Chuck Todd: Trump is burning his political capital quickly
Chuck Todd: Trump is burning his political capital quickly
Analysis: Trump is pleased to have swept the swing states and won the popular vote. But a trap lurks behind the mandate: The decisive voters aren't hard-core Trumpists.
Summary
Chuck Todd argues that Donald Trump is rapidly spending his political capital by prioritizing revenge and culture wars over governance.
His controversial cabinet picks, like Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth, signal instability and risk alienating voters who supported him as a rejection of Biden, not an endorsement of Trumpism.
Todd warns that perceived overreach, like aggressive culture war policies or erratic mass deportation plans, could lead to public backlash and erode Trump’s support.
Without delivering stability and results, his presidency could quickly face the same challenges as Biden’s.
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Todd warns that perceived overreach, like aggressive culture war policies or erratic mass deportation plans, could lead to public backlash and erode Trump’s support.
Why would Trump care? He is transactional, and the people who voted for him can't give him anything more. They are 100% irrelevant to him.
So why would he give a single fuck about alienating them?
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Exactly.
What the fuck are the people going to do? Protest? He's already discussed deploying the military/national guard/police/whatever to use lethal force against protestors/demonstrators, either jailing or executing ones not shot.
It would take a total and complete revolt for trump to face any consequences for what he's going to do, or has already done.
And that's not something I think Americans are willing to do until it's much too late.
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You'd need 2/3 of the Senate to vote to get rid of him after years of party purification - the reasonable people are all gone.
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Chuckles Todd is such a moron. How does someone so vapid and clueless get such position as he has?
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Trump's power is not derived from a piece of paper. That was the Democrats mistake.
Trump's power comes directly from the people. In a democracy, ultimately the people get the last say.
The transactions are far from over. There are many more transactions to come. From as little as continuing to support Trump-freindly representatives, all the way up to not actively rebelling against his administration.
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Trump's power comes directly from the people. In a democracy, ultimately the people get the last say.
Well it's a representative democracy, a republic. Americans had their say two weeks ago and decided the GOP deserved the Presidency, the Senate, and the House. When combined with conservative majority on the Supreme Court, they can literally run the table for at least the next two years, regardless of any buyer's remorse some American's may have. Buckle up for 4 more years of outrage bait headlines and toothless responses from Democrats.
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We've had our democratic say. Anything further response from the people will not be democracy. It'll be the same thing the French people said to their aristocracy. The same thing the Russians said to the Tzars.
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Or... destabilizing things is the point. Hitler rose to power during the great depression. Economic turmoil is an in for authoritarianism, and Trump understands this apparently much better than Chuck Todd.
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Trump doesn't understand anything. He's just a puppet.
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Trump understands that he can do whatever he wants and things will go his way in the end. That's been his whole life.
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Does it work if the authoritarian provably CAUSES the economic turmoil?
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Unfortunately yes, because they scapegoat and use mass propaganda. And frustrated people don't often see things clearly.
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No. Trump will not face the same challenges as Biden, and his loss of support doesn’t matter one bit.
Neither the Republican controlled Congress nor the conservative SCOTUS will impeach Trump for overreaching or infringing on the Constitution.
Even if we were still able to protest, it wouldn’t change the lack of accountability Trump will see this term.
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Neither the Republican controlled Congress nor the conservative SCOTUS will impeach Trump for overreaching or infringing on the Constitution
Counter point: they will remove him just after the two year mark once his usefulness-conflagration ratio has burned out and install president vance ... for an entire fucking decade
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Why would he give two shits about political capital when his fucking shit supreme court started that he can do any illegal shit he wants as long as he's president? He has all the political capital in the world when he's been given dictatorial power that Biden didn't take advantage of.
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I'm trying to imagine how the collapse of Rome would have gone if Caesar had been so limp dicked and useless.
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Trump is an actual terrorist. He tried to murder congress members. His support with voters will tank over the next 4 years and then people will forget most of it.
His legacy will depend on how well his fans gaslight and how well Biden's recovery holds, just like last time with Obama's recovery.
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Which is why it’s a big ol’ four year hourglass for Republicans to make elections irrelevant. That is 100% their plan because while Trump is a verifiable moron, the scum attached to him aren’t stupid.
