His return to power has been impressive—but the hard work is about to begin.
If you only listened to the Trump administration’s pronouncements or only read the deer-in-the-headlights accounts provided by assorted legacy journalists, you might conclude that the new administration has already built up an irresistible head of steam. Given Trump’s monarchical pretensions, he’d undoubtedly like us all to think he is unbound by limits and that resistance is futile. That is not the case, however, and we should not mistake Trump’s bombastic return and far-reaching early initiatives for unstoppable momentum. On the contrary, we are more likely to look back on this period as the highwater mark of Trumpian hubris. Making lavish promises is easy; delivering positive results is a whole lot harder.
Trump’s skills should not be underestimated, of course. He’s been extremely good at persuading banks to lend him money for dubious business ventures and equally good at getting gullible customers to pay for things he never delivered. He has proven to be remarkably adept at persuading voters that the United States was in desperate shape (no matter what the facts were) and that he alone could fix it, in good part because he is equally adept at finding fictitious enemies to blame for different problems. He’s in a class of his own at avoiding punishment for past crimes and pretty darn good at extracting benefits to himself, his family, and his pals. And let’s be honest: He’s also benefited from his willingness to challenge orthodoxies that deserved to be questioned, most notably the foreign-policy establishment’s tendency to drag the United States into unnecessary and unsuccessful wars.
What Trump has not shown much talent for is running a government, designing coherent policies, and delivering broad and tangible benefits to ordinary Americans. His first-term record should not be forgotten: trade deficits got worse instead of better, illegal immigration didn’t slow down significantly, thousands of Americans died unnecessary deaths from a bungled pandemic response, North Korea got more nuclear weapons, Iran resumed uranium enrichment, and the much-ballyhooed Abraham Accords laid the groundwork for Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He never built a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and Mexico didn’t pay for it. China never bought the $200 billion worth of U.S. exports that it promised to purchase in that big trade deal Trump negotiated. So much winning!
Might he do better this time around? Maybe. Unlike 2017, this time he’ll have loyal acolytes in key positions and, by all accounts, a savvy and effective chief of staff in the White House. But those assets can’t eliminate the deep contradictions in Trump’s political program and the obstacles he’s going to face.
Let me count the ways.
For starters, there’s an obvious tension between Trump’s desire to go down in history as a great peacemaker and his well-established penchant for bullying and threatening to use force to get his way. Although the adroit use of coercive diplomacy can sometimes facilitate peace efforts, Trump’s tendency to shake a big stick in all directions isn’t going to work everywhere. Sooner or later, his bluffs will get called, and he’ll have to back down or deliver. Some of the targets of his ire have “quagmire” written all over them, and threatening to use force tends to stiffen resistance instead of inducing compliance. He’s also inherited two especially thorny conflicts—Russia’s war in Ukraine and an almost-certain-to-collapse cease-fire between Israel and Hamas—and he’s already backtracking from his campaign boast that he could solve the latter in 24 hours.
Second, Trump’s economic policies simply don’t add up, and he’ll have to sacrifice some of his stated objectives or face a potential economic trainwreck. Extending tax cuts, imposing tariffs, and deporting workers all promise to increase the deficit and reignite inflation, and the uncertainty that Trump’s vaunted unpredictability creates will be a drag on business, as well. He and his supporters claim that deregulation and cutting “wasteful” spending will square this circle, but you can’t save much money if you plan to give more to the Defense Department—unless you make deep cuts in social programs that most Americans rely on and support. Trump inherited a remarkably healthy economy from former President Joe Biden, which means there’s nowhere to go but down. More importantly, the policies Trump has promised to implement will make that decline worse.
Third, there’s an obvious contradiction between Trump’s threats to punish other countries (most notably Mexico) and his anti-immigration agenda. In addition to disrupting supply chains on which many U.S. manufacturers depend, tariffs on Mexico would hurt the Mexican economy and encourage more people there to ignore the risks and try to migrate to the United States. The best way to discourage illegal immigration is to help nearby states do well economically, not send them into a recession, but does Trump get that?
Fourth, gutting government institutions, imposing litmus tests on the civil service, and putting unqualified and/or deeply troubled individuals in charge of key government organizations guarantees that essential public services will deteriorate. Government agencies are an easy political target, but Americans who aren’t billionaires depend upon them functioning well, especially during emergencies. Ordinary Americans will be angry if public services deteriorate, and Trump will have no one to blame but himself.
Fifth, going after universities and other knowledge-producing organizations will make the United States dumber, reduce its human capital, and help other countries catch up. If you target universities, then who is going to educate the future scientists, engineers, doctors, artists, social scientists, lawyers, and other experts who drive innovation, help develop public policies that work, and contribute to the broader well-being of society? Imposing the MAGA agenda on universities, nongovernmental organizations, and think tanks will stifle the healthy debate that helps countries avoid fatal blunders, which helps explain why open societies like the United States have generally been richer, stronger, less error-prone than their authoritarian rivals. What sensible president would want to give up that advantage?
Sixth, there’s every reason to believe that Trump will take government corruption to a whole new level. He’s already extorting money and concessions from obscenely wealthy tech gazillionaires who are eager to kiss the ring. Imposing tariffs and other restrictions on trade will provide new opportunities for corruption as businesses seek exemptions and pony up money to get them. When corruption is pervasive, resources are wasted buying people off and investment flows not to the brightest innovators or the most promising opportunities, but to loyalists pledging to do the autocrat’s bidding. Development experts emphasize that reducing corruption and strengthening the rule of law aids economic growth, but Trump seems to want to take the United States in the other direction. He and his buddies will get richer, but you won’t.
Seventh, Trump’s second term is, in some ways, the culmination of a long Republican quest for a so-called unified executive. The concentration of executive power has increased steadily for more than a century, but recent Supreme Court decisions have accelerated this trend and reinforced Trump’s monarchical instincts. The problem with unchecked power is that there’s no way to correct an autocrat’s mistakes, especially when they also control the information environment and can marginalize or silence anyone who points out their blunders. Humans are fallible creatures and mistakes are inevitable, but leaders with unchecked power tend to make huge ones. Just consider all the damage that Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and the Kim dynasty in North Korea did once they had consolidated power and could do whatever they wanted. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent run of errors is a cautionary example too.
In his inauguration speech, Trump declared he was going to lead the United States into a new “golden age.” But that’s hard to square with a vision of a country where oligarchs dominate politics, crony capitalism is endemic, the government bullies independent institutions of civil society, lies are the normal currency of political discourse, religious dogma drives key elements of public policy, and problems are routinely blamed on an ever-shifting array of internal and external “enemies.” That sounds more like Russia, China, or Iran than the United States, and I don’t think that’s where the vast majority of Americans really want to go.
The good news is that we still have some distance to go to get there, and the pathway to autocracy is strewn with pitfalls. The victory lap Trump has been taking since the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, 2024, is at an end, and the hard business of delivering on all his outlandish promises begins. Despite my distaste for the man, and especially his contempt for basic norms of honesty and integrity, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if Trump proves me wrong, beats the odds, defies the experts, and leaves the United States richer, more unified, more secure, more admired, and more tranquil. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
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