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Where Trump 2.0 is distinct from Trump 1.0

Jan 22, 2025 10:29 PM IST

Awe, fear, greed, purpose and resignation explains why 2025, Trump’s first year in a second term, is different from 2017, Trump’s first year in his first term

Washington: You may be a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. You may be an American ally or an adversary or partner. You may be a conservative or a liberal. You may be from the coast or middle America or the south. You may be one of the President’s billionaire friends or a working class voter or a critic. You may be White or Black or Hispanic or Asian. There is one fundamental contemporary political reality that everyone agrees on: 2024-2025 is not 2016-2017. And the response to Donald Trump 2.0 is distinct from the response to Trump 1.0.

US President Donald Trump. (AP)
US President Donald Trump. (AP)

The political momentum propelling Trump, the spectacle of his inauguration, the militancy of his agenda, the disruption of his executive orders, the expanse of his ambitions, the speed of his actions, the control he exercises over all three branches of American government, the appeal he has among the world’s richest and most powerful, and as columnist Ezra Klein suggested in a recent piece in The New York Times, his overwhelming success in capturing the cultural vibes (which has almost made it cool to be MAGA, the acronym that has become a noun) make the start of Trump’s second term different from his first.

What explains it? The answer may not lie in political science but psychology for five human emotions — of awe, fear, greed, purpose, and resignation — appear to be at play and offer clues into the making of this moment.

For one, there is just awe at Trump’s political success. He may be a felon; he may have committed crimes for which he has managed to escape trials; he may have presided over a deadly pandemic; he may have, quite disgracefully and with no evidence, refused to accept the 2020 election results; and he may have engaged in racist rhetoric and condone violence. But in democratic politics, electoral success is often the route to wash all other sins.

And that’s the success Trump has achieved. Trump’s ability to construct a new political reality, maintain a grip over his loyal base, cultivate new allies, fight multiple cases, create a team while in exile in his resort, relentlessly campaign day in and day out at the age of 78, put himself out there including in front of an aggressive and adversarial media, unapologetically stand for what he believes in including the most extreme and politically incorrect positions, and then win and win big with his persistence, has clearly evoked awe. There may be quibbles about the scale and meaning of the mandate. But no one doubts that Trump won fair and square, and Trump and his agenda is what the American voters have bet their future on.

Unlike 2016, when Trump’s win was seen as a fluke or attributed to external interference or merely to an unpopular rival, 2024 is Trump’s mandate. And the recognition of this has meant that even critical voices have sought to understand what American society is telling the polity, and engage with Trump as the man who has both shaped that message in society and has served as the messenger to the polity.

Two, there is fear. There is fear of Trump since he holds grudges and remembers who didn’t pass his loyalty tests; fear due to Trump’s signal that retribution is fine against those who he sees as having acted against him; fear because Trump now has the ability, coupled with intent, to use the American state apparatus to harass private institutions and individuals who he doesn’t like; fear due to his ability to send an entire machinery of a radical online army to destroy your reputation, credibility, profits and inner peace with a short post on Truth Social; and fear of his unpredictable policy positions that can hurt individuals, companies, countries and more.

And there is fear because of the sheer power that Trump enjoys. The Supreme Court has mandated almost blanket immunity for anything that a President does. The Republicans have a slim majority in the two chambers, and this will be a challenge for him, but Trump’s ability to induce and coerce legislators, due to his control over the base and finances to oust a dissenter, remains immense. With his decision to remove career protections from career civil servants, he has the ability to control the federal government like few other presidents. With the term limit that prevents from him contesting for a third time, Trump is also liberated from any restraint that may have emerged from political calculus. All of this has meant that corporate honchos, always the first to understand where power resides, and party apparatchiks, always the first to build countervailing coalitions, have all fallen in line. This is what is distinct from 2016-2017, when the costs of antagonising Trump weren’t clear, the hopes in America’s mechanisms of self-correction or institutional independence were much higher, and Trump’s ability to be vindictive wasn’t yet fully visible.

