The Ultimate Plan for the Next Phase of Trump’s Presidency

Politics

Clarity ‌and urgency about the crises facing America paved the way to Trump’s earlier political success.

(Photo by ⁢EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/AFP via Getty Images)

To the dismay of​ progressives and anti-populist conservatives, the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency is edging ‍into the “likely” territory. Trump utterly ⁤walloped his GOP rivals in the Iowa caucuses, and, with Ron DeSantis quitting the race, the smart money is that the former president will best Nikki Haley in New Hampshire and beyond. As for the ⁤general election, the RealClearPolitics “poll of polls” has Trump
beating President Biden by ‌2 points nationally.

Who knows what will happen in the 10 months that separate the nation from the general. ‌If he clinches the Republican nomination, Trump will face not just his ⁤Democratic opponent, but a vast lawfare apparatus designed to take him out of the race or make it impossible for him to govern, should he be elected. Yet politics is a wild⁤ game, and Trump is a wildly lucky man, and he could very well make it to the Oval Office unscathed come January 2025.

In which case, Trump himself, the top‍ people in his campaign, and the populist wing of the Republican Party should be⁣ thinking very seriously about which policy priorities should define the 47th presidency of the United ⁢States. Doing so can elevate a⁤ campaign that the “defenders of democracy”​ are determined to⁤ turn into a psychodrama about⁤ a looming authoritarian threat.

Visit the official campaign ‌site, and you will find a panoply of proposals organized under two separate headings (“Issues” and something called “Agenda47”). These range from the dramatic (waging war against the‍ cartels) to the sanguinary (the death penalty for human traffickers) to the symbolic (celebrating the 250th anniversary⁤ of American independence at the‍ Iowa State Fair). No doubt, many millions of Americans would agree with these proposals. But what the Trump⁣ 2.0 policy roadmap and the campaign’s policy messaging desperately need is urgency around the most desperate ​issues.

That was the secret to Trump’s earlier political success. Themes and ⁢slogans like “Make America Great Again” and “American Carnage” (the latter admittedly came in his Inaugural Address) immediately conjured a set of crises, which Trump vowed to forcefully address: the opioid scourge, growing urban disorder, the suffering of rural and working-class America, the decimation of ⁤the industrial ‍heartlands as a result of neoliberal ​free trade,⁢ and so on.

The three or four themes identified this time around would then become the lodestars of the‍ Trump policy shop. The major policy themes should​ be ones that can unite broad swaths of the GOP’s increasingly working-class electorate—while, ⁢crucially, appealing to others who may not love Trump, but who would agree with him that these priorities must be addressed for the country ‍to leave behind today’s doldrums. I’d identify three:

First, illegal migration must ​be shut down, ​period. The border crisis is plunging not just the border states,
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