How far can Trump go, and who will be there to stop him?

“This will forever be remembered as the day the American people regained control of their country,” President-elect Donald Trump said in his victory speech on Wednesday, promising to “turn it around.”
The United States swung significantly to the right on Election Day. Republicans aligned with Trump’s Make America Great Again movement now have a majority in the Senate and will also likely retain control of the House of Representatives once all the votes have been counted.
Trump’s MAGA movement has “regained control of their country,” having already hinted during the campaign at big plans for how Republicans intend to use this power.
The big difference from Trump’s 2016 election victory is that this time he is much better prepared, said Stormy-Annika Mildner, director of the Aspen Institute Germany, an independent think tank.
“Trump has learned that it can be problematic if there are non-loyalists on his team,” Mildner told DW, adding that he is expected to deal only with genuine supporters. “And through the extensive replacement of people in ministries and downstream authorities, there will no longer be an important factor that existed from 2016 to 2020: the many people who prevented worse things from happening at one point or another.”
Mildner expects that the Project 2025 strategy paper that became public over the summer will play a role in the new agenda.
While Trump has officially distanced himself from the manifesto by archconservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, media reports have suggested that at least some of his followers were involved in its conception. These people could take on influential positions in the new government, said Mildner.
Trump also adopted key demands from the paper during his election campaign, floating proposals on migration policy and border protection that were in line with those of the think tank. He promised, for example, “the largest deportation operation in American history,” in addition to significantly increasing the exploitation of climate-damaging fossil fuels and gutting environmental regulations.
Federal authorities such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be key levers for pushing through such plans. The 32-page chapter on the EPA in the Project 2025 paper was written by Mandy Gunasekara, the agency’s chief of staff during Trump’s first presidency who is now being touted as its possible next leader.
During the first Trump administration, the EPA’s powers were curtailed and many employees were laid off — changes that the Biden administration largely reversed. The New York Times quoted Gunasekara as saying that in Trump’s second term, the plan would be to “tear down and rebuild” the agency’s structures.
“You can use agencies that are part of the executive branch, like the Environmental Protection Agency, to regulate in the public interest,” said Mildner. “Or you can shut them down by giving them bosses who simply say, ‘We’re not doing anything about this anymore’.”
While the latter is predicted to be the case in the realm of climate protection, Trump is expected to enact far-reaching regulations in other areas such as immigration and border security, or in the extraction of fossil fuels, she said.
Observers are also anxiously awaiting to see who Trump will appoint to head the Department of Justice, having declared his intention use it for the legal prosecution of political opponents. Public broadcaster NPR has counted more than 100 such threats from Trump during the election campaign.
In addition to the politicization of public prosecutors’ offices, Trump will also again have the power to appoint conservatives to high judicial offices. Republicans now hold a majority in the Senate, which must approve such appointments, until at least the midterm elections in late 2026. During Trump’s first term, 234 judges were appointed—including three to the Supreme Court.
“Trump remade the federal judiciary in his first term,” George Washington University professor John Collins told news agency Reuters. “Now he has the opportunity to cement that vision for an entire generation.”
The Republican Party will therefore want to seize this chance to carry out a major a reorganization of the state within the guidelines provided by the constitution. The constitution itself is likely to remain untouched, Mildner predicted, because constitutional amendments are complicated and could harm the Republicans if they end up in the opposition again at some point.
Even though the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court are all now dominated by conservatives, Mildner remains confident that other institutions such as the media will fulfill their role in providing checks and balances.
Democratically governed states are also preparing for tough political battles against Trump’s agenda. New York Governor Kathy Hochul addressed Trump directly on Wednesday, saying: “If you try to harm New Yorkers or roll back their rights, I will fight you every step of the way.”
Mildner said she sees resilience and crisis resistance within the United States. “That’s why I would never say this is the end of American democracy,” she said.
But that doesn’t mean political divisions will be overcome under Trump, she added. “These four years will contribute to further polarization.”
This article was originally written in German.