Trump’s Chaos Will Do More Global Damage Than His Authoritarianism
In the week since it became clear that former U.S. President Donald Trump would be returning to the White House, much discussion has centered on whether he will be willing and able to follow through on some of his most extreme campaign promises. Trump’s election victory in 2016 took the U.S., the world and by some accounts Trump himself by surprise, and his lack of any real power base within the Republican Party’s policymaking elites complicated his efforts to pursue his iconoclastic policy agenda during his first term.
By contrast, the tight grip he now wields over the Republican Party, along with the much deeper roster of eager personnel at his disposal to staff his next administration, has convinced many observers he will be in a better position to pursue his authoritarian goals in domestic and foreign policy. But even as supporters of MAGA Republicanism celebrate their moment of triumph, a closer look at the movement’s internal tensions and contradictions indicates that rather than imposing authoritarian order, a politically resurrected Trump is more likely to once more be an agent of chaos.
During the presidential election campaign, the emphasis that Trump’s Democratic opponents put on Project 2025—an authoritarian policy agenda produced by a think tank close to MAGA Republicans—focused attention on the fascistic undercurrents within the elite networks that enabled Trump’s return to power. The extent to which raw nativism and contempt for rule of law will shape Trump’s agenda is already visible in the appointment to key administration positions of figures close to the far right, such as Stephen Miller as chief of staff for policy and Thomas Homan as head of immigration policy and border security. Their plans to deport millions of migrants as well as implement repressive policing against both criminals and purported political threats to national security is an indication of how much U.S. domestic politics over the next four years is going to be shaped by an authoritarian turn that will enjoy Trump’s full support.
Similarly, in the run-up to Election Day, the Trump campaign projected a crudely simplistic clarity when it came to the foreign policy challenges facing Washington, whether it was claims that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be swiftly ended through Trump’s dealmaking prowess or threats to impose tariffs on imported goods to undermine China’s economic competitiveness. Since his victory, Trump and members of his foreign policy team continue to insist that his current dominance of U.S. politics can put him in a unique position to reshape the global order. While the prospect of an unleashed Trump pursuing his authoritarian and isolationist instincts is profoundly worrying for U.S. allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, his ambitions to deport millions of supposedly illegal migrants as well as claims that his administration would have no qualms about initiating a war against drug cartels in Mexico and across Latin America has the potential to profoundly destabilize the Western Hemisphere.
Yet looking beyond Trump’s violent bluster and the fascistic tendencies among many within his inner circle, his track record during his first term in office combined with the visible tensions among the elite factions that enabled his return to the presidency indicate that his administration may end up on a different path than the one charted in the authoritarian fantasies of his most fervent supporters. However much Trump’s new team has been trying to signal that it has a tight grip on the policy planning and appointment process, his capricious ignorance and signs that the ageing process have affected his mental faculties increase the likelihood he will once again begin regularly sacking senior officials and reversing course on policy, tendencies that at times paralyzed the U.S. government during his first term in office. And Trump’s volatility and intellectual incoherence still has the potential to fuel bitter infighting between rival power centers within his administration, making it more likely that his second term in office will fail to fulfil both the expectations of his fervent supporters and the deepest fears of his opponents, just as much as his first term did.
Trump’s volatility and intellectual incoherence make it more likely that his second term in office will fail to fulfil both the expectations of his fervent supporters and the deepest fears of his opponents.
Centrifugal pressures that could push a Trump administration into constant course changes are also a product of the wider differences between the distinct factions that make up MAGA Republicanism’s elite coalition. As James Bosworth pointed out in his WPR column this week, there are huge cleavages in terms of ideological outlook as well as self-interest between these rival elite networks over such fundamental issues as whether to prioritize access to export markets or protective tariffs, whether to assert U.S. military power in geopolitical flashpoints and whether to focus on economic growth or the mass deportation of migrant laborers needed to sustain it. As geopolitical and economic pressures continue to accumulate, these factional fissures could lead to bureaucratic battles for control and even defections by Republican legislators in Congress who feel that the needs of their constituents, and by extension their personal political interests, have been ignored by an erratic leadership.
This administrative and legislative paralysis will worsen if Trump’s team follows through on its threat to fire tens of thousands of civil servants in the federal bureaucracy, which MAGA Republicans consider to be inherently disloyal. Beyond the usual substantial turnover of political appointees, any wider effort to vet intelligence analysts, civil servants and military officers along ideological lines will push many more experienced officials into the private sector or early retirement. A wider wave of mass sackings that guts entire departments and law enforcement agencies would grind the ability of U.S. state institutions to do anything beyond routine tasks to a halt.
Such chronic infighting in the White House and Congress coupled with a shattering of state institutions would not necessarily rein in those Trump loyalists who wish to pursue authoritarian and racist policies. An era in which much of the U.S. government is plunged into chaos could give scope for well-positioned policy entrepreneurs and military contractors to hijack what remains of the national security state to implement the kinds of mass deportation programs and lethal military operations against drug cartels that Trump so vocally demanded during the election campaign. If the stacking of the judiciary with Republican loyalists and paralysis in much of the bureaucracy weakens checks on the ability of police and intelligence services to target anyone Trump declares to be an enemy of the state, many in the U.S. as well as in countries neighboring it would be vulnerable to violent repression from an out-of-control U.S. national security apparatus.
While the domestic consequences of a U.S. federal government paralyzed by infighting could at least initially be contained by continued economic growth and crisis management by regional institutions, such chaos would swiftly have a destabilizing effect on the global order. Faced with Washington’s strategic incoherence and growing pressure from authoritarian adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran, the United States’ current allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region would accelerate their rearmament and military modernization programs, while seeking to protect their interests in ways that would no longer take Washington’s priorities into account. In a volatile geopolitical context, such a loss of credibility and prestige that U.S. policymakers still take for granted would diminish U.S. influence outside the Western Hemisphere.
Though these trends would put the European Union and Japan under enormous pressure, states in the Western Hemisphere will be most exposed to the chaos and escalation unleashed by a Trump administration. For most Canadian and Mexican businesses, deep dependence on access to U.S. markets means that any increase in tariff barriers or U.S. economic disruption would have hugely damaging effects. In Mexico and other states around Latin America and the Caribbean, the mass deportation of millions of people from the U.S. would have enormously destabilizing social and economic effects. A scenario in which such economic and migration pressures became intertwined with unilateral military operations against drug cartels by an out-of-control U.S. security state could irreparably damage regional stability.
While a disciplined effort to impose authoritarianism on U.S. society would be immensely dangerous for the future of the American republic, chaotic factional infighting and the gutting of state institutions under Trump’s leadership will have equally harmful effects. Even if Democrats or moderate figures in the Republican Party regain power after Trump is gone, such severe disruption of the federal state’s basic foundations would significantly hamper any efforts to restore stability at home and strength abroad, leaving policymakers struggling to contain the carnage long after Trump is gone.
Alexander Clarkson is a lecturer in European studies at King’s College London. His research explores the impact that transnational diaspora communities have had on the politics of Germany and Europe after 1945 as well as how the militarization of the European Union’s border system has affected its relationships with neighboring states. His weekly WPR column appears every Wednesday.