So far, the worst case scenario in Trump 2.0 is being held at bay by federal judges, state attorneys' general, attorneys for civic groups like the ACLU, attorneys for unions, the main stream media, a smattering of private lawyers, and the financial markets. Harvard University, the Atlantic magazine, anonymous leakers in the federal government, a handful of members of Congress, consumer boycotters, street protesters, social media social justice warriors, rebellious federal workers and former federal workers, foreign diplomats, foreign heads of state, and Tesla vandals are making good showings in supporting roles.
Most of the relief that courts have granted so far is preliminary, and has come only after significant harm has been done from wrongful conduct by the Trump Administration. Conservative intermediate federal appellate courts and the ultraconservative U.S. Supreme Court have the potential to undo many of these temporary wins.
Some of the damage that is being done can't be remedied. Our reputation as a reliable and predictable trade partner is irrevocably damaged. Some U.S. exporters have been permanently replaced with non-U.S. exporters. The credit rating of the U.S. and the strength of the dollar has been damaged in the long run. Our credibility as an ally on national security matters will suffer for decades. Our credibility as a provider of high quality higher education to international students will suffer for many years past this administration. Our desirability as a tourist destination is damaged in the long term. Our status on the democracy and corruption indexes will be downgraded for a long time. Many long running scientific and medical research projects have been derailed beyond repair. The extent to which businesses, foreign and domestic, and private citizens, can expert the predictable application of the rule of law and stability in the legal environment has been shattered for decades to come. U.S. soft power abroad has been destroyed and we no longer have a reputation as a guardian of human rights. The objectives of all of our foreign aid programs have been undermined permanently. Our political system is now a model for what to avoid and not one to be emulated. The reputations of Americans abroad has been undermined. We will not, for the foreseeable future, have a country where it is safe for everyone to travel and live in every U.S. state destroying sixty years or so when that was the case. A consensus that anti-racism and anti-sexism is good is gone. A consensus that Nazis and the KKK are bad is gone. A consensus that empathy is a good thing is gone. We have lost scientists and other great minds and consciences to expatriation, many for good. We are no longer a nation with any significant core of shared values on either matters of substance or the political process.
The U.S. is weaker in foreign policy and military affairs than at any time since before World War II, if not further back. This puts Taiwan and the Philippines at risk. This puts Ukraine at risk. This puts Poland and Lithuania and Latvia and Estonia at risk. Greenland (and by association Denmark and NATO) are in Trump's crosshairs undermining that alliance. Panama is now a target and all goodwill there has been lost. Our long standing relations with Canada and Mexico have been shattered. The risk of a stronger China-Russia alliance has been heightened. We don't have the united front necessary to have leverage over Iran.
Israel isn't really at risk, but we are doing nothing to improve the deteriorating situation in Gaza which genocide or not, could lead to a lot of deaths because Gaza doesn't have the means to support the people who are currently residing there and they have no way to leave.
The one foreign policy/military agenda item upon which the U.S. has held firm from Biden to Trump is that the Houthis and their Red Sea vicinity piracy are receiving a firm U.S. military response.
Trump is literally pulling out of Africa entirely, closing embassies, ending aid programs, and in general, just walking away. And, while this was never a focus of U.S. foreign policy, this turns the continent over to China and ISIS.
Tesla, and Elon Musk's reputation and business empire, have suffered immense, quite possibly irrevocable blows from the combination of his political actions at DOGE destroying their reputation at home and abroad, and from the gross defects in the design and manufacturing of the Cybertruck including systemic odometer fraud. Major clients of Starlink have cancelled their contract for political reasons too. And spectacular SpaceX failures haven't helped either. There may also be securities fraud and suspicious transactions like its Canadian tax credit fraud, its related party transaction with X and xAI, and questions about a huge amount of missing money on Tesla's balance sheet. Musk's distracted attention from his multiple businesses hasn't helped them either.
Lockheed is going to lose F-35 contracts. Boeing has lost sales to China. U.S. farmers who export their products are losing. U.S. oil and gas producers are losing. Private retirement accounts are losing. The U.S. dollar is dramatically weaker. U.S. manufacturing companies are laying people off and being crippled from Apple to Johnny Walker.
The interest rate on the national debt has gone up with costs taxpayers money without providing anything in return. Food safety has been interrupted. Weather reporting has been impaired. Disease control is crippled and multiple epidemics are surging due to the quack leading the Health and Human Services Department. The military academies have been irrevocably impaired.
The Republicans in Congress have caved to almost all of even the worst excesses of Trump 2.0. They even approved insane and grossly under-qualified RFK, Jr. to Health and Human Services, as well as a host of other grossly unqualified candidates to positions where their mission it to undermine everything their agencies are charged with doing rather than faithfully executing the law. They have not stopped tariffs which were probably not authorized by law in the first place and violated the WTO treaties and the NAFTA 2.0 treaty. There have been a few attempted rebellions by small numbers of Republicans who have considerable power if they want it because the GOP majority in both the House and Senate are thin, but basically every time, they have backed down.
