He’s back: Thirteen columnists on what worries them most about Trump’s return

David Ignatius: Going to war with the generals

Of the many ways President-elect Donald Trump could damage our country, the most dangerous is that he could undermine the military, the FBI and the intelligence agencies — the “deep state” that he and his supporters have long ranted about.

Candidate Trump talked as if the generals, FBI agents and spy chiefs were tools of a conspiracy against him and the country’s real patriots. It’s a laughably false portrait: Military and intelligence officers are the opposite of rogue elephants. They swear an oath to the Constitution, and they’re sticklers for the rules. If they stray from appropriate behavior, they face potentially career-ending internal discipline, as with one very talented four-star general who’s now under investigation for allegedly shoving an airman.

Trump has made wild threats against Gen. Mark A. Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claiming that he is a “woke” general. Anyone who knows Milley realizes that is a ludicrous accusation. His crime was that he spoke up to defend the Constitution when Trump put it at risk. Thus my worry: In the four years that lie ahead, Trump might try to force military and intelligence officers to choose between that sacred oath to the Constitution and personal loyalty to him.

If Trump tries to play politics with the chiefs again — questioning Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.’s status as chairman, for example — he will begin pulling on the threads that hold our military together. If he tries to appoint a flamboyant supporter as CIA or FBI director, he will run the same risk. These institutions are precious: They keep all of us safe. But they’re also fragile. Trump has a chance to be a decent president. He’s right that the world is too dangerous and unstable, with too many wars. It’s a moment of opportunity for “the art of the deal.” But if he wastes his time on reckless attacks on military and intelligence leaders, shame on him.

Ruth Marcus: We all live in Trump country

I’m most worried that this country is not what I thought it was, but someplace much more cruel and nasty and selfish, both in its attitude toward our fellow Americans and in its conception of America’s place in the world.

Perhaps these results can be explained by a rebellion against the price of groceries, or by resentment about being dictated to and looked down on by cultural elites. Change vs. more of the same is always a motivating force. And yet I fear something more is at work. We thought women, outraged by having a constitutional right yanked from them, would turn the gender gap into a chasm; that didn’t happen. We thought voters would be repelled by Trump’s authoritarian pronouncements; that didn’t happen, either. We thought the country was — maybe, just maybe — ready to elect a woman of color to the presidency. Silly us.

Where to find optimism in this bleak landscape? My optimism is that the Constitution endures; that, though it will be a long and terrifying four years, democracy will be bruised but survive; that we will hold a free and fair election four years from now; and that a majority of Americans — in the popular vote and the electoral college — will recognize, albeit belatedly, that we chose the wrong path.

Perry Bacon Jr.: The specter of mass deportations

The overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants living in the United States are just seeking a better life for themselves and their families. They just happen not to have been born into a country as wealthy as ours. I’m morally opposed to removing hundreds of thousands or even millions of people from the country. I also have a hard time seeing how that policy could be carried out in a way that isn’t violent and perhaps deadly, even for the people with legal status.

Trump might also use the Justice Department to launch criminal investigations against anyone he doesn’t like or who criticizes him. I’m extremely concerned about potential firings of nonpartisan federal employees who perform vital tasks and have deep expertise but might care about following the law instead of doing whatever Trump’s lackeys want. I’m anxious about Trump sending in the National Guard to stop protests he doesn’t agree with, thereby squelching mass dissent.

What makes me somewhat optimistic is that I am not sure the country is as conservative in a policy sense as Trump’s fairly resounding victory suggests. According to the exit polls (take them with a grain of salt, of course), most Americans support abortion rights and oppose mass deportations. Ballot initiatives in favor of abortion rights, paid leave and raising the minimum wage passed in lots of states, including some conservative ones. Meanwhile, school voucher initiatives failed in Nebraska and Kentucky.

Ramesh Ponnuru: A breach of trust

When it comes to domestic policy, we are in an era of stasis. Joe Biden’s presidency has been lauded by progressives and deplored by conservatives for its transformative effects. Yet it did not even succeed in raising the minimum wage, something every Democratic administration from FDR onward had done.

