A Trump presidency shocked many in 2016, but is now the new normal. Big tech and big business have rallied behind the man they largely shunned in his first term,.
Crucially Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and boss of the increasingly right-wing X social media platform, is at Trump’s side.
“Everybody wants to be my friend,” the president-elect said in December.
Many of the guardrails around Trump four years ago are gone, with diehard loyalists replacing the so-called “adults in the room” who tried to moderate his worst instincts.
The Republican Party is firmly behind him in a way that wasn’t the case last time. The US House of Representatives and Senate are both in Republican hands — albeit with a tiny majority in the House — and few dare even murmur dissent.
“Trumpism is the Republican Party today,” said Jon Rogowski of the University of Chicago, adding that Trump was now “more palatable to a wider range of the political spectrum.”
Trump’s stunned critics have largely fallen mute during the transition.
The once fervent accusations of “fascism” and authoritarianism have dimmed while even President Joe Biden, who described Trump as a “threat to democracy,” has toned down his rhetoric.
Barely mentioned for now is the way Trump ended his first term — in disgrace after his election-denying supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 — or the fact that he will be the first convicted felon to be president.
‘Professional wrestling’
Trump will start his second term in a hurry, knowing that he’s limited to four more years — even if he has mused about a constitution-breaking third term.