The first big mistake is thinking Trump would care that he lost

The GOP's move to bury Hegseth's impeachment is among the first warnings: The authoritarian regime carries on, and it may now feel liberated to engage in even worse brutality and lawlessness.

The blue tsunami was historic, as we’ve been discussing for over a week—absolutely head-spinning. And it was a much-needed win for Democrats—and democracy.

But the media and the pundit class set high expectations about how quickly it would stop Donald Trump and the GOP. Reporters even rushed to tell us Trump’s first words: He was going to “accept” the election results, they said, and “work” with Democrats.

On the newly MAGA-ified 60 Minutes, Trump was given a softball interview by conservative commentator Ross Douthat, in which he said his deportation policy might have been “too tough” and expressed openness to an immigration deal that would allow some undocumented immigrants without serious criminal records to remain in the country.

But surely we’ve learned by now that you don’t go by what Trump says—you go by what he does.

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He elevated Stephen Miller, the regime’s top white supremacist and the architect of the brutal ICE raids, to be his chief of staff. And the ICE raids and mass deportations have gone unabated throughout and after the Democrats’ landslide midterm win.

As the Associated Press reported, “In Los Angeles, masked immigration officers in body armor blocked a hospital emergency room driveway in a heavily Latino neighborhood early Saturday,” and “in central Alabama, twin 19-year-old brothers from Venezuela were arrested while driving back to college a day after the election.” The raids have gone on from coast to coast.

The day after the election, Markwayne Mullin, the Homeland Security secretary, posted online that “Deportations will continue,” saying ICE doesn’t take a day off, and “this includes on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Election Day.”

Trump was back to election denial, claiming the voting machines were somehow rigged, in a post early on Monday, as he tries to tell himself and the country he didn’t really lose. He called into C-SPAN to push his claims, and his appearance on 60 Minutes and other places is about trying to grab the spotlight from the Democrats. Another way he’ll do that is by going to extremes.

At this point, he may feel he has nothing to lose. We have no idea what the plan is for Iran, but it’s been reported that he and Benjamin Netanyahu had a tense phone call, as Netanyahu wants to escalate military action. Trump is such a narcissist and so unpredictable that it’s impossible to know what he will do in the aftermath of the rebuke by voters.

The Friday Wrap-Up: What does Trump’s elevation of Stephen Miller really mean?

But again, look at what he’s doing rather than what he’s saying—and at what the GOP is doing as well.

Trump defended Pete Hegseth against the impeachment effort brought by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, and the White House demanded loyalty from Republicans, many of whom had just lost their elections. Surely there would have been some among the many who just lost their reelection bids who’d want to abandon Trump, and certainly Hegseth. But no, every single Republican who voted, except for Massie, backed the move to send the impeachment resolution to committee, effectively shelving it.

Trump still puts fear into many, while others are simply true believers.

That was clear in the House Republicans’ election of Ohio MAGA conspiracy theorist Jim Jordan as their new leader, as Mike Johnson is stepping down from leadership. Let’s not forget that Jordan was voted down in the past—in the tumultuous, multiple rounds of voting Republicans humiliatingly held in 2023—precisely because many saw him as too extreme. They ultimately chose Johnson, who was thought to be less of a firebrand. But now they’re all in on Jordan.

It’s true that Democrats either weren’t prepared or were hoodwinked when it came to the impeachment resolution. Eleven Democrats weren’t present for the vote, some of them stuck in traffic or out of town. If they had all been present and voted against sending the resolution to committee, that procedural move would have failed, leaving open the possibility of an impeachment vote. Johnson moved to take the vote when 11 Democrats were absent and most of his caucus was present, and the vote wasn’t kept open for those trying to get to the Capitol.

So yeah, Johnson was shady. But maybe those Democrats should have been close by. Maybe they were among the many who were thinking Trump and the GOP would be different now that they had experienced a big loss, and that some Republicans would vote to impeach Hegseth. But if that’s the case, they were sadly mistaken.

The vaporizing of MAGA

Attorney General Todd Blanche is pushing back against the investigations to come, raising the possibility of investigations of the investigators. He’s suggested that Democrats, by saying they’re going to investigate or impeach—and warning Republicans to “lawyer up,” as incoming Oversight Committee chair Robert Garcia did—could be engaging in unlawful threats.

And White House counsel Will Scharf has now sent Garcia a letter warning that certain congressional investigations could cross into “blatant criminality.” This is ludicrous, as Democrats are simply talking about doing their jobs: oversight and the pursuit of justice. And the last time I checked, it was Trump who had promised retribution against his perceived enemies—he still is—and led chants of “lock her up!” going back to Hillary Clinton and 2016.

But these people have no shame. That of course doesn’t mean they’ll win. I think Trump is very scared. He brought Miller in to protect himself with a true loyalist who has pledged undying devotion. And he wants to protect himself from both Democrats and Republicans who might stray, in Congress but also in his administration. He only knows how to operate by going on offense and threatening to destroy anyone who gets out of line. And that’s true of his lieutenants.

The administration already sent out a memo to some 3,000 right-wing groups, saying it was monitoring their public statements, press releases and media appearances—a clearly an attempt to stop criticism of Trump. Trump is watching JD Vance trying to distance himself—his own vice president—for a possible presidential run, and he’s seeing Senator Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis and other ambitious 2028 contenders swatting at him. He’s a lame duck, and he doesn’t know how to operate in that realm.

That fear is what I believe is motivating Trump—and others in his administration. But the threats of retaliation against Democrats for pursuing accountability, or Republicans who might get a spine, will only go so far. Democrats now have enormous power and intend to use it both to show the American people the kinds of improvements they could make in their lives if we had a president who didn’t veto popular legislation—which Trump will surely do—and to investigate corruption.

But they and all of us have to start from the premise that the election itself won’t stop Trump and his regime from going even further. If anything, it has only emboldened them, and they’ll be more dangerous. We all have to be prepared.