President Donald Trump entered office on Jan. 20 with a mandate that he previously did not possess. He was the first president in over a century to have held two non-consecutive terms. The criminal convictions against him were all but dropped. He was voted Time’s Person of The Year for the second time in 2024. Everything pointed to personal success and a political comeback for Trump. The facts present this as a time when a man who could seemingly do no wrong swept to power and into the hearts of the American public. This forgets one thing. This was the same person whose unpopularity, mishandling of domestic and global affairs and forcible rebuke of a democratic election result earned him a disgraced ticket out of the White House four years ago. This may be a miraculous revival for Trump and his political allies. However, it is also his office to fail. His fall to take. His responsibility to squander.
Trump and his supporters were emboldened by the idea of a national mandate in his second term. In his first week, the president signed dozens of sporadic executive orders, designed to interrupt the mechanisms of the federal government and ‘flood the zone,’ a term Trump’s former White House Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon, coined. Running the executive office in a system of tearing down the establishment is key to Trump’s playbook and broader political mindset. The difference is we now have a template to gauge how well this system works in terms of effecting meaningful policy changes. As the response to the COVID-19 pandemic alone could attest, the answer is not very well.
The president has also made a concerted effort to wage war on cultural and racial inclusion with the federal bureaucracy. On the morning of the inauguration, he opined that it would “hence forth be the official policy of the American government that there are only two genders, a man and a woman.” Since then, he has tried to put in place legislation to strip DEI from the federal government at every level. This has since prompted multinational brands inclusive of Meta, Amazon and McDonalds to roll back their inclusion policies. Though this may have excited his traditional base of supporters, it is also a quick way to hurt many of the minority voters who put their faith in Trump for the first time on Nov. 5.
As with the majority of the aforementioned items on his agenda, Trump’s foreign policy has been brash and with little room for reflection. Less than 24 hours after Trump was set to bring into effect 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, the administration made a full reversal and struck a deal with both countries to pause these for at least 30 days, in exchange for tighter border enforcement. While this may be seen as a short-term win for the administration, it is likely to only sour relations with Americas closest trading partners and spoil a relationship that has been held in high esteem for decades.
Then there is the president’s dismemberment of the executive branch itself. Since coming into office, Trump has fired a total of 14 inspector generals, the irony being that many of these were self-appointed in his first term. On top of this, he has tasked Elon Musk, a figure squarely outside of the administration, to be the man to bring about government efficiency, effectively giving him semi-independence over the fates of the around 3 million people who work in the federal government. If this does not raise alarm bells around the proper management of an institution designed to protect and uphold the principles of the American constitution, then it should.
Trump made a point of stating in his inaugural address that he had learned “a lot” from his first term in office. This time, he appears to be using the reigns of power to strip some of the size of the federal bureaucracy and keep a far more close-knit circle of confidants in its stead.
He seems to be far less considered about the seeking of validation from others, both inside and outside the party, as he does in making decision that can be viewed as a “win” in the eyes of The American public. All signs indicate more cohesive planning around an accession to power than was the case in 2017.
If one thing is clear though, the president has thrown away the rule book on who he keeps in his orbit. After just two weeks of a second Trump administration, it is clear that loyalty to the president is the only currency there is. Whether it is through the swathe of cabinet characters that range from the eccentric to the outright dangerous, or the tech oligarchy within Silicon Valley that he now seems to have inordinate sway over, with Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg each donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. The connection between all these disparate interests is an overt willingness to adhere to the wants and wishes of the new president.
Trump has far less consideration around the validation of others and far more preoccupation with getting what he wants from the office. He sees this as creating a ‘Golden Age’ of prosperity for the country. With 14 days gone and 1,461 to go, the veneer around this is already starting to wear thin. Though it is a new beginning for Trump, it may very well be the beginning of the end for an era that will work to be forgotten more than it is remembered.