By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

The previous Commentary in this series laid out the unknowns – known and unknown — that will characterize the Trump presidency. But amidst the uncertainty, the main thrusts of the Trump regime are increasingly clear.

Protester against Trump, July 13, 2017. Photo credit: Alisdare Hickson, Wikimedia Commons, CC by-SA 2.0.

Within the context of the larger unknowns, it is evident that the presidency of Donald Trump is ushering in a period of chaos, impoverishment, cruelty, and war. MAGA will attempt to intimidate and silence all who attempt to hold Trump and Trumpism accountable for the horrors they bring about. Like other efforts to impose tyranny, it will attempt to eliminate all potential barriers to the policies and whims of Trump and his followers.

We can reasonably expect that Donald Trump will continue to be a self-aggrandizing person pursuing his own wealth and power. We know that the Trump administration will continue to be filled with people pursuing their personal interests and those of a mélange of political cliques, corporations, industries, and foreign countries. Trumpism also incorporates a broader rightwing vision of restructuring the institutions of American society to eliminate all barriers to the self-aggrandizement of the rich and powerful. When Trump feels vulnerable, we can count on him to resort to “alarms and diversions” intended to distract from any tendency of the people to awaken to reality – witness his ludicrous claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating their neighbors’ dogs and cats, his absurd assertion that the climate change-caused fires in Los Angeles were actually caused by measures protecting endangered fish, and his proposed annexation of Greenland and perhaps even Canada. 

Based on the statements and records of Trump and those around him, we can expect four main foci of MAGA action: 

• attacks on anything that might potentially limit MAGA power;
• scapegoating and oppression of stigmatized groups; 
• redistribution of wealth upward; and 
• attacks on the world and its peoples, ostensibly designed to increase American wealth and power, but often in fact aiming to aggrandize Trump’s ego and political support and to create wealth for a favored few. 

Attacks on barriers to MAGA power

Crowd of Trump supporters marching on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, ultimately leading the building being breached and several deaths. Photo credit: TapTheForwardAssist, Wikimedia Commons, CC by-SA 4.0.

• Democratic institutions are likely to be under continuous attack in what will amount to a “creeping coup.” The plans for crippling and even dismantling all limits on presidential power have been laid out in detail in The 2025 Project, which Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele described as a blueprint for autocracy. “It’s a direct copy of the plan that Viktor Orban used to take over the Hungarian government in 2010.” It includes placing all independent government agencies, including the FBI and Department of Justice, under direct presidential control; purging government employees considered “disloyal” to the president; and deploying the military against American citizens under the Insurrection Act [1]. Trump’s creeping coup is already galloping along with such measures of executive usurpation as the shutting down of Congressionally-mandated agencies, the assertion of presidential control of government spending, and opening of US Treasury records on millions of Americans to the agents of Elon Musk.  
• Republicans, especially in the US Senate, have been one of the first targets of the incoming Trump administration. The unsuccessful attempt to appoint Matt Gaetz – scourge of Republican Senators – as Attorney General illustrates Trump’s preoccupation with bringing Republicans to heel, as well as their intermittent resistance to his doing so. 
• Congress, as a Constitutionally mandated “check” on presidential power, is already a prime target, as indicated by Trump’s failed demand that cabinet appointments not be subject to Senatorial “advise and consent.” There has been some initial effort to preserve some of the institutional prerogatives of Congress, indicated by the pushback against a few of Trump’s nominations; Congressional power is likely to be a continuing arena of contestation throughout the Trump regime.   
• The military also is emerging as a prime Trump target, as indicated by his militarily-ludicrous appointment of a totally unqualified, virulent critic of the top brass as Secretary of Defense and the threat to fire and even court-martial top generals. (It is an intriguing historical parallel that Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who foreshadowed Trump in so many ways, similarly made the US Army one of his leading targets.)        
• Civil servants and other government employees have been identified as a primary target. Project 2025 proposed to make thousands of civil servants subject to firing without just cause by the president, and Trump’s first executive orders have already implemented that proposal. Trump nominees have threatened to fire as many as one-third of federal employees. 
• Organized labor is a prime target for much of Trump World. Elon Musk is suing to have the National Labor Relations Act, the foundation of American workers’ rights, declared unconstitutional. The 2025 Project includes numerous proposals to weaken unions and make them easy prey for employers who wish to gut or eliminate them. Some conflict may ensue around these objectives, since organized workers have means of power rooted in their workplace organizations and Trump feels some need to curry favor with some labor leaders, as indicated by his designation of Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Secretary of Labor, in part on the recommendation of Teamsters’ president Sean O’Brien. 
• Science, and rationality more broadly, has been and is likely to remain a prime target. The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and other advocates of bizarre anti-scientific doctrines and practices, may seem merely ridiculous, but in fact a belief in science and reason is one of the greatest barriers to MAGA’s ultimate power. Flouting science, reason, and reality is likely to produce implausible weapons systems that are promoted as means of global domination but in fact will have as their primary achievement the enrichment of Trump’s cronies. Scientifically invalid responses to diseases may cause large numbers of deaths.  
• Limits on violence have been a specific Trump target. Trump’s pardoning the January 6th insurrectionist criminals, his celebration of vigilante violence, and his appointments for Attorney General and FBI director give little indication that there will be any attempt to maintain even a limited amount law and order, rather than “law enforcement” to enforce the will of a tyrant. 

