Paul: I don't think the nature of a second Trump term is predictable. He'll be as good as the operatives and the managers he can put around him, and the challenges he's dealt.
On the talent side, he cannot do any worse than he did in 2016-17, and given what he's been through and team he has assembled to defend him, he has more talent around him now than he did then. The first term showed that he was able to improve his team, even in t he face of brutal and extra-legal subversion all around his Presidency.
Unlike Biden, he is not stupid. He may not be erudite, but he has pretty good instincts and when he follows them instead of his vindictive impulses, he steers in the right direction.
The activist base has also stepped up since 2020 and become more professional.
Part of the talent equation is also the Congress, and this may be the biggest wild card. Mike Johnson and new leadership in the Senate would contribute immensely to a successful Trump second term.
As for the challenges ahead, he's inheriting an economy that has been literally torn apart by Biden and the Obamunists behind him, and international conflagrations that threatens to spread into regional or international conflict.
On the economy, he will first deal with energy policy, which I believe is the mother of prosperity. Eliminating self-imposed energy scarcity will have an immediate impact on markets, trade, and consumer prices. It will not in and of itself end inflation, but it will move one of the inflationary pressures that was completely self-imposed by Biden and his Net Zero lunatics.
Trump will bray about interest rates, Powell hill hold the line, and that is good. We may wind up in a couple of years with inflation down to 3% and interest rates at an historically normal 5%.
That will not hold, however, if Congress doesn't cut spending, and that may be the biggest domestic challenge. During the Reagan recovery of 82, he wound up being able only to cut the rate of growth and the market responded. Today, we are far deeper in debt and the deficit as a percent of total budget is much higher. So he'll have to do more than cut the rate of growth, which will mean a vicious PR war as the media strikes up its violin section.
Internationally, Trump cannot do worse than Biden/Harris/Blinken. Given his history with Arab and Israeli leadership in the region, and the Abraham Accords as a base to build on, it's likely he'll take an unambiguous position to abandon the two-state solution nonsense that the foreign policy community has insisted on and resume triangulation of Israel and Arab interests against Iranian power. That's the ticket, but it's going to be much harder to do after Israel pounds Gaza and southern Lebanon into dirt.
It may also just be the case that given the catastrophe of the last three years, any President will have an awful four years ahead of him.
On what evidence would Trump be worse in his second term?
Fair question. I'll try to answer it in an upcoming post.
Paul: I don't think the nature of a second Trump term is predictable. He'll be as good as the operatives and the managers he can put around him, and the challenges he's dealt.
On the talent side, he cannot do any worse than he did in 2016-17, and given what he's been through and team he has assembled to defend him, he has more talent around him now than he did then. The first term showed that he was able to improve his team, even in t he face of brutal and extra-legal subversion all around his Presidency.
Unlike Biden, he is not stupid. He may not be erudite, but he has pretty good instincts and when he follows them instead of his vindictive impulses, he steers in the right direction.
The activist base has also stepped up since 2020 and become more professional.
Part of the talent equation is also the Congress, and this may be the biggest wild card. Mike Johnson and new leadership in the Senate would contribute immensely to a successful Trump second term.
As for the challenges ahead, he's inheriting an economy that has been literally torn apart by Biden and the Obamunists behind him, and international conflagrations that threatens to spread into regional or international conflict.
On the economy, he will first deal with energy policy, which I believe is the mother of prosperity. Eliminating self-imposed energy scarcity will have an immediate impact on markets, trade, and consumer prices. It will not in and of itself end inflation, but it will move one of the inflationary pressures that was completely self-imposed by Biden and his Net Zero lunatics.
Trump will bray about interest rates, Powell hill hold the line, and that is good. We may wind up in a couple of years with inflation down to 3% and interest rates at an historically normal 5%.
That will not hold, however, if Congress doesn't cut spending, and that may be the biggest domestic challenge. During the Reagan recovery of 82, he wound up being able only to cut the rate of growth and the market responded. Today, we are far deeper in debt and the deficit as a percent of total budget is much higher. So he'll have to do more than cut the rate of growth, which will mean a vicious PR war as the media strikes up its violin section.
Internationally, Trump cannot do worse than Biden/Harris/Blinken. Given his history with Arab and Israeli leadership in the region, and the Abraham Accords as a base to build on, it's likely he'll take an unambiguous position to abandon the two-state solution nonsense that the foreign policy community has insisted on and resume triangulation of Israel and Arab interests against Iranian power. That's the ticket, but it's going to be much harder to do after Israel pounds Gaza and southern Lebanon into dirt.
It may also just be the case that given the catastrophe of the last three years, any President will have an awful four years ahead of him.