okay this is weird at the time I'm recording this Donald Trump has recently been sworn in as president and it's just bad look in case it wasn't obvious from the title on the video this is not going to be a pro Trump video but this is what's weird feels like Trump's opponents have just given up so obviously Democrats lost despite all their hopes and not only did they lose they lost across the board but this feels like more than just an election Victory we've also seen the tech leaders supporting Trump Facebook appeasing him media organizations
caving into his lawsuits and everyone from Walmart to McDonald scrapping diversity programs commentators have described it as changes in The Vibes or the great Vibe shift a psychic Landslide with American culture primed to turn decisively to the right the response to all this from Democrats and the left has been weak Democrats describe themselves as exhausted and demoralized and it's all a big contrast to the resistance and all the marches that follow Trump's first time victory in 2016 the feeling on the left seems to be that Trump's power his agenda his politics is overwhelming and that
this is just a new almost permanent reality we're going to have to deal with this I think is a mistaken point of view that overestimates his power and chances of success and in this video I want to explain why in the news generally and especially right now there's so much noise and confusion and so on this channel I try and share Concepts from political science economics and elsewhere that best explain how the world works at a deeper level the ideas that explain the news and so in this video I'm going to share five such Concepts
and explain how they show Trump will fail okay point one Everything Changes in politics so something I've noticed in all the years I've been covering politics in the news is that there are moments when a person or a party's power just feels overwhelming and it just never lasts right now Donald Trump feels Invincible full of confidence and momentum but this will change because as I say everything changes in politics in 1964 president lynen B Johnson won a landslide Victory 4 years later he didn't even seek real ction things have got so bad in 1972 Richard
Nixon won a landslide 2 years later he had resigned people have got to know whether or not their president a CR well I'm not a crook Jimmy Carter George Bush there are many more examples of presidents losing support in fact this is a wellestablished finding in presidential scholarship and as this article explains one factor that accelerates this process is when a president quote says or implies he will do more than he can do something of course we've never seen from Donald Trump that is a war that's dying to be settled I will get it settled
before I even become president and there's another reason we should expect to see public opinion move away from Donald Trump's agenda even if the public has just voted for that agenda this phenomena is called thermostatic politics and it describes the way public preferences naturally shift in the opposite direction of government action a bit like a thermostat reacts to a change in temperature so when left of center President Barack Obama was in power public opinion moved in a conservative Direction and when conservative Trump won in 2016 public opinion went leftwards so it's reasonable to expect support
for Trump and his politics to decline in fact people forget how Trump's approval ratings really tanked in his first year of office but this is a wider Point than just American Presidents it's about how power is always contested and how it's easy to be just overwhelmed by the present and forget that everything changes I mean even dictators who don't have to worry about voters lose their power maybe the best symbol for this point is the ancient idea of The Wheel of Fortune the goddess fate spins the wheel at random those at the top fall to
the bottom and those at the bottom move to the top nothing last forever and that's especially true in politics okay point two you break it you own it in his first term Trump had many more limits on his power in Congress the Republican party and in the people he appointed to his cabinet he faced opposition which is much less the case now this is a disaster but the Silver Lining is that it's much harder for Trump and his supporters to blame others when things go wrong a key idea here is incumbency fatigue whereby the governing
power the incumbent is worn down by the political controversies policy failures and Scandals that are almost inevitably part of being in power and let's be honest there's going to be plenty of all of those the argument against this of course is that Trump and his movement will lie and voters their brains outled by partisan media will believe them but propaganda has limits and populists like Trump often seem to struggle with voters once they have a record that they have to defend in Brazil bolsonaro won 55% of the vote in 2018 but after mismanaging covid-19 and
the environmental issues he lost the 2022 election another example of this of of course is Trump who couldn't win re-election in 2020 more generally we've seen a trend of Voters turning away from incumbents and voting for opposition parties this was obviously bad news for opponents of trump in the last election but now he's in charge the phenomena Works in their favor okay point three overreach in the 2024 election Trump won all seven swing States as well as the popular vote and it was a more emphatic win than many were predicting but it's worth remembering it
wasn't actually a landslide in terms of presidential election history and the margin of Trump's popular vote victory was small other than Joe Biden's Hillary Clinton's or either of Barack Obama's victories also his majority in the house is narrow and his Senate majority can't survive the filibuster what's more Trump's win was about everyday issues with resentment at inflation and concern about the economy being a key voter concern so it's not an overwhelming endorsement but how does Trump see it my life was saved for a reason I was saved by God to make America great again Trump
