Why undermining Donald Trump now will actually help him

The countdown has begun for Donald J Trump’s second term at the White House: a little over 70 days to the Inauguration. And the clock is also ticking for the outgoing Democratic Party eco-system to undermine him before he gets there. The godi US mainstream media has already taken up the cudgels, not on behalf of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris—as both are a bit radioactive right now, in varying degrees—but for all those who feel Trump 2.0 is the end of the world.

The takedown will be carried out at many levels. There is already doomsaying in the media over Trump’s ‘trifecta’ achievement—the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives will all probably be in Republican hands in 2024. That is being interpreted as a distinct danger to democracy itself. But the fact is, even Biden started off with exactly that same advantage, but there were no such “dictatorship” prognostications about him after the previous elections.

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Indeed, according to the Pew Research Center, 16 of the last 21 US Presidents, starting with Theodore Roosevelt, had control over both Houses of the legislature when they assumed office. And all five exceptions in this period have been Republicans: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and both Bushes. In that context, Trump’s trifecta triumph is truly commendable, but the mainstream media narrative being put out is of a menacing confluence.

Disgruntled Trump staffers are also being trotted out to tell hair-raising tales of the man who will be the unrestrained President of the United States (POTUS) in January. Print media columns, TV interviews and podcasts are already full of their fulminations, averring that the issues which made people vote for Trump—cost of living, illegal immigration etc— will be irrelevant once he gets going: he will run amuck and there will be “nothing to stop him” thanks to the trifecta.

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Add to that a predominantly Conservative US Supreme Court, the stage is supposedly set for an unprecedented period of blatant autocracy under Trump. Stories are being circulated that if two senior Conservative judges retire while the trifecta is intact, Trump will easily elevate more of his choices to the top court, ensuring that liberal judges will remain in a minority for decades. Implicit in this contention is the threat that no ‘lawfare’ will be able to contain Trump then.

There is already talk of what Trump did wrong the last time round, implying that he has not learnt from past missteps and would do exactly the same again. Hence, even the announcement of his trusted aide Susie Wiles becoming his new Chief of Staff (the first woman in that post) is being mentioned in the context of his firing four people from that job the last time, including “four-star general John Kelly”. So Wiles and the US public are being given grim warnings.

Print media in the US has already been carrying scare-mongering stories about how various key US institutions, whether the Pentagon or the Central Intelligence Agency or the Federal Reserve, are apprehensive about what Trump will do this time. Several generals and even the head of the Fed have taken the bait and voiced concern. No one seemed to have had similar worries about widespread changes when Biden’s people took over from the first Trump administration.

There were no ominous stories in the run-up to January 20, 2021 about the incoming (Democrat) President bringing in his loyalists because that is the norm. The permanent bureaucracy is relatively small in the US, and thousands of jobs go to whoever the new occupant of the Oval Office nominates. Presidents would be silly not to staff their administrations with people they trust and are committed to their political agenda. Why would Trump not avail this prerogative?

The delegitimising and discrediting plan could also see the Democrat eco-system and the mainstream media stepping up insinuations that Trump will make a crazy move on Iran, contrary to his proven record of not initiating war and preferring to make peace “deals” such as the Abraham Accords instead. If that bait is not taken, any preparatory moves he makes in the next few weeks to end the Ukraine conflict “in a day” will be shown as a ‘capitulation’ to Vladimir Putin.

That several foreign heads of government have serious reservations about what a second Trump term means has already been cited by the US media with gleeful foreboding. No doubt a few garrulous international leaders—especially those leading multilateral entities and NGOs—will be polled on their concerns about the potential deterioration of the world order because of Trump’s “Drill baby, drill” and “mass deportations” promises during his election campaign.

Finally, there will be continuous harping on his dubious distinctions: 34 criminal “felony” convictions, four bankruptcies, two impeachments, three wives, three presidential runs etc. The 34 are actually cheques (each counted as a felony thanks to some judicious interpretations) and he was convicted without jurors agreeing on what exactly his criminal act was; the judge was satisfied with them just concurring he had done something criminal. But that fact is omitted.

Instead, practically every news story or commentary in the days since Trump’s re-election includes the phrase “convicted felon”, giving the impression to the uninformed (and there are many such people in the US and elsewhere) that he is a career criminal as 34 convictions implies a lifetime in and out of jail. The US media, it seems, has not learnt the main lesson from Trump’s win: despite them harping on his “criminality”, he won hands down. And the US media lost.

So, the sensible thing would be to desist from pursuing that tired line, but the American mainstream media is clearly unable to realise, much less admit, that it’s a case of overkill. Their inclination is to keep pushing the contention that over 72 million Americans deliberately put a “convicted felon” in the White House and the world will suffer the horrific consequences, until and unless the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms.

There is a flip side, of course. The public may become so sick of hearing all the dire predictions by the commentariat during the next 70-odd days about what Trump may do (or not) that when he finally does start signing those first executive orders, they will simply switch off. Peter would have cried wolf far too soon and too often. By trying to pre-emptively undermine the 47th POTUS, the US media could end up unintentionally helping him. Advice to them: dump that plan.

The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.