Andrew Sullivan: Trump should resign because the midterm repudiation and his unfitness make resignation best for him, his party and the country

Source: Andrew Sullivan. "Resign, Mr President." November 6, 2026. andrewsullivan.substack.com

The Gist

The author says the voters just delivered a huge, historic rejection of Trump, and that it's mostly his own doing because of broken promises, corruption, and an inability to govern properly. Since he won't adapt and will likely make the next two years worse for everyone, the author argues the best thing for him, his party, and the country is to resign.

Conclusion

President Trump should resign, because resigning is the best option for himself, the Republican Party, and the country.

Premises

1. The midterm elections produced a historically large margin against the president's party, which amounts to a broad public repudiation of him personally.
   • Needed for the conclusion
   • A very large margin is a checkable fact and is granted as accurate. It supports the claim of broad displeasure with the party, though not by itself personal repudiation.
2. The defeat was caused by the president himself, through broken promises (no new wars, a better economy, targeted immigration enforcement, free speech, fiscal restraint, anti-corruption), alleged corruption and self-enrichment, and damage to alliances, to his coalition, and to the rule of law.
   • Needed for the conclusion
   • A personal-verdict reading is granted, but the claim that he alone caused the defeat is asserted with no counterfactual.
3. The result works like a vote of no confidence. In a parliamentary system he would be removed, so his democratic legitimacy has collapsed and the public lacks confidence in his handling of wars, the economy, AI, and the rule of law.
   • Needed for the conclusion
   • Unresolved objection: Fixed terms and routine midterm losses by presidents who stayed show that a midterm does not function as a confidence vote. The argument gives no threshold or principle.
   • The parliamentary analogy does not carry over to a fixed-term presidency, and the claimed voter confidence judgments are read into an aggregate tally.
4. He is temperamentally and cognitively unfit to govern within the constitutional system. He cannot compromise, adapt, or follow the rule of law, and he shows signs of mental and physical decline.
5. His response to the defeat (naming Stephen Miller chief of staff, doubling down on the war and immigration policies voters rejected) shows he will not adapt, as Obama and Clinton did after their midterm losses.
   • Needed for the conclusion
   • A single early personnel choice is a thin basis for predicting a fixed refusal to adapt.
6. If he stays, he faces a politically miserable two years (street protests, very low approval, possible impeachment with Republican votes), his party will be further damaged, and the country will suffer further disastrous and irreversible decisions.
   • Needed for the conclusion
   • The forecasts are plausible but unquantified and ignore existing checks and the costs of resignation.
7. Resignation is feasible and has precedent, since leaders (even a Pope) have stepped down after losing public support.

Assumptions

• A midterm result can be read as a verdict on the president personally rather than on issues, the electoral cycle, or the opposition's strengths.
• A US president, though not subject to a parliamentary no-confidence vote, has a moral or political obligation to step down when public support collapses.
• The president will not or cannot change course, so staying will produce the same or worse outcomes.
• Resignation would leave the party and country better off than the alternatives, including how a successor would govern.
  • Needed for the conclusion
  • The claim that leaving beats the alternatives is the step the recommendation depends on, and it is stipulated without any analysis of the successor or alternatives.
  • Would be settled by: A comparison of outcomes under resignation, a successor, divided government, impeachment and the 25th Amendment, including the party's and base's reaction
• The author's factual claims about the election margin, policies, corruption, and the president's health are accurate.
• The president's own interests are served by leaving, and he can be persuaded by an appeal to those interests.
  • Needed for the conclusion
  • Unresolved objection: The description of him as incapable of change, and the legal and political incentives to stay in office, make it doubtful that an appeal to his interests could work.
  • The argument itself depicts him as unable to change and moved by ego, which cuts against the idea that he can be persuaded or that leaving serves his interests.
  • Would be settled by: Evidence that leaving serves his interests, including his legal and political exposure, and that he can be moved by such an appeal

Analysis

Reasoning breaks down

A step the conclusion needs doesn't follow. This says nothing about whether it is true.

Argument type: Inductive.

