Yuval Levin assesses the challenges ahead for a second Trump administration.
Trump has returned because the Left could not take the electorate’s “no” for an answer and reorient itself. Democrats wanted Trump’s loss in 2020 to be followed by a redo of all the progressive excesses that had made it possible for him to be elected in the first place, and the public did not want that. They just wanted Trump gone. Exactly for that reason, it is vital that Republicans not make the same mistake now. … Trump’s circle seems to think the public has said “yes” to their agenda, and so is still not taking the electorate’s repeated “no, thank you” in all directions for an answer. Trump won very narrowly, but insists he won in a landslide. That won’t end well.
That can be hard to see in this moment in no small part because the people who most respect Trump and the people who most disrespect him tend to treat him the same way: with rapturous praise and public adoration. Many world leaders, and many corporate and other leaders in American society, walked away from Trump’s first term thinking he could be manipulated through praise. Tell the world you think he’s strong enough to do what you want, and he will do it. There’s some truth to this. His desire to be seen as strong makes him weak. It’s how the CCP got Trump to begin his second presidency with an act of abject capitulation to China — promising to openly defy on behalf of our most dangerous adversary a perfectly straightforward law that was enacted to protect our national security and was just reaffirmed by the Supreme Court last week.
That both those who love him and those who want to manipulate him approach Trump by praising him means we are starting this second Trump term in an atmosphere strangely thick with praise of Donald Trump. It’s odd. … Seeing through that would not be easy for anyone, and it is probably not possible for him. But over-reading his mandate is a grave threat to Trump’s ability to make the most of the exceptional opportunities he does now confront.