If you get evil, you hope for stupid evil. That was Trump term 1. This time there’s a LOT of smart evil along for the ride.
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Only 2 years if midterms happen. Historically party in control does worse in those but we'll see. Also more nazi seats are up with 20 nazi seats and 13 dem seats up for election in 2026. House is up for reelection as well.
Compared with 2024 which had 18 Dem seats, 11 nazi seats and 4 independents (including sinema and Manchin). Nazis converted 4, Dems got 1 (Sinema).
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Political capital is not relevant in a fascist autocracy. He will do what he wants.
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Trump is a lame duck president on day one. You can interpret this one of two ways: he has no political capital and will be running on authoritarian fumes for his whole term, or his political capital is limitless because he can’t run again and has unshakable blind loyalty from nearly half the country. Since it’s Trump, the worst option is almost certainly correct. Trump will never run out of political capital.
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It is interesting how people think he has "political" capital, or morals at all ... he was carried in 2016, and is carried now, by a solid forceful group behind him who have the money to use him for their own goals. (Think about it: Trump was one guy, totally outside of the political system, and by himself alone made it to president and destroyed the GOP and the justice system)
He can't run out of political steam now, no matter what he does, and it is naive to think he will be thwarted by democratic systems.
The USA will be torn down and remade into what a very small group of people want it to be, not what it needs to be, nor what the world needs it to be, so kiss that influence goodbye.
Untill they are done with Trump, he will be king and elections will be either "postponed" or clearly fraudulous.
Sidenote: No one took him serious when he laid out his project 2025 plans without calling it that, but it's clearly going that way ... and no one took him serious when he proclaimed "you don't need to vote, we have all the votes, have all votes we need" months before the election... Look and behold: just about the whole country miraculously turned red in the elections ..... And everyone is afraid to properly investigate it.
If he dies during his reign, he'll get to appoint either one of his children or has Vance take over, how useful either will be to the shadow government remains to be seen.
Perhaps it is a despot's lesson the USA needs to learn, and after 10+ years, when the current children turn 18 to 20, they might realize a correction is needed and manage to get rid of the Trump hegemony.
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Didn't this all happen last time we elected him too, and then his cabinet was total chaos for four years? I feel like this is all kinda familiar.
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Yup.
One headline after another about how much trouble Trump was getting himself into by pulling stunts like this, and little to no consequences for it.
I got a sneaky suspicion that the "Liberal Media" actually loves him. They can make millions on low effort rage bait headlines for the next four years.
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Fascism is like fire. It can spread, but ultimately it destroys the things it needs to keep going. Trump will try and use minorities and Democratic leaders as kindling to keep it going as long as possible. A saving grace for the US is that fascists never voluntarily give up power and so Trump's death will likely result in some reconciliation of how we would like the constitution to actually function. Will there be enough political will to change that? Probably not.
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Chuck didn't get the memo
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like aggressive culture war policies or erratic mass deportation plans
That was Trump's campaign, no? It's a bit late for voters to wake up to it or pundits to be bringing up what Harris has tried REALLY hard to get people to notice in the few months leading up to today.
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I am thinking that is the plan, use trump then they push him out for being unfit and too extreme after he sets the groundwork, then the heritage foundation takes turns using the JDVance sock puppet.
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Relentless attack against norms and institutions eventually causes fatigue. I know people who were politically engaged during the Bush and Obama years, but now just don’t want to hear about politics anymore. People are tuning out. What sucks is that they are not properly attributing blame where it is due, and not voting to punish those causing the democratic decay.
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Prioritizing over governance? Fully half of his campaign, at least, was promising revenge, and most of the rest was culture wars. Governance has never been his priority, nor that of the dupes who voted for him. He could come out and say he's leaving the actual busy work of running the country to Vance just so he can devote his full attention to hurting the people he wants to hurt, and the Cult would praise it as brilliant delegation and wish him happy hunting.
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I've said it before, the man steals political capital. When you can lie like he does, you don't need a tit for tat, or even approval from the masses.
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When you can accuse a guy's dad of being a serial killer and they still kiss up to you, there is no such thing as political capital
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I see Chuckie is still huffing his own farts. Gotta hand it to him, he's committed.