A best-case scenario for Trump 2.0

“God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” — Otto von Bismarck

Happy Thanksgiving, folks! A friend asked me to write an optimistic post about the best-case scenario for the upcoming Trump presidency. So here is that post.

Regular Noahpinion readers will know that I’m not very excited about a second Trump term. I don’t think the next four years are going to be hell on Earth or that they’ll lead to the collapse of the nation, but I do think Trump is probably going to degrade our institutions, foment chaos, appease our enemies overseas and appoint a lot of very unqualified people.

But, I also do have to admit that Trump’s first term turned out much better than I expected! Trump did foment social and political chaos, but consider the following:

• The economy demonstrated strong growth, with workers at the bottom of the distribution reaping especially large wage gains.
• Thanks to Trump’s rhetoric, the US belatedly woke up to the various threats posed by China, and realized that unilateral free trade has many drawbacks.
• Trump did not lock Hillary Clinton up, or persecute his political enemies in general.
• Trump did great on Covid relief spending, carrying American households through the pandemic and propelling a rapid economic recovery after the pandemic.
• Trump’s Operation Warp Speed was the best Covid vaccine development effort in the world, creating new and highly effective vaccines in a very short period of time, and saving a very large number of lives.
• Very few US government institutions suffered long-lasting damage as a result of Trump.

That’s not the best-case scenario for how Trump’s first term could have turned out, but it’s very far from the worst. All in all, if you told me in