Three, there is greed. Trump is often almost childishly transparent about what motivates him. Show him the prospects of personal profit and possibilities of a visible political win, flatter him and reinforce his sense of strength and magnetism and appeal, bankroll his family’s operations and open up newer doors and opportunities for him — and the ability to influence Trump to push your own policy agenda or narrower business interests expands dramatically.

For countless business barons and industries, for thousands of political operators and media influencers, the world that Trump potentially opens up is too tempting to resist. Support him and crypto suddenly becomes legitimate and liberated. Support him and have an office next to White House to go after regulatory agencies which want your businesses to play by the rules. Support him and go and “drill, baby, drill” and recklessly exploit energy for profit. Support him and see him bargain for your interests with foreign counterparts. Support him and see him defy the Supreme Court, the Congress and his own party and give TikTok a fresh lease of life in America.

Support him and win a chance to become relevant in Washington DC, a quintessential political capital where information, power, access, and money are all interlinked but a political capital like no other where corruption is legalised under the euphemism of lobbying and with the cover of full disclosure. Support him and win over federal contracts. You may or may not get all of this even if support him. But if you don’t genuflect, and instead, you stay quiet, or worse, oppose him, be ready to lose out on a bounty. This is the lesson from 2016 to 2020 internalised in 2024-2025 by many.

The fourth impulse is purpose. For his critics, it is hard to understand this, but he inspires deep idealism in his base and makes others who want to make a change feel that they have a real chance of making that change with him at the helm. Trump does not just lead a political party. He does not just lead a government. He leads an insurgency. He leads a movement. And like all insurgencies and movements, Trump has a core that is with him not because of who he is but what they think he stands for and what he can do.

There are those who genuinely believe America is under threat because of the nature of its borders and want stronger control on immigration. Not all of them are racists. There are those who genuinely believe that Trump offers an opportunity to reduce regulatory bottlenecks and unleash American entrepreneurship in new ways. Not all of them are cronies. There are those who genuinely believe that Trump can make values of family and faith fashionable again. Not all of them are bigots. There are those who genuinely believe that Trump can deal with foreign adversaries better, keep world peace, inaugurate a golden era of American manufacturing and bring back jobs. Not all of them are isolationists or ultra nationalists or wish other countries ill. This constituency of the more devout has only increased in size and scale since 2016, with Trump using both incumbency and opposition to expand his appeal.

And the fifth emotion is resignation. If, in 2016, resistance was the obvious option for all those unhappy with the electoral outcome, and that resistance was marked by unprecedented energy, the mood now in the other camp is now of utter incomprehension about what just happened and therefore the utter inability to articulate an alternate platform, at least so soon after the electoral defeat.

The Democratic Party has no leader at the moment. The post-mortem examination for what went wrong is still in progress, as is the blame game. There is a battle between those who believe that the only way to counter Trump is to drop progressive politics and move centre-Right and those who believe that the only way to counter Trump is be as much of an anti-establishment insurgent as he is, but from the Left. Civil society outfits are keeping up the fight but confront low morale and attrition. Universities, after the protests against Israel last year, are no longer free spaces and the costs of engaging in protest have soared. To many Trump critics, it isn’t clear what American society needs, what Americans want, and how to deliver it. Add it all up and it amounts to a collective sense of resignation to the new power structure that has stormed DC.

If Donald Trump has shown anything, it is that politics is dynamic and new realities can be constructed as quickly as old ones are dismantled. And that is why today’s moment is just today’s moment and will change, especially given the depth and resilience and diversity of American society and political culture and the inevitable anger that will again emerge from unfulfilled aspirations. But, for now, it is Donald Trump’s moment -- a moment born out of a sense of awe for him, fear of him, greed at what he can offer, purpose for what he can achieve, and resignation about the country he leads.

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