Im a bit more scared and pessimistic. Trump is more influenced this time by Musk, Ramaswamy and Lara Trump. The last 2 are politically very savvy. Lara, whatever one may say, did a great job in the swing states,
and convinced Trump to embrace early voting which in the end worked out great for them.
Musk confirmed he will pour money into midterms and also fund elections against liberal DA’s and AG’s. He warned so-called RINOs they will be primaried.
I feel this is the likeliest scenario. The Republicans will be fine with allowing elections to continue as long as they can influence the outcomes. So they’ll spend the next four years appointing judges and election officials who will do what the Republicans tell them to do.
They’ll make sure the economy remains directed at funneling money to the wealthy with the government supporting that goal. The economy will get worse for everyone who isn’t wealthy but the media will mostly report on how the wealthy are doing.
They’ll throw a few bones to the racists and the Christian conservatives but nothing so far that it will prompt an effective backlash. The racists and the Christians conservatives won’t be as necessary when the Republicans establish their control over elections.
Trump will spend the next four years being loud and stupid. He’ll divert attention from what the regular Republicans are quietly working on. If he lives for four years, he’ll be replaced in 2028 by another Republican.
Thing is, the racists and Christian conservatives are the Republicans for most practical purposes. If anything they’ll be needed more after democracy has been fully subverted, since the Republicans will need loyalists who approve of that to keep the system running and a boot on everyone else.
It sounds like all your scenarios assume that Trump stays alive and well enough to actually do stuff for his whole term or at least a significant portion of it. This is not a sure thing, especially at his age.
Not really; my first and third ones include the possibility of his dying or leaving office due to health issues before his term expires. (The second and fourth ones are things only Trump would / could do; I very much do not look forward to the idea of a President Vance, but the chances that he would start a nuclear war through impulsivity or incompetence are virtually nil, and I don’t think he has the personal charisma / cult of personality required to install himself as dictator even if he wants to.)
I believe it’s a little of all 7, but the real impact is not from the top. In the chaos created by government disfunction a myriad of local disputes are resolved a bit to the right. That encourages a population of right wing voters whose personal major issue, no matter how nationally irrelevant, has scored a win. That population will feel Trump paid off because there’s a minute of prayer in the local school, some homeless folks didn’t get food stamps and the TV shows Mexicans being deported. Nothing really changed but they feel better with Trump in charge. That could tip the mid terms to the Republicans.
I believe Vance is the Joker in the deck. He is the squirrel in the nut house. Whatever the scenario, he is likely to create Trumps’ demise and be Trumps replacement.
Not secret masterminds, a hate movement. The Republican leaders can use the mob to get power by giving it what it wants, but the power is an illusion; they only have power if they keep feeding the fanatics. They are in the position of the German “elite” that thought they could control Hitler and the Nazis.
Keep in mind that the Republican leadership didn’t want Trump. But the fanatics did, and as a result Trump took over the party while barely trying. The fanatics are the ones in control.
I suppose it matter who you consider to be “they” in that sentence.
The actual church-goers are certainly sheep to be sheared, but ‘they’ aren’t the ones coordinating with the political operatives. That would be the church leaders, the ones doing the shearing. “They” already have the flock in hand, and can largely direct where it goes. These are the people who are vying with the political leaders to determine who is really driving this clown car.
Based on the GOP’s slim majority in Congress, we don’t get tariffs that are too high or too damaging, just enough so Trump can put a trophy on his shelf. The business (not-MAGA-brainrotted) Republicans won’t vote for high tariffs any more than the Dems will.
Based on how the courts have ruled so far, giving Trump wins on some things (see: immunity ruling that courts will review if the President can do something but won’t touch why he did it) but not others where his position cannot be defended with a straight face (see: 2020 election challenges), we don’t get the end of birthright citizenship but we do get massive deportations under a “streamlined” deportation procedure that the Supremes approve as long as it has a figleaf of due process. Citizens will be caught up in the dragnet, and the wealthier, more popular, or more sympathetic will get sprung, which the MAGAs will point to as “proof” the system is fair, while the poorer will be deported. As the poorer tend to work in agriculture and food-processing plants, the economy will suffer. Perhaps if it suffers enough, they’ll be a backlash in Congress, but I’m not counting on a backlash sufficient to alter Trump’s anti-immigrant policy so long as his flunkies are implementing it.
The DOGE sword aimed at the civil service and various government agencies will be blunted here and there by interest groups or public/social media outcry rallying support in Congress, but will fall with full force on other, less sympathetic agencies regardless of their actual necessity or usefulness.
[My guesses, the only ones I feel confident enough about given the vagaries of public opinion:
*Social Security, Medicare, and the VA will suffer very little, as the backlash will be too broad (those who don’t see themselves ever drawing SS don’t want to be stuck with their parents now ) and too strong.
*I would be surprised if we end up with a privatized NOAA or Weather Service.
*I think the sheer self-serving of Musk’s DOGE slashing NASA to make way for Musk’s SpaceX stinks badly enough that NASA will not suffer much if there’s a strong social media response calling attention to the self-dealing. Musk’s popularity is wearing thin, and I don’t think he’ll be more popular by the time Trump takes office and DOGE becomes more than online bloviating.
*The IRS will probably be gutted, so the rich will have even less fear of paying taxes than now. There’s little sympathy for the IRS even among people who want the rich to pay their fair share. And the same people of modest means who believe themselves temporarily-embarrassed millionaires fear IRS audits & collection efforts more than the actual rich do.
