Donald Trump’s first presidency was defined by perpetual chaos. It was not chaos with a particularly ideological purpose but rather it often seemed chaos for the amusement it provided Donald Trump. There was a premeditated abrasiveness at the core of Trump’s words and actions. You could avoid his barbs, insults and humiliations through silence and complicity only and sometimes not even then. Donald Trump causes trouble, for everyone around him and inevitably, unavoidablly for himself.

The smoke from the 2024 election hasn’t even cleared yet and Donald Trump is hard at work burning bridges. His early cabinet nominees in addition to being utter madness are purposeful in another sense. What he is doing is testing the level of resistance among GOP members of the US Senate. Probing trying to understand what he will be able to get away with. It is important to note that there are early signs that his stated picks for critical posts are generating concern among the very people he needs to engineer his plans. The early defeat of MAGA favorite Rick Scott’s bid to be Senate Majority leader is warning sign for the Trump camp.

In the foreign policy arena things get even dicier. When Trump says he will end the war in Ukraine quickly, he ignores what both the Russians and the Ukrainians are bluntly saying. no you won’t. Trump is obviously making promises he will never be able to keep. All of which leaves alone what actors like China, North Korea and Iran might be inclined to do. Again Trump is sailing in very treacherous waters, seemingly without a care.

Watching how Trump’s policies played out during his first administration many observers noted that the inherent cruelty appeared to be the point. But there is another point which is antagonism. Trump makes a habit of antagonizing not just his political opponents but literally everyone he interacts with. In doing so he manufactures opposition.

There’s an old saying, the President spends a great deal of time in America’s living room. One of the most significant liabilities for Donald Trump in his first term in office was that the chaos and antagonism came home in vidid detail to the American people. Not only did the people closest to Trump become distressed by the insanity but the country, the voters did too and that weighed heavily in his 2020 defeat . One advantage Trump had in 2024 was that he had not been in office for four years. Four years is a long time in the consciousness of the American voter, the reality of what a Trump presidency actually means had faded.

Donald Trump will not be sworn in as President for another 64 days but the chaos, controversy and distress are already in full swing, not just for his opponents but for his supporters as well. The distress and antagonism being the point. Very few of those who served in the first Trump administration will be back for the second term. That’s no coincidence they saw first hand the abuses and outright illegalities that were occurring.

How long before it begins again, how long before Trump turns everyone around him into a wall of opposition? The process has already begun.