Regime Change Or Another Shit-Show?Who can say? But in the second Trump term, I'd bet on the latter.
It’s extremely cold in DC this week, and at the moment of Donald Trump’s triumph of the will, the forecasters tell us that single-digit temperatures and gusty winds will greet him. My habit of attending these things varies with the weather, so your humble correspondent may well be hunkered down at home, like most of you, with a dog and a laptop and a mug of hot chocolate to witness it on TV, even though I’m only a ten-minute bike ride away. If I can bring myself to watch. My feelings will be, well, complex. There is a wave of relief that the decrepit Biden has finally gone, that the muggy political air has been cleared for a bit, and that the insistent Kulturkampf of the woke left may finally relent a little. We may even move out of our post-neocon paralysis in foreign policy. At the same time, of course, I have what can only be called intermittent waves of nausea and panic triggered by the memory of the last, long four years of being tethered to a mercurial, malevolent bully who wouldn’t ever shut up or leave us alone. But attached to that nausea is something else: boredom. He just doesn’t get to me the way he used to. When I read about his provocations toward Canada and the Panama Canal, for example, I merely found my eyes rolling gently backward. Good one, Donnie. But you’re not gonna trigger my amygdala this time. You busted it already. Same with the Bobby Kennedy nonsense and the Elon Musk madness — a man whose political judgment seems as finely honed as an autistic 14-year-old who just discovered TikTok. Musk is an American genius in some things. No question about that. But so, so fragile and immature, as Sam Harris gently dissects here. Assessing the incipient administration on policy grounds also seems a bit pointless. Everything will be determined by one individual’s whims, and those whims will change on a dime. It’s not as if we haven’t been here before. Unlike most presidents, Trump also has a party that regards him as a kind of fusion of a king and a pope: a sovereign with infallibility. This is strongman rule, not liberal democratic governance. We have no idea what could come barreling down upon us. But whatever it is, Mike Johnson will say yes. Please. Sir. And what Trump has promised, after all, is quite something: world peace in 24 hours flat, a miraculous disappearance of 11 million migrants, huge new revenues from tariffs balancing the budget, and massive savings from waste in the federal government. Let’s just say it’s not entirely clear if this means much. In January 2017, if you recall, it seemed blindingly clear that Trump would build a wall and deport illegal immigrants on an unprecedented scale. But in his first year, he seemed almost bored by the topic, and wound up deporting far fewer illegals in his first term than Obama did in his second. Trump built a mere 52 miles of his big beautiful wall, none of which Mexico paid for. Nonetheless, the factors favoring him actually getting stuff done in his second term are real: his experience of four years in office, his greater legitimacy after a decisive re-election, high public support for immigration control, a wounded Democratic Party leery of another lawfare campaign against him, and a few appointees — Rubio, Bessent, Bhattacharya, Homan — who could actually do some positive things. Many talented people are hovering around, and a hell of a lot of private capital. But the factors restraining Trump will also be formidable — first and foremost, his insanely narrow House majority. Tyrants need more than a five-seat majority — the narrowest in nearly 100 years — and that margin has shrunk further with his cabinet picks. And his constant need for approval means that the second any of these policies prove unpopular, he could very easily bail. Remember how he reversed himself pronto on the family separation policy in his first term? Expect more of the same. The other big problem is that the revived conservatism that Trump promises remains as incoherent now as it was in 2016. The populist right is far more effective as an opposition movement than as a governing regime, as Boris and Trump found out the first time around. Give the new right power, force them to make choices, and the contradictions mount. A populist working-class party is somehow also dedicated to lowering taxes on the very wealthy. A coalition designed to protect domestic workers from immigrant competition is also in favor of expanding H-1B visas and allowing more legal immigration. A “tough” commander-in-chief nonetheless will have few qualms about handing over part of Ukraine to Russia. A man dedicated to ensuring a new era of energy wants to halt wind power entirely. The little H-1B flap a few weeks back is just a taste of the conflicts to come. A coalition framed by Elon Musk and Steve Bannon, in other words, is destined for internal chaos. I’m reminded most vividly of Boris Johnson’s similar triumph in 2019. He ran on cutting immigration, won a huge majority (unlike Trump), and then in office, he decide to import record numbers of non-white, unskilled, non-European immigrants. Business interests and his own cosmopolitan instincts demanded more migrants; the newly acquired working-class base wanted the opposite — a mess never fully masked by Boris’ performance art. What would I hope for in Trump 2.0? I’d say a coherent evolution of the GOP into a classically conservative party: leery of big government and foreign interventionism, culturally conservative and pro-family, champion of Medicare and Social