8 Years Later, Why Trump 2.0 Is Not Like His First Coming

You may be a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. You may be an American ally or an adversary or partner. You may be a conservative or a liberal. You may be from the coast or middle America or the south. You may be one of the President's billionaire friends or a working-class voter or a critic. You may be White or Black or Hispanic or Asian. There is one fundamental contemporary political reality that everyone agrees on: 2024-2025 is not 2016-2017. And the response to Donald Trump 2.0 is distinct from the response to Trump 1.0.

- Prashant Jha

WASHINGTON:

The political momentum propelling Trump, the spectacle of his inauguration, the militancy of his agenda, the disruption of his executive orders, the expanse of his ambitions, the speed of his actions, the control he exercises over all three branches of American government, the appeal he has among the world's richest and most powerful, and as columnist Ezra Klein suggested in a recent piece in The New York Times, his overwhelming success in capturing the cultural vibes (which has almost made it cool to be MAGA, the acronym that has become a noun) make the start of Trump's second term different from his first.

What explains it? The answer may not lie in political science but psychology—for five human emotions of awe, fear, greed, purpose, and resignation—appear to be at play and offer clues into the making of this moment.

For one, there is just awe at Trump's political success. He may be a felon; he may have committed crimes for which he has managed to escape trials; he may have presided over a deadly pandemic; he may have, quite disgracefully and with no evidence, refused to accept the 2020 election results; and he may have engaged in racist rhetoric and condone violence. But in democratic politics, electoral success is often the route to wash all other sins.