The Most Glaring Weakness of the Second Trump Term

Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday. His first day in office went off practically without a hitch. While the news media argued about a gesture made by Elon Musk, Trump met with allies and signed a flurry of executive orders designed to implement several of his campaign promises. The most dangerous was his pardon of rioters and criminals who stormed the capitol in order to keep him in office on January 6, 2021.

One of the most surprising attributes of this inauguration was the muted response of his many enemies, especially compared to 2017. The idea of a full-scale resistance has mostly dissipated. Democratic senators were seen taking pictures with January 6 rioters. Joe Biden gave Trump a downright cordial reintroduction to the White House. Even the nation’s most liberal members of Congress are torn between accommodating Republicans or fighting back on every issue. Most Democrats have resolved to stand back and hope that Trump’s policies do nothing for the inflation that has racked the country for the past four years, albeit to a diminishing degree lately.

There is one avenue that Democrats will be able to turn to as they prepare to craft a resistance to the Trump administration. By positing themselves as against corruption, they should be able to take advantage of what will likely be constant bribery and self-dealing in the incoming administration.

Americans loathe corruption

The American people have historically taken a negative view of corruption as practiced by their leaders. Accusations of corruption, often backed up by sensationalized investigations and news reports, have the capacity to sink even the most popular executives. Presidents from the 19th century through to the 21st have been hammered on the issue time and again. One incumbent president, Harry Truman, lost the New Hampshire primary by ten percentage points in 1952 partially due to concerns over corruption. The American people may tolerate the occasional pork barrel project, but they have a hard time ignoring constant, blaring news headlines suggesting their leaders are directly enriching themselves off of their positions.

Corruption as a campaign theme can also help the party out of power win back control of Congress during a midterm election. The most recent example of this dynamic occurred in 2006. Republicans had secured close victories in the previous three elections and had held the House for over a decade. But they had squandered away goodwill from 9/11 and the War on Terror through a host of scandals, from the financial corruption of Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay to the sexual impropriety of Mark Foley. As Nancy Pelosi argued in 2006, “an ethical cloud has hung over the Capitol. For years, Democrats have called for an end to the Republican culture of corruption.” By hammering home the corruption theme, Democrats were able to sweep both houses of Congress and set themselves up for a veto-proof supermajority during Barack Obama’s first two years in office.

A proven playbook

Democrats will have plenty of opportunities to repeat the 2006 playbook over the next two years. It is obvious that Trump’s second term in office will be just as crooked as the first. The symbol of this venality was his decision to launch a memecoin in recent days, one that would give anyone an untraceable way to line Trump”s bank account. In addition to its potential for corruption, the coin has the potential to bankrupt thousands of supporters as a result of the inherent volatility of an asset with no underlying value. The Trump coin will be only one of many vehicles for peddling influence and allowing for corruption under this administration, all of which have the potential to blow up into a major scandal that will harm Republicans in 2026.

Republicans may be feeling ascendant this week. But that momentum will not last. As with the first administration, the chaos, meandering, and backbiting that characterize life under Trump will reemerge. All of these factors will make it hard for the party to coalesce around a clear strategy to combat the inevitable follies, pitfalls, and scandals that parties must combat to win elections while they are in charge. Democrats may not know who their next leaders will be. But they do know that with Trump in charge, corruption will be at least one tenet of Trumpism they can run against.