Trump 2025.. Features of the Second Presidency

There is one difference between Donald Trump’s first term and his return to the White House in 2025: This time, he appears more in control and prepared. Despite the radical measures he has taken in his first weeks in office, his opposition seems more muted and less focused.

In 2016, Trump, despite his victory, was not yet the master of the Republican Party, finding the party’s “old guard” insufficiently conservative, a personal embarrassment, and too volatile to lead the venerable party. The Make America Great Again movement had not yet been able to mobilize its followers to pressure members of Congress to fully embrace Trump and his agenda.

But that has clearly changed. Trump’s control over the Republican Party, its apparatus, and its members in Congress is now complete. His opponents have been silenced or disappeared from the scene.

In 2017, to shore up confidence in his administration, he appointed some senior and respected figures to key positions, some of whom have sometimes served as a buffer against his tendency toward unpredictable behavior.

The White House team and cabinet in 2025 are more volatile and less qualified for their positions than were the 2017 appointments. The first and foremost qualification now is long-term loyalty to Trump—or sufficient apologies and groveling for any past opposition.

The most important difference between Trump 2017 and Trump 2025 is a clearer agenda and a greater willingness to enforce it.

When Ronald Reagan won in 1980, he arrived in Washington with a well-crafted plan, designed by the Heritage Foundation, to reshape the federal government along conservative lines. In 2017, Trump entered the White House with a host of ideas and complaints, but no clear plan for implementation.

In 2025, there will be many of the same ideas, complaints, and actions as there were in 2017, but now they will be bolder, more thoughtful, and backed by broad implementation plans prepared by the same Reagan-era Heritage Foundation.

Just as Heritage helped recruit hundreds of conservatives for the Reagan administration, this year it boasts tens of thousands of vetted individuals waiting to serve in the new Trump administration.

Trump and his “missions man,” Elon Musk, are moving to radically change the institutions and workforce of the federal government. Entire agencies have been shuttered, and tens of thousands of employees have been fired or furloughed, paving the way for a Trump takeover in 2025 that he failed to achieve in 2017.

Another difference is that Trump’s election in 2016 was met with a massive wave of mass protests—from advocates for women’s rights and immigrants, to supporters of stricter gun laws, to those demanding an end to police violence. The protests after last November’s election lacked the numbers and emotional intensity of Trump’s first term.

The threat to democracy posed by Trump 2025 and the Trump/Musk “reform” approach is clear. But far less attention has been paid to the public’s reaction to these developments. A recent Washington Post poll suggests that American voters remain as divided as ever—45 percent approve of Trump’s performance, while 53 percent disapprove. Significantly, more people “strongly disapprove” than “strongly approve.”

So why the lack of a public backlash? Trump and Musk’s “shock and awe” attacks on so many targets in just a few days have left the opposition confused and demoralized. Add to that the lack of Democratic leadership. One Democratic Party elected leader explained that his party’s approach is simply to propose amendments to Trump’s budget bills to show that the GOP wants to cut taxes for the rich while imposing greater burdens on the working class. This, he said, would lead to Trump’s unpopularity, which would enable Democrats to retake Congress in 2026.

Ultimately, polls show that while Trump’s supporters like his bold actions, they want lower prices and a curb on inflation, as Trump promised during his campaign. But his use of tariffs and mass deportations of immigrants will inevitably lead to higher prices. And if the daily lives of his supporters don’t improve, the results of a second Trump presidency could be worse than the first.