Predictions for Trump 2.0

I made some predictions of what a Trump presidency would look like on November 27, 2016 that turned out to be pretty accurate, especially when I wrote “And whether Trump's supporters decide to turn against their man or double down in support if things go south remains to be seen. Much will depend upon whether a President Trump seeks to turn their anger against the very institutions his oath swore to uphold.” We know how that turned out on January 6 four years later.

Predicting Trump 2.0 is far harder because the stakes are so much higher and the guardrails so much weaker, while the amoral, unprincipled once and future president is still very much like an unknotted balloon let loose - unpredictable and subject to the whims of the moment. But here goes.

Climate

We will ignore decades of climate change/global warming evidence and irresponsibly glorify fossil fuels in the way a toddler gleefully defies his parents, laughing as he smears poop on the walls. But unlike that toddler, whose parents will correct and clean up after their misguided child, we will be forced to live in the mess of our own making. (parenthetically, we did a science experiment in 9th grade where we kept adding nutrients to our petri dishes filled with bacteria colonies. They thrived like crazy - until they didn’t. After days of exponential growth, we came in to find our colonies dead, victims of their own waste. When asked if the same could happen to mankind, our teacher, Mr. Godo, said no, because mankind is smart enough to identify the risk beforehand and address it before it becomes an issue. I believe Mr. Godo gave us too much credit.)

Immigration

We will be divided into those who cheer and those who are horrified by the methods Donald Trump employs as he seeks to remove undocumented workers from the United States. How much we come to lament that effort will be determined by how successful it is. The more successful, the more we will lament it as we realize just how important and productive those immigrants are to our social and economic success. The fact is that we, like the rest of the world, are facing a demographic disaster and immigration is our best hope. We not only want to attract the best and brightest (scientists, coders, doctors, et al) that will tip the competitive balance in our favor, but also the most motivated, which includes those willing to trek 2,000 miles with their families across jungle and desert, land and sea, to reach our borders. Our wealth as a nation has been built for more than two centuries by such newcomers. That we now plan to round them up and send them packing will be done to our everlasting regret.

Debt and Taxes

We will extend the Trump tax cuts, which will overheat our economy, revive inflation, further exacerbate the wealth gap (putting even more power into the hands of the fortunate few), drive interest rates higher and put the dollar at risk of losing its place as the global reserve currency. Not long ago I heard John Boehner asked if he felt socialism was a threat to the U.S. Of course he said, “Of course.” He then went on to criticize a system that promises people, in his words, “Free shit.” I assume he was blaming Democrats, but I would ask just who has convinced the American people they can get things without paying for them (so-called free shit)? Who has spent nearly five decades cutting taxes without asking for any sacrifice in services from the American people? Who has spent five decades claiming that tax cuts pay for themselves with additional growth? Who has taken zero responsibility for the tax-free deficits that threaten to devour our children’s futures? I would argue it is the Republicans. Some of us are old enough to remember the epithet “tax-and-spend liberal.” Yes, liberals sought to spend government money, but at least there was an expectation - a threat - that if we wanted more from government that there would be a price to pay. Not anymore, and for that we can thank the GOP. We will see if that "thanks" some day becomes blame. Much will depend upon the timing of when the bill for our profligacy comes due since we are not very good at extrapolating policy with outcomes beyond the current election cycle. Thus, the next Congress or next president may be the unfortunate scapegoats for today’s fools (much as Obama took so much heat for the financial mess left by his predecessor - blame which opened this former Republican’s eyes to how myopic and partisanally-blind the American people really are).

Geopolitics

It is impossible for any student of history to not see today’s parallels with the 1930’s. Economic uncertainty, bulging wealth gaps, worldwide resentment of “others”, infatuation with demagogic nationalists, nagging regional skirmishes that presaged larger geopolitical conflagrations. There are two large differences between 1935 and 2025. The first is that the center of global industrial might now resides in China instead of the United States. And the second is that the U.S. is about to be led by an incurious, non-strategic, inward-looking president infatuated with anti-democratic strongmen, instead of a strategic realist with an appreciation for global relationships and a deep understanding that American greatness was built on democracy and liberty. We are at a dangerous crossroads and it is impossible to know how the next one, three or ten years will go, but I am quite comfortable (uncomfortable as it makes me) in predicting that the world, and our place in it, will be far less stable and secure at the end of Donald Trumps’ next four years than it is today (January 20, 2025).

