‘Trump’s presidency is a brutal application of raw political power – but one we have to engage with’

No one can say they weren’t warned. Yet even seasoned politicos in Washington DC have been left stunned by the first weeks of the Trump Presidency and its brutal application of raw political power.

It was Steve Bannon, the alt-right cheerleader and chief of staff in Trump’s first administration, who articulated a plan for an incoming administration to “flood the zone” with initiatives and announcements to destabilise and confuse opponents, particularly the media.

“Every day we hit them with three things, they’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done,” he said.

Trump’s blitzkrieg of executive orders on everything from tariffs to drinking straws, the Muskian assault on federal staff and agencies, and a range of threats against overseas allies – not to mention firing the first shots in a series of trade wars and seeking illegally to empty Gaza of two million Palestinians – means the zone is completely submerged.

The sheer force of Trump’s return to the White House has sent many of the normal political checks and balances flying. Republican senators – many cowed by the MAGA machine – have surrendered their constitutional duties to wave through inappropriate, unqualified and, in some cases, downright dangerous nominees to senior administration positions.

The Trump project

Democrat lawmakers, still in soul-searching mode trying to figure out why they lost in November, are struggling to muster any meaningful political opposition, and there are no popular protests or street demonstrations. The media, as Bannon correctly predicted, is struggling to keep pace with the deluge of noise and action emanating from an administration intent on intimidating actors at home and abroad.

The only meaningful resistance to this democratic revolution in America is in the courts. Judges have, so far, thwarted Elon Musk’s “buyout” plan offering two million federal government employees nine days to resign, stopped the transfer of trans female prisoners to male prisons, paused the dismissal of thousands of USAID staff, and ruled that his executive order ending birthright citizenship is unconstitutional.

Many more legal challenges to Trump’s actions are in the pipeline, but the administration appears to be relishing a wider fight between the elected Presidency and unelected judges. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” was the Vice President JD Vance’s chilling warning on X last weekend.

READ MORE: ‘Starmer must learn from Trump: Act fast, prioritise visible change, and keep showing voters you’re on their side’

There is confidence, too, that the conservative-majority Supreme Court will embrace the legal notion of “unitary executive theory” to rebalance constitutional power in the President’s favour if and when some of these cases are heard there.

This is why the conservative Right in the US sees this as a unique moment that can begin to reshape the country for generations to come. In the words of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the plan is to reverse “the long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions” and to “restore our Republic to its original moorings”.

For those that haven’t been paying attention, Project 2025 set out sweeping changes to the federal government “behemoth” that had been “weaponized against American citizens and conservative values. The solution, it said, was “not to tinker with this or that government program, to replace this or that bureaucrat. These are problems not of technocratic efficiency but of national sovereignty and constitutional governance. We solve them not by trimming and reshaping the leaves but by ripping out the trees – root and branch.”

During the election campaign, Trump publicly distanced himself from the right-wing think tank’s 900-page document, first published in 2023. But many of its contributors – including Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller – are now senior members of the President’s inner circle.

And an analysis by Politico demonstrates how influential Project 2025 has already been on shaping early executive orders issued on social issues, immigration, government staffing, energy, foreign affairs and the economy.

A new form of politics

Perhaps the biggest threat to this long-term ideological project is Trump himself, given that he can only serve four more years. Will his priority be to establish secure foundations for a generational cultural revolution as many around him dream of or will it be to use this crowning period to pursue his own personal interests and legacy?

His refusal to endorse Vance as his successor in the last few days appeared to suggest the latter.

There are wider tensions, too, within Team Trump that will emerge over time – between the libertarians and the nativists, between the market enthusiasts and protectionists, between big tech and the anti-corporates, between the isolationists and foreign policy hawks. For now, though, all these interests are aligned around the elected monarch.

Into this swirling maelstrom has entered the UK’s new ambassador, Peter (Lord) Mandelson, a politician never one to duck a challenge but whose role in turning around the Labour Party in the 1980s pales in comparison to his task ahead to secure British interests in today’s US.

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Few understand political power and its deployment more than the former EU trade commissioner and he will instinctively understand the way the Trump operation works. Yes, his appointment carries risk – controversy has never been too far from Mandelson  – but, as our new man in DC completes his first full week in Massachusetts Avenue, he knows that winning influence in this White House would represent the pinnacle of his long and varied career.

Like them or not, many of Trump’s decisions over the next four years are likely to have a significant impact on the UK, on our politics, our prosperity and our security. Mandelson and Keir Starmer know that getting close and personal, and thinking big on the issues that matter, will be essential to gain diplomatic impact. We must hope they can.

It is clear now that we in the West are living through the beginning of a major change in international order with the world’s greatest military and economic power turning away from the collective rules and norms that have been in place for decades.

Trump is both a product and cause of a new form of democratic politics that elevates emotion over logic, noise over reason and power over justice. It represents a dire threat not just to progressive politics but to mainstream democratic politics too. How we understand it, deal with it and, where necessary, challenge it will be a defining cause.

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