Chapter 48: The Future - Another American Century?
Through A Glass Darkly
Beginning with Chapter 43 of this Substack series, I asked readers to respond to two questions:
What accounts for Trump’s rise to power?; and,
What do you think the course of American politics will be in the years to come?
My own response to the first question was published as Chapter 47 this past Monday, June 16, the 10th anniversary of Trump’s ride down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for the Presidency. In the decade which has followed, Trump has changed the nation and the world. His impact was unexpected and unpredicted. It has been undeniable.
I received some remarkable observations in answer to these two questions. In my post last week, I tried to encapsulate in three categories what I had learned with regard to the first question. These three categories are:
The structure of Presidential elections (especially the importance of the electoral college);
The shortcomings of the Clinton campaign; and,
The celebrity of Trump.
The second question – what does the future hold? – is far more difficult to come to terms with. The responses I received were not optimistic.
Trump’s victory in 2016 is easier to understand than his victory in 2024. In 2016, he could be looked upon as a novelty. He was the pet rock of politics. He could be dismissed as a single-season item, good for a laugh. In 2024, there was no denying who and what he really is.
Nevertheless, Trump captured the Republican Presidential nomination easily; and he won the general election with 77.3 million votes. His opponent, Kamala Harris, received only 75 million votes. Trump received almost 23% more votes than he did in 2016. He won every swing state. With the exception of 2004, 2024 was the first time a Republican Presidential candidate won a plurality of votes since 1988. This was not a close election.
It is sobering to read authoritative books published in 2020 about politics and government. For example: Trump’s “mercurial personality, pathological mendacity, shamelessness, open disrespect for laws and norms, vicious attacks on individuals and institutions, intermingling of public and private interests, and indifference to facts did enormous damage to the great office that he assumed on January 20, 2017.”1
Here is another example: General James Mattis, Trump’s first Secretary of Defense; Rex Tillerson, former CEO of ExxonMobil and Trump’s first Secretary of State; and former Senator Dan Coats, Trump’s first Director of National Intelligence, “are all conservatives who wanted to help him [Trump] and the country. . . . Yet each departed public service with cruel words from their leader. They concluded that Trump was an unstable threat to their country. Think about that for a minute: the top national security leaders thought the President of the United States was a danger to the country.”2
The first of these books was written by Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, the former a Democrat and the latter a Republican, both men at the summit of the legal profession. Their goal in writing the book was to provide a guide for “reconstructing the Presidency. . . . after Trump leaves the scene, whether that is in 2021 or 2025.”3
The second book was written by Bob Woodward, the nation’s most distinguished journalist. In his concluding remarks, Woodward observed that “almost anything can happen in the Trump Presidency – anything.”4 Bauer and Goldsmith doubtless would have agreed with this assertion.
None of these three men fully appreciated what “anything” might mean. All of them thought that the nation would be through with Trump by 2025, if not by 2021.
And yet here we are, with 2025 a little more than half over. And now we do indeed know that anything – anything – can happen. The irony of these books weighs on our country like a giant boulder.
As these words are being written, Israel has gone to war with Iran. Netanyahu was anxious for Trump to commit the United States to this war. Here is what Trump said:
“I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”5
Trump himself doubtless did not know either. To whom could he turn for advice? His Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is both weak and stupid. Trump told him to put on a parade for his 79th birthday, and the result was such a flop that Trump “reamed” him out.6 Could he consult his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard? In March, she testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee (under oath) as follows:
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not “authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”
When reporters brought this statement to his attention, Trump said, “I don’t care what she said.”7
On Thursday, June 19, Trump said he would decide in the next two weeks “whether or not to go” (which apparently meant whether or not to send American bombers to attack Iran) “within the next two weeks.”8 What precisely did he mean? What might happen “within the next two weeks” to influence his thinking?
The answer is that he decided not to wait two weeks. Trump ordered an attack on Saturday, June 22. This he did without consulting Congress and without preparing the public. After the catastrophes of Iraq and Afghanistan, this decision is reckless. Trump had promised to keep America out of pointless wars. In this matter - as in everything else to which he turns his attention - there is no reason to believe anything Trump says. The lack of credibility in a time of war exacts a high price.
Trump is a crippled, incomplete man full of self-doubt which presents itself as braggadocio. He has but a tenuous hold on reality, and it is that fact which makes him such a menace to the well-being of the United States and to the peace of the world. He believes his own lies.
Woodward writes that according to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, a key to understanding Trump is the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland: “He paraphrased the cat: ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will get you there.’ The Cheshire Cat’s strategy was one of endurance and persistence, not direction. Kushner was explicitly saying Alice in Wonderland was a guiding text for the Trump Presidency. Did Kushner understand how negative this was? Was it possible the best roadmap for the administration was a novel about a young girl who falls through a rabbit hole. . . .”9
Woodward has written about nine consecutive Presidents, from Nixon to Trump. He concludes this book, entitled Rage, with the following sentence: “When his performance as President is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion: Trump is the wrong man for the job.”10 When Trump was asked if Rage was accurate, he said, “It’s okay. I mean it’s fine.”11
How can one predict the future 10 years in advance or five years in advance, when there is no telling what is going to happen in the next five minutes? We can at least suggest some possibilities.
Nothing terrible happens between now and January 20, 2029. The elections of 2026 and 2028 are free and fair. Trump agrees to step down at the end of his second term, and there is a peaceful transfer of power to his successor.
Polls show that Trump and the Republicans are becoming less popular in 2026 and 2028. Trump summons the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers to “keep order” at polling places. Or he federalizes the National Guard and sends in the Marines, as he has done in California. People are afraid to vote and do not cast ballots. The election is fraudulent.
Trump declares himself to be President for life and therefore there is no need for elections.
Which do you think is most likely?
One of my correspondents concerning the second question at the beginning of this chapter concluded with the following observation:
“If Trump succeeds in holding on to power after his term ends, the future will be in the hands of his offspring and cronies. History shows us many examples of dictators, and Trump is following the playbook perfectly. No one should be surprised. Our democracy lasted for almost 250 years - a pretty good run.”
What this person is saying is that our way of life is on the line.
There are numerous articles and books written about how to revise our Constitution. Hovering over all of them is a menacing question with which we as a nation must come to terms. How is it possible that after all we knew about Donald Trump by 2024, 77.3 million of our fellow citizens voted him into the office he now holds? Many people in our country have problems, and many of those problems derive at least in part from the fact that they have been short-changed by our politics. This observation still leaves us with a question. Why does anybody believe that Donald Trump can make any contribution to solving the problems which our nation faces?
All the architectural changes to our political system, and specifically to our Constitution, that can be imagined will not do much good unless the men and women in positions of power are everything that Donald Trump is not: public spirited people of virtue.
Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, After Trump (Washington, DC: Lawfare Press, 2020) p. 6
Bob Woodward, Rage (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020) p. 387.
Bauer and Goldsmith, Trump, pp 7-9
Woodward, Rage, p. 387.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/06/18/iran-calls-trump-claim-they-reached-out-despicable-live-updates/
https://newrepublic.com/post/196904/donald-trump-pete-hegseth-disastrous-military-parade
https://nypost.com/2025/06/17/us-news/president-trump-splits-with-tulsi-gabbards-assessment-that-iran-isnt-pursuing-a-nuke-dont-care-what-she-said/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/19/israel-iran-strikes-live-us-trump/
Woodward, Rage, p. 257.
Woodward, Rage, p. 391.
Woodward, Rage, p. 1.