Trump 2.0 begins: looking at possible scenarios with percentages

Politics & Elections
1

Happy Inauguration Day!

Well, for sensible people, it’s not happy. But now what’s going to happen? We don’t know, since Trump is unpredictable, and his health is terrible. Anything is possible.

IMHO, it all comes down to whether Trump has a major overreach early on. Everything is a bifurcation from that. Without further ado, here are my scenarios with gut-level percentages, followed by an explanation of each:

  • Indolence (65%)
    • Trumpish “normality” (20%)
    • Grinding chaos (35%)
    • Early health problems and/or death (10%)
  • Early major overreach (30%)
    • Removal (5%)
      • Impeachment and conviction (2%)
      • 25th amendment (2%)
      • Extraconstitutional removal (military coup, etc, 1%)
    • Extended constitutional crisis (24%)
    • End of US as we know it (breakup, etc., 1%)
    • Successful fascist takeover (0%)
  • Domination by outside forces (war, natural disaster, etc., 5%)

“Indolence” vs. “early major overreach”

Trump is old, tired, sick, demented, and batshit crazy. These qualities will prevent Trump from having a truly successful and presidency, even by GOP/MAGA/fascist standards. Further, since Trump is already in bad shape, if he is going to do something big and crazy, it will probably be towards the start of his term: hence the asymmetrical bifurcation of scenarios.

Of course Trump is going to overreach; it’s a question of how big and and how nuts he does it. I don’t need to tell you that “major overreach” could be almost anything, but the following things come to mind (for all of these, a crisis could arise whether Trump is obeyed or not obeyed):

  • Declaring martial law.
  • Issuing illegal executive orders (e.g., attempting to end birthright citizenship).
  • Flagrantly flouting the legitimate authority of Congress, the Supreme Court, etc.
  • Trying to jail or otherwise persecute (via the IRS, etc.) political opponents or members of the media.
  • Trying to send troops to control a state or municipal government.
  • Trying to have troops, cops, etc., violently oppose protesters, etc.
  • Trying to use the military in a crazy/illegal way against a foreign country.
  • Trying to deport or put in concentration camps a large number of undocumented migrants in overly hasty/aggressive/cruel manner.
  • Speaking/acting in a way that manifestly embarrasses the US or endangers national security (e.g., his current threats against Canada, Mexico, Denmark/Greenland, though worse [I know, I know, it’s already really bad]).
  • Everything all at once; i.e., Trump tries to do a bunch of crazy actions that, individually, might be tolerable but cross the line due to their simultaneity.

I think the chance of such overreach is very high, but I think the chance that Trump simply golfs until his demise, untimely or not, is higher, so let’s first deal with the two less extreme scenarios:

Trumpish “normality” (20%)

Here, Trump is too tired to bother with much trolling, so he leaves the running of the government mostly to others. We already know that a lot of his cabinet is going to be predators and kooks, but we can also see that these are not the leaders and doers he needs to effect a fascist takeover, etc. This isn’t a good kind of normalcy, to be sure, but it also isn’t the kind of daily trauma we had to deal with 2017-2021.

Grinding chaos (30%)

This is that kind of trauma. Here, even though Trump has diminished capacity, he still manages to be in our fucking faces all the time as he was in Term 1, and perhaps his progressing dementia makes it even worse, somehow. Still, he manages not to overturn the game board completely. I think this is the most likely scenario: Trump totally, completely sucks but is not really effective in getting anything done, good or bad.

Early health problems and/or death (10%)

I think the chance of Trump making it through his first year is pretty high but making it to the end of his term is pretty low. The chance that all of his MAGA dreams are nuked early on by his health is not insignificant. Of course, this being Trump, he will never give up the power and the glory until he is completely incapacitated or deceased, so if this scenario comes to pass, his entire government will be crippled.

OK, proceeding now onto the “early major overreach” scenarios:

Removal (5%)

We know that the GOP is too pusillanimous to face Trump down no matter how egregious his behavior, but, who knows, he might just cross that infinitely distant horizon at some point. I think it’s more likely, however, that his embattled colleagues simply cite his dementia and become the first-time users of the 25th amendment to ditch a president. Since Trump has talked so much shit about the military, including wounded and fallen heroes, I would not consider a military coup to be outside the realm of possibility, either, especially if the overreach involves the military itself.

