For better or worse, the public has voted. It’s now up to a Republican Congress to show its spine before it’s too late.
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Donald Trump is a master at pulling an unsuspecting public into what amounts to his personal “reality distortion field.” His visible elation at winning re-election is understandable, and his hyperbolic claims that the election was the greatest landslide in history and a mandate to change America are not surprising. The only problem is that none of it is true.
Trump tipped the vote in his favor in enough swing states for a comfortable Electoral College margin, but the popular vote was neither a landslide nor a mandate for radical change. The country remains sharply divided concerning both Trump and his ideas about what’s good for America. The Electoral College was intended to provide a geographic representation based on where each individual state stands when it comes to picking a president. It is not designed to be a direct reflection of how the mass of the population thinks.
The actual vote is still being counted, but according to NBC’s latest count, Trump won 49.9 percent of the popular vote, while Kamala Haris won 48.3 percent. The running count is 76,957,300 for Trump against 74,449,319 for Harris, a difference of 2,507,981 votes, or 0.74 percent of America’s current population.
That is the very definition of narrowly divided, and it is reflected, as well, in a very narrowly divided Congress, and in majority approval of pro-choice and other progressive ballot measures, not confined to blue states.
Trump’s mandate for his vision is mostly a product of his fevered imagination.
Overplaying His Hand?
Imaginary or not, Trump’s initial cast of high-profile appointments creates the impression that his real intention is to dismantle the American government, not manage it. The list of inexperienced, unqualified, and unlikely candidates raises the question of whether Trump is merely playing with the public or determined to surround himself with a combination of luminaries from the vastly unpopular and vigorously disavowed Project 2025 and meritless sycophants ready to follow his whims.
There is no indication that any of the picks belonging to either species will work to improve the agencies they are expected to run. Like most megalomaniacs, Trump may really believe that he is smart enough to run the US government by himself. Know-it-alls often lack the insight needed to realize how much they really don’t know.
Trump apparently made at least his sycophant list on the spur of the moment without bothering to talk it over with even his closest advisers. Normally, cabinet appointments are subjected to an intensive vetting process, intended to spare the administration embarrassment down the line as a candidate’s sordid past gradually emerges. Trump not only skipped the vetting process, but there has also been talk that he is considering outsourcing security clearances to private contractors, rather than trust the government agencies normally responsible for that function.
Not surprisingly, scandals have begun to emerge even before Trump’s list of candidates has been officially confirmed.
Take It to the Limit: The Worst of the Worst
Trump’s initial choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, and his candidate for secretary of defense, Fox newscaster Pete Hegseth, have both been accused of serious sex-related offenses. Hegseth bought the silence of his accuser by paying her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Gaetz, who has since withdrawn his candidacy, was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for a number of charges, including sex with a 17-year-old. He only managed to avoid having the House publish results of an extended ethics investigation by resigning his seat in Congress before the report could be officially released.
Trump’s pick as director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was fondly referred to on Russian television as “our girlfriend.” Gabbard served as an enlisted soldier in a Hawaii National Guard medical unit in Iraq for a year. She later attended a National Guard officer training program in Alabama, graduated as a second lieutenant, and ran a platoon of military police in Kuwait for a year. She was finally assigned to work in civil affairs in East Africa. Although commendable, none of her experience had anything to do with intelligence, let alone with overseeing the vast and complex entirety of the US’s intelligence operations.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump’s pick to head the sprawling agencies involved in health and human services, wants to reverse one of the great public-health advances of the 20th century by taking fluoride out of the country’s drinking water; has taken aim at an even greater advance with his rabid vaccine skepticism; and has a well-earned reputation for bizarre behavior and spreading conspiracy theories.
Trump’s pick to head the Department of Education is a former executive who worked in professional wrestling, with some sex abuse-related baggage of her own.
Who knows, Trump might well have won this election the day after shooting everyone on Fifth Avenue, but it’s hard to imagine that this crop of appointments wouldn’t have given pause to millions who pulled the lever for him anticipating something very different.
Throwing Down the Gauntlet?
Trump’s apparent determination to listen to no one except himself and go it alone as president looks untenable in the long run. It is nearly two months until he takes office, and his current suggestions for a cabinet may simply be a series of trial balloons or they could be a tactical red herring designed to make his eventual real choices more acceptable.
