Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Open the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
“My first word was everybody was fighting me,” Donald Trump said before Christmas. “With this word, everyone wants to be my friend.” It has a point. Eight years ago, Trump faced an angry backlash, which flooded Washington and protested his short-lived “Muslim ban” within days of his inauguration. At this time, noise is rarely seen. The mood of the opposition has turned from anger to depression.
Democrats are in a mess. In the year In 2017, they had Nancy Pelosi, the party’s most feared leader in decades. Pelosi’s last significant act was forcing Joe Biden to resign last summer. But before that, she impeached Trump twice and continued to impose an iron fist on his party. Democrats have no strategy at this point. The default position of cooperating with Trump and opposing him where you can is a divisive tactic. Without a leader, the party is drowning in a sea of ​​Trump.
Republicans don’t act as checks either. In the past, the most effective ban on Trump was John McCain, the late senator from Arizona. But for McCain, Trump was repealing Obamacare. Back then, there were plenty of Republicans in the Senate who could challenge Trump. In the year Four of the seven who voted to impeach Trump in early 2021 — Nebraska’s Ben Sasse, Utah’s Mitt Romney, North Carolina’s Richard Burr and Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey — lost. The other three – Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Maine’s Susan Collins and Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy – are not enough to overturn their party’s majority.
Today’s Supreme Court looks like it’s wearing a robe. In 2017, the court had a 5-4 conservative majority. But Anthony Kennedy, one of the Republican-appointed justices, was prone to siding with liberals. With a 6-3 majority this time, the court seems more like a rubber stamp than a check on a sprawling executive. Trump has already dropped the blame. It ignores a bipartisan ban on TikTok that was upheld by a court last week. His protest reminded the seventh President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, of the Chief Justice’s “execute it now” after the court had barred him from seizing Cherokee land. Jackson won.
Trump is already playing the Jacksonian card. In one of his executive orders on Monday, he quickly repealed the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born on American soil. The ball is now in the court, so to speak. It’s the same with TikTok. With whose army will the judges enforce the decision that Trump chooses to ignore? When the justices last summer ruled on presidential immunity for any “official act,” they gave Trump near carte blanche — a category in which Trump can do whatever he likes.
Will Trump seek court or congressional approval to seize the Panama Canal? Although it violates two conventions, the question answers itself. A similar defense blanketed the media. In the year In 2017, the Washington Post adopted the slogan “Democracy dies in the dark” and showed the industry as an example. Last week, he added “Riveting History for All of America” ​​to his mission statement. His owner, Jeff Bezos, was among the plutocrats at Trump’s inauguration. His company, Amazon Prime, is paying First Lady Melania Trump $40 million to make a documentary about herself. Consider me surprised if it’s commercially viable.
So who is against Trump? His allies resigned today, just as they had suspected during Trump’s first term. Then Germany’s Angela Merkel is tied for Europe. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who attended Trump’s inauguration today, is the continent’s most reliable leader. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is falling over himself like everyone else to get in Trump’s good graces. After Trump announced that he wanted to join Greenland, the Danish government may have expected some cooperation. So far, however, the protests have been muted. If Trump can aspire to a partner state with impunity, the only check on him seems to be himself.
He is now at the peak of his power. But power has a tendency to slip. In 2026, Republicans may lose control of Congress, at which point Trump will become a lame duck. At least that’s the story Democrats are invested in. But Trump’s opponents should know they’ll be inheriting a very different country the next time they win back the White House. Trump is making America in his image. You cannot enter the same river twice.