Trump, even fresh off an amazing comeback, will not be able to make drastic and lasting changes in government policy (to the extent he even plans to). He is likely to have a narrow majority, at best, in the House. Republicans have no partywide consensus on how to use their new power. The filibuster is likely to survive. The courts have already implemented tighter controls on how much the executive branch can change policy on its own. Even more than most new presidents, Trump will face opposition and scrutiny every day.

What ought to concern us most is the continued decay and derangement of our political culture and institutions. We are awash in conspiracy theories. Trump is responsible for spreading a lot of them. But Democrats are wrong to consider themselves immune to this kind of disordered thinking. Febrile coverage of “collusion with Putin” led a great majority of them to believe that Russia had tampered with vote totals to help Trump in 2016.

Our willingness to believe the worst of our opponents is rising, while our standards for accuracy and honesty in public discourse are falling. Our loss of trust in one another is often lamented. What’s worse, and less discussed, is that those with responsibility for important institutions — from the press to the courts to the public health world — have been too heedless of the need to act in trustworthy ways. An important early test of whether we do better this time will be how many Democrats object to certifying Trump’s undoubted victory.

Matt Bai: The end of the American idea

What am I not worried about? I certainly fear for our governing institutions and the rule of law, but I guess I’m most worried about the rise of a new kind of nationalism that defines people as less American based on where they’re from or what they wear or whom they love. I worry that voters have legitimized the message, as JD Vance put it during the campaign, that America is a place rather than an idea — a country that belongs more to White, male, straight Christians than to everyone else. That leads nowhere good.

And yet, I woke up this morning hoping that the American left might now have a debate about what Americanism means to them — beyond policing pronouns and categorizing grievances. It ought to be clear that voters (and not only White voters) are tired of being lectured about societal inequities as their finances grow more precarious and the border less secure. (Kamala Harris wisely avoided all that, but she couldn’t outrun her party’s focus on trans rights and fighting other forms of oppression.) Maybe Democrats can find a way to their own kind of nationalism — one that champions the American idea rather than ceaselessly harping on its failures.

Megan McArdle: The good news about non-White voters

Trump has no respect for institutional guardrails, and he will try to tear them down wherever he can. I believe in America so deeply that I think our institutions will ultimately hold, as they did during his last term. But I think they might be badly damaged in the process.

Yet I do see some reasons for optimism. Trump looks to be on track to win the popular vote as well as the electoral college, which obviously hurts if you voted against him but is better for the country than a corrosive split in which half the country views him as the “president select” rather than the president-elect.

I’m also heartened to see him improving his standing among non-White voters. Minority groups tend to vote as a collective when they face discrimination, making their identity the most salient fact of their life. When people are voting on the economy or the border, that means they don’t feel that their racial identity is the most important determinant of their future. That should make us happy, even if the vote count doesn’t.

Eugene Robinson: A world on fire

I’m most worried about what Trump will do on the world stage, the area in which presidents have largely unfettered authority. I worry he will damage our most vital alliances, weaken our ties with Europe and our Asian allies — and throw Ukraine and Taiwan to the wolves. I worry he will seek to reverse the global transition to clean energy. I worry about his failure to appreciate how we should forge closer economic and strategic ties with our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, rather than wall them off. I worry his approach to diplomacy will be entirely transactional and that the United States will no longer stand tall for freedom and democracy.

I’m optimistic that Trump’s presidency will galvanize a broad opposition that blocks his most ill-advised domestic initiatives, whatever they might be, and that formulates an effective anti-Trumpist message that resonates with his voters. After Trump will come JD Vance, with his weirdness and his ethno-nationalism, and I have to hope and believe that by then, we’ll have an antidote to this poison.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: The resistance collapses on itself

Like many of my colleagues, I am deeply concerned that Trump will keep his promises to order mass roundups of immigrants, take criminal action against his political opponents, restrict freedoms of the press and expression, and concentrate power in his own hands.

But I am just as worried that those of us trying to defend constitutional liberties will spend less of our time countering the danger we confront and more of it on recriminations — factional arguments aimed at advancing positions held long before a single vote was counted.

