MaddowBlog-At the one-year mark, Trump runs headfirst into the dreaded 'fifth-year curse'

[LetMyPeopleVote]

History is filled with presidents suffering through awful fifth years, but those who study the ‘curse’ should prepare for an ugly new chapter to their work.

At the One-Year Mark, Trump Runs Headfirst Into the Dreaded ‘fifth-Year Curse’

At year one of his second term, Trump confronts the "fifth-year curse" with polls showing a failing first year. Dive in to find out why! #Trump #FifthYearCur...

— (@economynewsus.bsky.social) 2026-01-20T00:00:23Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/at-the-one-year-mark-trump-runs-headfirst-into-the-dreaded-fifth-year-curse

The latest national CNN poll offered all kinds of terrible news for the White House, but one number stood out: 58%. That’s the percentage of Americans who said they consider the first year of Donald Trump’s second term to be a failure.....

In 2020, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the Center for Presidential Transition published a memorable report on “the fifth-year curse,” which took note of a curious historical phenomenon. “While the president’s fifth year should be a symbolic and substantive fresh start, it is often marred by political infighting, major crises, and failed legislative agendas,” the report explained.

Several years earlier, in 2013, Politico had a related report on the trend.

There’s just something about Year Five itself — some immutable law of the American political calendar that condemns our presidents to a miserable time after their second inaugural. Maybe it’s about presidents and their re-election hangovers, or their opponents’ renewed determination to thwart the White House agenda, or perhaps it’s simply the problem of the public’s inevitable fatigue.

While there’s no reason to take seriously the idea of an actual “curse,” there’s no denying the fact that a great many presidents have struggled in their fifth year in the White House. In Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fifth year, for example, the legendary Democratic president backed off New Deal spending, which reversed economic progress, and tried to pack the U.S. Supreme Court......

There are competing theories to explain why “the fifth-year curse” endures, but I tend to think it comes down to one thing: hubris. By Year Five, presidents not only start to have an exaggerated sense of their powers and skills, they also know that they’ll never again have to face the electorate.

Trump, fueled by an authoritarian vision, goaded by sycophants, and emboldened by a Congress led by partisans who expect to be treated like doormats, took this to new depths over the course of his fifth year, embracing the idea that he can do as he pleases, disregarding laws and institutions at his own discretion, constrained only by his twisted sense of his own “morality.”

While American history is filled with some catastrophically bad presidential fifth years, those who study the “fifth-year curse” should prepare for a dramatic new chapter to their work — because instead of trying to avoid the historical scourge, Trump rushed headstrong into it, producing the worst Year Five of them all.

[Blues Heron]

1. This is a little more serious than some cute "curse," we are in a full blown crisis right now

Our president has declared himself president of Venezuela, and is threatening our allies with war. This type of article severely minimizes what is happening.