I think you’ve already answered your own question. Trump’s first presidency was very different from his second. And the key difference is his advisors. No one knew how to deal with Trump in his first presidency, and the overarching pattern above the chaos was his close advisors constantly working against him to protect the system.
In the break between his terms, he found people who would follow any of his directives, no matter how stupid or damaging. Or I should say, they found him. Trump is now being manipulated himself by a group of “loyalists” who stand to gain from the exact chaos Trump was thwarted from doing the first time around. These people know enough about how the systems work to be actually dangerous. And now that his advisors are philosophically aligned with him, he’s actually doing what he says he’s going to do. I would argue the 4 years of a Trump reprieve may have been the worst of all possibilities, because it gave Trump and his new in-group time to find each other and prepare.
But most people weren’t paying attention. Many saw Trump in 2024 just like they saw him in 2016; the counterweight, spoiler, outsider set to upset Washington and get real changes happening. They thought Democrats weren’t helping them enough, and so wanted to upset the apple cart and get someone different in the high seat. They weren’t paying close enough attention to see that this time was actually radically different to all elections before, and I saw many, many people dismissing the warnings as “oh everyone claims their opponents are fascists, or are going to destroy the country.”
So it’s a combination of people not paying attention, as usual, and Trump actually changing how he’s doing things this time in the worst way possible.
I think you’ve already answered your own question. Trump’s first presidency was very different from his second. And the key difference is his advisors. No one knew how to deal with Trump in his first presidency, and the overarching pattern above the chaos was his close advisors constantly working against him to protect the system.
In the break between his terms, he found people who would follow any of his directives, no matter how stupid or damaging. Or I should say, they found him. Trump is now being manipulated himself by a group of “loyalists” who stand to gain from the exact chaos Trump was thwarted from doing the first time around. These people know enough about how the systems work to be actually dangerous. And now that his advisors are philosophically aligned with him, he’s actually doing what he says he’s going to do. I would argue the 4 years of a Trump reprieve may have been the worst of all possibilities, because it gave Trump and his new in-group time to find each other and prepare.
But most people weren’t paying attention. Many saw Trump in 2024 just like they saw him in 2016; the counterweight, spoiler, outsider set to upset Washington and get real changes happening. They thought Democrats weren’t helping them enough, and so wanted to upset the apple cart and get someone different in the high seat. They weren’t paying close enough attention to see that this time was actually radically different to all elections before, and I saw many, many people dismissing the warnings as “oh everyone claims their opponents are fascists, or are going to destroy the country.”
So it’s a combination of people not paying attention, as usual, and Trump actually changing how he’s doing things this time in the worst way possible.