The point of analyzing this failure should be to find arguments, organizing tactics, legal strategies and political approaches that can mobilize a different majority, the 54 percent who told exit pollsters that Donald Trump’s views are too extreme.

I am hopeful by nature, especially about my country. But I find it very hard to be optimistic after so many of my fellow citizens made a decision I see as antithetical to values I revere. The hope I maintain is that many of them cast ballots out of anger and frustration, and had no intention of endorsing the authoritarian retribution to which Trump pledged himself.

Thus, my other hope: The nation needs a movement that includes these Americans who are dedicated to standing up to democratic erosion. I have to trust that the urgency of this task will take priority over futile blame games.

Jim Geraghty: A Trumpier Trump

We should all be bracing ourselves for a rerun of the first Trump term, with all his old flaws turned up to 11, as they said in “This Is Spinal Tap.” Approaching octogenarian status, Trump will be angrier, crankier, and even more erratic, vengeful and aggrieved, ranting and raving on social media and in front of any microphone. The lesson Trump will surely take from Election Day 2024 will be that he’s right about everything, his critics never had a valid point, and he needs to be less easygoing, conciliatory and humble than last time.

It will be enough to make us miss the youth and coherent speaking of President Joe Biden.

Policy will move in my preferred direction on a few fronts: extending the Trump tax cuts, more defense spending and increasing our defense industrial base, and more border fencing and immigration enforcement. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. can retire if they wish in the next two years.

And though the recriminations among Democrats will be delicious for conservatives, no party stays down for long. Someday — perhaps as soon as 2026 — the Democrats will come back, having learned some intensely painful lessons. They’ll probably be smarter, more centrist, less insular, more attuned to the concerns of both rural, blue-collar voters and suburbanites. Maybe we won’t get a full-scale revival of the Democratic Leadership Council, but we’ll see Democratic candidates who are genuinely tougher on illegal immigration and crime, and less convinced that taxpayer-funded abortion at any point during pregnancy is a surefire winner.

Theodore R. Johnson: A multiracial nativism

Trump successfully builds political capital by turning us against one other; he has cited the “enemy from within” — fellow Americans — as more of a threat to the country than foreign adversaries such as Russia. My biggest concern for a second Trump administration is that MAGA’s nativism and rank nationalism will grow legs and find multiracial appeal.

But worry is not reason enough to be hopeless. In the face of threats and fears and disinformation, democracy held. The election was safe and fairly adjudicated in the states. The winner of the electoral college also won the popular vote. For all the concerns about our fraying democracy, the system channeled the people’s voice, and the nation has abided by the result. This was neither accidental nor inevitable; liberal democracy holds because of our faith in it.

That faith is also what fuels the country’s checks and balances. It’s what energizes protest, often led by people who are marginalized or disenfranchised. I am mostly optimistic about the American experiment after the election because we are a people who don’t stand idly by in the face of oppression or infringements of our rights. There will be hard days ahead — perhaps even terribly ugly and destructive ones, as in eras past — but there will be people at every turn to face them and overcome them. And to bend the arc toward justice once more.

Dana Milbank: Authoritarianism everywhere

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government is openly celebrating Trump’s win. “Kamala Harris was right when she quoted Psalm 30:5: ‘Weeping may remain the night, but joy comes in the morning,’” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova posted on Telegram. “Hallelujah, I would add for myself.” She also expressed delight that Trump’s win will “spur increased internal tensions” in the United States — something Russia was clearly hoping for with its interference in the election.

Trump’s second term will almost certainly mean victory for Russia in Ukraine as the incoming administration abandons that American ally. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now a senior security official, praised Trump’s “useful quality” for Russia: “He mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers-on,” a reference to Ukraine. Trump has already said he would let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to certain NATO countries.

Russia can congratulate itself for the role it played in our election, including bomb threats on polling locations in several states Tuesday, coming from Russian email domains, as the FBI reported. They targeted Democratic-leaning and largely Black areas in Atlanta, and similar threats hit Arizona (where polling locations in Native American communities were affected), Michigan and Wisconsin.

