Trump is about to have a choice that will affect many pre sidencies

Donald Trump and the role reversal of his first term in office: Lessons from the past and today about second-term presidents

He has another option. He is an iconoclastic leader who dislikes the snobbish class of consultants and who has a unique relationship to the American people. Grover Cleveland was the first president to get a second try at a first term. He has already experienced the bruising tax fight that helped bring his approval rating down to 36 percent a year after his inauguration, the failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the loss of more than 40 House seats and control of the chamber in a midterm election. He promised to fight for citizens in the middle of the night and said that this will be the golden age of America. Achieving that will require focusing on the challenges and respecting the values broadly shared by not only his voters, but also many others who might come to support him.

Influenced by both an inner circle and throngs of fervid supporters, second-term presidents hear the word “mandate” and believe the voters have given them new and almost limitless leeway to deliver marching orders to the nation.

Donald Trump is experiencing a role reversal as soon as a new president is elected. A new campaign was begun after his campaign ended abruptly to earn support from voters for their priorities. The argument goes that this election was about tax cuts or criptocurrency. Sir, what Americans want is less protection on the job and a better safety net.

Lessons of history are more than just textbooks or seminars, they are cautionary tale of second-term presidents as well. They can offer guidance and perhaps even temper expectations. It might be helpful if events lead to disappointment, because it wouldn’t be welcome in the Trump world.

Given the extraordinary degree of focus Trump maintains on himself and manages to promote in the media — among critics as well as disciples — it is tempting for those in either camp to say his second term will be unlike those of all his predecessors.

Imagine how much more will be the case if the president gets rejected by the voters when he’s already in office. There are criminal prosecutions and even felony convictions. Imagine how much of this is true for a person such as the current president-elect.

(The only other president to return to office after an interruption was Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, defeated in 1888 but returned to office four years later.)

The Democratic voting base had been mainstays of the Republican Party in recent decades. Years past, he won states such as Indiana and North Carolina. He managed to enact a health insurance reform his party had long been pushing for, along with new restraints on Wall Street investors. It has become harder for second-term presidents to move the electorate because of the “lame duck” status.

The war in Afghanistan and Iraq lost most of their avenging angel momentum by 2008. The government had to bail out investors in the mortgage backed securities market and sent Wall Street into a panic. Angered and frightened, many voters turned to the Democrats and their fresh-faced hero, Barack Obama.

Nixon’s Dilemma After His First Reelection: A Tale of Six Misfits and Two Deaths in the Life of Richard Nixon

The close election of 2000 showed the ambivalence with which the nation felt about Clinton. The electoral college vote of Florida came down to 537 votes and made George W. Bush president.

Clinton still managed to win reelection in a three-way contest in 1996 but he found the road rocky in his second term as well. The scandal of his affair with a White House intern dominated the news for more than two years despite his impeachment trial in the Senate.

The six postwar presidents who won second terms before Trump came to Washington had a sense of transformation or even revolution because of popular demand, just like Trump did in his first term. The biggest change for the general was the return of the Grand Old Party to the White House. There is a possibility that “Ike” could have been nominated by either party. After Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration as the first Republican president in 20 years, he took the oath that would be the first for a GOP leader in a generation.

But Reagan found himself a hard act to follow in his second term. Having passed deep tax and spending cuts in 1981 and given new life to many conservative ideas and initiatives on social policy, Reagan had to compromise with congressional Democrats to move versions of his legislative program in his second. The tax reform was mostly written by Democrats and Moderate Republicans, while the foreign policy hard line softened as the Soviet Union fell.

In 1972 Nixon carried 49 states in his reelection year, meaning he would have revenge on him later on. The idea of a second-term curse on presidents comes to symbolize Nixon’s ignominious resignation just two years after he was elected. Nixon’s reelection campaign had been guilty of a variety of “dirty tricks” including the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters. Investigations by law enforcement and months of nationally televised hearings in the Senate forced Nixon out on the brink of impeachment.

Labor unions helped Democrats get control of both chambers of Congress in the mid-’00s, as the postwar economic boom was losing steam. The Civil Rights legislation that the Senate passed in the 1960s was mostly down to the midterm. Eisenhower’s legacy was also bruised when he was unable to help his vice president, Richard Nixon, succeed him in the Oval Office. Nixon lost narrowly to Democrat John F. Kennedy.

Eisenhower found fewer dragons to kill in his second term after he was reelected. The Supreme Court order against segregation in public schools had spawned “massive resistance” in the South and the president was caught in the conflict when he sent an elite force of airborne troops to Little Rock, Ark., in 1957 to protect children integrating a high school in the face of angry crowds.

Eisenhower wanted to end the U.S. involvement in the Korean War and hold the fort against the Soviets. He had been the supreme commander of NATO (the North American Treaty Organization), which grew out of the World War II alliance whose combined forces he had commanded in winning that war. For most Americans he symbolized both war and a return to peace, a commitment to resisting Communism but also to domestic economic prosperity and traditional social and family life.

It offers some comfort to those who’ve been denied one, even if it doesn’t change the second term’s luster. Presidents automatically seek reelection if they are in good health. It is the most obvious vindication and confers democracy’s seal of approval.

The president’s party is usually kept together as a voting unit in Congress by keeping the standard bearer to the end of a first term. It should make the party appear less divided, especially since the Jimmy Carter and Edward Kennedy fights over the nomination could be fatal to the party. Not having a clear continuity clouds the reelection prospects of a party’s candidates up and down the ballot.

Presidents who serve two terms tend to find the trophy term more difficult to manage than their first. It is rare for a president to be remembered more for his first term achievements than for his second.

Source: The story of White House ‘trophy terms’ offers a cautionary tale

The Story of White House ‘trophy terms’ offers a cautionary tale: Trump’s second term was defeated in 2024 by Kamala Harris

There are still roles for the Congress and federal judiciary after that. Both of them can be expected to defend the power granted to them under the Constitution, even if they are more compliant this time around.

As a candidate, Trump has often suggested he could accomplish these things by fiat. He will have power to review executive orders issued by President Biden when he leaves office.

Trump in this campaign has promised or hinted at many ambitious proposals for his second term. These include changes in military alliances, deep cuts in federal regulations as well as new tariffs, the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants, and new loyalty requirements for federal employees.

But once a vote is cast it can mean anything the winning candidate wants it to mean. And that means Trump is living a second-term president’s dream. He is endorsed by the seal of democracy. He can live his dream, hear trumpets and think of a lot of popular support for the agenda he has in mind.

The voters were focused on the conditions that they have to deal with. Their viewpoint on the government is the current government and how it relates to them. It is because of this reason that voters talk about the price of eggs more than the fate of Ukraine or threats to democracy.

For some of the electorate, the comparison wasn’t between Trump and Harris, but between their own memories of the last four years and their own memories before that. These voters were reminded of how hard it was for working class families to make ends meet, especially after the COVID inflation spike caused the prices of everyday goods to go up. Trump offered a version of the pre-COVID economy that sounded good by comparison.

The former president of the United States, Donald Trump, was on the ballot in 2024, despite being defeated in 2020. He was the first former president to seek a new term in more than a century. His opponent was the current vice president, Kamala Harris.

Source: The story of White House ‘trophy terms’ offers a cautionary tale

What do swing voters really know about their state of life? A personal perspective on what voters really see and don’t know about themselves – and where they come from

In reality, swing voters in key states tend to tell a different story — one that spotlights the voters’ own personal circumstances, including whether they see themselves as “better off” or not.