I’m reminded of the old joke about the woman asked by a friend, “How’s your husband?”
“Compared to what?” comes the woman’s reply.
Now that Donald Trump’s second presidency has arrived, we might answer the question, “How will he do?” the same way. Compared to his first four years? Compared to Joe Biden? Or compared to people’s expectations?
Reality is probably something less than the euphoric hopes of his MAGA base, which are something akin to the Second Coming (or would it be the third?), but it will also likely be better than the apocalypse that most Democrats and progressives fear. There is a lot of territory, however, between those two extreme outcomes.
On any Inauguration Day, looking out over the remaining 1,459 days in a presidential term, an almost infinite number of potential crises await. Some are fiscal, like a government funding shutdown, the federal debt ceiling being breached, or a recession. Some are natural: wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes, with climate change potentially increasing their severity. Still others are distinctly man-made, such as attacks on America or Americans
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