and his movement are going to over over reach a mixture of overconfidence and a seemingly genuine belief in Divine Mission are going to make them go too far and alienate voters already we've had pardons for the January 6th writers some of whom attacked police officers in the most horrific ways tariffs that are likely to drive up prices for consumers a chaotic freeze on federal grants and loans that then had to be reversed days later and Elon Musk doing this mager extremists of course will love all this but not every Trump voter is a mager extremist
Trump Trump like all politicians has a coalition of support made up of core voters and more moderate less ideological swing voters and much of this will go down badly with this less extreme group of Voters even Trump knows his movement can be too extreme look how he distanced himself from abortion banss in his campaign in fact some Republicans have already joined the criticism of Pardons and tariffs what will make this overreach even worse is that Trump cannot run again in four years time though I admit we can't be sure he won't try but that means
for the next four years the others in the magga movement will be maneuvering ing to be Trump's successor these are perfect conditions for a purity spiral where members of a political movement compete for leadership by becoming ever more extreme and this will all be made worse by the echo chamber of conservative media that will push Maga ever further away from the concerns of ordinary voters so expect to see overreach and ordinary voters turned off as a result point four succession failure talking of leadership contests let's get to the next Point Trump's successor will not have
his Charisma in my video on how the June stories illustrate how power works I share the idea that power is made up of both raw coercive Force how many soldiers guns and weapons you have and legitimacy the belief others have that your Authority is right and justified in the June Stories the main character rises from Refugee to leader of the freman and to do this he Taps different sources of legitimacy from religious to traditional to ideological all of which increases his supporters belief in him one of the key types of legitimacy he uses however is
charisma what socialist OG Max Faber described as the absolute personal devotion and personal confidence in Revelation heroism or other qualities of individual leadership Trump has this some weird mix of celebrity personality dark humor and cruelty that fascinates and attracts attention and loyalty in a way that is extraordinary but that's the point it's extraordinary none of the other magot types have this and when Trump like candidates have tried to run on Extreme magar ideas but without his Charisma they failed and so while a lot of depends on what Democrats do next time it's reasonable to predict
that if any of the current gang of trump wannabes want to win they will move to the center my prediction is that Trump's politics without Trump's Charisma is not a winning formula point five his ideas won't work okay there's a lot we could say here Trump says he wants America to be strong and respected abroad but much of his foreign policy freezing all American aid for example is likely to strengthen China and America's adversaries as we've seen Trump voters care about the economy but tariffs are likely to increase prices and hurt growth hey Trump man
what's one of your biggest issues probably going to be uh inflation cuz I sell t-shirts and all that stuff your t-shirts are made in the USA no my blanks no see that's the thing Trump's talking about if we tax them hit tariffs the same item they're making over there will cost the same to make over here we pay the tariffs well the companies pay the tariffs not us China doesn't pay the tariffs we do when they come in no it doesn't work like that but I guess if I had to pick one self-defeating move I
pick on the way Trump is breaking the rule of law which defined basically is a principle that you have to follow the rules regardless of who you are some of Trump's actions like the pardons I might not like but they were clearly part of Trump's presidential Powers but many of his other actions are not phrasing funds that Congress has authorized firing inspector generals without notice despite the laws saying otherwise shutting down usaid it's a long and growing list of illegal actions that even some conservatives have been criticizing the point here is not that the actions
are necessarily unpopular with voters but that they chip away at part of what's made America strong and its businesses successful in America you have to follow the rules businesses and property can't just be stolen governments have to follow the laws and presidents can't just do whatever they like Trump supporters and lots of us want America strong but breaking the rule of law makes America weaker okay so there are the five arguments of course this is all small Comfort to those affected negatively by Trump's actions in the meantime and of course predicting the future is always
a foolish thing to to do but I hope this video can act as a kind of corrective to what feels like a moment of overwhelm encouragingly there are now maybe signs Democrats are starting to regain the Mojo and oppose Trump's actions but whatever happens it's worth remembering that while Trump's position may feel dominant Now power Fades opposition builds and Reality Bites so ultimately Trump will fail actually while we're talking about Trump one of his first executive orders was on quote restoring freedom of speech but at the same time he pledged to cancel student visas of
pro Palestinian Pro protesters when of course protest is a basic Democratic right this is actually part of a pattern of attack on free speech by the right and in this video I explain why the right and the left should defend freedom of expression so check it out
