By Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue
November 4, 2026
Now that the midterms are behind us, it is time for an honest assessment of what happened to the Republican Party and, more importantly, what happened to the MAGA movement that put Donald Trump back in the White House.
This is not Trump Derangement Syndrome. It is something altogether different. Something I call Trump Disappointment Syndrome.
I have been involved in politics for more than 40 years. Very few candidates have inspired me enough to place genuine hope in them. Donald Trump was one of those rare exceptions.
Trump’s America First populist message resonated with millions of Americans, me included. Lower energy costs, affordable housing, fix the healthcare system, no new wars, a secure border, fiscal responsibility, and accountability for those who weaponized government, destroyed our cities, and helped bring this country to the brink of financial and moral bankruptcy. These weren’t unreasonable expectations. They were promises that gave ordinary Americans hope that somebody might finally put their interests first.
The Bible tells us that when the righteous rule, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan. For years, Americans have groaned under the weight of endless wars, reckless spending, political corruption, open borders, and a government seemingly more interested in enriching foreign nations than serving its own citizens.
Consider the trillions of dollars poured into foreign conflicts and international commitments. That money could have rebuilt our airports, repaired our infrastructure, lowered our taxes, strengthened our energy independence, and improved the standard of living for American families. Instead, we have saddled our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren with an almost incomprehensible national debt. Our national debt interest payment is now the largest line item in our budget and completely unsustainable.
Few American communities have escaped the human cost of our 25 years of wars. Families have buried sons and daughters. Thousands of veterans have returned with PTSD, missing limbs, and lifelong physical and emotional wounds. And what did we accomplish? In Afghanistan, after 20 years and thousands of American lives sacrificed, we watched the Taliban reclaim the country and parade through its streets with American military equipment. In Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, American intervention helped topple governments without producing the lasting stability we were promised. Now we are in a protracted war with Iran with more war on the horizon.
Americans are tired. They are tired of being told that endless foreign entanglements are somehow in their national interest. They are tired of paying for wars that never seem to end.
Trump understood that frustration. He built a political movement around it. Yet, despite being handed an extraordinary opportunity, he has squandered much of the trust that brought him to office.
There are five fundamental ways the president failed the MAGA movement that elected him.
1. The economy: Americans cannot afford broken promises
Trump assembled what appeared to be a dream team when he took office in January 2025. His supporters expected a dramatic change in direction. We expected lower prices, a booming economy, affordable housing, and relief from the crushing financial pressures that had become part of everyday American life.
In January, I traveled to Colorado and, for the first time in many years, saw gasoline selling for $1.99 a gallon. When I returned in August, the same station was charging over $5.00.
That is the kind of thing ordinary Americans remember.
James Carville helped Bill Clinton win the presidency in 1992 with a simple political observation: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
He was right then, and he is right today.
Americans don’t measure economic success by what politicians say at a press conference. They measure it at the gas pump, in the grocery store, their health care insurance premiums, when they buy a steak, and when they try to purchase or rent a home. They measure it by whether they can afford to raise a family, pay their bills, and put something away for retirement.
The promise of an affordable America has not materialized as millions of voters expected. Whatever the administration’s explanations, the frustration is real. And when families continue to struggle, political loyalty eventually gives way to disappointment.
Meanwhile, the political left has successfully persuaded an entire generation that government redistribution and punishing those who have achieved financial success will somehow solve their problems. Instead of teaching young Americans how to build wealth, create businesses, and become productive citizens, we have increasingly taught them to resent those who do.
Republicans should have been making the case for economic freedom and individual opportunity. Instead, they have allowed the left to define the debate.
2. America First: The promise to end the wars
The second great disappointment is Trump’s failure to deliver on his promise to stop dragging America into foreign wars.
Since September 11, 2001, our country has been involved in one military debacle after another. We toppled governments, spent trillions, sacrificed American lives, and left behind political instability that often proved worse than what existed before our intervention.
