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Is Donald Trump unstoppable?

The Straits Times

|

July 09, 2025

The US President is powering ahead with the One Big Beautiful Bill passed. Congress and the courts have had little effect against his blitz of executive orders.

- Jonathan Eyal

Is Donald Trump unstoppable?

On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower in New York to launch his presidential bid with the memorable pledge of "we are going to make our country great again".

Soon after, he refined the slogan to "Make America Great Again" (Maga). And always the businessman, he got the slogan registered on July 14, 2015, as a service mark with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

This move granted Mr Trump exclusive rights to use the Maga label for political purposes.

The rest, as they say, is history. Mr Trump won two out of the past three presidential elections, or even three elections in a row, if you believe Mr Trump's narrative. What is undeniable, however, is that he is at the peak of his powers.

Most of the highly controversial decisions he has taken—including the mass arrests and summary deportations of illegal immigrants, the cancellation of US foreign aid efforts and the wholesale dismissal of civil servants and inconvenient military commanders—were subsequently endorsed as valid by America's highest judges.

Out of the 15 emergency appeals against Mr Trump's actions that made their way to the Supreme Court since the start of 2025, no fewer than 12 were decided in his favour.

In both Houses of the US Congress, Republican lawmakers are careful not to utter one single word of criticism about the man in the White House, and those who do pluck up the courage to vote against the President—such as Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina—quickly announce their retirement from politics, rather than wait to be turfed out by Mr Trump's Maga supporters.

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