Miscellaneous

Big tech will be given more free reign, making the possibility it can be used to disperse propaganda that much more of a threat. It is ironic that Apple's 1984 Super Bowl commercial, which promised that technology would save us from Big Brother, proved so blind. Instead, it is precisely tech that threatens to be Big Brother in ways even Orwell could not imagine, using AI and their own knowledge of our preferences, predilections and peccadillos to feed us not what we want, but what they want us to want. This will only get worse under a subservient Donald Trump.

God help us if another health threat arises. JFK, Jr. and Dr. Oz, who could charitably be called a nutjob and an opportunist, do not exactly inspire confidence. This truly promises to be a National Enquirer administration, where sensationalism outweighs expertise. How does one even begin to predict how that will play out?

Many of the maladies Trump decried during the campaign were either vastly overblown, well on their way to self-correcting (eg, inflation) or were outright lies (immigrants eating pets, we're no longer energy independent, we're a laughingstock). All will be "fixed" by Donald Trump, via nothing but proclaiming them to be so, which is exactly how most of them came to be problems in the first place - by Trump proclamation.

Our military, especially if Pete Hegseth becomes Secretary of Defense, risks becoming not a defender of the U.S. Constitution, but a tool at the disposal of those who wish to redefine the Constitution for their own purposes, such as to empower Christian Nationalism or other doctrine at odds with American constitutional democracy. 

A bigger fear - and threat - is the twisting of American mythology. History has shown how noble mythologies can be transformed in the service of less than desirable forces. Such was the case in the 1930’s, when the Bushido code that guided the personal, political and military lives of Samurai warriors was co-opted in the service of the country’s military leaders. Likewise, Nordic imagery based upon the Teutonic warrior played an outsized role in creating the Aryan ideal at the heart of Nazisim. 

The United States has it own mythic warriors - the Minuteman of Concord and Lexington, ready to serve when Lady Liberty calls, and the Cowboy of the Old West, the stoic individualist ready to mete out justice where none exists. Both have been evoked in recent years in the name of defending truth, justice and the American Way. The Tea Party movement following the financial crisis, the standoffs with the Bundys over grazing rights and the Weavers at Ruby Ridge, the celebration of Kyle Rittenhouse as a hero, and the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol are at the very least warning signs that something is amiss in what we view as patriotic. We are in a dangerous place when lawlessness and vigilantism are celebrated as examples of the American spirit, for there is no law when justice is determined by might and righteous anger rather than due process, especially in a nation with a vast, not-so-hidden cache of semi-automatic assault weapons largely in the hands of those who view the 2nd Amendment as guaranteeing the next wave of Minutemen will be assured the arms needed to take on a government they view as corrupt. Where do we turn if the people decide to take the law into their own hands in a country where the courts are filled with judges more loyal to a man or an ideology based upon a misguided view of our Constitution, and the military is led by men (and if one has read Pete Hegseth's books, it will be men) who believe they are doing Christ's work in siding with the armed mob?

We risk losing what little remains of our soul. Economic might and growth have always been front of mind for the American people, but always with the undergirding of liberty and human dignity. People once argued during the Cold War that proof of American superiority over Soviet communism could be found by comparing grocery stores in the two countries. I countered by arguing that the real difference, the real proof of ideological superiority could be found on the street corner outside those grocery stores, where an American was free to shout criticism of his own president and government, while a Soviet citizen who did the same risked prison or worse. That is what is at risk with the ascendancy of a nearly religious fervor in service to wealth and material goods, and a strident righteousness regarding law and order. Yes, we’ll pay lip service to freedom, but only as far as it allows one to impose their will on another. Dog eat dog survival of the fittest. I can honestly say that is not the America I grew up loving, nor is it a country I look forward to experiencing.

This is the threat we face. Donald Trump is not the man to calm the waters. That there are no small number of people who think that is a good thing is evidence of the fretful place we find ourselves on the day of his second inauguration.