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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Less than three weeks from now, Donald Trump will for the second time be sworn in as US president. Though much of his appeal stems from his disregard for convention, Trump is in core respects a very predictable figure. Since losing the 2020 election, he has consistently vowed to use the tools of US justice to settle scores with enemies. On this the returning president should be taken literally as well as seriously. The same applies to his view that officials owe their loyalty to him personally, rather than to the US constitution.
In his first term, Trump often lost his cool when his more reckless wishes were blocked by government lawyers, Pentagon officials, intelligence agencies and others in the so-called power ministries. This time he has taken pains to nominate figures who can be relied on to do his bidding without regard to rules and convention. The former attorney-general Bill Barr alleged that in his first term Trump suggested that rivals be “executed”. Barr said that he did not worry about Trump’s impulses because he knew they would be thwarted.
Such complacency is no longer merited. The Supreme Court last July significantly boosted Trump’s powers by granting near sweeping immunity to the “official acts” of the US president. In theory this could include assassinating political adversaries. In practice, it will almost certainly include legal witch hunts against Trump’s detractors in politics, the media and civil society. Some of them, such as Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman, and Mark Milley, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, he has repeatedly singled out.
It would be rash to assume that punitive impulse will stop at the water’s edge. Even before taking office, Trump has threatened to expropriate the Panama Canal, which was returned to Panamanian sovereignty in 1999, and expressed designs on Greenland, which has long been under Danish sovereignty. Though Democratic and Republican administrations have ignored international law when it suited them, none has come close to Trump’s contempt for the very concept. The world should prepare itself for a far less restrained Trump in his second term than last time.
The calibre of Trump’s senior nominees should concentrate minds at home and abroad. Of these, Kash Patel, as head of the FBI, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Pete Hegseth as US defence secretary, trigger the loudest alarms. Patel is a Trump ultra-loyalist who has published his own enemies list. Gabbard was an admirer of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal, recently-deposed regime in Syria and often parrots Vladimir Putin’s propaganda on Ukraine. Hegseth, a Fox News anchor, believes the senior US military should be purged and replaced with Trump loyalists.
The most effective check on Trump’s illiberal impulses could be the US Senate. Republicans have a slim 53-47 majority. All it would take is four Republicans to block a nominee. Indeed, Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first choice as his next attorney-general, had to withdraw when it became clear that he lacked the votes. Genuine conservatives are surely aware that the rule of law lies at the heart of the US tradition and the market economy. The Senate should block confirmation of Patel, Gabbard and Hegseth. Lower court judges, the media and civil society also have great scope to blunt Trump’s worst impulses.
Like all strongmen, Trump fears the brave and has contempt for sycophants. He has threatened to use his presidential powers to target those who block his way. Caving in to Trump’s wishes will only magnify them. The US system is about to receive the mother of all stress tests. Courage, above all, will be most precious virtue in the months ahead.
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