The Central Contradictions of Trump 2.0
Going over the potential pivot points for the next anti-Trump backlash.
(Credit for the voiceover for this article goes to the great Samuel Lipson)
As the first weeks of Donald Trump’s administration have progressed, the most striking aspects of it are not what we have seen, but what we haven’t. For as wide-reaching and impactful as they are, few of Trump’s many early moves can be said to be truly unexpected. The genuine uncertainty of his first term is no longer really there anymore—at least, not yet. Even beyond the 1000-page policy documents explicitly laying out the agenda for a new Republican administration, everything about Trump’s first term made it clear what his role was, and is: to serve as a vessel for right wing elites seeking to ensconce themselves in power. In every attempt to commandeer the civil service, shred the federal government, or install a loyalist hack to a cabinet-level position, he continues a decade-long pattern of behavior that, although always somewhat shocking, has long ceased to be surprising.
None of this is new. What is novel is the response—or lack thereof—from our newly-reinstalled administration’s many political opponents. From the moment that Trump began his political career, all of his actions were marked by an often-more-intense counterreaction from the society he sought the approval of and attempted to govern. Regular protests against him began well before he even won the Republican nomination, only intensified after he won the White House, and eventually came to define his ill-fated first term in office. This disdain for him was so strong that it even followed him through his successor’s flailing presidency, costing a countless number of his political allies their races even under the best circumstances imaginable. It was the one true constant of his political career—a logical, consistent check on his power that added a price to every overreach, even if it wasn’t enough to guarantee that he would be politically unviable.
Then, he won for a second time. This, in and of itself, wasn’t either surprising or even all that incongruent with him and his wing being unpopular. But it was still a win—a win that came in the aftermath of January 6th, stood in the face of the Dobbs backlash, and definitively settled the overriding questions of when Trump finally will go (he won’t) and if he’ll actually get away with it (he did). The result has been a thoroughly demoralized anti-Trump coalition incapable of engaging in any of the activities or spectacles that we all became so used to during his first term. When the election tipped Trump’s way on the night of November 5th, there were no protesters spontaneously appearing on big city streets declaring that he was not their president. Elected Democrats made a point of refusing to object to his victory, a marked contrast to their behavior after the 2016, 2000, and even 2004 elections. The Women’s March itself was rebranded into the People’s March, likely in an attempt to avoid unfavorable comparisons between the size of their 2017 and 2025 marches. If that was their concerns, it wound up being founded. In contrast to the record-breaking 500,000 strong D.C. protest that took place at the beginning of Trump’s first term, the People’s March drew only a few thousand demonstrators when it took place two days before his inauguration.
It’s a development that has the right—always very arrogant even when things aren’t going well for them—thinking quite big. Spurred on by a dispirited #Resistance, ostentatious displays of fealty by formerly liberal corporate leaders, and positive early approval ratings, the new Trump administration has acted without regard for any limits. Their visions may be even more grandiose culturally, where they have spent practically every waking moment spiking the football over their supposedly imminent domination. At times, it can be easy for even the most skeptical to fear that they are right. But while neither I or anyone else can guarantee that they will be correct in the long haul, what we can do now is take a birds-eye view of their project to see where the fault lines may lie. For all that has been said about the strengths of the new administration, what are its potential weaknesses? What are they missing that could cause them to find themselves once again out of step with the public and leave their budding cultural revolution dead in the cradle?
Even this early on, there’s hardly a shortage of answers.
Contradiction #1: The Tech Right vs. the Groypers
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