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The political wire that Trump must walk as he prepares for a second term is filled with dangers and challenges. He inherits a tumultuous world from the prior administration and a combustible internal political situation. There are four things Trump must do to navigate this political wire successfully:
1) Ensure a Smooth Transition
2) Learn from Past Hiring Mistakes
3) Bring Global Order Back to the World Stage and
4) Reign in the Far-Right’s Worst Impulses.
The Political Wire: Ensure a smooth transition
In 2024 Trump won with a much more diverse coalition of voters willing to go out of their comfort zone and “give him a try.” This coalition went for Biden in 2020 because they were tired of the chaos that seemed to follow Trump wherever he went. They want a stable uneventful transition and Presidency rather than the circus, not always to Trump’s fault, that went on too often from 2016 to 2020.
When speaking to these voters many of them just grew tired of Trump and the constant news headlines and felt Biden would bring back a more sensible way of things.
Well, that didn’t work…..and now they went with Trump.
A smooth uneventful transition with solid Cabinet picks will go a long way to cementing in newfound Trump voter’s minds that they made the right choice. To this end, Trump has made some solid choices thus far with Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Susie Wiles as his Chief of Staff, Elise Stefanik as U.N. Ambassador, and Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior.
Some others such as Frankenstein Matt Gaetz for Department of Justice have left me scratching my head. It’s not worth expending political capital on such an unsavory person when it was unnecessary and there were far better choices. He should have saved that political capital for future events when he will surely need it. Far too much baggage came with Gaetz for him to be worth the effort to push across in confirmation hearings. Like AOC and Ilhan Omar, he is more into his own celebrity than actual governance.
I suspect this is part of the political wire that Trump is trying to walk in catering to his loyal MAGA base versus some of the newer voters who voted for him but were hesitant. Overall Trump’s 2024 transition has been much less chaotic, had fewer leaks getting through, and has gone generally orderly. Aside from some unforced errors with Gaetz and to a lesser extent RFK Jr it has been a successful transition thus far.
Learn from Past Hiring Mistakes
With this second chance at the White House Trump must learn from the mistakes of his prior administration while walking the political wire. As the 45th President we saw decent policies enacted but an administration that could not stem the tide of leaks. Leaks were coming from the White House every other day which did not paint the administration in the most flattering light.
Some of this was likely because he was new in Washington and did not know who to trust. This time around he seems to have a better handle on who to include in his administration that aligns with his goals.
For example, in his first administration, he included notorious war hawk John Bolton. John “War Hawk” Bolton never saw a war he didn’t like unless it was one he was being asked to fight in (read about him and Vietnam). This is the polar opposite of the Trump doctrine which generally focuses on building a strong America from within and avoiding foreign conflicts. I suspect he was foisted on him by Neo-Conservative insiders as someone who comes along with Republican politics in DC. Eventually, this came to a head as Bolton ever the war hawk attempted to push Trump into war with Iran.
Trump calling him nuts eventually forced him out of the administration but this is a conflict that did not need to happen if Trump was more attuned with DC politics. John Bolton is now a regular on the talk show circuit at CNN and other liberal media outlets trashing his old boss.
This is not to say that he should surround himself with yes men but if he has a vision for his administration he should have advisors that generally all push in a coherent direction if by different means.
Bring Global Order Back to the World Stage
The world for the past four years has lacked US leadership and the consequences have been staggering. There are many fires around the globe that the new Trump administration must put out right when they step into office. We’ve heard time again from Trump himself that none of the issues around the world would have happened on his watch and that probably is true but the fact of the matter is they did happen and now it’s his mess to clean up.
The quickest way to start to bring global order back is to get the Ukraine-Russia and Israel situation under control.
For Ukraine-Russia that means bringing about a ceasefire as that seems to be the best outcome one can hope for. There may have been a point in time in 2022 where Ukraine could have had something of a win but Biden’s policy of schizophrenically throwing weapons but then tying one hand behind Ukraine’s back dashed any hope of that. Russia is too dug in now and has learned from their mistakes of the first year. At this point rather than having many more years of combatants dying on both sides the best of the worst solutions is to get a compromise both sides equally hate so Ukraine can begin rebuilding its economy.
