Count me among the many who have carefully observed Donald Trump’s first days as president-elect for hints about what his presidency will be like.
It’s odd that this question is still on the table after Trump’s near-decade close to the center of American political life and his four years in the White House. And during the campaign, Trump didn’t mince words about his plans for a second administration. He was elected in 2016 as a disrupter, and his reelection in 2024 implies that Americans are amenable to more disruption.
The most prominent watchwords of his campaign suggest that Trump will give them what they seem to want: mass deportation, massive tariffs, close the border, abolish Obamacare, the end of woke, America First and, most ominous, retribution.
One thing that Trump supporters say they like about him is that he says what he means and means what he says. Still, I suspect that many Americans voted for him while harboring the assumption that he’s really not going to do everything he says.