Barely days into 2026, the US Delta Force seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas and took him to New York to face criminal charges related to narcotics trafficking. US President Donald Trump justified the mission in terms of law enforcement and stated, vaguely, that the US would “run” Venezuela with a focus on rebuilding the oil industry. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
The events in Caracas shocked the world and stirred worries of a new era of 19th-century-style gunboat diplomacy and imperial power politics. In such a world, to quote the great Greek historian Thucydides, “The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.” This prospect is deeply troubling and explains the widespread concern for the US action even as many in the Venezuelan diaspora lauded the move.
The important question about the US action and, indeed, the entire first year of Trump’s second term, is whether it represents substantive or permanent change in US politics that will continue after Trump. Finding an answer to this question offers direction in how to deal with the daily grind of news emanating from Washington.
Arguments in favor of permanent change are flawed for four reasons. First, they ignore the narrowness of Trump’s election victory in 2024. Trump won a solid victory in the electoral college but received only 49.8 percent of the popular vote, depriving him of a clear mandate. He received only 1.5 percent more of the popular vote than Kamala Harris, a sitting vice president. This percentage was only slightly higher than the percentage he received in 2016 and 2020.
Second, they ignore polls and off-year elections in 2025. For the first several months of his second term, polls showed Trump with over 50 percent approval, something he never achieved in his first term. In March, they dropped below 50 percent, reaching a low of 42 percent in November during the federal government shutdown, and have since recovered slightly to 44 percent. Approval for his handling of the economy remains low at 40 percent and an abysmal 36 percent for inflation.
Meanwhile, Democrats swept the few off-year elections held in 2025. They won governorships in New Jersey and Virginia and elected progressive candidates as mayors in several big cities, including New York. Across the board, Democratic candidates received a higher percentage of the vote than their presidential candidate in 2024. Together, the polls and election results send a clear message that Donald Trump does not have majority support. Polls show the Democrats in a good position to recapture the House of Representatives in the midterm election in November 2026.
Third, they ignore growing fractures in the MAGA coalition. In 2016, Trump built a winning formula by combining traditional Republicans, social conservatives and disgruntled working-class white voters. In 2024, he expanded the coalition to include more working-class Hispanic voters. Trump founded MAGA to be about Trump, but its political stance opposed free trade, immigration and foreign entanglements.
In 2025, Trump implemented his promised tariffs and immigration crackdown, but both moves have alienated parts of the MAGA base. His focus on getting peace deals, bombing Iran’s nuclear program and ousting Maduro have drawn sharp criticism from the “America First” segment of MAGA. His interest in cryptocurrency and loose regulation of AI, meanwhile, has alienated other parts of MAGA. The movement seems to be splintering into two main strains: America Firsters and libertarian crypto-tech bros.
Finally, they ignore generation change. Donald Trump will be 80 this year. Except for Barack Obama, every president since Bill Clinton in 1993 was born between 1942 and 1946. Except for Obama, they all grew up in the early post-World War II era when US influence was at its greatest, which affected their worldview.
None of the frequently mentioned candidates for the 2028 presidential election was born in the 1940s or 1950s. The oldest were born in the mid-1960s and grew up amid challenges to US influence and foreign policy setbacks like the loss of the Vietnam War and troubled intervention in Iraq in the 2000s. This makes them wary of unilateral US military action, favoring approaches that range from supporting alliances and collective security to strident isolationism.
For South Korean leaders, this means that they should assume that Trump will face strong domestic headwinds and that MAGA will not outlast him. The winner of the 2028 election will be much younger and ready to move on from the chaos of the Trump years.