Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments, with Trump much more powerful than in his first term.
Trump has wrought a genuine revolution within his party. His four years out of power might even have been an advantage in that regard. About two-thirds of the current GOP House caucus was elected in 2016 or later. Senators most likely to exercise independent judgment have retired. Trump and his movement have been highly successful at finding loyal, battle-hardened individuals to staff the executive branch at all levels. Even if the Democrats were in top shape, this revolutionized GOP would give Trump significantly more power than he had in 2017....The barrage of prosecutions of Trump while he was out of power probably made his second presidency more willful and vindictive. Arguments for forbearance in the White House and Justice Department presumably have more trouble gaining traction when MAGA’s pit bulls point out that Democrats tried to convict Trump of crimes that could have put him in prison for life. Democrats who still defend the prosecutions ought to at least acknowledge the natural result of them. The failure of the prosecutions probably also contributes to Democratic political demoralization: They used the strongest possible tools against Trump and it didn’t work....For most of Trump’s first term, Republican appointees made up a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court. That changed only in late 2020 with the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett, shifting the majority to 6-3. The single vote makes a big difference because Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. can no longer decide by himself which side will win the 5-4 split in politically charged cases. The court has been a brake on Trump’s most abusive immigration gambits but has done little else to interfere with his accumulation of power. That might well change as his actions are litigated and appealed, but the change in the Supreme Court’s composition in Trump’s first term probably at least delayed confrontation in his second.
