Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Even anti-Donald Trump graffiti on the streets of West Hollywood is now rare and half-hearted. Eight years ago, California was a “resistance” state. The mood the visitor encounters in 2025 is different: resignation, boredom with the subject, an eager attitude among thoughtful Democrats and, occasionally, something approaching curiosity about America’s economic potential under a deregulating president.
There’s a lot of liberal shrugging going on. This has been happening around the world since Trump claimed his victory in November, and it is natural. You can’t be angry all the time. In the autocracies of 20th century Europe, people of contrary consciences often made what was known as “internal migration”. That is, instead of fleeing or fighting, they retreated into private life as the political realm darkened around them. Separating like this is smart, not weak.
Just don’t overdo it, that’s all. I feel like liberals have let a healthy acceptance of electoral reality slip into the hope that Trump’s second term won’t be so bad. Please.
Three things moderated Trump’s influence last time. None of them are applicable now. First, he yearned for re-election. This made him willing to provoke the middle voter up to a certain point, but no further. (The speed with which he abandoned the somewhat theocratic Project 2025 last summer showed how much this supposed hothead is trying to avoid unnecessary unpopularity.) Unless something happens to the 22nd Amendment, Trump is now freed from the innate discipline of electoral politics. Even the midterms mean little, because the race to succeed him will begin right after. Presidents in the second term have two years.
What else? His first administration was filled with enough old-fashioned Republicans — Gary Cohn, Rex Tillerson — to rein in his excesses. Now he is spoiled with officials and cabinet secretaries who are in the mold of the Magi. Tulsi Gabbard could soon be the head of the US intelligence service. There is nothing stoic or urbane about rejecting it.
Above all, the world in 2017 was stable enough to absorb a certain amount of chaos. Inflation was low and Europe was calm. The last major pandemic in the west was a century ago. Trump will throw his tariffs and foreign escapades into a much more fragile net this time.
We could go on in this vein, citing practical and conditional reasons for concern. We could mention the federal judiciary, which is now more Trumpian than it was when he first took office. Will it hold him back? We might also mention that he will be 82 when he steps down. One last time he had to think about the legal exposure, earning potential and social standing he would have in his post-presidential life. Will it be such a factor now?
In the end, though, my argument—and a lot of political commentary—comes down to instinct. There’s a hubris in the Maga-world right now that just wasn’t there in 2017, in part because Trump didn’t win the election. Talk of much greater economic growth, conquest of territory, placing the American flag on Mars: if this doesn’t smack of pride before the fall, of inevitable overreach, then we just have different antennas. (And I hope mine is wrong.) In all democracies, a party is never more dangerous than when it achieves new electoral success. The difference with the US is the size of the stakes for the outside world. Think of George W. Bush after his historically good midterm election in 2002, or Lyndon Johnson’s escalation in Vietnam after 1964, when his vote pile could be seen from space.
Yes, a war of choice is unlikely under Trump. (Though events can push leaders into uncharacteristic actions. Remember, the pre-9/11 perception of Bush was that he was a do-nothing isolationist.) Tariff hikes are more likely to trigger an uncontrollable world reaction, or the economy will overheat, or the constitution will creak to the point of bursting as Trump seeks to reward friends and persecute enemies. At the very least, there will be internal recriminations when it becomes clear that the public debt, urban misery, and other American issues are not amenable to a techno-libertarian solution.
Regardless of the exact form of the coming chaos, the relative lack of concern about it is what stands out from eight years ago. The liberal line in 2025 seems to go something like this: We over panicked about Trump last time, so let’s not repeat that mistake. Not even half of this proposal survives the slightest intellectual scrutiny. Panic he was they confirm, unless the two impeachments — one for seeking to overturn the election result — somehow count. Also, even if the first member wasn’t that bad, why assume the second will be the same? Trump and his movement are now much more serious entities. His inaugural address this week was impressive in vision and expression.
None of this means that people who don’t like Trump should take his advice to “fight, fight, fight.” Protests and activism were dead ends for the Democrats. But if self-indulgence was bad, so is self-doubt. The lesson of the 2024 election for the Liberals was, or should have been, a narrow one: stop choosing useless candidates. It kind of spiraled into a broader crisis of confidence about whether their fundamental assessment of Trump as a threat was ever correct. Being justified in the coming years will not be any fun.