Extended constitutional crisis (24%)

Here, I think the most likely possibility is that Trump goes FOFA on a state such as California and is told to “fuck aff.” Then, if he tries to arrest Gavin Newsom or sends in troops, all hell breaks out, whether he wins the initial conflict or not. There could be many different triggers to such a standoff, such as the attempt to deport migrants in a particular state. But that’s just one example. What if the Supreme Court orders Trump to do something—and he doesn’t? Chief Justice (and complete failure and disgrace) Roberts recently issued his annual report on the judiciary in which he clearly is worried about just that. What if Trump issues an illegal order to the military, and the generals refuse? Anything is possible when a loose cannon—er, a whole foundering ship full of unsecured cannons—is president.

End of the US as we know it (1%)

I.e., “constitutional crisis fomented by Trump that ends the US.” This could involve outright secession or a kind of schism in which states say that, while they will not secede, they will no longer respect the authority of the federal government to control them.

Successful fascist takeover (0%)

Trump is a dumb slob surrounding himself with undisciplined fools like RFK Jr. and Elon Look-at-Me-I’m-Totally-Out-of-Control-Now-Hee-Hee Musk. JD Vance, who at least was a loyal and reliable attack dog during the campaign, seems totally out of the picture. OTOH, having a fairly normal person like Marco Rubio as Secretary of State will not help Trump obtain dominion over all. Trump is not going to be able to implement Project 2025 or anything that lasts beyond his next shart. Nor is he going to be able to run again in 2028 (if he’s even still fogging a mirror) or install some sort of dictatorial successor. The only real question is that of how well the Democrats can take advantage of the mess as it oozes over the political landscape.

And a third major category:

Domination by outside forces (5%)

I think we’ve learned in recent years to expect the unexpected. For example, who here thought LA was going to burn to the ground? Not I. If China were to invade Taiwan, everything would be about that for the foreseeable future, and not about Trump (except in his role as Commander in Chief, but he would be focused on only that and not trolling the nation).

So that’s what I see, my friends. I think, in all likelihood, Trump 2.0 is going to be a boring slog that all humans, including MAGA-heads, become sick of very quickly. But complete, nation-destroying chaos is definitely a possibility. What fun!

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

2

Not sure how to respond to your attempts to assign precise percentages to various possibilities. But I’d place the possibility of successful fascist takeover somewhere above 0%. And I’m not as sanguine as you as to the likelihood of him becoming bored and simply golfing. Or dying in <4 years.

He can toss out plenty of nasty, cruel, and vindictive, and self-serving tweets and orders before and after the round of golf, or even between holes. He can break a ton of stuff, and hurt a lot of people, without exerting much thought or effort on his own part. And he is pretty out of shape, but having made it to 78, with access to the best health case available, I’d wager he’s more than even money to make it to 82.

To me, the truly interesting thing will be whether the courts/Supremes stand up to him when he attempts something clearly unconstitutional. Will they consider ANY reach to be overreach? I expect A TON of litigation. The federal courts must be thrilled with the likely increased workload! Ending birthright citizenship would be a likely early test.

3

I like this thread! I agree with your percentages, with the major proviso that I would take the 20% from Trumpish “normality” and add it to Domination by outside forces.

Accepting Trump’s indolence, he’s appointed too many nutbars to Cabinet and other high positions for first-term-style “normality” to happen. But I don’t add the 20% to Grinding Chaos because I think Trump’s indolence + officials pursuing their betes noires at all costs = an administration that can only be reactive to events and circumstances. The government that doesn’t believe in experts of any kind will not know what to do when something pops up and Trump’s greed and zero-sum thinking (or Hegseth’s desire for a white-men-only military, or RFK’s crusade against any medical innovation since Queen Victoria, or …) doesn’t give a pat answer, or gives a pat answer that is patently* the wrong response and makes things worse.

*Patently to anyone applying logic to the best-known facts, so not Trump administration officials.

4

They’re rough, to be sure. But I think, when strategizing, it’s helpful to start with at least pretend concreteness rather than none.

