Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY I predict that Donald Trump's fall from grace, when it comes, will be swift and definitive, just like former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's fall after partygate. I remember living through Johnson's premiership in a state of permanent shock and outrage. Shock, that someone so puerile, self-serving, and manifestly unsuited for high office could be elected as Britain's Prime Minister. Outrage, that so many people around him who should have known better – Ministers, advisers, fellow MPs, senior civil servants, journalists – were willing to go along with his serial lying, cavalier disregard for the norms of British democracy, dangerous affiliation with Russian contacts, and wilful misrepresentation of the implications of Brexit, despite the massive danger all these things posed for every aspect of the British state, purely for the sake of their own careers and self-interest. I have felt the same shock and outrage throughout the first year of Trump's second term as President. It is not so much that I expected him to become a more competent and honourable leader second time round. His vanity, arrogance, bigotry, ignorance, dishonesty, and greed are too deep-seated for him to ever change. EXCLUSIVE 'Trump Has Already Rigged the 2028 Presidential Election': US Defence Insider Regardless of how people vote, the chances of a Democrat Government coming to power in 2029 is now virtually nil, argues Brynn Tannehill Brynn Tannehill Nor did I expect those in his immediate orbit to attempt to curtail his worst instincts, as happened in his first Presidency. It was obvious that he was going to surround himself with sycophants and toadies this time round, to avoid being subject to any kind of restraint on his behaviour or actions. I did, nevertheless, cling on to the hope that the other two branches of America's government – Congress, and the Courts, would continue to do their jobs properly, and insist on their rights and prerogatives being respected. I did cling on to the hope that at least some in the Republican Party would find just enough spine to raise at least some objections, when he nominated utterly compromised or unfit individuals to critical positions in his cabinet, including Pete Hegseth as Defence Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel as head of the FBI, Pam Bondi as Attorney General, and Robert Kennedy Jr as Health Secretary. I did cling on to the hope that more than one or two of them might be willing to speak out when Trump's actions clearly crossed a constitutional line, or were actively harmful to America's interests, such as his crazy notion to seize Greenland at the cost of destroying NATO. I did cling on to the hope that the battered, unpopular Democrat Party, might be able to shake themselves out of the doldrums, and conduct more effective opposition in Congress. I did cling on to the hope that even in the compromised Supreme Court, the more serious judges would recognize the dangers of allowing the President to continue to accrue so much executive power without pushback. I also, naively as it turns out, assumed that the major organisations most badly affected by Trump's erratic policy making – such as businesses damaged by his tariff policy, universities by his clampdowns on free speech, companies dependent on migrant labour, lawfirms and media companies bullied by his lawsuits – would not cave so rapidly to his demands, or remain so cravenly silent. Though there have been some honourable cases, particularly within the Department of Justice, of people stepping down from their positions in protest at his administration's unlawful actions, I had also assumed that there would be far more mass resignations from his government, as his outrageous actions mounted. Unfortunately, it turns out that, amongst America's elites, fear and self-interest are powerful ba...
