By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The day earlier than he left the White Home in 2021, Donald Trump vowed to stay a pressure in U.S. politics. “The movement we started is only just beginning,” he mentioned in a farewell video.
What may need appeared then to be wishful considering now seems like a prophecy.
Trump left workplace a defeated and remoted determine, banned from social media and repudiated by fellow Republicans in his personal administration. Congress, shaken by his supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, was making ready a second impeachment trial towards him.
Trump, 78, returns to the presidency on Monday extra highly effective than ever. He faces fewer guardrails as he pursues a norm-shattering agenda that’s already upending Washington and unsettling the world.
The previous real-estate developer, whose first elected workplace was the White Home, now plausibly stands because the defining political determine of the early twenty first century.
“He doesn’t look like he was rejected. It looks like his version of Republican politics is as mainstream as it gets,” mentioned Princeton College historical past professor Julian Zelizer.
Not like the beginning of his first time period in 2017, Trump is buttressed by a transparent electoral victory, having received each the Electoral Faculty and common vote.
Aides who final time sought to blunt his most aggressive impulses have been changed by bare-knuckled loyalists wanting to bend Washington to his will. Skeptics inside his Republican Social gathering have been pushed into retirement, leaving allies who’re wanting to push his proposals by Congress. A sympathetic Supreme Court docket, a 3rd of whom are Trump appointees, has already dominated that he may have broad latitude to do what he needs.
Silicon Valley titans who as soon as stored their distance are competing to win his favor. The world’s richest individual, Tesla (NASDAQ:) CEO Elon Musk, has volunteered to assist Trump overhaul the federal government, whereas Meta (NASDAQ:) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon (NASDAQ:) founder Jeff Bezos will function prominently at his swearing-in ceremony.
Trump, a former actuality TV star, may also depend on a community of sympathetic podcasters and influencers to amplify his message, whereas established media retailers battle with shrinking audiences. His freewheeling October interview with podcaster Joe Rogan has been seen 54 million instances on YouTube, approaching the 67 million who watched his televised debate with Democratic presidential rival Kamala Harris.
Trump inherits a robust economic system and a quiet southern border, with migrant arrests decrease in December than when he left workplace.
Nonetheless, he has mentioned he plans to impose steep tariffs on buying and selling companions and deport thousands and thousands of immigrants who entered the nation illegally – insurance policies that would reignite inflation and strain inventory costs, which Trump follows intently.
One attainable examine on his ambitions is the bond market, the place buyers might be spooked if the $36 trillion nationwide debt will increase dramatically or Congress struggles to boost the borrowing restrict. Markets may additionally react poorly if he doesn’t comply with by on his promise to increase his 2017 tax cuts and minimize authorities spending.
FLORIDA MAN
When Trump launched his third consecutive presidential bid from his Florida property in November 2022, his fortunes have been at an ebb. A lot of his most well-liked congressional candidates had misplaced in midterm elections and he confronted a number of prison and civil investigations. Rivals like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been sparking enthusiasm from Republicans keen to maneuver on from the Trump years. “Florida Man Makes Announcement,” the New York Put up wrote dismissively of Trump.
However Republican voters rallied to Trump following his prison indictment in March 2023 for overlaying up a hush cash cost to a porn star, donations poured in and he simply secured the celebration’s nomination. Broader occasions performed in his favor as nicely, as voters grew dissatisfied with Democratic President Joe Biden’s response to spiraling costs and unlawful immigration. Biden dropped his reelection bid in July 2024 following a disastrous debate efficiency, leaving Harris little time to make her personal case to voters.
Trump additionally turned misfortune to his benefit, portraying his authorized woes as a marketing campaign of political persecution and mounting a run-out-the-clock protection that finally compelled federal prosecutors to drop their two instances, together with one for election interference, towards him. When he was grazed by a would-be murderer’s bullet in July, Trump raised his fist and shouted “Fight! Fight! Fight!”, creating one of many yr’s defining photographs.
In his November victory, Trump made inroads with conventional Democratic constituencies similar to younger individuals and Hispanics. Voters shrugged off his felony convictions and Democrats’ warning {that a} candidate who refused to acknowledge his 2020 defeat posed an ongoing menace to democracy.
Trump has threatened to purge the federal workforce and enlist the Justice Division to harass his political enemies. He has held out the chance that he may refuse to spend cash appropriated by Congress, which may result in a constitutional showdown.
He has embraced an agenda of territorial growth – similar to shopping for Greenland from Denmark and asserting management over the Panama Canal – elevating the chance that his second White Home time period might be as chaotic as his first.
However even earlier than he takes the oath of workplace on Monday, Trump has already reshaped Washington. Republicans and Democrats alike now share his extra confrontational method to China and his skepticism of free commerce agreements. Proposed cuts to common well being and retirement packages, as soon as a staple of Republican finances proposals, are off the desk. Biden stored a lot of Trump’s tariffs in place and has labored to scale back U.S. reliance on foreign-made semiconductors.
As soon as an outsider in U.S. politics, Trump has come to outline it.
“It’s clear that since 2015 we’ve been in the Trump era,” mentioned Matthew Continetti, a fellow on the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative assume tank. “It’s not over yet.”
