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If former President Trump wins the election, and Republicans retain the House of Representatives and flip the Senate, the United States will witness a dramatic consolidation of new right-wing populist power on a grand scale.
In a column called “Behind the Curtain,” journalists Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen analyze Trump’s return to the White House and its likely consequences.
For them, “A Washington fully controlled by Trump and his allies would institutionalize the MAGA movement, with massive consequences for governance, civil rights, and international relations.”
This period, which would last at least two years, until the next general election, would allow Republicans to act ambitiously—with few restraints beyond the Senate filibuster.
The vast majority of congressional leaders are now Trump loyalists. The era of empowered “never-Trumpers” is all but over, at least in Congress.
Trump would pursue a dramatic expansion of presidential power — gutting the federal bureaucracy and installing thousands of executive branch loyalists to tear down the safeguards that held back his first term.
But if Trump is not elected, he has said he will not respect the ballot box’s choice and is directly threatening the United States with civil war.
