. The MAGA influencers were smug.

The realignment was permanent, immutable. The red-state machines were grinding ahead with redistricting, election board takeovers, and procedural chicanery. In Washington, titans of every industry bowed at his feet, begging to caress the soles of his orthopedic shoes with their unworthy tongues.

But now?

The off-year and special elections are sounding every alarm bell. Suburban polling is cratering. Young voters, who had drifted into the political fog of Trumpism, are reengaging. Independent voters are recoiling from the chaos, opposing Trump and his policies by a ratio of around 2.5:1. Hispanic and black voters he won over in 2024? Gone. Vapor. A dot on the horizon.

The widening gap between the economy as Americans experience it and the markets is becoming a screaming political liability. Trump’s trade war with half the planet will be seen as the critical failure of his economic policies, but for American consumers, none of his plans are working.

The Epstein revelations are no longer whispers; they’re corrosive. Toxic. The cover-up isn’t worse than the crime; it’s an extension of the Epstein horrors, now paid for with tax dollars. The ICE excesses are no longer abstract; they’re viral. The spying on and murder of American citizens is everywhere and increasingly obvious. The administration’s casual contempt for laws and court orders is no longer “process”; it’s naked lawlessness.

The country is remembering something important: this isn’t normal.

And when Americans remember that, the pro-democracy side wins.

Here’s the paradox: autocratic movements are most volatile not when they’re ascendant, but when they feel control slipping.

History is littered with examples. When strongmen sense weakness, they don’t moderate. They radicalize. They lash out. They manufacture crises. They redefine losing as betrayal and opposition as treason.

Trump’s entire political identity rests on dominance. He cannot psychologically process decline. If polling dips, it’s fraud. If courts block him, it’s corruption. If voters recoil, it’s a conspiracy.

So what happens when he and his allies sense that the pro-democracy coalition is consolidating?

They escalate. Expect it. Plan for it. Understand the process.

First, the rhetoric will harden. “Domestic terrorists.” “Foreign infiltrators.” “Deep state coup.” The language isn’t an accident; it’s preparation. When you convince your followers that opponents are existential threats, you justify extraordinary measures. Trump’s secret police force will be put to work, as will SECDRUNK Pete Hegseth’s DOD.

Second, the legal system will be weaponized more aggressively. We’ve already seen the outlines: public demands for the prosecution of political adversaries, DOJ pressure campaigns, and threats against Federal and state elected officials who refuse to bend. The message is simple: cooperate, or we will destroy you. They’ve failed so far to bag a major opponent of Trump’s, but they only have to be lucky once for the chilling effect to hit, and hit hard.

Third, watch the states. Red-state legislatures are laboratories of procedural sabotage. Redistricting and voter disqualifications. Election boards restructured. Certification powers shifted. Emergency powers broadened. These aren’t headlines that trend on social media, but they are the plumbing of democracy.

Fourth, don’t discount the potential for manufactured external crises. Trump is more than willing to wag the hell out of the dog. Iran. Cuba. Columbia. Trade wars. Border “emergencies.” Sudden foreign policy escalations. Nothing rallies a shaky coalition like a bloody flag and a loud fight.

And hovering over it all is the most dangerous element: stochastic violence. Trump’s base is shrinking, becoming angrier and more traumatized by reality. When leaders use apocalyptic rhetoric, some percentage of followers will interpret it as a call to action. It only takes one.

Despite all of that, the fundamentals favor the coalition defending constitutional democracy.

Demographics aren’t destiny, but they are direction. Economic pain isn’t the only element of victory, but it’s one that lets Democrats tell a simple, heart-and-gut story for the voters…even Republicans.

"This is crazy. Trump is hurting you. We will fix it.”

Not policy papers. Not your pet issue. Not guns or climate or trans or prescription drugs. The voters feel immediate, acute economic pain and fear. Listen to them. Address the problems they want addressed, not the problems your deputy policy director, fresh out of an MPA from a good school, wants addressed.

The MAGA base is older, smaller, and increasingly insulated in a media ecosystem that mistakes volume and confirmation bias for reality. Meanwhile, younger voters are reengaging not out of enthusiasm for any one politician or for the Democratic Party per se, but out of recognition that the stakes are systemic.

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Institutional resistance, imperfect as it is, has stiffened. Judges have blocked excesses. Civil servants have quietly sandbagged unlawful directives. Whistleblowers are emerging. Even some Republicans…quietly, cautiously…are calculating life after Trump.

Most importantly, the American public has a tolerance threshold for chaos and corruption, and we’re long past it. There is a percentage of voters who enjoy the spectacle. But there is a larger percentage who just want stability, rule of law, and a functioning economy.

Trump offers adrenaline. Democracy offers predictability.

Here’s the mistake we made in 2016 and again in 2024: assuming that the arc of history bends automatically toward sanity.

It doesn’t.

It bends because people pull it.

Yes, the energy has shifted. Yes, the pro-democracy side is gaining ground. Yes, the administration looks rattled.

But a rattled strongman is not a defeated strongman.

The next phase won’t be a polite policy debate. It will be pressure. It will be intimidation. It will be narratives crafted to justify extraordinary steps. It will be efforts to redefine defeat as illegitimate.

If you think the response to slipping polls will be humility, you haven’t been paying attention.

The coming months will test not just politicians, but institutions and citizens.

Will courts hold the line under sustained attack?

Will election officials resist procedural manipulation?

Will corporate leaders refuse to bankroll authoritarian theatrics?

Will voters show up in every down-ballot fight where democracy is quietly defended or dismantled?

Momentum matters. But discipline matters more.

The pro-democracy coalition doesn’t need euphoria. It needs turnout. It needs vigilance. It needs lawyers, organizers, and candidates who understand that the fight isn’t about personalities; it’s about structures. It needs people fighting the narrative war (Hey! That’s me!) and the political game to tie MAGA and GOP candidates to a failing President with a deeply poisonous agenda.

The shift is real.

You can feel it.

Winning is possible.

But only if we understand that the moment of advantage is also the moment of greatest peril.

The wind is at our backs.

Let’s keep it there.