I’ve said this in other threads, but I’ve read a lot about the start of the Third Reich, and even though Hitler and the Nazis were much, much better prepared than Trump and MAGA (even considering Trump’s previous experience), had much more raw power, and were dealing with a much weaker government than the US in 2025, it took a lot of time, effort, and finesse for them to take over Germany completely.

I think it’s more a matter of lack of capacity than boredom. Farron Cousins recently commented on Trump’s health in a video, opining that, yes, thanks to the best medical care possible, they can keep Trump’s body alive, but they can’t do anything about his mental decline. I think incapacitation is more likely than death.

This would be the “grinding chaos” scenario, which I think is the single most likely scenario.

The SC pushed back against Trump during the whole election denial thing and have recently made some decisions that were not to his advantage, such as allowing the sentencing in New York to proceed. But they (or rather, the “conservatives” in the court, and it’s not clear that ACB still is one) are idiots, so this too is unpredictable.

I agree. Trump 2.0 will be a walking, squawking lawsuit.

5

I don’t have percentages, but here is my prediction.

The razor thin margin in the house means pretty much nothing gets passed through congress. The senate will confirm a lot of judges though.

Trump will try to rule through executive actions rather than through passing laws in congress. Whether the courts uphold or block his executive orders remains to be seen. The appellatte branch is about 50/50 right now, about half the appellate judges are democrat appointed, the other half are republican appointed.

Supposedly the appellate court is where the real power is. They overrule the district courts, but the supreme court refuses to hear most attempts to overturn the appellate court.

Also it remains to be seen how much of a rubber stamp the supreme court will be on Trump’ executive actions.

The real wild card is the supreme court. Will they hear every case Trump and company bring before them and rubber stamp his agenda he passes through the executive branch?

6

Thanks! Yes, the nutbar quotient is a serious impediment to Trump getting things done this time around, much less ushering in an American Reich. Hitler had some semi-idiots like Hermann Göring, full idiots like Robert Ley, but also some staggeringly evil and competent minions like Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich (the latter of which got himself killed like an idiot, however).

Trump just doesn’t have that kind of team, and he doesn’t even have the same team from last time to leverage their past experience.

7

I think you’re basically right.

Yes. I also think Hegseth will be confirmed, sadly.

Right. The question will be how energy and disciple does he have to do executive orders, how crazy will they be, and how will the courts respond. Based on recent SC activity vis-a-vis Trump, I do not think they will be a rubber stamp, but I suspect they will be pretty lenient re his minor shit.

8

Or you could acknowledge that there really os no crystal ball into how this unprecedented-in-living-memory situation of political shift will unfold and not rely upon any “pretend concreteness“ and ‘statistics’ made up out of thin air.

I’ve read a lot about the late Weimar era and the rise of Nazism in Germany, and it is pretty clear that the Nazis were not especially well prepared or had formulated long term plans, and really lacked “raw power” until the fear and paranoia engendered by the Reichstag fire in 1933 and then the death of Paul von Hindenburg in August 1934. On the other hand, the Radical Right, shepherded by Newt Gingrich and his shady group of influencers, has been setting the stage for emergent fascism since the mid-1990s and has now almost completely subsumed the conventional Republican party while the DNC has become successively weaker and shifting further to a center-right with tendencies to appeasement of autocracy in that time. The erosion of liberties and respect for democratic institutions did not start in 2016 even though all of the focus has been on Trump because he is such a clown that the media in general can’t look away from.

This assumes that the federal courts, packed to the gills with conservative justices that were filled by the vacancies that McConnell, Grassley, et al held open for the eight years of Obama’s presidency and a Supreme Court with a majority of justices expressing open fealty to Trump, won’t default to deferring any politically contentious issues indefinitely, or just giving summary dismissal to anything that would displease Trump and his Project 2025 catfish ticklers.

Stranger

9

Thanks as always for your insightful comments.

I agree that there is no crystal ball.

I still think it’s a worthwhile approach, however, if only as a basis for further discussion or thought. I haven’t called the percentages “statistics,” and I have not advertised them as anything other than my own guesstimates.

