After realizing how much longer Trump’s second term in office would last, I took a long and sober look at New York at what might happen, and what might restrain Trump from doing his worst:
Donald Trump has a flexible attitude toward truth and facts, typically embracing whatever version of reality that suits his purposes. His latest rally speech in Pennsylvania was something of a “greatest hits” display of fact-checker challenges on a wide range of issues. But he said one thing that no one should doubt or deny: “You know what? We have three years and two months to go. Do you know what that is in Trump Time? An eternity.”
So what will America look like after three more years of this barrage? As always, the administration’s intentions are opaque. But there are several outside variables that will dramatically shape how much Trump is able to do by the end of his time in office (assuming he actually leaves as scheduled on January 20, 2029). Here are the factors that will decide the outcome of this three-year “eternity.”
One huge variable is the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections. If history and current polling are any indication, Democrats are very likely to gain control of the U.S. House and bust up the partisan trifecta that has made so much of Trump 2.0’s accomplishments (for good or ill) possible. With a Democratic House, there will be no more Big Beautiful Bills whipped through Congress on party-line votes reconfiguring the federal budget and tax code and remaking the shape and impact of the federal government. A hostile House would also bedevil the administration with constant investigations of its loosey-goosey attitude toward obeying legal limits on its powers, and its regular habits of self-dealing, cronyism, and apparent corruption. The last two years of the Trump presidency would be characterized by even greater end runs of Congress, and in Congress, by endless partisan rhetorical warfare (as opposed to actual legislation).
It’s less likely that Democrats will flip control of the Senate in 2026, but were that to happen, Trump would struggle to get his appointees confirmed (though many could operate in an “acting” capacity). We’d likely see constant clashes between the executive and legislative branches.
Conversely, if Republicans hold onto both congressional chambers, then all bets are off. Trump 2.0 would roll through its final two years with the president’s more audacious legislative goals very much in sight and limited only by how much risk Republicans want to take in 2028. You could see repeated Big Beautiful Bill packages aiming at big initiatives like replacing income taxes with tariffs or consumption taxes; a complete return to fossil fuels as the preferred energy source; a total repeal and replacement of Obamacare and decimation of Medicaid; a fundamental restructuring of immigration laws; and radical limits on voting rights. Almost everything could be on the table as long as Republicans remain in control and in harness with Trump. And with his presidency nearing its end, you could also see Trump tripling down on demands that Republicans kill or erode the filibuster, which could make more audacious legislative gains possible.
The U.S. Supreme Court will also have a big impact on how much Trump can do between now and the end of his second term. Big upcoming decisions on his power to impose tariffs will determine the extent to which he can make these deals the centerpiece of his foreign-policy strategy and execute a protectionist (or, if you like, mercantilist) economic strategy for the country. Other decisions on his power to deport immigrants and on the nature and permanence of citizenship will heavily shape the size and speed of his mass-deportation program. The Supreme Court will soon also either obstruct or permit use of National Guard and military units in routine law-enforcement chores and/or to impose administration policies on states or cities. And the Supreme Court’s decisions on myriad conflicts between the Trump administration and the states could determine whether, for example, the 47th president can sweep away any regulation of AI that his tech-bro friends oppose.
A separate line of Supreme Court decisions will determine Trump’s power over the executive branch — most obviously over independent agencies like the FTC and the Fed, but also over millions of federal employees who could lose both civil-service protections and collective-bargaining opportunities.
Even a president as willful as Trump is constrained by objective reality. His economic policies make instability, hyperinflation, and even a 2008-style Great Recession entirely possible. If that happens, it could both erode his already shaky public support but also encourage him to assert even greater “emergency” powers than he’s already claimed.
Trump’s impulsive national-security instincts and innate militarism could also lead to one of those terrible wars he swears he is determined to avoid. It’s worth remembering that the last Republican president was entirely undone during his second term by economic dislocations and a failed war.
Let’s say Trump has the power to do what he wants between now and the end of his second term. What might America look like if he fully succeeds, particularly if his policies are either emulated by state and local Republicans or imposed nationally by Washington?
- A country of millions fewer immigrants, with immigrant-sensitive industries like agriculture, health care, and other services struggling.
- A more regressive system of revenues for financing steadily shrinking public services.
- A fully shredded social-safety net feeding steadily increasing disparities in income and wealth between rich and poor, and old and young, Americans.
- Cities where armed military presence has become routine, particularly during anti-administration protests or prior to key elections.
- Elections conducted solely on Election Day in person, with strict ID requirements and armed election monitors, likely on the scene during vote counting as well.
- A new “deep state” of MAGA-vetted federal employees devoted to carrying out the 47th president’s policies even after he’s long gone.
- A world beset by accelerated climate-change symptoms, particularly violent weather and widespread natural disasters, and a country with no national infrastructure for preventing or mitigating the damage.
- An economy where AI is constantly promoted as a solution to the very problems it creates.
- A world beset by accelerated climate-change symptoms, particularly violent weather and widespread natural disasters, and a country with no national infrastructure for preventing or mitigating the damage.
