Just when you think it couldn't get worse, it does. Surely, this must be the zeitgeist of 2025.

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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........

© Canberra Times