The Financial Times’ Edward Luce runs down the litany of Trump’s crimes (so far) with startling clarity and then he asks a question that I think we all need to take seriously:
That his economic ratings are in freefall should be a source of alarm not complacency. Less than a year after Trump was elected, the separation of powers is not working. Congress is irrelevant. The Supreme Court is quiescent. The media is punch drunk. Democrats are fragmented. Independent federal agencies are losing autonomy. The markets are high on the AI gold rush, crypto deregulation and the prospect of a return to easy money. Stephen Miller, Trump’s most influential domestic adviser — prime minister to Trump’s king — calls the Democratic party a domestic extremist organisation and wants to suspend America’s constitutional habeas corpus right to due process. He is a true American autocrat.
It has been widely observed that the speed of America’s democratic slide surpasses that of other “elective autocracies” such as Narendra Modi’s India and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey. But that understates Trump’s impatience. Others have shifted to authoritarianism with relatively fast-growing economies, which makes it easier to sustain public support. Trump’s trade war and his “big beautiful [budget] bill” will rob most Americans of income growth. The idea that the disaffected middle will therefore clip Trump’s wings in next year’s midterm elections is quixotic.
Having silenced most institutional dissent within his first nine months, what could Trump accomplish in the next 14?
This isn’t a rhetorical question and I think we need to start thinking about it. Their shock and awe has succeeded beyond their wildest expectations and the entire society from top to bottom is stunned. (His observations about why the financial markets continue to just carry on is important too.)
What have they got left?
Well, it seems that Trump is now fully engaged on vengeance and domination. He and Miller believe they are untouchable and they aren’t trying to hide it. Trump is bent on revenge against his personal enemies. Miller is seriously committed to completely destroying all political opposition. The establishment Republicans are fine with that and the Supreme Court seems poised to let them do it. And then there’s the fact that Trump seems to be provoking the world into some kind of war. I think we know what that looks like.
This isn’t hysteria or doom saying. Nothing says that this has to happen. There are any number of scenarios that could thwart it. But it could. They have already made much, much more progress than we could ever have dreamed possible.
Seriously — what’s next?