The “I can do whatever the f--k I want to” phase of Donald Trump’s second term as president ended on Thursday, just over two weeks after his election win. Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from consideration to be Trump’s Attorney General—just before a fresh CNN story around his alleged sexual misconduct broke—showed that Trump’s power is not limitless.
If you remember back as far as Nov. 5 or in the days immediately following, Trump stood astride American politics like a colossus. He won, according to him, with “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” He was swept back into power with Republicans in control of all the branches of the government.
He could dispense with usual niceties like vetting nominees for top jobs or performing background checks on them. He would demand his picks be approved without Senate scrutiny. He would choose whomever he wanted for top jobs in the administration no matter how unqualified they may be, no matter how ludicrous their views, no matter how repugnant or, alternatively, how laughable their records.
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Now, none of that seems quite what it did at the time.
As it turns out, Trump won nothing like a mandate. His margin of victory now stands at 1.6 percent, smaller than that in all but five elections in the country’s history. What’s more, it continues to shrink as more votes come in. In fact, Trump did not even win a majority of the votes cast. Which is a clear reminder that he has never, not in any of his three elections, not in any major credible opinion poll, been supported by a majority of Americans.
While Republicans did win control of the Senate, their majority in the House has appeared to shrink by at least one vote. It was paper thin before. And we have seen what happens when controversial proposals that demand the support of all Republicans appear before the House. Often, they produce fragmentation and strife between Republicans.
Further, with such a thin margin, the retirement or death or resignation of members of Congress, the margin could shift…even before the 2026 elections in which Democrats will have a big chance to make gains because of America’s regular preference to vote in midterms against the party in the White House.
Senators being Senators, they have made it clear that they do not wish to be considered a rubber stamp for Trump—at least not always, at least not on everything. They rejected Trump’s preferred candidate to be the Republican Senate Leader, Rick Scott of Florida, and went instead with a Senate institutionalist and close ally of Trump-hater Mitch McConnell, John Thune.
Then, McConnell made it clear that they would not simply provide wholesale cabinet approvals to Trump via recess appointment. Then, they expressed their concerns about the most extreme of Trump’s nominees: Gaetz to be attorney general, Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense, anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theory proponent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services and Putin and Assad fangirl Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence.
While some Senators did fall into line behind all Trump’s choices, the new GOP margin is so slim that any time four Republicans appear to oppose or question a nominee, their future is in doubt.
The resistance was greatest to Gaetz, and on Thursday it took his toll. Gaetz became the first Trump pick to withdraw his nomination. He did it because more revelations about his allegedly having sex with underage girls and him paying them for sex came out—and, with a House ethics report being almost sure to leak, it became clear that no matter how strong Trump may be Gaetz was too heavy a lift for him and his minions in the Senate.
While one theory is that Gaetz was intended as a sacrificial lamb to help make other extreme choices seem more palatable, it is not clear that his dropping out will have that effect. It could in fact make it easier for Senators with some vestigial amount of spine left to mount an opposition to Gabbard, RFK, Jr. or Hegseth. The cases against each of them, strong to begin with, are mounting daily.
An ugly police report regarding sex abuse allegations against Hegseth has been released. New stories have appeared about RFK, Jr. saying that he could believe the “chemtrails” conspiracy theory (almost a litmus test for proving whether someone is a nut or not) and that Kennedy, like J.D. Vance, compared Trump to Hitler. And I can only imagine what reports are likely to come from within the intelligence community about Gabbard and her foreign sympathies and ties should she appear to move any closer to confirmation.
None of this, of course, diminishes the fact that Trump won a solid victory on November 5th. Reclaiming control of the Senate was a big deal. Having the Supreme Court in the president’s pocket is a big deal. Even slim control of the House will be important to get some of Trump’s bigger measures through. There are big Trump ideas out there—from rounding up millions of undocumented immigrants to imposing big tariffs on imports to seeking retribution against his enemies to withdrawing support for Ukraine—that will turn into actions that can be very damaging to the country.
But, much like “Trump the colossus,” these plans are likely to become smaller when exposed to the air and to the realities of Washington, the country and the world. While Trump wants to dismantle guard rails constraining his power some will remain. Tariffs would be an economic disaster and big ones will produce a harsh reaction from markets and businesses.
Markets and businesses will likely also begin to howl if immigration round ups create instability in the U.S. or hurt the ability of businesses to find help or service their customers. Similarly, such unrest and business pushback is likely to make some of the representatives of impacted states and congressional districts really unhappy. And some of them will be Republicans who can use their leverage with Trump’s thin majorities to alter the scope and structure of proposals.
Courts also will remain an obstacle for some Trump ideas. Only 150 cases a year make it to the Supreme Court. So most will go to courts on which many non-Trump appointed judges…or responsible judges appointed by Trump…sit. Many in the military will not follow illegal orders and efforts to decapitate the military and replace the leadership with political yes men are likely to produce both visible and invisible resistance. (The invisible kind is very powerful in Washington—the type by which people say “yes” with a smile and then slow walk or never act on that which they are expected to follow through on.)
In addition, Trump, as president, may be one of the most powerful men in the world. But international issues are shaped by other leaders, other sovereign states and as we regularly learn, the U.S. does not always get its way.
Finally, there are the voters. If actions of the new administration alienate them, that will show up in interim elections and then, in just over 23 months in the mid-terms. It will be nearly impossible for Trump and his allies to so pervert our democracy in that time that those elections will not occur as planned.
The prospect of Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries is a real one that could emerge soon as a big check on Trump and his agenda. 2028 is also out there, and if Americans remain as fickle as they have been in the recent past, the odds will be against a Trump successor winning reelection. (Trump will not run again. The Constitution and Father Time are allied against that outcome. My money is on them.)
As a result, the events of the past two weeks should help put Trump’s win in better perspective. It should also help make clear what kinds of limitations on his power may exist and, over time, that kind of knowledge will almost certainly be used to limit, at least somewhat the damage Trump can do. As a consequence, Gaetz withdrawing his nomination ought to be seen not just as a positive in its own right, but it should be seen as one of many signs that at least some norms and some common sense may prevail in the United States.
