Reckless, impetuous, childish, divisive, cunning and graceless? Welcome to Trump 2024

Given the scale and nature of Donald Trump’s victory in the Republican caucus in Iowa – and the state of the opinion polls – it is not too early to contemplate the full enormity of a second term of office for Mr Trump, beginning in a little over a year’s time.

It is going well for the former president, and far better than could have been expected in the chaotic atmosphere of insurrection in which he left office three years ago. The “base” is perhaps larger than was previously estimated, and – as Mr Trump himself gleefully points out – every lawsuit laid against him seems to boost his standing.

More troubling for the Democrats, Mr Trump even seems to be slowly picking up a little ground among groups hitherto more reliably Democrat, such as Latino and Black male voters (albeit from a very modest baseline). Meanwhile, President Biden’s personal approval ratings are surprisingly poor, given the relatively strong economic recovery. His party, understandably, must be wondering how things might be under a different candidate – though, with some luck in the swing seats, Mr Biden could still prevail in November.

For the time being, Mr Trump is more focused on what passes for opposition to him within his own party and sweeping the primaries. Long the unassailable favourite for the nomination, he finds himself ideally placed for the next round. His two main rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, trail far behind him – and finished virtually neck and neck for second place in Iowa. Thus, neither is well positioned to emerge even nominally as the principal challenger to Mr Trump and cannot expect much of a bounce in the next round of polling in New Hampshire.

Ms Haley’s chances of capitalising on the anti-Trump vote are compromised by her weak electoral showing so far and the brutal fact that the Republican Party of today harbours worryingly few Trump-sceptics. Mr DeSantis, governor of one of Mr Trump’s home states, Florida, has tried to market himself as an equally aggressive and reactionary version of Mr Trump, minus the madness and the pending court judgments. In response, the committed Republicans who tend to turn out in these caucuses have indicated they prefer the real thing.

Meanwhile, the emerging wild card candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy – who is even more excitable than Mr Trump – has thrown in the towel and thrown his support behind the frontrunner. It’s not beyond imagination that Mr Ramaswamy has an eye on the vice-presidential nomination; temperamentally and ideologically, he is well aligned with Mr Trump (and more so than Mike Pence). He may be just what Mr Trump wants.

In any case, a second Trump presidency would most likely be an even greater catastrophe for America and the world than the first. When Mr Trump administered such a shock to the system in 2015, he was – as he proudly styled himself – an outsider. He was the first president ever to have won the highest office with no prior political or military experience. Politically, that proved an asset; in office, it became an embarrassment. Vital senior roles – such as national security adviser, chief of staff and director of communications – changed hands with dizzying frequency.

The Trump administration found itself constantly frustrated by constitutional obstructions but without the guile to know its way around them. The media, doing its job, was continually assaulted by the 45th president, yet managed to protect its independence. But if Mr Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, he will know his way around the system, and be much better prepared for office than he was in 2015 – an election that he was, reportedly, somewhat surprised to win.

We also know what Mr Trump intends to do. He plans to take revenge on those who he feels wronged him when they were merely fulfilling a role determined by the US constitution: election officials, judges and critics in the press. He will seek to undermine the constitution and will find less clownish cronies to whom he can entrust the task. He says he will pardon the insurrectionists of 6 January, who he calls, absurdly, “hostages”.

He has now declared he will not send a penny to schools with a vaccine or a mask mandate. He will slap a 10 per cent tariff on foods imported into the United States – no doubt triggering retaliation and a trade war with China and the EU. He will hand the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin, apparently in the space of a day, to end the war.

He will further weaken the US commitment to Europe via Nato. He will “seal up the border” with Mexico in some unspecified way; and he will “drill, baby, drill” from day one and cheerfully ignore climate change. Again, on the basis of the previous Trump administration, he will give Israel a free hand and a blank cheque to defend itself regardless of irksome international humanitarian obligations. Confrontation with Iran is welcomed. And those are just the things he’s prepared to admit to.

Reckless, impetuous, childish, divisive, cunning and graceless: this is the Donald Trump the world is familiar with. To that volatile mix must now be added the benefit of political experience and time to prepare for the radical agenda he now seeks to bring to the White House. In an uncharacteristically generous victory speech after the Iowa result, he promised to “bring people together” to “straighten things out”.

He sounded sincere but, as the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words, and there is nothing in Mr Trump’s record in business or politics that lends any credence to that aspiration. His principal purpose in office will be to evade prosecution and jail – an unprecedented mission for a presidency, and an unstable basis for good governance. As a kind of political horror movie, “Trump 2; The Wrath of Donald” promises to be even more terrifying than the original.