Will Trump Face a Reckoning in 2026?

I am skeptical (outside of Democrats winning the House and maybe breaking even in the Senate, but that’s not really a reckoning), but Michael Tomasky wants to make the case and I suspect a lot of readers here agree because they want it to be true. So let’s look at the case:

And if Canada has leverage, what about the EU? The EU is the world’s third-biggest economy, after the United States and China. Does Trump really think he can impose tariffs on the EU over this Greenland madness and the EU won’t retaliate? Trump is set to speak in Davos on Wednesday. EU leaders are scheduled to meet in Brussels on Thursday. They’re not going to take whatever idiocy he launches lying down.

So, all over the place, and in a range of realms, people have started to confront the bully. There remains, however, one group of people, or two closely related groups, that have yet to join the club: corporate America and Wall Street—the biggest cowards in the country.

Why haven’t they? We know why. They’re mostly Republican, and they voted for Trump. They want their tax cuts. They’re terrified of crossing him. They know they helped elect a president bent on weaponizing the civil service to seek revenge on his enemies—and that he’ll order the Justice Department’s antitrust division or the Securities and Exchange Commission or others to go after them in a heartbeat the moment they end up on Trump’s blacklist.

But this too may be starting to change. Detroit, as noted, has to be worried that Trump is setting off a chain of events that may put them out of business. European countries are beefing up their defense spending, which should get a gravy train rolling for American defense giants—but the EU already started freezing out U.S. contractors last fall, and if Trump tries to seize Greenland, U.S. contractors will lose billions in opportunities. And even some Wall Street figures have been critical of Trump recently over the scandalous investigation of Fed Chair Jay Powell and Trump’s proposed credit card interest rate cap.

I’m not expecting much out of these people. They don’t care about anything, really, except their bottom line. But the king’s madness is starting to affect that. If Trump drives this country into a position where most of the world—save Russia, Hungary, Chile, El Salvador, and a handful of other right-wing dys-fantasy lands—wants to do business with China and the EU, corporate America and Wall Street will miraculously find their backbones. And once that happens, Trump won’t have many friends left.

Trump’s shock troops still scare some people on the streets of our country, and tragically so. Over the weekend, I saw a heartbreaking sign posted on the door of a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis: “WE ARE OPEN,” the sign said. “Please wait for us to unlock the door. Thank you for understanding.” It’s reasonable that those poor people should be scared. What a ghastly sight to see in the United States of America.

But those of us not facing that kind of direct threat? For that cohort, 2026 will not be a repeat of 2025. And the bully will learn what bullies throughout history have learned. Eventually, people decide they have had enough. And “eventually” is coming.

This isn’t a very strong case. There might be a strong case. But this feels like wishcasting than based in much empirical evidence. Sure, Europe and Canada might act, but there’s so much about the postwar order that has allowed American expenditures on defense to cover for and I’m not sure that there’s enough will here, especially given that fascists or semi-fascists govern in Hungary and Italy and could govern in France and the UK after their next elections. Of course, Trumpism might move those nations (not Hungary) to reject their own far right, as they did in Canada and Australia in recent elections. But Farage and LePen and Meloni aren’t going away either. So we will see.