Looking back at the politics of the past year means looking ahead to the coming year. It's not pretty.
Of course, Donald Trump, president again, will dominate the news in 2025, but he also did so in 2024 (and as far back as I can remember, it seems). A year ago, he had the Republican Party back under control since January. 6 that he had essentially completed his presidential bid in January, after back-to-back knockouts in Iowa and New Hampshire. A Baker's dozen Republicans had the audacity to enter the race, but they didn't really run against him.
Opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes takes a critical look at the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
“The fear (of Trump) is so palpable among Republicans,” defendant one, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. That's true now more than ever, after Trump's unlikely comeback from defeat and disgrace.
He campaigned, first against President Biden and then against Vice President Kamala Harris, while also serving as a defendant Time out for a try and litigation over three other charges. He became the first US president sentenced of crime, but deployed a platform of victimhood and retaliation for elections.
Trump will continue to dominate Congress in the new year, as both the Senate and the House of Representatives will have Republican majorities. But their margins are so slim and the divisions so deep that neither they nor Trump will truly be in control. Legislation will be hard fought or, in many cases, not fought at all. That's good news, considering Republicans are talking about deeper tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and spending cuts on programs that all Americans rely on.
We got an early sense of the chaos ahead during Congress' humiliating lame-duck finale over federal funding this month. Republicans in the House of Representatives retaliated by nearly provoking a nationwide shutdown of Chrismukkah the dysfunction and factionalism this plagued her all year round and caused the least productive congress since the depression (not least because of her failed obsession with the impeachment of Biden). Some House Republicans (and allies in Trumpland) have already made history by ousting a speaker of the just-ended Congress — former Bakersfield Rep. Kevin McCarthy predict that Louisiana Speaker Mike Johnson will not survive the new one.
But the foolish shutdown of Congress wasn't entirely Johnson's fault. This was largely due to the clumsy interference of Trump and his unelected “First Buddy” Elon Musk.
First, Musk blew up a bipartisan funding bill – “a crime” he called it on X, Spreading falsehoods about the content and even went so far as to jeopardize the re-election of Republican representatives. (Addition to his previous Danger against Republican senators who oppose Trump's Cabinet nominees.)
Then Trump, not letting the man with the shotgun take the reins, urged Republicans to vote against any budget bill that doesn't also eliminate the country's debt limit. In the end, they actually defied him and passed a bill that didn't specify the debt limit.
But the dispute over the debt ceiling will soon resume; the Ministry of Finance said On Friday, the company announced it would approach the borrowing limit in January, which would require it to take “extraordinary measures” until Congress and the president make a decision.
I have long argued for abolishing the debt limit, a World War I-era anachronism, but not for the same reasons as Trump. Mine: The debt limit does nothing to limit spending – Congress and presidents have already approved the funds. It simply allows lawmakers, mostly Republicans, to portray themselves as fiscal conservatives by voting no and inviting chaos, even though in the past they have voted for the spending and tax cuts that were responsible for the debt (knowing that that most Democrats will vote “yes” and avoid a default). Trump's reason? He wanted to avoid a fight over the debt limit next year, when his priorities – tax cuts and open-ended spending on mass deportations – would push the numbers even further into the red.
Whatever the reasoning, repealing the 107-year-old debt limit law is not something Congress should address at the last minute. And the fact is that Republicans don't want to lose their demagogic support. They proved it by saying no to Trump.
Next season's showdown will be just one skirmish in an emerging multi-front “MAGA civil war.” Axios Say it. Pay particular attention to immigration battles pitting pro-immigrant Silicon Valley tech bros against anti-immigrant “America First” hardliners.
Again we got a preview of the inauguration: Entrepreneur and provocateur Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump's choice along with Musk to advise him on cutting federal spending and regulations, sparked a MAGA brouhaha — and an anti-India one — on social media -Insult – on Christmas Day when he required Admitting more skilled foreign workers to the United States. For too long, he wrote, American culture had “revered mediocrity over excellence.” When Musk tried to mediate, the South African-born mega-billionaire also found himself the target of xenophobic criticism.
Speaking of Musk, stay tuned for the inevitable clash of egos – his and Trump's – in 2025.
Then there are the marginalized Democrats.
Biden will be out of the picture, but he already seemed to be for much of 2024 rousing State of the Union speech In March, Biden showed up to his June debate with Trump so confused that the party's backlash forced him off the ticket. After the election, the apparently bitter president “quiet cessation“ – a sad end to a presidency that was successful in its first years.
Yes, Democrats will be the minority in Congress. But as 2024 has shown, Republicans will need their support to pass key government funding bills, giving Democrats influence over the final products. In the meantime, Democrats will spend 2025 doing what many of them wanted to do in 2024: looking for new leadership, new direction and new ideas.
Between now and the 2026 congressional midterm elections, Democrats can count on one thing: They will look better than Republicans to many voters after the chaos of all-Republican governance.