Risk 2: Rule of Don

Donald Trump's second term will not be like his first. Emboldened by the scale of his 2024 electoral triumph and the firm support of a unified Republican Party, Trump is coming into office more experienced and better organized than in 2017, surrounded by battle-hardened loyalists with a stronger sense of how to wield the levers of bureaucratic control. The team around him is more personally devoted to and ideologically aligned with the president-elect than last time: The populist JD Vance, not the evangelical Mike Pence, will be his vice president. The incoming president's consolidated control over the congressional GOP, a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and a more enabling media environment characterized by the growing influence of Twitter/X and populist podcasts will all help him advance his agenda in his second term.

Trump and those in his orbit feel that their first-term agenda was thwarted by disloyal appointees and political adversaries within the so-called “deep state.” Attempts to assert the White House's power over the federal government and politicize independent agencies will, accordingly, be at the top of Trump's priority list. His nominees so far indicate an intent to wholeheartedly pursue efforts such as purging the federal bureaucracy and administrative state of professional civil servants and installing loyalists in roles he believes were behind politically motivated attacks against him, especially in internal power ministries such as the Justice Department and the FBI. To wrest control over the vast apparatus of federal spending, Trump will lean on loyalist appointees, threaten retribution against disobedient votes in Congress, and—where needed—seek to unilaterally rescind congressionally appropriated funding, likely provoking a court fight that could further tilt the balance of power to the executive branch over the legislative.


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