I am no stranger to bouts of clinical depression myself but I didn’t know half the country could go into one, simultaneously, until I found myself a part of this collective funk that has gripped the nation since November 5. Democrats began acting out immediately, either switching off their TVs or maybe throwing a brick through them. Just go ask MSNBC, CNN, and all the other networks for that matter, how their ratings plummeted. I can tell you that traffic on this site plunged and I get emails from other political sites begging for cash, (as I have had to do myself) so this is an industry-wide malaise.
But be of good cheer. What you are seeing right now is the best it is going to be for Donald Trump in the next four years. It is all downhill from here and that is not wishful thinking. That is a prediction based upon nine years of observing Trump — who is nothing if not consistent and predictable — and seeing the mistakes he has made and will make again.
Right now he’s on a dopamine high, talking ridiculously about acquiring Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal, and who knows what will be the next target of his silliness and illogic? And make no mistake, there will be a next target. There always is.
But Trump has already made a few strategic blunders, namely taking two House members to serve in his administration, which leaves Mike Johnson with a one-vote “cushion” which is the same as having a kleenex under you. Pete Hegseth is a disaster waiting to happen as is Kashtastrophy Patel. MAGA is crowing about the wonders of what will be, but with Trump the past is prologue and he goes into office as a soon-to-be-79 year old lame duck. Remember Nixon and his “mandate?” (Which at least was grounded in reality, unlike Trump’s fantasy of same.) Remember how that worked out for him? Wait. Just wait. Trump may actually trump Nixon.
What the MAGA faithful don’t want to hear is that it will never be so good again. The liberals who fear Trump’s fascist takeover need not caterwaul so much: This really is it. Of course, the damage Trump might do to the federal government and democracy broadly shouldn’t be hand-waved away. New right-wing judges will flood the federal bench, and the conservative majority could be cemented into the 2050s if Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito strategically retire. Efforts to combat climate change will be unraveled. Taxes on the wealthiest Americans might be slashed. Corporate regulations could be significantly weakened. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s meddling in the federal bureaucracies will trigger an exodus of talent from pivotal agencies. Even if $2 trillion will never be cut from the federal budget, Musk and Ramaswamy can certainly weaken the government through attrition, and it appears the few economic populists in Trump’s orbit could be suffocated by the big-tech libertarians.
Unregulated crypto markets won’t make America great again, but they could seed a future economic crash. And on immigration, Trump should be taken seriously. Whether or not a true mass-deportation regime comes to pass, the borders will tighten. Perhaps the arch-nationalists who celebrate will slowly come to understand that depriving America of human capital, in an era of high inflation and slowing population gains, is not the greatest idea.
Now are the days of wine and roses for MAGA because Joe Biden is still president and Trump’s reign remains hypothetical. On January 20, the script flips: The inflation and affordability crises are Trump’s problems. So is governing, which he has never excelled at. While Trump’s second term may promise, in theory, less chaos than his first, there isn’t much evidence that his White House will evince the grim, rapacious discipline of the Bush-Cheney years, when Republicans actually dominated all policymaking at home and abroad. There was no five-dimensional chess move in nominating Matt Gaetz for attorney general: Trump could have saved himself much grief and put forth a far less scandalous loyalist in Pam Bondi but opted against it because he ultimately can’t help himself.
Pete Hegseth appears to be past the threshold for survival, and perhaps Kash Patel has a shot at the FBI, after all — but the trouble for Trump is that he has selected for subservience over any kind of greater seasoning or skill, and this will prove deleterious when these men are tasked with overseeing enormous federal bureaucracies. The same applies to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has never managed much of anything.
Trump’s legislative agenda will be challenged immediately because, despite MAGA’s claim to the contrary, he did not win a historic landslide. Republicans barely control the House. Since Trump rarely thinks strategically, he has nominated not one but two Republican representatives, Elise Stefanik and Michael Waltz, to positions in his administration. Both will easily get confirmed and vacate their seats.
In the interim, House Speaker Mike Johnson will be able to afford only a single defection on pivotal votes. A faction of far-right lawmakers — a faction, ironically, Johnson once belonged to — is very hungry to dump him despite not having a challenger with the support to actually become Speaker. The Democrats under Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, are unified and will not be aiding the fractious GOP.
In the Senate, life is only a little better for the Republicans. They have a majority of 53, far short of the 60 needed to override a filibuster, and at least three of those Republicans are explicitly skeptical of the Trump right. Susan Collins of Maine has a tough reelection fight in 2026 and will have every incentive to buck her party. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has always hewed to the center. And John Curtis, the new senator from Utah, may end up a moderate in the mold of Mitt Romney. A fourth Republican, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, needs to survive in 2026 too, and if he’s pitted against the popular former governor of his state, Roy Cooper, he will need to be careful about how closely he aligns with Trump.
The 2026 Senate map is drawn far more favorably for Democrats than the 2024 map was. That is a topic we will explore in detail when the time is ripe. Long story short, Trump will have two years, realistically, to force his will upon the nation with the slenderest of margins in both chambers of Congress. And again, this should not be hand waved away. That’s not the point.