Even more worrisome is the take that Trump is throwing down the gauntlet to his own party, a kind of blitz intended to test and break their resistance, for which purpose the more in-your-face-unqualified and absurdist his nominees are, the better. It remains to be seen whether, having lost a battle with the withdrawal of Gaetz, the incoming president will nonetheless win this war.
The Perfect Personnel for the Planned Policies
As with his current cabinet picks, Trump’s policy suggestions are not only absurd, but also clearly unworkable. Some corporations and hedge fund investors may expect windfall profits from Trump’s continued tax breaks, but continued tax cuts on the order Trump is talking about will also balloon the national deficit, and likely endanger Social Security and Medicare. A growing number of economists warn that Trump’s second term is likely to lead to a renewed spike of the inflation he campaigned against.
Trump’s declared first order of business after his inauguration is supposedly to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. But, according to the US Department of Labor, nearly half the workers bringing in the harvest on American farms have no documentation. Even if they could all be replaced by American workers, which is not likely, grocery prices would skyrocket. It would also increase illegal immigration from Central America. A third of the GDP of Honduras, for example, comes from remittances sent by Hondurans working in the US.
Trump says he wants to declare a national emergency and use the US Army to deport immigrants. That would violate the Posse Comitatus Act, a law passed in 1878, which makes it illegal to use the armed forces to resolve domestic problems. Even if Trump decided to ignore the law, he would find himself tied up in legal wrangling for most of his term in office.
Trump’s threat to impose massive tariffs would, of course, make just about everything more expensive. Most of the products manufactured in the US depend on a global supply chain, which would be adversely impacted by the tariffs, particularly if Trump starts a trade war and foreign countries retaliate.
The notion that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, as co-heads of the advisory Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), will be able to cut $2 trillion from the current budget for the US Civil Service is also doomed to failure. No question that there is fat in the system, but it is marbled. In other words, the fat is attached to vital organs that enable the country to function, and it is often sustained by vested interests. You can’t hack it out with an ax. Eliminating it requires a scalpel and careful surgery.
When everything is put together, Trump is the elected president, but he is off to a historically horrendous start. The appointments and the policy proposals that he has made so far are likely to lead to a catastrophic breakdown in the system.
Thune to the Rescue? (Yes, It’s That Bad)
In extreme situations, a president who is unable to function can be removed according to the terms in the Constitution’s 25th Amendment. A less drastic alternative is for the Senate simply to exercise its responsibility to advise and consent.
In this case, Republican senators would need to stop acting as invertebrate rubber stamps and demand that Trump manage the administration effectively rather than playing with the US government as his personal toy. That would begin with the serious vetting and consequent rejection of Gabbard, Kennedy, Hegseth, and any other such bad joke of a nominee. Trump was elected to preside — that’s what presidents do. He was not elected to be a king or dictator. He was not elected to wreak havoc in his pursuit of vengeance and unlimited power. The question is whether a Republican Congress has the courage and stamina to do its job.
Trump had wanted Rick Scott of Florida as Senate majority leader. Thanks to the Senate’s secret-ballot election, he got John Thune of South Dakota, instead. So far, Thune has been a consummate diplomat in his relations with Trump. Instead of saying openly that Trump can’t do what he wants, Thune’s approach is to say, “Good idea, but…,” and then enumerate the reasons why the idea won’t work.
Given the Republicans’ history so far, the expectation is that Trump will browbeat a compliant Congress into doing his bidding, even if that proves to be suicidal for the nation. But we may be jumping the gun. The fact is that Trump will only be in office for the next four years. Even if he wanted to extend his time in office, it is doubtful that he would be physically up to it. If politics do not finish him, old age will.
Thune has been a senator for nearly a quarter century. He is acutely aware that a third of the Senate stands for election every two years. And of course the entire House of Representatives will face reelection in 2026 and 2028. Barring massive electoral “reforms” that, as they have in certain other nations, relegate the US to the status of a “managed” democracy, the voters will get another bite or two at the apple.
If Trump blows it, Republicans might not have a majority again for the foreseeable future. From that perspective, Trump already looks like a bit of a lame duck. The House and Senate are nearly as evenly divided as the population. The country faces its most serious crisis since the Civil War. It is up to the Senate in the short run, and ultimately Congress, to decide what happens next.