Attacks scapegoating stigmatized groups

Day Without a Woman San Francisco attendees stand on the steps of City Hall, holding various signs and a banner reading “Resist.” Photo credit: Pax Ahimsa Gethen,  Wikimedia Commons, CC by-SA 4.0.

• Immigrants have been a consistent Trump target since his first rise to prominence. He says he will find and expel the 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the US. While he says this will apply first to “criminals,” under MAGA doctrine all 11 million people living in the US without legal papers are in effect criminals. The cost and chaos of expelling even a small percentage of those 11 million people, and the disruption to the US economy, the food chain, and employers’ profits, will undoubtedly lead to multifaceted conflict around any such policy. But Trump’s commitment to expulsions ensures that an effort will be made to expel tens of thousands if not millions of them. 
• LGBTQ+ people, and above all transexuals, have been another prime target. These attacks are nothing more than transparent appeals to bigotry against denigrated groups. New anti-trans policies are already being implemented.
• Women have been a constant and particularly denigrated Trump target. The idea that women have no rights that men are bound to respect has been embodied in the denial of women’s right to control their own bodies, Trump’s flaunting of his sexual abuse of women, and his many nominations of sexual abusers to high positions. New embodiments of female de-liberation may well be in the offing. 
• People of color have been a Trump target from his first foray into the political arena with his false claims against the so-called “Central Park Five” to his asking why the military couldn’t just shoot Black Lives Matter demonstrators in the legs. Legal protections against discrimination are already being rolled back.
• The Left – or whatever Trump chooses to characterize as “the Left” – has been a continuous target for his entire political career. Vilification as “Leftists,” vigilante attacks, harassment, persecution, prosecution, and police and military violence are likely to be mobilized to a greater or lesser extent against any Trump opponents. Such actions are already being perpetrated against opponents of Israeli genocide in Palestine, and top Trump nominees advocate even more extreme measures. 
• Not-yet-identified scapegoats will predictably become the targets of future Trump assaults. 