The end game remains uncertain. Where Trump's wrong has been acting by executive order, Congress could ratify or adopt his policies properly and by law, although he hasn't done that, in part, because he doesn't think that he can get clean support from the entire Republican caucus for his extreme measures. SCOTUS could undermine the judges who have stepped in to stop him. There is still a constitutional crisis pending over Trump's disregard of court orders related to his illegal Alien Enemies Act deportations among others. Trump could get bolder and could continue to ignore court orders without consequences. For now, Trump won't invoke the Insurrection Act, but we could have martial law and cancelled elections before it is over and he's claiming he may unconstitutionally seek a third term.
If we make it to a reasonably free and fair midterm election in 2026, it is possible that Republicans will be dramatically swept out of power as the consequences of Trump's damaging and unpopular policies becomes apparent, and that could save us. But, the core MAGA base of 35-40% of voters is largely holding fast, even as independents start to slide towards the Democrats, and there is no guarantee that the 2026 elections will be free and fair. Worst case scenario for the GOP, it could go into the wilderness for 60 years like it did after Herbert Hoover's failed tariffs.
Some of the most frightening parts of Trump's early moves have been his ability to gain GOP support to appoint utterly incompetent people to destroy the federal government, Trump's anti-DEI campaign that is evolving into straight up state supported racism and sexism and discrimination applied not just to the federal government but also to state and local schools, private colleges and universities, and private businesses, as well as esteemed and irreplaceable federal cultural institutions. His acts of retaliation against law firms, individuals, and others (even countries). His seeming ability to circumvent the Administrative Procedure Act, civil service protections, union collective bargaining agreements, Congressionally enacted protections for independent agencies, inspector generals, NEPA, duly enacted Congressional appropriations, the Office of Legal Counsel, JAG Corps, and fair minded constitution protecting senior military officers. He's compromised the limited independence of immigration judges. Many more decent people are just washing their hands and resigning rather than being a part of Trump's illegal agenda.
Trump could order invasions of Greenland or the Panama Canal without Congressional support and get away with it, possibly even triggering a war with NATO.
SCOTUS has done us no favors in overruling *Roe* with *Dobbs*, with over ruling *Chevron* deference to federal regulations, with deciding that Trump has broad immunity from criminal prosecution, with deciding contrary to clear constitutional language and precedent that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment isn't self-executing, with mealy mouthed responses to Trump's defiance of the law even when it has taken action, with its pro-gun nut jurisprudence on the Second Amendment, and in this time of tyranny, perhaps more than anything, its "unitary executive" jurisprudence.
If democracy does survive, the long standing two party structure of Republicans and Democrats seems likely to fall apart. The minority of reasonable conservatives in the GOP are leaving the party in favor of being independents or flooding the Democratic party tent with principled conservatives and libertarians. The Democratic party tent is getting spread to thin to be cohesive but for its current common enemy. If Trump alienates enough big business and establishment Republicans, the GOP could find it has no money to back it up. Progressives are falling for nihilism, convinced that Democrats are against them and not just lacking the power to secure what they want. The Republican Party of 2025 is a populist, far-right, basically neo-Nazi party. Its major screw ups in Trump 2.0 and violent swing to the right could leave it as a permanent minority party with a mish mash of everyone else trying to form coalitions to keep it out of power (which our current single member district plurality system makes challenging).
Looking at the big picture: What is the solution? Is the problem that we need better institutions? Is the problem that we need a one time reset to purge or undermine bad SCOTUS judges? Does the political culture need to change? Do we just need better politicians to run for the good causes seeing that they are needed and for Trump to die? Is the U.S. constitution resilient enough to weather this crisis? Would it be better if the U.S. constitution failed forcing a new regime from scratch since the corrections that are necessary can't be made through the ordinary means? Do we need more street politics?
What if we make it through this crisis but badly damaged in a way that sets us on a path to inevitable long term decline and degradation even though we avoid the worst case scenarios this time around? We are already a flawed democracy. Maybe will fall further down that scale, become a mere semi-democracy and more corrupt than we have become, experiencing nationwide the kind of decline that the rust belt and coal belt have seen so far.
Should the U.S. split up? Do red states realize how dependent they are on money from blue states? I sense that if red states went it alone that they wouldn't replace much of what the federal government provided and would instead just treat its poor and sick and weak worse, and would become more hateful. The blue states would be weaker for smaller scale, but would allow their prosperity to overcome it and would adopt new and better policies unrestrained by red state backwardness.
How far will women's rights, gay rights, trans rights, non-Christian rights retreat? How far will our isolation from the globe grow? How many immigrants will be purged? How will our national character wither?
One of the deep institutional flaws of the U.S. government that doesn't get talked about enough is that we have an inferior system of public law (the law regulating government) and also have government institutions that aren't good at basic functions like making major military purchases, carrying out major public works programs, and managing large numbers of public servants. This is one major reason for the bias against having government rather than the private sector carry out tasks in U.S. politics compared to many other countries, even when government is really better suited to the tasks in question, and it is a major reason that the U.S. has started to increasing lag relative to its developed world counterparts.
When I first learned that many countries put the prosecutor's office in the judicial branch rather than the executive branch, I was skeptical, thinking that this would make judges biased in favor of prosecutors. And, in countries like South Korea and Japan, that does happen. But, seeing Trump try to use the criminal justice system to persecute his political opponents, I can see the potential benefits to insulating prosecutors from partisan elected officials outside the executive branch (something that almost largely removes the need to have an awkward and flawed special prosecutor system to address criminal acts within the executive branch).
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