This could be the start to decouple Russia from China and begin focusing on Southeast Asia which is where the real fight will be in the future.
A well written op-ed providing a rationale argument for what a common sense compromise in Ukraine looks like is Megan Stack’s write-up in the New York Times “Trump Can Speed Up the Inevitable in Ukraine” which offers a good thesis without delving into the pro-Russian propaganda of Tucker Carlson. Ms. Stack writes
“Ukrainians would be hung out to dry, and Mr. Putin could end up attacking again or expanding his imperial designs to other neighbors. Mr. Trump should do it anyway. Dozens of people, and often hundreds, are dying every day in this grinding war. Mr. Trump should seize the chance to save lives. Nobody is coming to save Ukraine. A settlement will eventually be needed.”
Regarding the Middle East Trump brought unprecedented peace to the region through the Abraham Accords. Biden ever the wonderful statesman said in response to these peace treaties that “peace isn’t always a good thing.” Well, he got his desire since war has been raging for over a year. Similar to the Russia-Ukraine war Biden has done everything possible to drag Israel’s war with Hamas out as long as possible.
For example the Rafah operation. That got dragged out for over four months as Israel and the Biden administration negotiated the finer points of the operation. After warnings and admonishments for months that a massacre would ensue, Israel relocated the civilian population in record time and the Rafah operation had the lowest civilian to combatant death toll of any phase of the war. This is to say that this should have been done months earlier and maybe the war could have been wrapped up more quickly rather than haggling for four months on specifics.
With the more friendly Trump administration coming in, I suspect Trump will give Israel the ability to do what they need to do but there also must be time limits to this. Like Ukraine and Russia, this cannot drag on for years and years and Trump must put this fire out.
To do this, Trump must pressure Iran like Biden was unwilling to do, let Israel finish up the last of what they need to do with a soft timetable and then negotiate a final agreement. With strong American leadership we had four years of world peace under Trump, and with a strong President back in the White House we can have this again if he leverages American power to end the current conflicts.
Reign in the far rights worst impulses
Trump’s walk on the political wire will be difficult as he has to reconcile the far right and its impulses with the diverse coalition that got him elected. Some wrongly think that this election was a mandate for him to go all in with his base. That is fine if the Republicans want a fate in four years similar to what occurred to Kamala Harris and the Democrats this year.
The fact is that far from a mandate to cater to the far right, this election and his election were a reaction to a Biden/Harris ticket that catered to the worst impulses of the far left. Elected with the most diverse Republican electorate in over thirty-five years, Trump’s election night win was a call to govern from the center-right rather than the far right like some of his supporters now claim.
The loudest voices often have the leaders ear and as his far-right supporters are likely to be those most passionate, it would be a mistake to listen solely to their wants.
This means not pushing a national abortion ban, a losing issue even if one agrees with it.
Not blindly slashing the federal government with no regard for the consequences, yes the federal government is bloated and inefficient but randomly firing every government worker whose social security number ends in an odd number as Ramaswamy proposed is idiotic at best.
And lastly not leaning too far into American isolationism that we abandon our allies and American interests abroad as frequent Trump interloper Tucker Carlson would have us do. You can have a justifiable position on not continuing aid to Ukraine and negotiating a settlement but frequent far-right advocates like Carlson tend to drift too much into pro-Russian territory under the guise of American Isolationism.
If Trump leans too much into the far-right Republicans will face a reckoning quite like Harris and the Democrats faced this year.
Takeaways
With Donald Trump readying to take the top job in around two months the political wire that he is walking between factions in his own party is treacherous not to mention dealing with a hostile media and an opposing party that claims he’s the reincarnation of Hitler. While many would argue that his first term in office was a success, and it largely was, he can build on those accomplishments for this second term with his even more inclusive coalition. This is the chance to reshape the Republican party for generations and it would be wise not to let this opportunity fall by the wayside.
What do you believe Trump must do to ensure the success of his new administration? With the tight political wire Trump must walk does the far-right pose a challenge? Let us know in the comments below and if you liked this article check out Disappointment And Disaster For Democrats In The 2024 Election, How To Improve