Potential Fallacies

• False dilemma / incomplete comparison of alternatives (Argument as a whole) — Resigning is compared mainly with the bleakest version of staying. Intermediate options are not weighed: a changed course, constraint by a divided Congress, impeachment, the 25th Amendment, or simply waiting for the next election. Showing that staying is bad does not show that leaving is best.
• False analogy (parliamentary no-confidence) (Premise 3) — A midterm elects a legislature. It does not vote on the executive. A fixed-term presidency is deliberately insulated from confidence-style removal. Importing the parliamentary norm gives resignation an air of constitutional inevitability that the system does not contain.
• Single-cause attribution / ignoring base rates (Premise 2) — A multi-factor outcome is assigned to one cause. The ordinary midterm penalty, the economy, candidate quality, redistricting and opposition strength are dismissed by assertion. Presenting the president's own request that voters treat him as on the ballot shows what he tried to do, not why voters voted as they did.
• Unsupported remote diagnosis / appeal to ridicule (Premise 4) — Cognitive and physical decline is inferred from speech and appearance by non-clinicians and asserted with certainty. Mockery stands in for evidence. If fitness were truly in doubt, the 25th Amendment would be the relevant channel.
• Hasty generalization from one act (Premise 5) — One personnel choice made within days of the loss is treated as conclusive proof that he cannot adapt for two years. Obama and Clinton are cited as adapters, but their adaptation unfolded over months.
• Overconfident forecasting / appeal to consequences (Premise 6) — Protests, very low approval, impeachment with Republican votes and 'irreversible' decisions are stated as near-certain with no probabilities. Conviction would need a two-thirds Senate vote. The argument also counts existing checks as a source of misery rather than as constraints that limit the harm.
• Weak precedent (Premise 7) — The precedents show only that resignation is possible. A resigning Pope involved an unelected, lifetime office and age or health reasons. The Nixon-era resignation followed impending removal, not an electoral loss alone.
• Self-undermining appeal (Assumption 6) — The case that resignation is best for him depends on his being moved by self-interest. Yet the argument describes him as unable to change, driven by ego, and addressed with abuse. If the description is right, the appeal cannot work. If he can be moved, he might adapt instead.

Counterarguments

The conclusion is a comparative claim that resignation is best for three different beneficiaries. The reasons only show that staying looks bad and never weigh what a successor, the party's base, or the existing constitutional checks would do. Without that comparison, the case reduces to 'he is unpopular and unfit'.

Without this step, nothing else in the argument reaches the conclusion.

• Strongest challenge: Argument as a whole (High impact) — Nothing shows resignation beats the alternatives: serving out a term under a hostile Congress, impeachment, the 25th Amendment, or the next election. A successor such as the vice president might continue the same agenda more competently. The party could split or the base could feel betrayed. The premises show staying is bad, not that leaving is better for all three beneficiaries.
• Premise 3 (High impact) — Fixed terms are designed so that a midterm rout does not force a president out. Badly beaten presidents such as Obama, Clinton and Bush stayed. No threshold is given for when a loss creates a duty to leave, and adopting one would turn every midterm into a quasi-parliamentary confidence vote.
• Premise 2 (Medium impact) — Midterm losses by the president's party are the norm. Candidate quality, redistricting, turnout, inflation and war weariness plausibly account for part of the swing. Without voter-level data or a baseline penalty, the personal-repudiation reading is overstated.
• Assumption 6 (Medium impact) — The argument says he is insecure, power-driven and incapable of change, yet expects him to resign out of self-interest. Resigning would surrender the protections of office and could expose him legally. The rewards the argument names are ones he already has while in office.
• Premise 4 (Medium impact) — If cognitive or physical unfitness were real, the lawful remedies are the 25th Amendment and impeachment, supported by medical evidence. A remote diagnosis by a commentator is unreliable, and the same method has been contested in other contexts.
• Premise 5 (Medium impact) — A defiant post-defeat staffing choice is common and often precedes adjustment. It may be a base-consolidating gesture rather than proof of permanent inflexibility.
• Premise 6 (Medium impact) — The newly empowered Congress, the courts and the electoral calendar already work as constraints, so the 'irreversible disaster' forecast is overstated. Resigning could also create a stab-in-the-back narrative and radicalize the primary electorate.
• Premise 7 (Low impact) — The cited precedents differ in kind: a Pope's departure involved age and an unelected, non-fixed-term office, and the Nixon-era resignation followed impending removal for specific misconduct. Neither supplies a norm of resigning after an electoral loss.