Redistribution upward

• Massive tax cuts for the wealthy are among Trump’s first priorities, and they are likely to meet little resistance from purportedly conservative Republican “budget hawks” in Congress.
• Deregulation will enrich the haves and impoverish the have-nots, as well as fomenting market chaos. 
• Government agencies and services, ranging from the Weather Bureau’s forecasts, to public health measures like vaccinations, to provision of education, food, housing, healthcare, and many other benefits have been singled out for cutting or elimination by Project 2025 and Trump appointees, and are likely to also be targets for Congressional action. Gutting of poverty reduction and healthcare programs will lead to sickness and death for the non-affluent.
• Crony capitalism, oligarchy, and kleptocracy will utilize innumerable opportunities to use autocratic government power to enrich those with access to it.
• Economic chaos is likely to result from Trump’s incoherent, self-contradictory, and illusion-based economic policies, notably his obsession with tariffs. The result will be impoverishment for working and poor people, along with opportunities for vast kleptocratic enrichment by those close to power. 

War on the world

• International institutions that offer some degree, however fragile, of collective security and collective problem-solving are priority targets of Trump’s wrath. His regime will attempt to disempower or even destroy the United Nations, the World Court, the International Court of Justice, the international climate protection regime, cooperative international public health efforts, international trade and financial agreements, and similar alleged impediments to “putting America first.” He has already withdrawn the US from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization.  
• Unexpected verbal, economic, and military attacks are a normal part of Trump’s playbook, as his out-of-the-blue attacks on Mexico and Canada illustrate. Their motivation is rarely national wellbeing but rather proving by intimidation and bullying that he is “putting America first” and “making America great again.” They enact short-term political, financial, and ego interests, not long-term national interests. This may be deeply harmful to the American economy and American imperialism in the long run, but that is unlikely to deter them.
• Weird shifts of alliances are another Trump likelihood. His attacks on NATO and the European Union and his support for territorial concessions to Russia by Ukraine, indicate the likely gyrations of his international alignments. 
• Colossal military spending is likely to be high on both the Trump and the Congressional Republican agendas. These are likely to include new weapons systems based on imaginary fantasies of global military domination, like Trump’s revived version of Ronald Reagan’s discredited “Star Wars” missile defense. Far from establishing global US domination, they are likely instead to provoke unlimited arms races. Whatever its military futility, this will contribute substantially to the enrichment of military-industrial oligarchs on all sides.
• Global redistribution upward will no doubt be a hallmark of the Trump era. Even the very modest programs currently attempting to fight global poverty will be gutted – witness the abolition of the Agency for International Development. Perhaps even more seriously, aspects of the global economy that have made it possible for many nations (notably China) to “bootstrap” their way to economic wealth are likely to be undermined on the grounds that such countries are “robbing America.”
• Climate denialism will continue to be a constant Trumpian theme – and his policies will both gut the modest current efforts to restrain climate destruction and radically expand the extraction and burning of climate-destroying fossil fuels. Escalating climate catastrophe will be the inevitable result.

Of course, what will happen in the MAGA era will be determined not just by what Trump does, but also by what various other actors do. That is crucial but also uncertain. Will lawyers, judges, corporate executives, doctors, civil servants, military brass and soldiers, union members, politicians, and others simply go along with greater or less enthusiasm? Or will they at some point, out of social responsibility or self-interest or both, become impediments to the MAGA juggernaut?

Most important, what will those affected as individuals, as constituencies, and as members of society do — and when? The key to defeating the MAGA juggernaut is popular mobilization. But when people will become disaffected and what actions they will be willing to take is not predictable. Some estimates are highly optimistic; others stress the fatigue and defeatism of Trump opponents. Strategy must be based on the possibility of mass resistance; tactics must recognize the real state of popular sentiment at any one time while nourishing its future development.

We have no way to know how long it will take to overcome Trump and Trumpism. His regime and its successors could last for a decade or more – consider Orban or Sisi. Alternatively, they could rapidly succumb to popular disenchantment and internal contradictions. While elections two and four years from now provide important milestones, the timeframe for the struggle against Trump will depend primarily on the gradual or rapid development of buyer’s remorse – or even a Great Repudiation — in which the American people decide to act decisively to eliminate him.

[1] Thomas B. Edsall, “This Is What You Get When Fear Mixes With Money,” New York Times, April 10, 2024.
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