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I predict that Donald Trump’s fall from grace, when it comes, will be swift and definitive, just like former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s fall after partygate.
I remember living through Johnson’s premiership in a state of permanent shock and outrage. Shock, that someone so puerile, self-serving, and manifestly unsuited for high office could be elected as Britain’s Prime Minister. Outrage, that so many people around him who should have known better – Ministers, advisers, fellow MPs, senior civil servants, journalists – were willing to go along with his serial lying, cavalier disregard for the norms of British democracy, dangerous affiliation with Russian contacts, and wilful misrepresentation of the implications of Brexit, despite the massive danger all these things posed for every aspect of the British state, purely for the sake of their own careers and self-interest.
I have felt the same shock and outrage throughout the first year of Trump’s second term as President.
It is not so much that I expected him to become a more competent and honourable leader second time round. His vanity, arrogance, bigotry, ignorance, dishonesty, and greed are too deep-seated for him to ever change.
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Nor did I expect those in his immediate orbit to attempt to curtail his worst instincts, as happened in his first Presidency. It was obvious that he was going to surround himself with sycophants and toadies this time round, to avoid being subject to any kind of restraint on his behaviour or actions.
I did, nevertheless, cling on to the hope that the other two branches of America’s government – Congress, and the Courts, would continue to do their jobs properly, and insist on their rights and prerogatives being respected.
I did cling on to the hope that at least some in the Republican Party would find just enough spine to raise at least some objections, when he nominated utterly compromised or unfit individuals to critical positions in his cabinet, including Pete Hegseth as Defence Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel as head of the FBI, Pam Bondi as Attorney General, and Robert Kennedy Jr as Health Secretary.
I did cling on to the hope that more than one or two of them might be willing to speak out when Trump’s actions clearly crossed a constitutional line, or were actively harmful to America’s interests, such as his crazy notion to seize Greenland at the cost of destroying NATO.
I did cling on to the hope that the battered, unpopular Democrat Party, might be able to shake themselves out of the doldrums, and conduct more effective opposition in Congress.
I did cling on to the hope that even in the compromised Supreme Court, the more serious judges would recognize the dangers of allowing the President to continue to accrue so much executive power without pushback.
I also, naively as it turns out, assumed that the major organisations most badly affected by Trump’s erratic policy making – such as businesses damaged by his tariff policy, universities by his clampdowns on free speech, companies dependent on migrant labour, lawfirms and media companies bullied by his lawsuits – would not cave so rapidly to his demands, or remain so cravenly silent.
Though there have been some honourable cases, particularly within the Department of Justice, of people stepping down from their positions in protest at his administration’s unlawful actions, I had also assumed that there would be far more mass resignations from his government, as his outrageous actions mounted.
Unfortunately, it turns out that, amongst America’s elites, fear and self-interest are powerful barriers to ethical action.
But, where America’s elites have largely failed, America’s ordinary citizens are beginning to make their opposition to Trump known. And, though it may be wishful thinking, it feels to me that, with the unjust killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota last weekend, coming barely two weeks after the equally unjustifiable killing of Renee Good in the same city, the balance of public opinion has shifted decisively against Trump.
This is not just borne out by opinion polls, which have shown steadily growing hostility to the administration’s actions on both immigration and foreign policy, and declining support for the President personally.
It is evident from the growing expressions of public support for the people of Minneapolis, who have been enduring violent intimidation and harassment by the Customs and Border Police and ICE agents for weeks now. It is increasingly clear that for the vast majority of Americans, even many of those who originally supported the administration’s tough stance on immigration, ICE’s actions have crossed the line.
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Above all, it is evident from the widespread anger felt by most Americans at the way the administration has tried to cover up the unjustified killings of Good and Pretti, and blame the victims themselves. As with Boris Johnson over Partygate, it’s not so much the original offense which has got so many ordinary Americans worked up, but the gaslighting and attempted cover-up.
I know Americans. They can be a tough and unsentimental lot. Their instinct is to support law enforcement, and not be overly fussed by the frequently lethal measures used by America’s police forces, which many Europeans find horrific. As reflected in the continuing low support for the Democrat Party, many Americans also remain hostile to left wing, progressive causes, and unsympathetic to agitators.
But, like most people everywhere, Americans don’t like being lied to. They don’t like being treated like idiots. They don’t like being asked to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes, as has occurred with the Administration’s wildly dishonest narratives over what happened to Good and Pretti.
Most Americans also don’t like the idea that ordinary, law abiding citizens, can be gunned down purely for exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech. They really don’t like the idea that this can include a 37-year-old mother, returning from dropping off her kid at school, and a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, who looked after America’s hallowed veterans. Americans know this could have been any one of t