What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Second Trump Administration

Preliminary predictions

If you’ve come to “Notes from the Middleground” as a result of reading my op-ed in The New York Times or listening to me discuss the outcome of the election with my friend Andrew Sullivan, welcome. I hope my writing vindicates your decision to subscribe and proves useful to you as we prepare for and then struggle to understand and cope with the unfolding of the second Trump administration.

I founded this Substack in June 2022 with an eye to making sense of the rise of the populist right in the United States and around the world. I like to think the hundreds of archived posts that live here have made a real and enduring contribution to that goal of understanding. Yet the truth is that my prior writing and thinking didn’t quite prepare me for what happened last week. As I noted in my post on the enormity of Donald Trump’s win, I had felt for most of the past year that he would prevail in the election. But I didn’t anticipate him sweeping all seven swing states, comfortably winning the popular vote, and possibly ending up with a majority of the vote.

It's been a challenge for me to absorb and process this information. I feel dazed, if not exactly confused. The reality fills my mind at almost every waking moment. When I get distracted by or absorbed with other things in my life for brief periods, the knowledge shocks me anew the second I recall what’s happening in the wider world.

In attempting to console anxious children and an elderly friend over the past week, I have said the following: Trump was already president once. We survived it. We’ll survive the second one, too.

This is undeniably true. The United States isn’t going anywhere. The country will still be here four years from now. Trump won’t live forever. There will be an After Trump.

The question is what it looks and feels like to get from here to there. With that in mind, today’s post is a preliminary and tentative effort to think through what’s coming.

The Right Wing in Power