Typhoon Trump has officially hit, and it’s raining chaos.
It’s only day five of President Donald Trump’s second term, and America has already been upended. He has unilaterally cancelled birthright citizenship, withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and the WHO, and threatened both trade wars and actual wars. Amid all this, he found time to dance with a sword onstage with the disco group Village People and complain online at 1 am about a bishop asking him to somehow show mercy to the marginalised.
His voters argue that this is a good thing. They say the country needed to be shaken up, its people forced to take a long, hard look in the mirror to see who was staring back—and whether or not they were wearing a MAGA hat.
International onlookers might be tempted to take vicarious pleasure in watching America implode, while others could feel vindicated by adding another powerful nation to their ideological ranks.
A country fed a steady diet of American exceptionalism is now forced to look inward and realise that it’s bound by the same basic tendencies as, well, the rest of the world.
We know the Trump playbook from his first term: an overwhelming onslaught of distractions, a volley of insults meant to shatter the liberal sensibility, which is already stretched too thin and brittle across too wide a spectrum. But this time, things seem different. His comeback story is a brazen declaration that the needle has shifted—perhaps forever.
Trump is a pugilist, constantly looking for fights and never backing down, no matter how insignificant the issue. The question is whether American institutions—and the rest of the world—are robust enough to withstand his punches.
In the past week, he has dedicated nearly all his energy to attacking the institutions and ideas that Americans have long regarded as integral to their identity. It’s as if the America that voted Trump into power is now redefining what it means to be the Land of the Free.
And that’s why this changed America under President Donald Trump is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
Also read: 4 more years of Trump onslaught—what liberals and cultural Marxists have to survive now
A new world order
The tech billionaires standing behind Trump at his inauguration could very well have been the four horsemen ushering in the next age of technopolitics. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos are already oligarchs with global business empires that blur international boundaries.
A Trump presidency means baking business into international policy, as we have already seen. Just look at his picks across both administrations: in his first term, he chose energy executive Rex Tillerson, the decade-long CEO of ExxonMobil, as his Secretary of State. In his second term, he has appointed real estate magnate Steve Witkoff, CEO of Witkoff, as his Middle East envoy. It was recently reported that Witkoff, who has represented developers and investors for decades, is tipped to oversee everything related to Iran.
By doing so and showing his openness to corporate interests in international dealings, Trump has also unleashed a genie. Figures like Tillerson and Witkoff can return to Corporate America, but people like Elon Musk—whose influence is global—won’t go quietly.
Musk, now head of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is already butting heads with Trump. The irony is that while Trump has brought in billionaires to rein in the government, he has no mechanism to contain the power, intelligence, and influence of figures like Musk. These billionaires have the money to put where their mouth is and are more likely to argue that democracy is a construct than a system worth defending.
In this new world order, where inequality rises alongside right-wing populism, the only force not bound by international norms is money. And tech billionaires, wielding unparalleled power, treat the entire world as their playground. Trump’s return to power—with the backing of the most influential tech titans—signals an America more beholden to wealth than ever before.
Even debates around high-skilled immigration and birthright citizenship reflect this shift. The fine print of the American dream now reads: “Anyone can make it here in America—if you can afford it.”
Also read: Stop feeling bad for Indian illegal immigrants Trump throws out. They chose to leave India
Yet another liberal conundrum
Trump’s victory is yet another reckoning for liberals in America, where the left barely stretches beyond the centre.
But change is brewing: for the first time in decades, a fledgling left is finding its voice. Labour unions are dusting themselves off and reorganising. Campuses have become protest sites, and political anathemas like Palestinian rights are now openly discussed. Even academics are unionising alongside auto workers. It’s worth noting, however, that many auto workers voted overwhelmingly for Trump—a fact he acknowledged in his speech after. This adds yet another complex layer to an already chaotic political cocktail.
This polarisation is exactly what the Democrats failed to address, opting instead to weakly appeal to a mixed bag of lukewarm supporters. Trump attempting to take credit for the Gaza ceasefire deal was another reminder of the missed opportunity: the Democrats could have mobilised a new, energised voter base by taking a firmer stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
Just as Narendra Modi’s BJP rose to power on the back of Congress inertia, Trump’s brand of politics has triumphed over the Democrats’ disintegration.
Liberal America has long been about walking on eggshells and tiptoeing around identities and sensitive issues. Trump’s America, however, wants to stomp on everything in its path—even the Capitol—to get what it wants. It’s a reaction to wokeism that India’s liberal class might find all too familiar.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)
This article is an example of how hollow a modern young journalist’s intellect is. And this is not just about Ms. Vandana Menon. Across media houses and thousands of journalists, the story remains the same.
Journalism requires an analytical mind along with a genuine interest in affairs of the world. A very integral part of the profession is to read voraciously, across a wide range of topics. The knowledge thus gained acts as the framework through which a journalist attempts to make sense of the world around him/her.
International affairs is a very serious topic and requires a academic bent of mind with an ability to conduct research. Otherwise, such insipid articles will become the hallmark of The Print.