Trump understood that Americans were war-weary. His America First message promised a different foreign policy: protect American interests, defend our homeland, and stop treating the United States Treasury as an unlimited bank account for the rest of the world.
Yet here we are, again confronting military conflict with Iran and the prospect of further escalation. We have thrown a trillion dollars into defending Ukraine. The administration’s (and Congress’) willingness to use military force abroad stands in stark contrast to the restraint many Trump supporters believed they were voting for.
I am not arguing that America should never defend itself or that every military action is unjustified. There are legitimate threats, and there are times when military force is necessary. But there is a profound difference between defending America and becoming entangled in another open-ended conflict with no clearly defined victory.
How many more generations of American families must pay the price?
We have a responsibility to our own citizens. Our sons and daughters should not be sent into harm’s way without a compelling national interest, a clearly defined mission, and an achievable objective.
America First should mean exactly that: America first.
3. Transparency and accountability: The promises Washington forgot
Perhaps the most surprising disappointment has been Trump’s failure to deliver on transparency and accountability.
He campaigned on opening the books. We were finally going to see the RFK files, the MLK files, the Fort Knox gold, and the ever-present Epstein files. We were promised that the American people would finally learn the truth about some of the darkest chapters in modern political history.
We were also promised accountability for those responsible for the Russia collusion investigation, the handling of the Benghazi tragedy, the weaponization of the Department of Justice, and the political corruption that has infected Washington for decades.
For millions of Americans, this wasn’t about partisan revenge. It was about restoring the principle that nobody is above the law.
Then came Trump’s u-turn.
When Thomas Massie and others demanded transparency and members of Congress pushed legislation to release the Epstein files, the president turned against some of the very people who had been among his strongest supporters.
You may disagree with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, Elon Musk or their personalities. You may find their methods abrasive. But you cannot question their willingness to challenge their own party when they believe the American people deserve answers.
That is precisely what we should expect from elected representatives.
Instead of welcoming the demand for transparency, the president attacked members of his own political coalition. The handling of the Epstein documents, including redactions and resistance to full disclosure, only deepened public suspicion.
Consider Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Documents established that he visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2012, years after Lutnick had said he wanted nothing more to do with Epstein. Lutnick has acknowledged the visit and offered his explanation. The point is not to presume guilt by association. The point is that the American people deserve complete and credible answers when public officials’ past statements conflict with subsequently released documents.
Transparency cannot just be a campaign slogan. Americans want everyone associated with the convicted pedophile to pay a price, but the only ones suffering are the people who exposed the crime.
The same frustration extends to government spending. We were promised that Elon Musk and DOGE would expose waste, fraud, and abuse and dramatically reduce the size of government. Yet the spending machine in Washington remains largely intact. The Big Beautiful Bill delivered some tax relief, but it did not produce the sweeping spending reductions that many supporters expected. Congress continues to rely on temporary funding measures rather than confronting the nation’s unsustainable fiscal trajectory.
We cannot keep spending money we do not have, borrowing from generations not yet born, and pretending that a tax cut alone constitutes fiscal responsibility.
The American people were promised a revolution in Washington. But they have only received business as usual.
4. Planned Parenthood: A broken promise that is personal
There is another broken promise that I take particularly personally: holding Planned Parenthood accountable.
I am not simply a political observer when it comes to this organization. I am one of its victims.
Through my work founding the Center for Medical Progress, I helped expose Planned Parenthood’s illegal baby-body-parts practices. I dared to bring this information to the American people, and the response was a legal battle that left me facing an $18 million judgment and the label of convicted racketeer.
Think about that for a moment. I stood up to one of the most powerful abortion organizations in America, exposed practices that deserved serious public scrutiny, and paid an extraordinary personal price.
Trump campaigned on defunding Planned Parenthood and holding the abortion industry accountable. Yet the funding restrictions Republicans managed to enact through the One Big Beautiful Bill were temporary. The legislation established a one-year restriction on certain federal Medicaid payments to targeted abortion providers. That is not the same thing as permanently ending taxpayer support.