Why I don’t agree with this specific part:

  • Hitler had written a whole book indicating his approach, Mein Kampf, after the Beer Hall Putsch.
  • Speaking of which, Hitler had a practice run of a putsch in 1923.
  • Hitler had been the head of his own political party for more than a decade. The party was big and popular as of 1933.
  • The NSDAP had its own paper, the Völkischer Beobachter - Wikipedia, as well as the popular anti-Semitic rag Der Stürmer - Wikipedia supporting it, among other media.
  • The NSDAP had its own theorists, such as Rosenberg and Feder, who had written best-selling books.
  • The SA, in essence Hitler’s own private army, had millions of members as of 1933, and they were practiced in street brawling and other violence. And he had the SS on top of that. That, if nothing else, was “raw power” to which he had access.
  • Hitler had the aforementioned rogues gallery ready to roll as of 1933.

That doesn’t mean that I totally disagree with what you said, or that I think Hitler and the Nazis were perfectly ready and competent. I merely think that they were much more ready and competent than Trump is currently to effect a fascist takeover, which I actually don’t even think is his intention (though it is no doubt the desire of several under him).

And I don’t really disagree with this either:

Agree, but the DNC is “weaker” now than the GOP in that it is trying to play by the rules, whereas the GOP has abandoned them. One real strength of the GOP, however, is their successful work in state legislatures, etc.

Agreed, but I’m not sure than the GOP is in much of a position to build on this at this point. One other advantage the Nazis had is that they were doing what they said they were going to do, whereas the fascist insurgency known as the GOP is still on the surface pretending to be a normal political party.

The SC has pushed back on Trump lately. I think the lawsuits will come fast and thick, but I don’t know what the aggregate outcome will be of them.

10

But two things must pass Congress: the budget and an increase in the national debt limit. And he doesn’t have the votes to pass both with just Republican votes; he has got to compromise with the Democrats.

11

While there’s definitely too many Trump-appointed federal judges (he shouldn’t have been elected, Senate should not have sat on Obama’s appointments), the “packed to the gills” characterization is an exaggeration outside the Supreme Court. From the stats here:

Of the 837 active Article III judges & justices, 226 were appointed by Trump, 170/651 at the district (trial) courts, 53/177 at the circuit (appeals) level, and 3 of the 9 Supreme Court justices.

As to Obama, he appointed 2 Supreme Court justices, 55 circuit judges, and 329 district judges, which at a glance looks par for the district courts and somewhat lower than average for the circuit courts, but not quite what one would expect if his appointments were “held open for the eight years.” Oddly enough, he appointed about as many circuit judges as Trump and more than Biden, but Obama served two terms while Trump and Biden have each served one term.

While it sounds like I’m being picayune, the margin by which Trump and his MAGA minions control the other branches of government does matter. A slim majority in Congress + GOP infighting = Dems having a real role in legislation. Or just how many MAGA/Federalist Society judges there are in the federal courts.

12

Also, while he appointed his share of loose Cannon’s, not every conservative judge is insane. IME, you could not always predict how a judge would hold based on who appointed them. Much of what Trump and his minions propose is sufficiently offensive that it would not automatically be upheld by multiple Courts of Appeals panels. We’ll have to see how far the Supremes go…

13

I am somewhat heartened by the lack of “major overreach” in Trump’s executive orders so far, since he has been planning his crazy for some time:

This link seems to be a useful summary.

The pardoning of the Jan. 6 violators is, well, unpardonable, but the rest seem to be fairly petty. Not that they won’t hurt people (such as the “only two genders” nonsense), but they just don’t concretely change much or do things that hadn’t been telegraphed a good while back. Further, he’s not doing a lot that can’t be undone later (yet).

At this point, I would up my “indolence” percentage accordingly, perhaps up to 75%.

14

With regard to the inevitable comparisons of the fall of the Weimar Republic: a key fact was that the overturning of the German empire was a product of the German defeat in WW I, so the Republic had popular resentment and opposition from the start, and was anyway only about 15 years old by the time Hitler became Chancellor. Any MAGA fascists have to deal with a more than 200-year-old government that few outside of the MAGA-verse think is anyway doomed.

15

At least in the beginning, a striking (but not unexpected) thing I see is the use of doublespeak.

“Return discouraged workers to the workforce” - suspend unemployment and disability to terrorize workers into minimum wage jobs.

“The border is an invasion” - self-explanatory

“Eliminated devices that make home furnishings too expensive” the shower head pressure is too damn weak.

