What a shock. Republican nominee and billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump pulled off a historic upset. Aping this past summer’s Brexit, Trump was able to defeat the establishment’s choice for president, Hillary Clinton. This has surprised pretty much everyone, while angering many others across the country and around the world.
After months of the big banks, the big corporations, big labor, big media and Hollywood piling on the attacks on Trump, he earned between 280 and 300 electoral college votes (they’re still being counted as of this writing) – he did lose the popular vote on Tuesday. Because of this, many are pledging to move to Canada, like they do every election season because the GOP candidate is “literally Hitler.” Come on, these people aren’t going anywhere.
Now that the election is out of the way, a large portion of Trump’s supporters believe things will change. A border wall will be built, the terrible trade deals will be ripped up, Obamacare will be repealed and everyone will get rich. Perhaps in fantasy land this will happen, but the reality is that not much will change.
The status quo will reign supreme once again for the next four years: more debt, more spending, more war, more government power. Trump’s authoritarian ways will come to light. The positive from this is that perhaps the anti-war and anti-spying left may finally come out from the woodwork after eight years of being silent about President Obama’s wars and spying initiatives.
Is Trump going to bring real change to Washington as he promised between now and 2020? Doubtful.
Here are five things you can expect from a Donald Trump presidency:
Expansion of Executive Power
Let’s face it: Trump has made a lot of enemies on both sides of the aisle. All kinds of Republicans dislike Trump, and the Democrats will pretty much disapprove of everything he does. Because of this likely scenario, Trump may just dismiss the legislative process and rule like a king.
With each passing administration, the president expands the power of the executive branch. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have all heightened the power of the White House, which is dangerous. The number of executive orders signed by Bush and Obama has been immense.
Unfortunately, Trump will adopt the same style of governance: rule with an iron fist, damn the House of Representatives and Senate. This is pretty much how he ran his presidential campaign: all by himself.
At the same time, you have to be concerned about the expansion of the state. You got a glimpse into this idea from his die hard supporters just prior to the election. You had billionaire investor Peter Thiel claim that government can work, citing the Manhattan Project. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie and John Bolton have never been men to shy away from big government and state power.
Trump’s demeanor and his inner circle are frightening for those who actually want limited government.
Federal Reserve Will Stay the Same
Since the 2016 election campaign started, Trump has been changing his mind about the Federal Reserve. One day he wants to get rid of Fed Chair Janet Yellen, the next day he wants to keep her. One day he thinks low interest rates are bad for the country, the next day he wants to keep low rates because of the nation’s enormous debt load. (SEE: Donald Trump blames Federal Reserve for ‘false economy’ and Donald Trump wants to audit the Federal Reserve, criticizes Ted Cruz for missing key vote).
It is hard to fathom where he stands on the Fed and monetary policy in general.
With this in mind, it seems quite likely that the U.S. central bank will stay the exact same. Despite his pledge to audit the Fed, he has said in recent months that it is no longer a top priority for him.
In other words, you can expect the money printing and the debasement of the greenback to continue.
New Wars; Same Foreign Policy
During the infancy stage of the 2016 election, Trump was pretty good on foreign policy. He slammed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he chastized the U.S. government’s intervention in the Middle East and he presented himself as someone who is against wars. Simply put: he has been less hawkish than Clinton.
As the campaign went on, you learned one thing about Trump: he’s against past wars, but he’s not against future wars.
When you have men like Michael Flynn and John Bolton whispering in Trump’s ears, you can expect bad things to come with U.S. foreign policy. As bad as it is now, it could get worse under Trump’s leadership.
Sure, the U.S. won’t be going to war with Russia anytime soon, and the U.S. may demand NATO to reform itself somehow. However, you can’t rule out the possibility of boots on the ground in the Middle East in an effort to stop ISIS, or some other terrorist group the government will create.
It would be shocking if the U.S. did not have troops in Iraq, Syria, Iran or elsewhere between now and the 2020 presidential election.
Trump-Style Global Trade Deals
One of Trump’s main talking points was attacking the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and various other global trade deals. Like U.S. foreign policy, Trump has been deadly accurate about blaming the establishment for these deals. They’re nothing but cronyist, big government managed trade deals that benefit the elite (SEE: Why everyone should be afraid of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)).
Trump may rip up NAFTA, and may shake his head at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but there is no reason to believe that he’ll come up with trade deals of his own that come with tariffs and restrictions.
Global managed trade pacts only benefit politicians, corporations, unions and banks. They rarely benefit the little guy who has to compete in a global economy. Besides, why doesn’t government need to stick its nose in free trade at all? If an American vendor wants to buy tomatoes from a Mexican or textiles from a Pakistani then why would you need a bureaucrat to approve or disapprove the trade deal?
In the end, Trump could rip up the TPP, but he may just replace it with something as bad or worse.
Debt & Spending Increase
The president-elect has been explicit about his disdain for the national debt. He has regularly brought up the fact that the U.S. government is $20 trillion in the red, plus $120 trillion in unfunded liabilities and expenditures. But his criticism of these numbers won’t mean he’ll actually rectify the situation.
How does Trump plan to address these matters? It’s unclear as he has just said that he has the greatest cleaver in the world, he won’t reform Social Security and he wants to keep rates low because of debt.
This means the national debt will remain high and the spending will just continue to go up.
We know from experience that the Republicans won’t slash spending, and the Democrats have regularly stated that the cupboards are bare (what a joke). What makes you think Trump will take on the debt?
As past reports have suggested, Trump will raise the national debt exponentially, which is scary because when rates do begin to go up then a greater chunk of the budget will go to just servicing the debt (SEE: CRFB study: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump bad for economy, national debt).
Final Thoughts
There are just so many uncertainties and questions pertaining to a Trump presidency. Will he pardon Edward Snowden? Will he end the extradition process for Julian Assange? Will he actually establish a legal case against Hillary Clinton? Will he really make America great again?
Just because Trump is an outsider, it’s important to never forget that he is still president of the United States. When was the last time the U.S. president cared about the people and wanted to reduce the size and scope of government? It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?
Indeed, Trump defeated a vile, corrupt and evil politician named Hillary Clinton. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that he supports torture, he likes spying, he adores eminent domain, he wants troops in Syria and approves of the PATRIOT Act. These policies are the antithesis to liberty and elements that his core support hate (SEE: Libertarians for Donald Trump? 5 reasons libertarians can’t support Trump).
The idea that Trump will change Washington for the better is asinine. Perhaps the argument that he is a better choice than Clinton is the right one. Everyone just has to wait and see.
For now, all of his supporters should be skeptical and not hold out too much hope that Trump is the savior of the masses. If he decides to let everyone alone, return to a non-interventionist foreign policy, rein in the Fed, cut spending and tackle the debt then that would be a successful first-term.
Will it happen? Doubtful.
Many thought things would get better for the middle class with the election of BO in 2008. It has not! I am 60 and the President of the USA has never made my life better, worse yes, I am sure.
It is every adult citizen’s responsibility to make their own life better by limiting government, not expanding it. I do not believe our bloated government will change much under the leadership of DT. It is just too far gone to improve the average citizen’s life and I am not sure that should be the job of government. We are no longer a government of, by and for the people, we have become a government of by and for the Corporations and Special Interest.
Astounded at the honesty in this article; I did not expect it.
Useless cynicism. Trump will make America great again!