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Second terms are not always good ones. Knowing that you’re not going to be before the electorate again can mean that the leader is free to do whatever they want– good or bad. They can be disregarded as a lame duck for some of the time, and given the fact that most Presidents lose control of one or both houses of Congress in the off-year election, there’s little time to make a lasting impact.
Unless you can impact generations by investing in the future:
[T]here is at least one other clearly discernible theme that emerges when one considers all those who Trump has picked to surround himself with: Many of these people are young.
Gabbard is 43. Hegseth 44. Gaetz is 42. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations, is 40. Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick for Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is 44. Vivek Ramaswamy, who will manage the newly announced Department of Government Efficiency alongside Elon Musk, is 39. Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, isn’t exactly an old geezer at 53; ditto his fellow Floridian Michael Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security advisor, who is 50. And lest we forget, Trump’s own running mate and soon-to-be vice president, JD Vance, just turned 40 a few months ago.
That is a lot of high-ranking young — or at least comparatively young — people. And there are still many top positions in the second Trump administration that remain unannounced, raising the distinct possibility of even more young blood getting tapped for powerful leadership positions. What exactly is going on here?
Trump, it seems, is not merely interested this time around in draining the swamp once and for all. He will not be content with just finishing the unfinished work of truly making America great again. Rather, he has a greater goal in mind: He is trying to foster an intergenerational legacy and solidify MAGA as America’s dominant early-to-mid-21st-century political movement.
Donald Trump Is Set to Make MAGA America’s Defining Political Movement
This is where it’s hard to say that Trump is only in it for himself. He’s doing what he has done with this business and in other areas of his life: Prepare for the next generation to take over.
What if we see an entirely different Trump Presidency, where the people in front of the cameras and announcing the policy isn’t Trump himself, from Truth Social, but are the people around him, proposing their big ideas, trying out their individual paths, and forging a way forward that is under Trump’s leadership, but is their own person. What if we’re seeing the ultimate team in action– and something we didn’t get to see the first time as Russia, Russia, Russia was all the rage.
Now, that would be something even greater than what he did on election night 2024. The ultimate end of Trump’s arc, and an opening to the future to follow.
