Trump was given a second chance — and totally blew it: NYT editorial

In 2024, Donald Trump showed his political resilience when — despite facing four criminal indictments — he won the GOP presidential nomination and went on to enjoy a narrow victory over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the general election. Trump won the popular vote for the first time, defeating Harris by roughly 1.5 percent nationally. And he increased his support among Latinos, tech bros, independents, swing voters, the Manosphere and Generation Z.

Many Americans who had reservations about Trump but voted for him anyway in 2024 — largely because of their frustration over the economy and inflation — were willing to give him another chance when he returned to the White House on January 20, 2025. But the New York Times' Jamelle Bouie, in an opinion column published on March 11, argues that Trump was given a second chance and blew it badly by overreaching in a variety of ways.

"There is an alternate universe in which Donald Trump is the popular, successful president of his imagination," Bouie explains. "In this world, Trump has a clear view of the political landscape. He knows he won a narrow victory, not a landslide. He knows that his key voters — the ones who put him over the top, as opposed to his core voters — elected him to lower the cost of living and turn the page back to where it was before the pandemic…. This hypothetical President Trump would take the path of least political resistance…. In short, this Trump would rerun the approach of his first term."

Bouie continues, "He would still be corrupt. He would still stretch the limits of common decency. He would still be bombastic, transgressive and contemptuous of political norms. But he would be restrained, somewhat, by the practical realities of governance."

Bouie stresses, however, that "this alternate reality is unimaginable" because "there is no apparent evidence that Trump is capable of even the slightest bit of deferred gratification."

"The actual Trump is so solipsistic, so plainly consumed with narcissism, so deeply indifferent to the details of governance and so eager to satisfy his basest impulses that there was little chance he’d ever complete the authoritarian consolidation of his dreams," Bouie writes. "All of this is simply to contrast what might have been with what plainly is: a presidency in terminal decline, if not outright collapse…. If impeachment weren't a dead letter, then we could remove him and end his misrule."

Bouie adds, "As it is, we have nearly three more years to live through. It's an open question whether we survive it intact."

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