But not all of Trump’s changes are necessarily built to last. Already, Trump is bracing for this year’s midterm elections, which could result in one or both chambers of Congress switching party control.
“If we don’t win the midterms, I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump told a gathering of Republican lawmakers earlier this month.
And while Trump has teased the prospect of running for an unconstitutional third term, the law limits him to only two. That opens the possibility that the presidency could change parties in 2028 as well.
“Assuming a Democratic administration follows the Trump administration, much of Trump’s agenda and changes will be undone as quickly as possible,” Updegrove said.
“From executive orders to gold-leaf stencil on the White House walls, a lot of it can be undone.”
But there are downstream effects, the historian warned, that may not become apparent until well after Trump’s presidency. The speed of the change has rendered them somewhat invisible.
“When you think about this muzzle-velocity stuff, there are some things that we don’t even realize has happened,” Updegrove said.
He pointed to the loss of institutional knowledge after Trump’s widespread layoffs as an example of decisions with as-yet unseen consequences.
“Even the things that we know have gone through, we don’t see the full effects and won’t for many years.”
And yet, Updegrove speculates that a lack of velocity in one critical area may prove to be the downfall of Trumpism: economic growth.
The consumer prices repeatedly topped polls of voter concerns in the 2024 election, and Trump had promised that, “starting on day one”, he would “end inflation and make America affordable again”.
But Updegrove says average Americans are not seeing the promised turnaround in their pocketbooks.
“If we successfully turn the tide on Trump, I don’t know that it will ultimately be driven by our fear of the erosion of our democracy, rather than a dissatisfaction with the pace of economic change,” he said.
“At the end of the day, we might see a revival of democracy due to the price of hamburger meat.”