Just when you think it couldn’t get worse, it does. Surely, this must be the zeitgeist of 2025.
In January, we wondered whether – as in the first Trump presidency – there would be people, institutions, and elements of civil society to restrain Donald Trump in his second term.
Then week by week, month by month, we got the answer.
Let’s itemise some of those elements and then draw conclusions – based on history about which Trump is mostly oblivious – of what might happen in 2026 and beyond.
It was not just that unqualified loyalists were brought into the administration. It was worse. There were almost no independent qualified people brought into the administration.
Then significant federal agencies that did good works were gutted – foreign aid, environment, health, education, meteorology, and so on. Thousands of public employees were summarily dismissed.
There was no-one restraining Trump acting on his obsession that immigrants and other countries had taken, and were continuing to take, the jobs and livelihoods of Americans and that they should be rounded up and deported without a chance to challenge the action.
There was no-one restraining him from the erratic imposition of tariffs against countries he thought were taking advantage of America nor from withdrawing from international organisations or killing people suspected (but not proven) of being drug runners (and any innocent passengers) on the high seas.
There was no-one restraining Trump taking revenge on people whom he thought had wronged him. There was no-one restraining him from granting favours, particularly pardons, to his tribe. Nor anyone to stop his corrupt self-enrichment by abusing his position.
There was no-one restraining him from his narcissism, from smashing the East Wing of the White House to make a grand ballroom, to naming a class naval vessel after himself, to putting his name on the Kennedy Center, and so on.
As the year went on it got worse, and worse, and worse – intimidatory lawsuits against media outlets that he disliked; childish depictions on White House portraits of past Presidents; and insults to the living and the dead that demeaned the Office of the Presidency.
Congress became almost impotent and Trump ruled by Executive Order – often unconstitutionally, especially stopping spending that Congress had legislated for because Trump did not like what it was being spent on, particularly renewable energy or grants to what he called woke institutions.
Underlying the change was a move away from the rule of law within the US to rule based on the personal whim of Trump. And a move internationally away from co-operation and a rules-based order, let alone a system of international law, to a US which acted on the unpredictable and changing whims of the President.
What now?
For a start, China (as in the Communist Party not the Chinese People, Russia (as in the Putin kleptocracy, not the Russian people), North Korea (as in the Kim dynasty), Iran (as in the Ayatollah dictatorship, not Islam), and Israel (as in the Netanyahu Government, not the Jewish people) must be thinking to themselves, “Well, if the US can flout the rules-based order and abrogate, or not even sign up to, the major treaties that underpin international law (sea, crime, environment, human rights, the UN Charter), doesn’t that give us open slather, too?”
In short, Trump’s international lawlessness, bad enough of itself, is encouraging international lawlessness, encouraging belligerence, aggression, violence, and war. Trump’s actions are certainly no deterrent to international unlawful use of force, unlike those of many of his predecessors.
Trump’s pre-election assertion that he could resolve the war in Ukraine in a day quickly turned to dust. As, indeed, virtually everything else he has pursued.
His anti-vax health chief is presiding over a deadly measles outbreak.
Tariffs have not enabled US industry to rebuild; they have just put up prices. His drain the swamp has not corrected the US budget deficit trajectory. To the contrary, his tax cuts for the rich have made it worse.
Trump’s energy policy has poured billions into old technology producing gas and oil that, before long, few will want to buy because they are pursuing cheaper and cleaner renewables, instead.
What does this mean for 2026?
It is a big lesson for Australia. Our coal will be unwanted, and unless we electrify our vehicle fleet we will be dependent on expensive foreign refined oil with disastrous consequences for our balance of trade, inflation, and interest rates. Copying Trump is a loser’s path.
Our entwined defence reliance on the US has become problematic with Trump and will remain so if Trumpism continues, even in a different form, with the next president.
Trump is an autocrat who would like to be a totalitarian but cannot. Trump has with a great deal of success emasculated Congress. But has tried with only some success to suborn the judiciary.
Hitler made judges wear the swastika or be removed. Stalin’s “judges” did his bidding on pain of death. Agree with the autocrat or die. Trump cannot do that. His executive orders are coming under increasing judicial scrutiny and judicial over-riding.
As the judicial push-back takes effect, we can either expect dangerous Trump retaliatory tantrums or – with any luck – others in civil society taking cue from the judicial push-back and joining in. Could it be that the checks and balances in the US Constitution begin to work on the ground – unlike in many other places this century, such as Hungary and Russia.
But the real worry in 2026 is what happens when Trump, while ticking off his bucket list of obsessions, meets a new emergency. In his first term, experts still led key agencies when Covid hit and could respond reasonably effectively, despite Trump, not because of him.
How the US would respond to a pandemic, natural disaster, or major terrorist attack with an Administration whose top spots are populated by loyalist, unqualified fools and ignoramuses is frightening.
