That Which Didn't Kill Him Made Him Stronger

Here's something nobody's mentioned: in less than a year, for most of which he was out of office, Trump has defeated his main first-term adversaries. He beat Joe Biden so badly in the 2024 campaign that Biden had to withdraw before he was even nominated. But it was Nancy Pelosi, nominally out of leadership but clearly still in effective control, who pushed Biden out. Yet in doing this and endorsing Kamala Harris as his replacement, she left Biden and his allies embittered and damaged her own reputation when that whole new 2024 strategy proved a loser.

Now, by backing Jeffries and the failed House strategy over the continuing resolution and the shutdown threat, she's badly damaged Chuck Schumer's position as Senate Democrat leader, split the party, and put herself on the losing side of another issue with the battle cry, "Listen to the Women!" When the commentariat tsk-tsks over how the Democrats don't have a leader, they're talking about Pelosi.

As I noted yesterday, the 2025 confrontation over the continuing resolution and the government shutdown threat was a mirror image of the same episode in 2018, with a funding measure passing the House but facing a Senate filibuster. The same players then, Pelosi and Schumer, fought Trump and at that time forced him to a shutdown with an incomplete strategy. This time, Trump beat them. Here's a rare insightful take: Trump invented the shutdown vaccine: It turns out to be DOGE:

President Donald Trump appears to have found his leverage against congressional Democrats for the upcoming budget battles in the form of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Senate Democrats made an about face this week and supported a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at current levels until Sept. 30, despite its inclusion of $10 billion in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) funding and a $6 billion hike in defense spending.

. . . The turnaround came as Democrats voiced concerns over handing Trump too much power through a shutdown and as Elon Musk stoked fears that the government would simply permit a shutdown indefinitely to accomplish the goal of dramatically reducing the size of the government.

In other words, as long as Trump and Musk are around, any Democrat threat of forcing a shutdown is futile.

But this raises another question. We can say on one hand, boy, it sure was lucky that Trump hooked up with Musk on this DOGE business, huh? Where would we be if things hadn't fallen out that way? But that brings back the question that keeps coming up about Trump -- it's better to be lucky than good; Trump hasn't always been good, but he sure has been lucky, especially in the wake of the Butler business. But why is he so consistently lucky? I'm still struggling with an answer to that one.

Here's another question, the problem of the second-term curse:

The second-term curse is the perceived tendency of second terms of U.S. presidents to be less successful than their first terms.

According to the curse, the second terms of U.S. presidents have usually been plagued by a major scandal, policy inertia, some sort of catastrophe, or other problems. There have been twenty-one U.S. presidents who have served a second term, each of whom has faced difficulties attributed to the curse.

So far, Trump has on one hand articulated goals even more ambitious than in his first term, yet in at least the first weeks of his second term, he appears to have been more successful in achieving his second-term goals than he was in achieving his first-term goals in his first term -- a notable example is in the 2025 shutdown battle vs the 2018. Michael Goodwin has some insight here:

Compared to his first term, this is also a different Trump.

He has said the near-miss of the Pennsylvania shooter gives him a greater sense of gratitude and a belief in divine purpose.

He’s definitely calmer, more focused and less likely to get blown off course by criticism or resistance.

Also, his choice of a Cabinet and top aides are better reflections of him than his first-term team was.

. . . Then there’s the incomparable Elon Musk, who has turned the search for a more efficient government into an experience for the ages.

My view is that the four years where Trump was out of power made him better prepared to use that power effectively when he regained it.

This is the president he wanted to be.

I don't know if we'll ever get a good account of Trump's four years out of power, except to recognize that he was forced to fight political battles throughout that period, and unaccountably, he won every one that mattered. Something more than luck had to be involved. That which didn't kill him made him stronger.