Where Trump goes, the rest of the World may soon follow
It’s a clean sweep. Donald Trump has won the electoral college, the popular vote, all seven swing states, the Senate – and yesterday, it was confirmed, the House of Representatives.
It’s a mandate from the American people, which gives the President-elect and his Republican party two years to implement their election promises.
Will Trump use his time wisely?
If the President-elect wants the mid-term elections in 2026 to deliver him similar results, he’ll ditch the petty politics and personal vendettas – and opt instead to make the United States the poster child for how the West gets back on track.
Every major economy is suffocating under huge deficits and mountains of debt, while politicians struggle to explain to voters why so many promises were made that they clearly can’t afford to keep.
Yet the Republican party finds itself in a once-in-a-generation position: elected on the promise that it will shake up the state, slash red tape and hurdles to growth, and get the public finances in order.
In the best-case scenario, Trump’s America has the opportunity to show the rest of the world that steady decline is not inevitable; that there is an alternative to the heavy-handed, deeply bureaucratic state that has come to dominate so many advanced economies.
But with this opportunity comes pressure to deliver. Having secured control over the House and the Senate, the Republicans have few excuses not to make good on their plans for state transformation.
Here, Trump runs the risk of being his own worst enemy. Having now formalised his plans to create the Department of Government Efficiency – which will be run by MAGA billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy – the President-elect must prepare to help them make the case when tough spending decisions are made.
The low-hanging fruit will be easy to pick. The $2 billion worth of grants – funded through Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act – handed out to groups promoting “environmental justice” are payments unlikely to be repeated.
Rolling back certain “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” programmes in the US military will be a straightforward way to save cash. Far from promoting genuine racial and gender inclusion, these DEI quotas and rules have been causing adverse effects for the military, including diverting resources away from its most fundamental task of keeping the country safe.
But these costs are small pennies compared to the $2 trillion Musk says he wants to cut from the Federal budget.
Trump is also going to have to work to keep his expanded MAGA coalition together. The President-elect has been in this position before. His election in 2016 was a far more fragile win for the President personally, but still brought with it control of the House and Senate.
But it was disputes with one Senator, former presidential candidate John McCain, that saw his attempt to overturn “Obamacare” toppled. While Trump has control, he still relies on the politicians who check his power wanting to play ball.
If Trump succeeds in making good on his promises to rein in the state and brings Americans along with him for the ride, he will be doing more than just setting an example. He will have created the blueprint for every other country. Failure will be impossible to cover up. Success would shake up the international status quo.