Nationalist governments and strongmen elsewhere in the world celebrated what they anticipate will be an American retreat from global leadership. Hungary’s repressive leader, Viktor Orban, hailed Trump’s “enormous win” as “a much needed victory for the World!” Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has dismantled democracy in that country, embraced the return of his “friend” Trump.

In Israel, the ultranationalist minister Itamar Ben Gvir celebrated Trump’s victory by commenting “Yesssss” above an earlier post saying “God Bless Trump.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated Trump’s win as “history’s greatest comeback!” and “a huge victory!”

Most of America’s European allies and NATO partners have issued diplomatic statements about Trump’s win. But I took some comfort in a statement issued by French President Emmanuel Macron, who, after talking with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, said the two countries had agreed to work toward a “more sovereign Europe in this new context.”

That is at least some small cause for optimism: Our democratic allies will carry on the struggle against authoritarianism until America one day rejoins them.

León Krauze: American Latinos found their ‘caudillo’

Trump made punitive immigration policies a centerpiece of his campaign. In his speeches, he regularly threatened to deport millions of people. By invoking the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, he could target both documented and undocumented immigrants.

This cruelty appears to reflect the will of the U.S. electorate, including, regrettably, millions of Latino men. What explains it?

Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times conducted a rapid analysis on X of the Latino male vote, which favored Trump by a historic margin. Garcia-Navarro suggests the lurch to the right might be because of a mix of economic concerns, anti-immigrant sentiment within the Hispanic community (an unfortunately common form of nativism) and the growing influence of the evangelical Christian movement.

Trump correctly tapped into the desire among this generation of Latinos for assimilation, with many preferring to see themselves as “American Latinos” rather than simply Latinos, proposed Julio Ricardo Varela of MSNBC. Some voices in academia have recently pointed to a backlash against identitarian terms such as “Latinx” and their association with progressive politics.

This whole interpretation appears reasonable. But I believe there is another painful factor that, though difficult to measure in polls, might help explain Trump’s appeal with Latino men: the allure of the “caudillo.”

Trump represents a familiar archetype in Latin American history: the charismatic leader, the strongman. The United States had never encountered a figure quite like Trump: the providential man, the messianic leader, deeply ingrained in Latino culture. The extent of his populist draw is now evident.

I would like to say I am optimistic that the United States can avoid the fate of other nations that have fallen under the shadow of the caudillo. But I’m not sure I can.

Karen Tumulty: Keeping faith in the future

What is most dispiriting is to learn that we live in a country that cares so little about decency, about mutual respect, about regard for law and norms, about truth itself. Slightly more than half of us would prefer Trump’s gale-force bluster to sober democratic processes.

There will be people who blame the outcome of the election on sexism and racism. They will say this is a country that simply wouldn’t accept a woman of color as its chief executive and commander in chief.

Others will say that most Americans are just stupid.

But I think the main thing that happened Tuesday was an expression of frustration and impatience with a political system so wrapped up in itself that it no longer hears the concerns of ordinary Americans, much less addresses them.

For too long, Democrats have been in thrall to their educated, affluent elite. They denied that there was chaos at the border, until the impact began to be felt in blue cities. They told less fortunate people that they were imagining the economic stresses in their lives; the statistics, after all, said otherwise. They kept businesses and schools under lockdown during the pandemic, taking a toll on the working class and their children that will not be overcome for years, maybe decades. They refused to see past group identity — race, gender, sexual orientation — to individual circumstance.

My hunch is that this will begin an overdue period of soul-searching by Democrats, which I hope leads to a realization they need to do more listening and less lecturing.

And in the meantime: Will Trump do some of the things he has proposed? No doubt he will. But having witnessed the sheer incompetence that was the hallmark of his first stint in the White House, I’m skeptical that the more radical of his proposals — mass roundups of migrants, raining retribution on his opponents, punitive tariffs — will actually come to pass. There are still guardrails in our democratic system and in the public’s tolerance for chaos and fanaticism.

The other thing we have seen, again and again through our history, is that the American experiment has been imbued with a remarkable set of self-corrective powers. We’ve lived through so many dark times and have come out of every one of them stronger.

The people have spoken. But the great thing about our form of democracy is that one election is never the last word.