It is the downfall of all autocrats and totalitarians: surrounded by sychophants, there is no one with the courage to save them from themselves. Unless the Epstein scandal gets him first.
And locally, watch for immigration and health. They are both in a mess. If Labor does not fix them, expect the political pendulum to swing.
Happy New Year.
Crispin Hull
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 30 December 2025.
In Australia the general public are starting to join the dots and work out that many of our problems like the housing crisis, overcrowded schools, hospital ramping, traffic congestion, species extinction, loss of the best farmland etc etc are directly due to our massive population growth. Despite what some of the “Big Australia” spruikers may claim it is massive. Since the year 2000 our population has increased by 44%. The UK during the same time was only 15% and the USA 20%. I am constantly amazed at how commentators will use verbal gymnastics to avoid even mentioning that population growth has anything to do with these issues. Even some greenies refuse to acknowledge that the more there are of us the more the environment is harmed. The idea we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time massively increasing our population is just laughable. It is also a joke when you consider that so many problems were meant to be solved by increasing our population have actually got worse. John Howard tripled the net inflow of people over twenty years ago and it has just increased over time. In 2024-2025 the net inflow of people was 322,223.
According to the Yale Budget Lab, the average effective tariff on US imports rose from 2% to 18%, the highest level since the 1930s, this year. Add to that the uncertainty caused by frequent and inexplicable policy changes, and large adverse effects on inflation, employment and real incomes appeared all but inevitable. But things did not turn out as anticipated. It is possible that consumer price inflation (CPI) did not rise at all: the most recently reported rate, for the 12 months ending in November, is 2.7% – the same level as in the closing months of 2024. There are 4 reasons why Trump’s tariffs’ biggest effects were limited or delayed in 2025.
1. US economic statistics are compromised by the government shutdown, which stretched from 1 October to 12 November. Some CPI information is missing because the Bureau of Labor Statistics could not collect data as usual. GDP releases by the Bureau of Economic Analysis are way behind schedule.
2. Many of the highest tariffs are not fully in effect. Trump has postponed some tariffs repeatedly. He rolled back others on 14 November, because they were driving up grocery prices. But this does not mean economists got their predictions all wrong. There are good reasons to think that many of the adverse effects of Trump’s tariffs have simply been delayed, and we should expect them to show up in 2026.
3. As soon as Trump was elected in November 2024, companies began front-loading imports, in order to accumulate stocks of goods before the anticipated tariffs were introduced. The estimated value saving of this is US$6.5 billion.
4. Importers have continued to absorb much of the cost increase, even after depleting their pre-tariff inventories. It is US companies that have been absorbing the costs, much as they typically do when the US$ depreciates. But companies will not let tariffs erode their profit margins indefinitely. Assuming the tariffs remain, the US can look forward to more price increases, and downward pressure on real incomes, in 2026.
These comments have been copied from a Guardian article (30 DEC 2025) by Jeffrey Frankel, a professor of capital formation and growth at Harvard University.
Thanks for reminding us of the past year of mindless idiocy from Trump. We are beyond shocked as we contemplate the next three years. One wonders how long the sycophants and lickspittles can survive as their emperor continues to lose his clothes. Will they see their power bases erode under a progressively more deranged Trump? There may be a swing to the Democrats in the 2026 mid-terms but little will change as divisiveness is now an irreversibly established way of life in the US.
As for Australia, the irascible Paul Keating’s comment that Australia should not be seen as two boots sticking out of the US backside is more relevant than ever.
Yes, Trump is a monster and his Administration a nightmare. Let’s hope the checks and balances start to gain ground this year and that the mid-term elections will see Congress back in control of the Democrats, though most of them have proven spineless so far. However, if they have majority rule then, perhaps, they might exhibit some backbone against Trump. The one light on the horizon has been the Democrats choosing Zohran Mamdani to run as New York Mayor and the voters electing him. Let’s hope he can restore civilisation in that city at least.
In Australia we will see a pushback against mass immigration. People are starting to join the dots and realise that many of the problems they are facing like the housing crisis is due to population pressures. Some “Big Australia” spruikers will claim our immigration program is not massive but the statistics say differently. Mind you some of the distortions of the statistics are mind blowing. In this century our population has increased by 45%. New Zealand 39%, The USA 22% and the UK 18%. These are the facts. Some people with entrenched ideologies would like alternative facts.
The MSM in the US and internationally are also taking their leads from Trump, particularly with regards to the recent US bombing in Nigeria. Reports have centred on “Muslims kill8ng Christians” and Trump’s Christmas present to protect Christians. This has “energised his base.” No mention has been made of the vast oil reserves, corporate extractuon multinationals, lithium reserves and decades of civil conflicts. For the ignorant masses it certainly is Christmas.