Some of the best relationship advice I’ve ever received was to start the way you intend to do it. That probably meant something like being polite in disagreements and doing dishes without being asked, but this week especially, the lesson also seems appropriate for politics.
Donald Trump was sworn in again on Tuesday to hold the most powerful office in the world (AEDT). Unlike 2017, however, he began this term by leaving his followers outdoors while he and his billionaire friends enjoyed the warmth of the Capitol, a building with which some of his followers are very familiar.
Donald Trump holds a saber after using it to cut a cake, as Vice President JD Vance looks on, at the Commander in Chief’s inaugural ball.Credit: AP
The week leading up to his inauguration included the voluntary shutdown of TikTok across the United States (likely orchestrated to make Trump the hero of the more than 100 million dopamine-addicted American users when it came back online), and the launch of his own cryptocurrency meme coin, $Trump, which peaked at $70 billion ($112 billion); the first lady also launched her own meme currency, $Melania. Arguably Trump’s most surprising decision, however, was to shut down his outdoor inauguration event and instead celebrate at the Capitol building with the billionaire CEOs and YouTube stars who came to pledge their allegiance.
Trump issued a series of executive orders hours after taking office that will almost certainly result in greater air and water pollution, more dangerous natural disasters, and an empty government loyal to Trump himself, not the American people. None of these executive orders seem to improve the lives of their supporters (let alone the rest of the country) at all. His wave of immigration orders is a mix of widely popular efforts that Trump stymied when he blocked passage of a Republican-led immigration bill in 2024, and challenges to the Constitution, such as Trump’s new ban on citizenship by birth (which is enshrined in the 14th amendment).
The main reason for Trump’s victory was grievance. But those same people who put their faith in him to lower the cost of living are being shown how he intends to govern: thinking about their own wealth and comfort instead of serving the American people.
As president, Trump now faces the challenge of achieving results for the American people. It is a true saying that governing is much more difficult than campaigning. Trump’s bluster should count for less than it did the first time, but his signature now counts for much more. He has built the loyalty of all the major social media platforms in the US and understands media and attention better than anyone. His plans to gut the US government and install loyalists in place of career civil servants should scare anyone interested in countering this wave of authoritarian politics.
The head of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg (left), watches the inauguration with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his partner, Lauren Sánchez; Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai; and Tesla boss Elon Musk.Credit: Bloomberg
As a candidate or even as president-elect, your words could move the markets, but they could not direct the functions of the government. Now, his pen has pulled the United States out of the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement. The TikTok ban now becomes a real problem for him and his advisors because he has no ability to overturn a law passed by Congress and confirmed by the Supreme Court, even though both branches are largely loyal to him. Your choice is to enforce it or provoke a constitutional crisis.
And this is the challenge of governing. The people who put their faith in him now expect him to do something that benefits them (not just those in his inner circle) to address their pain and anger. But instead of wielding government power to that end, he seems hell-bent on using the frustrations of the people who put him in power to line his own pockets.