Security, restrictive of immigration, defender of color-blindness and merit. I would be thrilled if they really got rid of DEI throughout the federal government and made federal college funding conditional on ending DEI initiatives in higher education. Vance gets it, I think, and he remains the best hope for a serious new right. But if Trump were the necessary reagent to bring this about, he’s also an obstacle to it. He doesn’t have the message discipline, legislative skills, and strategic cunning to pull it off. What do I fear? Among the possible horribles: some kind of dumb-ass Trump overreach on immigration, prompting far-left street protests/riots, followed by some leap into the draconian dark with the US military on the streets, its reputation in the toilet; a spike in inflation caused by tariffs and an economic downturn as cheap immigrant labor disappears; a crisis over Taiwan that we bungle. Or yet another criminal move by Trump precipitating another crisis in the rule of law. What do I expect? Not much. Trump has two years with a razor-thin margin in the Congress before he becomes a lame duck. His team currently has no agreed-upon legislative strategy — one big bill via reconciliation? two bills with immigration control first? tariffs before tax cuts? — and this never bodes well. The Speaker himself hangs by a thread. When I think of Reagan and Thatcher, I recall shrewd legislative outreach, a plan for economic pain and then relief, and a strategy designed not to get too far over the skis (Thatcher took her own sweet time to take on union power, as Andrew Neil remembers in the Dishcast this week; Reagan was always aware of going too far). No such foresight is currently visible to me in Trump world. Trumpism, in other words, remains unrivaled as an opposition force, but weak as a philosophy for government. So the sanest approach, in my view, is to give Trump time and space to do what he says he wants to do, lay off the constant, insistent demonization of him, and merely present the results of GOP governance to the voters in 2026. Unless the Trump peeps up their game a lot, the internal contradictions could swallow them whole. That’s going to be our approach here at the Dish. I want Trump to succeed the way I want every president to succeed. Since the American people have given him a mandate, I’m going to ignore the past as much as I can and look at him afresh. My focus is going to be on one thing and one thing only: is Trump getting anything done, and are his policies working? I’m not going to be distracted by the drama, the lies, and the provocations. Yes, of course, the Dish will monitor his autocratic tendencies. But I’m going to judge him by the results, and compare them to his promises. He has no excuses left, in other words. So let him deliver. Or not. My bet, as provisional as ever, is on the latter. (Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: my rollicking chat with Andrew Neil on global politics and the US; a bunch of listener dissents and other comments on “settler colonialism”; reader dissents on the gang-rapes in the UK; seven notable quotes for the week in news; 24 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break of a soothing music vid; a wintry window from Rhode Island; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!) From a new subscriber:
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New On The Dishcast: Andrew Neil
Andrew Neil has long been one of the finest journalists in the UK and an old friend. He used to be chairman of The Spectator, chairman of Sky TV, editor of The Sunday Times, and a BBC anchor, whose interviews of politicians have become legendary for their forensic brutality and mastery of detail. He’s currently a columnist for both the UK and US versions of The Daily Mail and an anchor for Times Radio. Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on Europe’s steady decline, and Trump’s cluelessness on tariffs. That link also takes you to a bunch of commentary on last week’s episode with Adam Kirsch on “settler colonialism.” We also hear from more readers on the gang-rape scandal in the UK and dangerous orthodoxies, as well as the language around homosexuality. I respond at length. Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: John Gray on the state of liberal democracy, Jon Rauch on “Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” Sebastian Junger on near-death experiences, Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on how America stopped building things, Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, and Ross Douthat on how everyone should be religious. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com. Dissents Of The WeekA reader responds to last week’s column on the gang-rape scandal in the UK:
Read my response here, along with three other dissents. More on the pod page, including ones on Zionism. As always, please keep the criticism coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com. In The ‘StacksThis is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as Biden’s legacy, free-speech threats, and the blame game over the wildfires. Some examples:
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com. The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the VFYW). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing! The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. Below is an entry from last week — the latest creation from the VFYW mixologist:
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Regime Change Or Another Shit-Show?
January 17, 2025
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