Will Trump Do For The Country What Pete Wilson Did For California?
A new poll from CNN shows that the country is closely divided on the outlook for Señor T’s second term— 52% positive and 48% negative. “One of the biggest drivers for Americans who express enthusiasm or optimism about Trump’s next stint in the White House is the hope that he’ll improve the economy, with many also approvingly citing his first term in office. By contrast, those who are pessimistic are most likely to cite concerns about his character. And a significant share of those who say they’re afraid of what’s to come say they’re frightened by the prospect of rising bigotry, weakened democracy, or the impact his administration could have on their own lives.”
Before dawn yesterday, New York magazine published an essay by Ed Kilgore, How Fast Can Trump Enact His 2025 Agenda? Regardless of Trump’s constant blather and bravado about his “massive, historic mandate,” he knows the only thing historic about it was how small his win was. Kilgore thinks he “clearly believes his narrow win … and the congressional trifecta the Republican Party won by the slimmest possible margin give him an unconditional popular mandate to do whatever he wants.”
So far, cowardly GOP senators and Congress members are going along with his “extreme policy plans and rogue gallery of Cabinet nominees. But there’s only so much that can be done in a day, even when you’re president, and Congress has its own priorities. So how quickly can Trump and his Republican allies enact his agenda?”
“The key to implementing Trump’s legislative agenda,” explained Kilgore, “will be the budget-reconciliation process that enables Congress to bypass the Senate filibuster and enact a big package of new laws on an up-or-down party-line vote… Items in a budget-reconciliation bill must be focused on fiscal matters, but it’s still a huge asset to a party that controls the White House and both chambers of Congress.
It’s beginning to look like Team Trump wants two budget-reconciliation bills, one focused on authorizing the huge buildup in border-security resources necessary for Trump’s mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and another aimed at extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts. There’s increasing talk of a very quick start on the first bill. Since the 119th Congress will be sworn in on January 3, Congress could get moving on a budget resolution setting up this bill even before Trump takes office.”
On his first day in office there’s some stuff Trump can do unilaterally with executive orders. It’ll take over a month to get his cabinet and other appointments that need Senate confirmation in place. But he “can take action on a wide variety of promises without any help from Congress. This includes pardoning at least some of the January 6 insurrectionists, imposing “emergency tariffs,” and canceling or reversing executive orders issued by Biden. When Trump declared that he would be a dictator on day one, he said he’d prioritize reversing Biden’s policies on border security and fossil-fuel use… Several of Trump’s proposed day-one actions will undoubtedly face immediate legal challenges, as they raise major constitutional questions. These include his desire to revive the Nixonesque practices of presidential impoundment of appropriations and to eliminate birthright citizenship via executive order. You can expect the upcoming regime to churn out as many new policies as possible, then determine which to prioritize in the courts or by way of congressional authorizations.”
I want to focus on Trump’s mass deportation plans— likely to get extremely gnarly very fast— and his jihad against birthright citizenship. Let me remind you that when Pete Wilson beat Dianne Feinstein for governor in 1990, California was a swing state. From 1968 until 1992, Republicans Nixon (both times), Ford, Reagan (both times) and George H.W. Bush beat their Democratic opponents in presidential elections. After that, it was all over for the GOP. What happened, you may wonder, to make Bill Clinton (both times), Gore, Kerry, Obama (both times), Hillary, Biden and Kamala win every race after that.
Republican Gov. Pete Wilson strongly supported something called Proposition 187 (1994), which alienated Latino voters and reshaped the state’s political landscape for— well so far 3 decades. It was a ballot initiative designed to deny undocumented immigrants access to public services, including education and healthcare. It also required state employees to report individuals suspected of being undocumented to immigration authorities. And the campaign was UGLY, using inflammatory rhetoric and imagery, portraying undocumented immigrants as a threat to California’s economy and public safety. It passed overwhelmingly but was blocked by federal courts. The damage to the Republican Party's reputation among Latino voters was incalculable, galvanizing Latinos, who began registering and voting in higher numbers, against Republicans.
Before Wilson pulled Prop 187 out of his hate hat, Latino voters, had been politically mixed or less engaged. After that campaign they started to see the Republican Party as hostile to their communities and their families. The shift was compounded by the GOP's constant anti-immigration rhetoric since then. Trump and the national GOP have learned little from that and I’m guessing that overreach with the MAGA/Project 2025 agenda could wind up provoking similar responses in states with big Latino populations, especially Arizona, Nevada and Texas.