- A scientific and health-care research apparatus driven by conspiracy theories and cultural fads.
- A public-education system hollowed out by private-school subsidies and ideological curriculum mandates.
- And most of all: a debased level of political discourse resembling MMA trash talk more than anything the country has experienced before.
Some of these likely effects from Trump 2.0 are reversible, but only after much time and effort, and against resistance from the MAGA movement he will leave as his most enduring legacy.
And if Trump bequeaths the presidency to a successor (either a political heir like J.D. Vance or a biological heir like Don Jr.), then what American could look like by 2032 or 2036 is beyond my powers of imagination.
Most of the Democratics running for President are calling for the repeal of the “Bush Tax Cut for the rich”. Has everyone forgotten that in 1963 President Kennedy gave a 20% tax cut to the 1% richest Americans? Makes the 3.5% Bush cut seem like small change to me. Besides, in 1963, the richest 1% were only paying 10% of total income taxes and today they are paying 37% of total income taxes. Looks like hipocracy to me!!
Thanks for posting Bush’s approval rating in this poll. It’s not on http://www.pollingreport.com
BTW, Dean trails Bush 51-46, which corresponds exactly with the likely/unlikely numbers. It’s also encouraging to read how Bush isn’t doing so well with independents. That’s a trend that was very pronounced before Saddam’s capture.
Chris Matthews was going on this weekend about popular and unbeatable Bush is. What a clueless fuck.
About the failure to publicize the poll results, democrats.com has encouraged people to send a graph to CNN of the trends in their own poll. This I have done (though I looked up CNN’s procedure for this first; it’s at http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form12.html?1).
I suspect that much of the media bias against Democrats is structural more than it is intended. I have noticed, especially on television, that “journalists” waste almost all of their coverage on the “meta-campaign”. In other words, they talk about the campaign, rather than about the statecraft for which the campaign exists.
A perfect example was the clownish performance of Ted Koppel at the Democratic debate a few weeks back. Koppel asked, for instance, questions about how much money the candidates’ campaigns had, how well or badly they were doing in the polls, etc. More recently, C-SPAN had coverage of a local Iowa political chat show, and the commentators were discussing the same sort of campaign nuts and bolts, with nothing about the actual conduct of government. This is appalling. It is infantile for the primary sources of public information to neglect the topic of statecraft so completely. You could make a “Davey and Goliath” episode out of this: “Davey misses the point of delivering news, but learns from his mistake.”
So how does this work against Democrats? Pretty simply, actually. Watching the way things are going now that the Republicans are mostly in charge, it is evident that Republicans, as a whole, are about as capable of running the country as second and third graders; if you included Lisa Simpson, then the grade schoolers would be vastly superior. If one party is more statesmanly than the other, and the information sources are unable or unwilling to discuss statecraft, then the more idiotic party is going to get better coverage.
It does my heart good to see polls indicating that Bush is not where he wants to be. But I think we make a grave error by gleefully proclaiming them as having much importance, especially at this point in time. If we sit back waiting for Bush to self-destruct, we lose again.
It’s time to start planning on how we can WIN the election. If we wait for Bush to lose it, we’ll be sorely disappointed yet again.
Greg,
Good point, and I have to ride my Dean hobby horse here: Democrats will not win by proclaiming to the world that Bush’s war is a huge success that’s made Americans much, much safer. This is just folly, especially when polls show that between 60 and 78 percent of Americans already believe that Saddam’s capture didn’t make us safer. Dean’s comment was controversial only within the deeply conservative confines of the mainstream commentariat.
Steve,
Yes, I too am frustrated by the relative lack of media coverage of polls that show bad news for Bush. In fact, I am in even more despair lately over the state of the media in our country. I thought perhaps that Gore’s mauling had to do mostly with personality issues — the Beltway Heathers just didn’t like him. But now, we begin to see how the press gangs up on all the Democrats (have you seen the AP coverage of the Sunday debate? covered extensively here in the blogosphere — kos, atrios, calpundit). Just depressing. I continue to write letters to the editor just to make sure somebody gets the message that Democrats are watching.
One of the more interesting aspects of this just released poll is how little publicity it received over the weekend. Any uptick in the Bush numbers is typically headlined in USA Today and the networks while this poll barely received a mention.
One of the more interesting aspects of this just released poll is how little publicity it received over the weekend. Any uptick in the Bush numbers is typically headlined in USA Today and the networks while this poll barely received a mention.
This bears out what I’d always assumed about Saddam’s capture – it would be politically insignificant. What we’re fighting in Iraq is much more complex than just “Baathist holdouts,” and involves Islamists and nationalists as well.
Exposing the deceptions in the case for war has to be part of the Democrats approach, of course, but the bottom line question is, after investing significant blood and vast treasure — has the Iraq War make Americans safer from terrorism? I think we Democrats have a very good shot at convincing people in the center of the political spectrum that the answer is a resounding “no.”
Greg Priddy