Planned Parenthood reported approximately $832 million in the government health-services reimbursements and grants cited in its annual reporting. That is an enormous amount of taxpayer support for an organization that has made abortion central to its public mission.
At that rate, we are talking about millions of dollars every day.
I have spent years fighting this organization, and I know firsthand how determined it is to silence its critics. I know what it costs to challenge an institution with enormous financial and political resources.
What I cannot understand is why Republicans, after campaigning for decades on the promise to stop taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, continue to settle for temporary measures and political gestures.
The unborn cannot afford another election cycle of promises.
Neither can those of us who have put everything on the line to defend them.
5. Republican leadership: A party that cannot deliver
The Republican Party must also look in the mirror.
Its failures cannot all be blamed on Democrats. Republicans control their own leadership, set their own priorities, and make their own decisions. They cannot spend every election promising to change Washington and then blame the other party when they fail to act.
One of the most glaring examples is Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s failure to advance the SAVE Act, or SAVE America Act, as its supporters have called it.
The legislation would require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration in federal elections and impose additional identification requirements. Its supporters believe these are common-sense safeguards that would strengthen confidence in our elections.
Americans routinely provide identification and documentation in countless other circumstances. It is not unreasonable to expect meaningful safeguards when we are deciding who governs our country.
Yet the Senate failed to deliver.
Whether the failure resulted from political calculation, incompetence, or a lack of courage is beside the point. Republicans had an opportunity to make election integrity a priority and failed to capitalize on it.
This is what frustrates voters. We were told, “give us the House, the Senate, and the White House and we will fix Washinton, DC.” But when they were given those things, their results fell flat.
The party has become a victim of its own mismanagement. It has mastered the art of campaigning on conservative principles without consistently governing according to them.
And now the consequences are becoming painfully clear.
When will Republicans have another opportunity to control the House, the Senate, and the White House simultaneously? Nobody can say. Political opportunities are fleeting, and history is filled with parties that squandered their moment.
The Whig Party once occupied a position of enormous influence in American politics. It eventually collapsed. No political party is entitled to survive simply because it once enjoyed the support of millions of voters.
The Republican Party should remember that.
Conclusion: My disappointment is not surrender
Let me make something perfectly clear: If Donald Trump were eligible to run for another term, I would still vote for him over the radical left. I believe the alternative would be far worse.
I vote to limit evil, not to endorse every action of the person I support.
But that does not mean I must remain silent when promises are broken. It does not mean I must applaud political failures simply because they come from my own side. And it certainly does not mean I must abandon my convictions to protect the reputation of a politician.
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
That is where I find myself today.
I dared to hope. I believed we might finally have a president who would put America first, rein in government spending, end the endless wars, expose political corruption, and stand unapologetically for the unborn.
Instead, too many opportunities have been squandered.
My heart is sick, not because my faith has failed, but because I know what is at stake. We face the prospect of higher taxes, continued government expansion, unfettered immigration, political persecution, and investigations that seem to have little to do with justice and everything to do with power.
I have watched good people suffer and go to prison for standing up for what they believe. I know what it means to be on the receiving end of a powerful institution determined to destroy you. And I know that the political establishment, regardless of party, is often more interested in protecting itself than protecting the American people.
But my hope has not been extinguished.
My faith is not in Donald Trump, the Republican Party, or any government. My faith is in God, who is just and whose purposes will ultimately prevail.
I have spent more than 40 years fighting for the unborn and for the principles upon which this country was founded. I have no intention of stopping now. We will continue to fight, speak, organize, and vote as though the future of our children and grandchildren depends on it.
And if the Republican Party must eventually go the way of the Whigs, so be it.
Political parties are expendable. Our principles are not.
I would rather see a new generation rise up, take hold of the reins of power, and fight with conviction than watch another generation of Republican politicians campaign on promises they have no intention of keeping.
America deserves better. Our children deserve better. And the millions of Americans who dared to hope deserve better.
America is disappointed in Trump, but not in America!
This report may be republished with inclusion of the following acknowledgement: “This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America.“
