{"id":155104,"date":"2026-03-11T16:13:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=155104"},"modified":"2026-03-11T16:13:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:13:47","slug":"trumps-aura-of-invincibility-is-disintegrating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/03\/11\/trumps-aura-of-invincibility-is-disintegrating\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Aura Of Invincibility Is Disintegrating"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The widening fissures inside the Republican Party over Trump\u2019s broader unilateralism and chaotic foreign policy, and now the war of choice against Iran, are sharpening an older divide between nationalist populists, institutionalist conservatives, business-friendly moderates, and traditional security hawks. Governors, Republicans in trade-exposed states, and parts of the donor class increasingly see Trump\u2019s domestic and foreign adventurism as electorally toxic, economically damaging, and corrosive to US leadership, even as primary-driven loyalty tests make open rebellion costly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following 9 cases offer clear signs of Trump’s growing vulnerability, which is likely to further intensify as the mid-term election draws near.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indiana Republicans Refuse Trump\u2019s Redistricting Demand In December 2025, Indiana\u2019s Republican dominated Senate rejected a congressional map aggressively pushed by Trump that would likely have flipped the state\u2019s two Democratic US House seats. Twenty-one GOP senators joined all Democrats to defeat the mid-decade gerrymander 31\u201319, the first outright rejection of Trump\u2019s redistricting efforts by his own party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress Rejects Trump\u2019s Appropriation Package In the final HHS appropriations package, Congress rejected nearly all of Trump\u2019s proposed $33 billion in cuts to health and human services, including deep reductions to substance abuse treatment and the elimination of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. In a Republican revolt, a substantial bloc of GOP senators and representatives joined Democrats to advance and then pass a bipartisan bill that openly rebuffed Trump\u2019s broader austerity agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supreme Court Tariff Ruling<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court held 6\u20133 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize a president to impose tariffs, invalidating Trump\u2019s sweeping IEEPA-based duties on many trading partners, including reciprocal\u201d tariffs launched in 2025. Trump was hit hard by the ruling, which underscored that taxing authority, including tariffs, belongs to Congress, not the executive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defection of Senators and Representatives Several GOP senators and House members joined Democrats in resolutions terminating the national emergency\u201d Trump used to justify global tariffs, directly challenging his authority. Four Republican senators\u2014Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski\u2014voted to end that emergency, and six House Republicans joined a Democrat-led resolution terminating Trump\u2019s tariffs on Canada. These moves, one of the first direct Republican rebukes of his presidency, signaled a rare, public intra-party break. Though facing a likely veto, these votes publicly exposed fractures in his own caucus over the trade war\u2019s economic and political costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governors Engaging Canada Directly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourteen US governors, including three Republicans, especially from border and manufacturing states, have increasingly engaged Canadian leaders independently to preserve cross-border supply chains. Michigan\u2019s Gretchen Whitmer, among others, has publicly courted Canadian partners and pressed Trump to change course, arguing his Canada tariffs damage auto manufacturing and state economies, effectively siding with Canada against Washington\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DC Circuit Rejects Trump Executive Order In a closely watched case, the DC Circuit Court rejected the Justice Department\u2019s request to delay hearings on appeals over Trump\u2019s executive orders punishing four major law firms, instead fast-tracking arguments alongside a related security clearance dispute. The orders had already been permanently enjoined by four federal judges as unconstitutional retaliation that chilled protected speech and due process rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican Unease over War Powers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as most Senate Republicans voted down a resolution to limit Trump\u2019s war powers on Iran, a number of GOP lawmakers privately voiced misgivings and publicly dodged calling the escalating campaign a war,\u201d highlighting their discomfort with its scale and open-ended nature. Their reluctance to fully embrace his framing suggests that, should casualties or costs mount, visible resistance inside the party could quickly intensify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservative Voices Question the Iran War Several prominent conservative commentators and right-leaning outlets have voiced sharp doubts about Trump\u2019s Iran campaign, calling his objectives confusing\u201d and warning that the war lacks a clear strategy or endgame and risks repeating the failures of Iraq. This open skepticism from usually sympathetic media underscores how the Iran conflict is straining the broader right-of-center coalition that once reflexively backed his foreign policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Condemnation of Trump\u2019s Military Changes Finally, Retired Major General Paul Eaton, who served as an Army Commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom, publicly raised the alarm over the Trump administration\u2019s reshuffling of top military leadership, characterizing these personnel changes as resembling loyalty-based purges akin to historical authoritarian tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with The Guardian on January 5, 2026, Eaton warned of a Stalin problem\u201d at the Pentagon, likening it to Stalin\u2019s purges of the best and brightest of the military leadership,\u201d and explicitly likened Trump-era moves to Stalin\u2019s officer purges, arguing they were politicizing the armed forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major General Eaton warned that appointing commanders for political loyalty compromises the military\u2019s independence and effectiveness. Such politicization, he argued, risks strategic decisions being made not on merit but to serve presidential political interests. Now that this is in the open, it seriously damages Trump in the eyes of the high brass in the military, representing another setback for him, especially now that the Iran war seems to have lacked thorough assessment and scrutiny by the top brass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time is Catching up to Trump<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s aura of invincibility is eroding on two fronts for all to see: at home, a growing bloc of Republicans, governors, and business allies now treat his domestic policies as a political and economic liability. Internationally, allies already skeptical of Washington\u2019s reliability interpret visible Republican dissent and judicial curbs as signals that US commitments are contingent and reversible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, they have encouraged Canada, Europe, and Indo-Pacific partners to hedge and diversify their economic ties, and to discount Trump\u2019s threats and inducements at the negotiating table. These shifts\u2014and the growing ranks of Republicans terrified of facing furious voters back home\u2014will trigger defections, shatter GOP unity, and sharply erode Trump\u2019s seeming invincibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump now faces a double reckoning in the midst of a disastrous war: a growingly fractured Republican Party and increasingly defiant allies who no longer fear his bluster or trust his word. That twin erosion of loyalty and leverage will hang over every district, every race, and every calculation in the 2026 midterm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

____________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir The widening fissures inside the Republican Party over Trump\u2019s broader unilateralism and chaotic foreign policy, and now the war of choice against Iran, are sharpening an older divide between nationalist populists, institutionalist conservatives, business-friendly moderates, and traditional security hawks. Governors, Republicans in trade-exposed states, and parts of the donor class increasingly see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155105,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155104\/revisions\/155105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}