The point is that Trump’s bluster and big crazy talk is just that and nothing more. Like always. The Greenland, Canada and Panama Canal annexations will materialize just like the wall on the Mexican border. It’s talk, hyperbole, bluster, something a senile old narcisstic cobbles together between Adderall doses and bouts of boredom to abuse himself and give his cult a spike.
Finally, there’s Trump himself: a 78-year-old who immediately, upon his swearing-in, becomes a lame duck. He will be president into his 80s, forced to contend with approval ratings that will inevitably slide and majorities that, if history is any indication, will leak away. Democrats are already poised to retake the House in 2026. There are few examples, in recent American history, of overly triumphant second terms, and J.D. Vance, the front-runner for the 2028 nomination, will have to campaign as a de facto incumbent in an era that will continue to be unkind to anything that reeks of institutional entrenchment.
(Does Trump, at 82, try to steal a third term? Anything is possible. But Vance and his ambitious rivals, dreaming of the Oval Office themselves, will not be terribly motivated to keep the dissembling would-be monarch on the scene.) The MAGAs are The Man now. And that, in our uneasy time, in which martyrs are made of assassins, is not the greatest place to be.
The crazies are in the ascendent. We have been here before. And yes, 2025 is alarming but every Republican official is going to be screaming for accountability if the people who process Social Security and Medicare checks and the like are suddenly benched and the day to day wheels of government are no longer turning. We’re used to pitched battles in the House about government shutdowns but we have never seen a government shutdown due to sheer inepitude or sabotage of the desk job people who keep things running from day to day.
We’re used to people like Paul Ryan being called Granny Starvers but we’re not used to Granny actually starving because her check wasn’t deposited and she literally has nothing to eat. If you thought the botched COVID response was a ticket out of office for the GOP, wait until people are reduced to hand to mouth survival and you will see mass demonstrations in the streets.
This country could be in for some scenarios that we never thought possible in America because of the dumbed down electorate believing this conman’s lies. All I’m saying is that the honeymoon will end soon enough and then we don’t know what will happen when the oligarchs start dictating to the elected officials or the military.
And it would be naive of us to suppose that wasn’t right around the corner. How all hell could break loose, we don’t know. But the probability of it happening is extremely high and as totally divided as this country is right now and as divided as Congress is, do not expect Trump to waltz through any of his nutball plans with ease. Or institute martial law on a whim. That will not happen.
We are looking at two years of extreme contention. And after that, who knows? But definitely Trump will not get all the glory or the victories that he is dreaming about now. Those are castles in the air. And when Trump, in his condition, meets resistance? He’s going to reveal himself for the feckless fool that he is.
So mark down the days until January 20. MAGA supposedly is, because they think January 20 marks the beginning of the “Golden Age” Trump has promised them. No. It only marks the beginning of the end of MAGA. And make no mistake, when Trump shuffles off this mortal coil, the GOP will do as much fancy footwork as possible to distance themselves from Trump after the havoc he will wreak in the next few years.
We hoped this story would have a Hollywood feel good, happy ending, with the ascension of Kamala Harris to the presidency. And democracy lived happily ever after. Instead, what we have is a four-act epic: Trump 1.0, the first term, Biden’s term, Trump 2.0 the first two years and then get ready for a wild act four between 2026 and 2028 and a finale which is impossible to predict. But it should be a showstopper and if a show ever needed to be stopped, it’s this one. Stopped, and then run out of town on a rail.
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Too bad the Bard isn’t around to write another play. I wonder if it would be a tragedy or a comedy. Trump reminds me of addicts I’ve worked with. Most people have had so much conservative propaganda shoved up their rears…they really know very little about any class of substances people have been using since prehistoric days. Two drugs hit people hard the first time they use them…crack cocaine and heroin. The first high is so intense…they set off chasing something that will never be again. Trump and his gang are higher than before, as he not only led a violent attempted coup, he now is back with almost complete power,(noting the margins in the house), with the zeitgeist of feeling invincible. You’re correct in that the fantasy will not last, and the more he tries to recapture it…the further it will retreat from him. Addicts sometimes live to old age, like William Burroughs, the author of Junky, who lived until 83 years old. Most destroy themselves. As his frustration mounts…he will really start to look crazier than he has to date…if that’s possible. Of course the media will tell us not to believe our eyes and ears.
It would be a tragedy. But it would contain more comic episodes like the one in MacBeth where the guard is going on about alcohol being an equivocator -“it increases the desire but takes away the performance” (not an exact quote, but close) to Malcolm and MacDuff just before they find Duncan dead and bloody. But there would be more of them – maybe as many as one in every scene.
With memories of how the Covid pandemic tested Trump/MAGA, there are always possible eruptions of other pandemics. Right now, waiting in the wings, we have avian bird flu. Then there are reports of China trying to get on top of a surge in hMPV (human metapneumovirus). How will T and RFK respond to those?
With LIES. Biden needs to tell the FDA to release and distribute the vaccine that is ready to go. If he doesn’t…well…I wonder how many body bags we have stocked?
My only two pleasures for the next few years will be:
Watching the MAGAts scream when they realize how fscked they are
Watching DonOld’s brain turn to pudding in real-time
I have the popcorn ready.