Democrats' fears that President-elect Donald Trump will govern as a dictator — something he himself suggested on the campaign trail — may ultimately never come to pass, conservative analyst Ramesh Ponnuru wrote for The Washington Post Tuesday. Not because he wouldn't want to, but because he is too impulsive and scrambled to be able to get even his own party in Congress to bend the knee.
Ponnuru is a frequent critic from the right of Trump, particularly on matters where he bucks traditional Republican orthodoxy like trade protectionism.
"Trump has indisputable political talents," he wrote. "But he remains impulsive, manipulable and jealous of attention."'
Ponnuru went on, "Democrats spent much of the presidential campaign warning that a second Donald Trump presidency would move methodically and remorselessly toward sinister goals: persecuting immigrants, enriching billionaires, ending democracy, imposing theocracy. This time, they said, he and his people would already know how to use the powers of his office. His party would put up less, maybe no, resistance."
However, "Last week’s fight over the continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded should calm some of these fears."
In that fight, tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump's biggest benefactor, blew up bipartisan negotiations to keep the government open, causing a mad scramble until the House GOP managed to salvage a compromise that didn't even give the things Trump was demanding. This episode left Democrats somewhat emboldened they could beat Trump — and armed with a new talking point that "President Musk" is really the one pulling the strings.
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Trump, wrote Ponnuru, did many things that signaled he still doesn't understand how Congress works. "He still has little interest in figuring out how to build a legislative coalition. He was effectively demanding that Republicans lift the debt ceiling on a party-line vote. He should have known that they would never accede ... The president-elect also kneecapped Johnson by telegraphing his disappointment with the way the speaker handled the continuing resolution."
Trump's GOP may still want to do all the things Democrats fear, Ponnuru concluded — but they are devoid of skilled leadership to do it.
"Voters are unlikely to remember this episode by the midterm elections of November 2026, especially since Congress ultimately avoided a shutdown," he wrote. "What should concern them — and buoy Democrats — is that they seem very likely to produce sequels."
