The annals of American political history are littered with the remains of once-great presidential mandates.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s smashing 1936 re-election did not, to give a famous example, give him the leverage he needed to expand the Supreme Court, handing his White House a painful defeat. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society generated immense conservative opposition, and his momentum could not survive the 1966 Republican wave. Ronald Reagan was stymied by Democratic gains in the first midterm elections of his presidency. Bill Clinton was famously cut down to size by the Newt Gingrich revolution of 1994. And Barack Obama was shellacked by Tea Party extremists in 2010.
“I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it,” George W. Bush declared in 2004 after he became the first Republican to win re-election with a majority of the popular vote since Reagan. By the summer of 2005, Bush’s approval had crashed on the shoals of a failed effort to privatize Social Security. In the next year’s elections, Republicans lost control of Congress.
There is no evidence that Donald Trump is immune to this dynamic. Just the opposite: His first term was a case study in the perils of presidential ambition. Not only were his most expansive plans met with swift opposition, but also it is fair to say that he failed, flailed and faltered through the first two years of his administration, culminating in a disastrous midterm defeat.
Trump has even bigger plans for his second term: mass deportations, across-the-board tariffs and a campaign of terror and intimidation directed at his political enemies. To win election, however, he promised something a bit more modest: that he would substantially lower the cost of living. According to Sam Woodward in USA Today:
“Prices will come down,” Trump also told rallygoers during a speech in August. “You just watch. They’ll come down, and they’ll come down fast, not only with insurance, with everything.”
Now Trump says this might not be possible. Asked by Time magazine if he thinks his presidency would be a failure if the price of groceries did not come down, he said: “I don’t think so. Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”
At the same time that Trump won’t commit to a key promise of his campaign, he is gearing up to deliver on mass deportations, a policy position that many voters seem to treat as just blather.
When you take all of this together with policies — such as large tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China — that are more likely to increase than lower the costs of most goods and services, you have a recipe for exactly the kind of backlash that eventually hobbles most occupants of the Oval Office.
The American public is exceptionally fickle and prone to sharp reactions against whoever occupies the White House. It wants change but continuity, for things to go in a new direction but to stay mostly the same. It does not always reward good policy, but it usually punishes broken promises and perceived radicalism from either party.
Ignore for a moment the high likelihood of chaos and dysfunction from a Trump administration staffed with dilettantes, ideologues and former TV personalities. It appears that what Trump intends to do, come January, is break his most popular promises and embrace the most radical parts of his agenda.
I can’t end this without conceding the real possibility that the basic feedback mechanisms of American politics are broken. It is possible that none of this matters and that voters will reward Trump — or at least not punish him — regardless of what he does. It’s a reasonable view, given the reality of the present situation.
And yet the 2024 presidential election was a close contest. The voting public is almost equally divided between the two parties, so Trump has little room for error if he hopes to impose his will on the federal government and make his plans reality.
If Americans are as fickle as they’ve been, then Trump’s second honeymoon might be over even before it really begins.
What I Wrote
After five years (can you believe I’ve been here for five years?!) of a relentless pace of two columns a week, I’m moving to a somewhat different approach: writing a single, longer piece each week that is informed by an extended period of reading, research and thought. For the most part, it will appear on Wednesday morning, and I’ll still be in the Sunday Opinion print section quite a bit. The newsletter will, as always, hit your inboxes on Saturday morning.
This week’s essay was a look at Trump’s unusual relationship to the institutional Republican Party and what that might mean for both his presidency and the future of the party.
Put a little differently: Trump is less concerned here with the health of the Republican Party, less concerned with building out the next generation of Republican leaders, than he is with serving his narrowest interests. The Republican Party could wither and die, and Donald Trump would not care, provided it did not disrupt his ability to enrich himself and his family. This dynamic — a president who does not care about his party — sets up an interesting tension. What happens when the interests of the president and the interests of the party diverge?
Now Reading
A Dissent magazine round table on the 2024 presidential election. Here is my colleague Tressie McMillan Cottom offering a very smart take on what the Republican Party is pitching to voters.
I think people believe that they are returning to a New Deal social welfare state, but what is actually being promised, if not by Trump, then absolutely by JD Vance — and Vance seems to have a more stable political identity — is a return to taxpayer citizenship for a subset of Americans, which is actually the 1950s deal.
Ryan Cooper explains how Democrats lost the propaganda war, for The American Prospect.
Democrats are missing something that is arguably a prerequisite for ideological messaging to have any effect whatsoever: a media apparatus that can get these messages in front of swing voters. The content of the message doesn’t matter if voters never hear it.
Max Kiefel on the Democratic Party’s consultant class, for The Baffler:
The crux of the problem is that the Democrats use data to reflect the mirage of public opinion. The American public is cognizant that it is being treated with disdain when, without offering a cogent explanation, the Democrats shift messaging and develop policies in response to the vaunted “median voter.”
Ron Brownstein on how Trump is about to betray his rural, working-class supporters, for The Atlantic.
Agricultural producers could face worse losses than any other economic sector from Trump’s plans to impose sweeping tariffs on imports and to undertake what he frequently has called “the largest domestic deportation operation” of undocumented immigrants “in American history.” Hospitals and other health providers in rural areas could face the greatest strain from proposals Trump has embraced to slash spending on Medicaid, which provides coverage to a greater share of adults in smaller communities than in large metropolitan areas. And small-town public schools would likely be destabilized even more than urban school districts if Trump succeeds in his pledge to expand “school choice” by providing parents with vouchers to send their kids to private schools.
Robin Yassin-Kassab on the first days of a free Syria, for The New Arab:
We feared the regime’s end would be accompanied by a blood bath. Thank God, that hasn’t happened. In the end the regime collapsed without a fight, even in its supposed heartland on the coast.
Photo of the Week
I have been having quite a bit of fun with the half-frame Olympus Pen-FV camera. Here is a photo of an art installation at a park in Charlottesville, Va.
Now Eating: Creamy, Spicy Tomato Beans and Greens
A perfect meal for the cold weather. Feel free to go easy on the heavy cream or replace it with a cashew cream (my option of choice). Recipe from New York Times Cooking.
Ingredients
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6 tablespoons olive oil
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⅔ cup panko bread crumbs
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salt and black pepper
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1 medium yellow onion, minced
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4 garlic cloves, minced
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½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
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⅓ cup tomato paste
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2 (14-ounce) cans cannellini beans or other creamy white beans, rinsed
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1 cup heavy cream
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½ cup chopped jarred sun-dried tomatoes in oil
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⅔ cup finely grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese
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4 packed cups (3 ounces) baby arugula
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2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest, plus 4 teaspoons juice (from 1 lemon)
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Toasted bread (optional), for serving
Directions
In a medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium. Stir in the panko and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently and shaking the pan, until toasted and golden, about 3 minutes. Transfer seasoned panko to a paper-towel-lined plate, then wipe out the skillet.
Add another 2 tablespoons olive oil to the skillet and heat over medium. Add the onion, garlic and crushed red pepper and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until softened, about 4 minutes.
Add the tomato paste and stir until darkened and mixture is combined, about 3 minutes.
Stir in beans, heavy cream, sun-dried tomatoes and ⅓ cup water. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until flavors meld, about 5 minutes. Stir in half the cheese, then season to taste with salt and pepper.
In a medium bowl, toss the arugula with the seasoned panko, lemon zest and juice, plus the remaining ⅓ cup cheese and 2 tablespoons olive oil; season with salt and pepper. Pile the greens at the center of the bean mixture. Serve with toasted bread, if desired.
The post Trump Has Little Room for Error appeared first on New York Times.