Suggested Improvements

• Assumption 4: The claim that resignation leaves the party and country better off is asserted, not examined. — Compare resignation against staying under divided government, impeachment and the 25th Amendment. Analyze how a successor would govern, how the base would respond, and whether the party would unify or split. This is the step the recommendation depends on, and the successor, the base's reaction and the precedent set all bear on it.
• Assumption 2: A duty to resign when support collapses is borrowed from parliamentary systems without a threshold. — State a limiting standard, such as impeachable conduct or a formal incapacity finding, and show why this case meets it and why lawful mechanisms are insufficient. Without a principle, every presidency with a bad midterm would carry the same obligation.
• Premise 2: Personal causation is asserted from one aggregate result. — Cite exit polls, issue polling and comparisons with typical midterm swings and with candidates who distanced themselves from him. The ordinary midterm penalty and confounders could explain much of the swing.
• Assumption 6: The appeal to his own interest conflicts with the account of him as unable to change, and ignores legal and political incentives to stay. — Identify who could actually pressure him, such as party leaders or donors, and what exit terms would make leaving attractive. Alternatively, reframe the piece as advice to the public. If he cannot be moved, the recommendation has no path to being acted on.
• Premise 4: Health claims are lay impressions presented as fact. — Rely on documented behavior or independent medical evidence, and direct the fitness claim to the constitutional mechanisms designed to assess it. They carry weight in the unfitness case without verifiable support.

Scenario Tests

• The vice president succeeds and continues the same policies with greater discipline and fewer scandals. (Challenges) — The harms the argument cites persist, so the country-benefit leg fails. The party might benefit, but that is a different claim from the one made.
• The president adapts after the loss, as Obama and Clinton did, and works with the new Congress. (Challenges) — The premise that he cannot change fails and the staying-is-miserable forecast weakens. The case for resignation weakens sharply.
• Republican senators defect and credible evidence of serious misconduct emerges, so removal becomes realistic. (Supports) — This looks more like the situation where a resignation has actually happened. It is a different situation from an electoral loss alone, and it shows the missing ingredient in this case.
• The president refuses to resign and instead rallies his base against the pressure. (Challenges) — The argument has no effect on its nominal addressee. Resignation pressure could harden his support, which suggests the 'best for him' leg is not reachable.
• A divided Congress blocks key initiatives and the courts constrain executive actions. (Challenges) — The harms from staying are contained by existing checks, so resignation is less clearly better than serving out the term.

Coherence & Relevance

The premises form a cumulative case of diagnosis, unfitness and forecast, and they largely overlap. They justify the view that the president is badly weakened. They do not carry the comparative, three-way 'best option' conclusion, and the appeal to his self-interest conflicts with the description of him as incapable of change.

• The midterm elections produced a historically large margin against the president's party, which amounts to a broad public repudiation of him personally. (Moderate) — A large margin shows anger at the party. It does not by itself show personal repudiation or any obligation to resign, and there is no baseline for a normal midterm penalty.
• The defeat was caused by the president himself, through broken promises (no new wars, a better economy, targeted immigration enforcement, free speech, fiscal restraint, anti-corruption), alleged corruption and self-enrichment, and damage to alliances, to his coalition, and to the rule of law. (Moderate) — Causation supports the legitimacy claim only if the loss was mainly about him. No evidence separates his effect from cycle and candidate factors, and it does not link to resignation as the remedy.
• The result works like a vote of no confidence. In a parliamentary system he would be removed, so his democratic legitimacy has collapsed and the public lacks confidence in his handling of wars, the economy, AI, and the rule of law. (Moderate) — The analogy does not transfer to a fixed-term system. It also overlaps heavily with P1 and P2, so it adds little independent support.
• He is temperamentally and cognitively unfit to govern within the constitutional system. He cannot compromise, adapt, or follow the rule of law, and he shows signs of mental and physical decline. (Moderate) — Unfitness bears on the case for leaving, but the evidence is lay and the natural remedy is a constitutional mechanism, not voluntary exit.
• His response to the defeat (naming Stephen Miller chief of staff, doubling down on the war and immigration policies voters rejected) shows he will not adapt, as Obama and Clinton did after their midterm losses. (Moderate) — It supports the view that he will not adapt, which makes the staying scenario worse. It equally lowers the chance that he would accept the appeal to resign.
• If he stays, he faces a politically miserable two years (street protests, very low approval, possible impeachment with Republican votes), his party will be further damaged, and the country will suffer further disastrous and irreversible decisions. (Strong) — This is the comparison leg, but it is one-sided. It describes staying in detail and never models resignation's costs or the other alternatives.
• Resignation is feasible and has precedent, since leaders (even a Pope) have stepped down after losing public support. (Weak) — Establishes only that resignation is possible, not that it is advisable. The precedents are not comparable.

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