*“Development” (resource extraction) on public lands and the progress of alternative energy will be a battle royale. Environmentalists will be joined by people who make $$ off public-lands tourism or wind/solar farms, many of whom are in red states, to get Congress to thwart as many of Trump’s short-sighted “drill, baby, drill” efforts as Congress can. The ones Trump can do within the executive branch alone will probably happen, though.]
Trump will indulge his instinct to be cruel re. Gaza, and his rhetoric will be bloody and merciless. But this isn’t different enough from the present national policy to make that much of a difference. Those who favor Israel but not Trump’s extreme anti-Palestinian position will distance themselves from his remarks and argue for support despite them, but will be tainted by them nonetheless. The issue will become even more polarized, if that’s possible.
Trump will want to end aid to Ukraine. I think there’s enough GOP supporters of Ukraine in Congress to pass continuing aid, but I honestly don’t know if there’s enough to override a Trump veto. If not, which wouldn’t surprise me, the U.S. drops out of supporting Ukraine’s defense, If that happens and IF Ukraine falls in 2025, I fear Russia will recover enough to try Poland or the Baltic states by 2027ish, and then the shit will well and truly hit the fan. By which I don’t mean nuclear war, despite Putin’s sabre-rattling, but the geopolitical consequences with NATO and the domestic political consequences of a few million angry Polish-Americans and many more million Americans suddenly realizing we could’ve prevented a battle now by supporting an ally earlier.
I think Trump will get enough idiots, grifters, and traitors into the executive branch to cause chaos, and his deportations will sufficiently depress the economy, that Congress will change parties at the 2026 midterms but not enough for a Dem supermajority in either chamber. So Congress will likely be able to reverse any bad legislation that got passed 2025-2026 and (unless the filibuster rules change) will have one shot at an Inflation Reduction Act-esque omnibus redirection of the government’s spending priorities back to education, climate change, healthcare, sustainable infrastructure, affordable housing, etc. A Dem Senate will be more able than a thin-GOP Senate to say no to Trump’s craziest appointments.
I don’t want to make predictions about the 2028 elections. If the economy is doing well in fall 2028 because a 2026 Democratic Congress took the edge off Trump’s stupidest policies, Trump might win because so many people vote based solely on how the economy is doing when they submit their ballot. Which doesn’t mean a '26 Dem Congress (ghod willing!) should play 3D chess and not try to stop Trump, it’s just that no good deed goes unpunished. Sigh.
If a Dem wins the Presidency in 2028, how long it takes to restore a proper civil service will depend on how much damage was done in the first place; that is, which agencies held off the DOGE barbarians with public support, which didn’t, and which were affected but not crippled.
That seems like the more hopeful side of how things could play out. If that’s how it goes, we’ll still have hell to pay, but maybe democracy isn’t dead. And hopefully neither am I.
I agree that it would not be privatized, but I do see meddling in anything that smacks of climate research. That’s not wild speculation, either, since states have done the same forbidding of research into climate change. We might be left with only basically the Weather Service to warn us of impending storms and heatwaves.
This is very close to what I think is likely modulo a few tweaks below. So thanks for writing this as it means that I didn’t have to.
Depending on how draconian the deportation arrests are, there may also be public push back. When Bluesky is filled with sob stories of Jaun and Maria who were active in the church and volunteered at the local animal shelter, but despite being here 15 years and loved by everybody they and were carted away in hand cuffs leaving while their three children (included in a photo) were left behind crying. The public pressure may be enough to tone things down. “I thought that they were only going to deport the bad ones not my next door neighbor.”
I think that there is about zero chance of Congress will provide funding to Ukraine. I’m not sure that Ukraine will fall, I think that Trump will strong arm Zelenski to end to war leaving the parts of Ukraine that Russia took over in Putin’s hands. I think that Putin will take the win and spend the next few years rebuilding, at which point may try to go for the rest before Trump leaves office. Even if Ukraine does fall I don’t see any way that Putin will go for Poland. He pretty much exhausted his military going after Ukraine and almost got his ass kicked I doubt he will want to try again in the foreseeable future, certainly not head to head with NATO.
I think there will be huge amounts of obvious corruption and a general understanding of pay to play in terms of government policy. I think that Trump will lean on main stream media owners to be “fair and balanced”, which may not turn them into Fox clones but more likely will be of the form both that sides are equally valid. Some people say immigrants ate their cats and dogs, while immigrants say they didn’t so we don’t know for sure.
He will go after his enemies but it will only reach the point of headaches and high lawyer bills than any actual convictions. I don’t think that he will go after average Joe Democrat. In terms of cracking down on protest, I think that that will be left up to local police to decide, with the understanding the that justice department isn’t going to investigate any accusations of brutality.
I don’t think that there will be much legislation against the non-T part of LGBTQ, gays and gay marriage has become mainstream and there is no putting that genie back in the bottle, although, I also don’t think that they will enforce any laws against discrimination (of any sort except against Whites and Christians). As for the T part, there will probably be a defense of men and woman act that says that there are only two genders male and female which in all but extremely rare cases of chromosomal abnormalities are determined at birth, and all laws should reflect this. Effectively outlawing any transgender accommodations or medical transitioning.
) and too strong.
realizing we could’ve prevented a battle now by supporting an ally earlier.