A lot of these are going to be Trump’s 90s-era racist-uncle hobby horses. These don’t represent the worst excesses that the right wing intends to perpetrate, but they must be prioritized since the first rule of Trump is “Trump First”. The other hidden hands will use this to smuggle in the harder-biting parts of their agenda.

16

I see over and over people citing the age of US democracy as inviolate evidence of perpetual stability, as if having survived this long means that it sure can’t fail now or in the future. A long view history shows every regime, empire, and institutions failing eventually, and usually following the height of their power and breadth of control. In this present case, there is no precedent of the US federal government being completely in control of a party whose leader and many figures within it have openly vowed to destroy many of its critical institutions, and have actively worked to undermine all of the checks and balances installed to prevent autocracy or control in perpetuity by a single polity.

Certainly, we can expect ever-increasing control of government functions, elimination of broad swaths of regulation intended to protect the public from exploitation, and the selling off of natural resources at pennies on the dollar to the oligarchs in plain view at Trump’s inauguration, one of whom literally, unambiguously, and repeatedly made the “Roman salute” characteristic of fascism regardless of how many try to interpret it as just some kind of enthusiastic confusion.

Stranger

17

I have a good friend who, for quite some time, has been saying variations of “US democracy is still a young experiment.” Always made sense to me from a historical perspective. Pretty rare for any political system or empire to have lasted >1000 years…

From a personal perspective, however, having been born into a certain political/social system, and seeing no real NEED for it to become less open and tolerant, it is somewhat shocking to see the current apparent trend.

I feel sorry for my kids/grandkids.

18

Here are my percentages

  • Indolence (78%)
    • Trumpish “normality” (5%)
    • Grinding chaos (63%)
    • Early health problems and/or death (10%)
  • Early major overreach (22%)
    • Removal (4%)
      • Impeachment and conviction (1%)
      • 25th amendment (1%)
      • Extra constitutional removal (military coup, etc, 2%)
    • Extended constitutional crisis (15%)
    • End of US as we know it (breakup, etc., 1%)
    • Successful fascist takeover (2%)
    • Domination by outside forces (???%)

I think that there is very little chance that Trump 2.0 will be in any way better than Trump1.0. He has a more ambitious agenda this time around and has consolidated power.

I think that they will try a bunch of extreme ideas but find out that they are a lot harder to implement in reality than in the fantasy land generated by Fox news. The result will be a chaotic and dysfunctional US with its status on the world stage severely diminished and a reasonable likelihood of economic crisis akin to 2008. Basically its going to be a giant shit show with nobody but Trump and a few select Oligarchs better off than they are now.

While there is a reasonable likelihood of Trump taking actions that lead to a constitutional crisis, I don’t see it as likely to reach the point of threatening the existance of our democracy. If it does reach that point I see is a more likely that Trump will be deposed one way or another than succeed, and I see it as more likely that he would succeed in instituting fascism that that we break up as a country.

I am really unclear as to what is meant by domination by outside forces, since in general I would think that that those would fall into one of the other categories. China invades Taiwan, and attempts to intercede fail due to our having a Fox News commentator in charge of our armed forces, would to me count as “Grinding Chaos”. If it then goes nuclear then we end up “End of the US as we know it”.

19

Very good point, thank you!

20

Your examples are funny and très Trumpian. :laughing:

Yeah, it seems like a lot of little, surface-level shit that doesn’t much portend bigger, deeper shit, which is a relief. Caveat: for now.

Well, one big thing that informed my OP was Trump’s cabinet/important position picks, which to my eye are a melange of competent normie-toadies (Rubio, Stefanik, Wiles), incompetent freak-toadies (Musk*, RFK Jr., Dr. Oz), and a few potentially effective** fascist-toadies (Hegseth, Vought, Homan, Miller).

I don’t think he has the fascists in exactly the right positions to get the big takeover done. Wiles and Rubio, while toadies, are too normie to run with fascism creatively and effectively (whereas guys like Bormann, Goebbels, and Himmler just went to town in their positions in the Third Reich).

*Previously effective in certain aspects of business, now off the high dive into neonazi freakdom.

**Potentially effective at both their jobs and Trump’s implicit fascist agenda.