Looking back on last year’s politics is the same as predicting next year’s politics. It’s not beautiful.
Donald Trump, as president again, will of course dominate the news in 2025, but he’s likely to do so in 2024 as well (and as far as I remember, it seems that way). A year ago, he re-established a deadly grip on the Republican Party since January. It was revealed on the 6th that he effectively ended his presidential nomination in January after back-to-back knockouts in Iowa and New Hampshire. Baker’s dozen or so Republicans bravely joined the campaign, but they didn’t actually run against him.
“The fear[of Trump]is very evident” among Republicans, lamented former House Speaker Paul Ryan. That’s truer than ever, now that President Trump has made an improbable comeback from defeat and humiliation.
He scrutinized the campaign, first against President Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris, and he also served as a criminal defendant, splitting his time between one trial and the legal battle over three other charges. He became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a felony, but practiced a platform of electoral victimhood and retribution.
Given that Republicans hold majorities in both the House and Senate, Trump will likely continue to control Congress in the new year. But their margins are so narrow and the gulf so deep that neither they nor Mr. Trump can really control it. Enacting legislation will be extremely difficult or, in many cases, will not pass at all. That’s good news, given that Republicans are pushing for deeper tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, as well as spending cuts for programs that all Americans depend on.
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This month, we got an early taste of the turmoil ahead with Congress’ humiliating final lame-duck battle over government funding. House Republicans nearly provoked a federal shutdown, again blaming the dysfunction and sectarianism that had plagued them all year, resulting in the least productive Congress since the Great Depression (especially against Biden’s impeachment). (because attachment failed). Having made U.S. history for the first time in the just-concluded Congress by ousting former Bakersfield Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker, some House Republicans (and allies in Trumpland) are already calling out Louisiana’s Mike McCarthy. Chairman Johnson predicts that the new Congress will not survive.
But it wasn’t all Johnson’s fault that Congress adjourned so clownishly. That was largely due to 11-hour arbitrary interference between Trump and his unelected “first buddy” Elon Musk.
First, Musk blasted the bipartisan funding bill — calling it a “crime” against X, spreading falsehoods about its contents, and even threatening the re-election of Republican senators. (In addition to previous threats against Republican senators who oppose President Trump’s Cabinet nominees.)
Read more: Calmus: A peaceful transfer of power — we can thank President Biden
Trump, not one to let a man riding shotgun take the reins, then demanded that Republicans vote against any budget that did not abolish the national debt ceiling. In the end, they actually rebelled against him and passed a bill that didn’t mention the debt limit.
But the fight over the debt ceiling will soon resume. The Treasury Department announced Friday that it will need to take “extraordinary measures” to move closer to January’s borrowing limit until Congress and the president take action.
I have long advocated for lifting the debt limit, a World War I-era anachronism, but not for the same reasons as Mr. Trump. Mine: The debt limit does not limit spending. Congress and the President have already approved the fund. This allows members of Congress, mostly Republicans, to pretend to be fiscal conservatives by voting against spending and tax cuts that have caused debt, even though they have voted for them in the past. It will only confuse the process (we know that most Democrats will vote no to prevent a default). Why Trump? He wanted to avoid a debt limit battle next year when his priorities, tax cuts and unlimited spending on mass deportations, would increase the deficit.
Read more: Kalms: President Trump’s budget cutters are setting us up to fail
Whatever the logic, repealing the 107-year-old Debt Limitation Act is not something Congress should be scrambling to deal with at the last minute. And the truth is, Republicans don’t want to abandon their demagogue pillar. They proved it by saying no to Trump.
Next season’s showdown is just another skirmish in the emerging multi-front “MAGA civil war,” as Axios calls it. Pay particular attention to the immigration policy battle between immigrant-friendly Silicon Valley tech companies and “America First” anti-immigrant hardliners.
Again, we got a pre-inauguration preview. Entrepreneur and provocateur Vivek Ramaswamy, chosen along with Musk to advise President Trump on cuts to both federal spending and regulation, incited the Christmas Day MAGA riot on social media and made anti-India rants. I threw up. He called for the United States to admit more skilled foreign workers. For too long, American culture has “worshipped mediocrity over excellence,” he posted. The South African-born billionaire similarly became the target of xenophobic abuse when Musk tried to mediate.
Speaking of Musk, look out for the inevitable clash of egos between his and Trump in 2025.
Then there are the Democrats on the sidelines.
Although Biden will be out of the public eye, it already appears that he will be in charge for much of 2024. After delivering a fiery State of the Union address in March, Mr. Biden appeared so agitated at the debate with Mr. Trump in June that he was forced to leave the chamber amid backlash from his party. ticket. After the election, the clearly exasperated president “quietly resigned,” marking a sad end to what had been a consequential first few years of his presidency.
Yes, Democrats will be in the minority in Congress. But as 2024 has shown, passing significant government funding legislation requires Republican support, allowing Democrats to gain influence over the final product. Democrats, on the other hand, will spend 2025 doing what many of them longed to do in 2024: finding new leadership, new direction, and new ideas.
There’s one thing Democrats can count on before the 2026 midterm congressional elections. That means the Democrats will look better than the Republicans to many voters after the coming disruption of all-Republican governance.
@jackiekcalmes
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