Other states have very significant Latino populations that can swing elections as well. Nearly 52% of New Mexicans are Latinos; 26.2% of Floridians are; 22% of Coloradans; 18.3% of New Jersey residents; 10.5% of North Carolinians; almost 10% of Georgians, 8% of Pennsylvanians and 7% of Iowans. The GOP has made some headway among Latino voters this last cycle; ready to see that reversed? Anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric have historically led to higher voter registration and turnout among Latinos, particularly younger voters who have otherwise been disengaged. And beyond Latinos, such policies may alienate other groups who view mass deportations as inhumane, including suburban voters, independents, and younger white voters. In California, Prop 187 also lost moderate Republicans, accelerating the state’s leftward shift.
Remember, Latino communities are deeply woven into the economies and cultures of states like Texas and Arizona. Mass deportation action— beyond just rhetoric— is going to alienate not just Latinos but also businesses, religious groups, and civic organizations that oppose such draconian policies. This was seen in Arizona in 2010, where backlash to SB 1070, the “show me your papers” law, helped boost Democratic candidates in subsequent elections. If the Democrats get their shit together, the GOP’s extreme anti-immigrant policies could re-accelerate a Democratic consolidation among Latinos, particularly in younger generations and in areas like South Texas and California’s Central Valley where Republicans made gains this year. The GOP’s reliance on anti-immigrant rhetoric risks alienating a demographic group that is growing much faster than others. By doubling down on mass deportations, they may ensure long-term irrelevance in Latino-heavy states. In 2026, Democrats will likely be able to use Trump’s deportation push as a rallying cry in states like Arizona, Texas, and Nevada and in Latino communities across the country. The fear and anger Trump’s policies are likely to generate will significantly motivate anti-Republican Party turnout.
Now, back to Kilgore, and that first budget-reconciliation bill, the extreme anti-immigrant one, “which could wind up on Trump’s desk very quickly, perhaps within a month of the inauguration. At that point, there will have to be a reckoning about how to handle the Trump-administration priorities that didn’t get included in the initial blitz.”
Congress is currently putting the final touches on a stop-gap spending bill to keep the federal government functioning past December 20, when a previous “continuing resolution” expires. The consensus is that the new bill will extend current spending levels until mid-March 2025. At that point, the new Republican-controlled Congress can scrap spending compromises they made with Democrats during the past two years of divided government.
Thanks to the fiscal math implied in Trump’s priorities, along with pent-up conservative demands for massive domestic spending cuts, the odds are high that final spending levels will include increased defense spending and major reductions in the discretionary programs not protected by Trump as sacred cows (e.g., Social Security and Medicare).
If Congress fails to act by mid-March there could theoretically be a government shutdown, but unified GOP control of Congress makes that unlikely.
Another decision point for the new regime will be the end of a national debt-limit suspension set by a bipartisan deal in mid-2023. Technically, the suspension ends on January 1, 2025, but the U.S. Treasury will be able to paper over it with a “temporary measure” to pay Uncle Sam’s bills for a few months. The current calculation is that Congress will need to either increase or suspend the debt limit by June to avoid a default on government obligations and a financial crisis.
Members of Congress in both parties (but especially Republicans) are traditionally reluctant to vote for debt-limit measures; some flatly refuse regardless of the circumstances. But Wall Street will insist on it happening, which likely means a debt-limit increase or suspension will be nestled in some other must-pass legislation. If Republicans pursue the two-reconciliation-bill strategy for enacting Trump’s legislative agenda, including the debt limit in the second one would make a lot of sense.
The 2017 Trump tax cuts expire at the end of 2025, so Republicans have an additional incentive to get a second budget reconciliation passed by then. This will be Wall Street’s and K Street’s reward for supporting the rest of the Trump agenda. But the “dessert” of tax cuts may involve first identifying the “broccoli” of offsetting spending cuts, or perhaps relaying on tariffs to raise federal revenues.
All in all, triumphant Republicans have a lot on their plate right now. From a historical perspective, it’s very likely Democrats will flip the House in the 2026 midterms, so they’ll have to move fast to enact everything on Trump’s wish list.
IF there are elections after last november.