Donald and Melania Trump watch fireworks at Trump National Golf Club, Sterling, Virginia, January 18, 2025 (Alex Brandon/AP)

EA-Irish Examiner Podcast: Anticipating Trump 2.0

EA on International Media: From the Capitol Attack to Trump 2.0

My first thought is of Bette Davis ascending the stairs in 1950’s All About Eve. She turns towards her audience, smiles, and says, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

My second is less whimsical. A scowling man is answering a question at a town hall meeting in Iowa in December 2023. His friend, a polemicist named Sean Hannity, asks, “You would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”.

The man immediately responds, “Except for Day One. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

He does not address the issue of abusing power for “retribution”.

And on Monday, it will be Day One of Donald Trump’s second stay in the White House.

The Method of the Madness

The difficulty in analysing and anticipating Trump is that the methods used for assessing Presidents — or, indeed, for most rational people — do not apply. There are few coherent sentences, let alone policies. Intentions are conveyed in late-night, all-caps tweets rather than considered statements or the outcomes of meetings. Impulse supersedes consideration.

Instead, you have to start with Trump’s view that his Presidency, like his approach to business, is all about personal gain. It is the transaction that burnishes his ego. It is the calculation of a “win” for him and a “loss” — for in Trump’s world, there has to be a loser as well as a winner — for his perceived opponent.

It is the thought process not of a President for the people, but of a wannabe autocrat for himself.

That quest for personal power can be linked to Trump’s obsessions. He wins if his constructed foes of migrants and asylum seekers lose. So he declares the Wall with Mexico, the separation of children from their parents, and from Day One of Trump 2.0, the deportation of millions of people.

He wins if his enemies of environmental activists lose. So following his impulses — wind turbines killing birds and “driving whales crazy”, global warming “a hoax”, and climate change “a scam” — on Day One, he shouts, “Drill, Baby, Drill”, and strips regulations of fossil fuels.

He wins if other nations lose. On Day One he announces tariffs. Maybe 5%, 10%, 20%, 60%, or more. Maybe just on China or maybe on many countries, including Ireland. Maybe on some sectors or maybe on all. But definitely some trade-based punishment to proclaim his “victory”.

And, of course, he has to win over those who tried to hold him politically and legally accountable. So on Day 1, revisiting his denial of the result of the 2020 Presidential election, he pardons some of his supporters convicted over their involvement in the 2021 Capitol Attack. He puts his loyalists in charge of agencies, such as the Justice Department and the FBI, to limit their operations, firing their employees, and turning them against his “enemies”. He threatens politicians, judges, and civil servants.

The Trumpists Behind The Curtain

The next step is to match up Trump’s whim with the measured ambitions of those around him. One starting is Project 2025, the 900-page blueprint in which many Trumpists set out their ideas for a return to power.

In the guise of fighting “woke revolutionaries” to “dismantle the administrative state”, the contributors detail the mission to bend US agencies to Trump’s will, with job protections for many civil servants removed.

The Defense Secretary will dismiss generals, admirals, and commanders on the pretext that they are pursuing diversity. The Secretary of State will purge “large swathes” of diplomatic staff who are “left wing”. The intelligence community will pursue the “widely promoted ‘woke’ culture that has spread throughout the federal government with identity politics and ‘social justice’ advocacy”. To end the independence of the Federal Reserve over monetary and fiscal stability, it will be headed by a Trumpist appointee or an alternative body will be established.

That mission explains some of Trump’s Cabinet nominees. Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, a Fox TV personality, has railed about “woke” commanders who should be removed. The nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, undermined the Trump-Russia investigation and now has a target list of personnel whom he says are part of the “deep state”. The first nominee for Attorney General, Rep. Matt Gaetz, was an avid promoter of Trump’s falsehoods. He fell because of payments for sex and for drugs; however, his replacement, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, has echoed Trump’s calls to prosecute his political opponents.

But what of Trump’s advisors behind the scenes? That is where uncertainty rushes in.

Some commentators question Trump’s threat by noting that he lacks the organisation, coherence, or attention span to implement his thought bubbles. However, that does not apply to those around him.

For example, dedicated xenophobe Stephen Miller has been a key part of Trump’s team since the 2016 campaign. One of the architects of the “Muslim Ban” in the chaotic first week of Trump’s first term, he is now Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. That could indicate not only sweeping moves against undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers but also legal immigrants.

Publicly, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan has asked for $86 billion to deport millions of people. But privately, he has told Republican lawmakers to temper their expectations because of cost. So what happens in the gap between Trumpian rhetoric and budgetary reality?

Trump continues to promise big, beautiful tariffs, such as 60% on China and 25% on Canada, Mexico, and other countries. But his advisors are leaking contradictory messages to media. Some say Trump can invoke a national economic emergency to implement his plan. Others say the tariffs will come in gradually. Others says they will be only on certain sectors, a message immediately derided by Trump as “Fake News”.

The Art of the Bully

The resolution? Trump thrives not only on the destruction of actions taken, but on the Sword of Damocles of those which may or may not ever be implemented.

For Donald Trump is a bully. He has always been a bully in business. He has been a bully in his personal life. And he thrives on being a bully in politics.

A bully does not have to hit you to cause pain. He can inflict damage just by holding you in limbo over if and when you will be hit.

In his Inaugural Speech in 2017, written by hard-right advisors Miller and Steve Bannon, Trump spoke of “American carnage”.

Of course, he then promised, “A new vision will govern our land,” but that was just for show.

It is his spectacle of carnage that took Trump to the steps of the Capitol on January 20, 2017. It was his personal carnage that sent his supporters up them almost four years later. And it is the threat of carnage — in America and abroad — that will accompany him on Monday.

Buckle up for the bumpiest of nights and days.