‘Everything, everywhere, all at once’: what will Trump 2.0 unleash?

What kind of Trump will we see this time? Illustration: Angelica Alzona/Guardian Design

Come 12pm on Monday, on what is expected to be a bone-chillingly cold day, it will be done. Donald Trump, a convicted criminal described as a fascist by some who worked for him, will placed his hand on a Bible and and again be sworn in as president of the United States.

The 45th and 47th president will then deliver an inaugural address that sets out his agenda for the next four years. His speech eight years ago became synonymous with the phrase “American carnage”. This time he may promise a new “golden age” of America. But the content and tone of his remarks will be dissected for clues to what Trump 2.0 has in store for America and the world.

Within hours Trump, 78, who joked that he would be a “dictator” on “day one”, is expected to unleash a blitz of executive orders and actions including mass deportations, pardons for 6 January 2021 rioters and aggressive tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. The phrase “shock and awe” will not do it justice, according to one Trump ally.

“I tell people, ‘Shock and awe was a [20]17 concept,’” Steve Bannon, a former White House chief strategist, said at an event hosted by the Politico website in Washington this week. “Days of thunder, I think, are gonna be the concepts starting next Monday. And I think these days of thunder starting next week are going to be incredibly, incredibly intense.”

The first hundred days of Trump’s first term were defined by chaos. An executive order to ban visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries led to pandemonium at airports. A rushed attempt to repeal and replace Barack Obama’s healthcare law flopped in the House of Representatives. National security adviser Mike Flynn was forced to resign for misleading the vice-president, Mike Pence, over his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Sean Spicer, who as press secretary falsely claimed that Trump’s inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s, admitted: “There was a steep learning curve for him, but there was also a steep learning curve for the staff in terms of gelling. There wasn’t wasn’t a familiar sense of of the mission and of each other.”

But the second Trump White House will be better more organised and more effective, Spicer argues. “You’re watching these guys walk into this administration having known each other a lot longer, Trump having known them longer. Think about the relationship he has with [chief of staff] Susie Wiles. He’s worked with her very closely for years. It’s a very different dynamic and that’s going to make a huge difference.”

Spicer added: “There’s three things that I keep saying are different. The people, the policies and the process. They have been able to use these four years out of office to plan a return in a way that no administration in modern history ever has been able to do.”

Enabled by a Republican-controlled Congress, a conservative supreme court and a cabinet chosen primarily for loyalty, Trump could seek a dramatic expansion of presidential power. He stands to benefit from a Republican party reshaped in his image, a demoralised Democratic opposition and the rise of rightwing media influencers who amplify his message.

Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, said: “It feels different because they’re smarter, they’re faster, they’ve had four years to plot and plan. They have weakened the infrastructure in critical areas like law enforcement and the Department of Justice.

“I don’t think Democrats are prepared to deal to with what’s about to be thrown at them, starting on inauguration day. The executive orders and actions that will be taken in the time that Donald Trump is giving his inaugural speech will shock people and I don’t think they are ready for that.”

In what he describes as the greatest political comeback of all time, Trump won both the electoral college and national popular vote last November, suggesting a solidified base of support despite his past legal troubles and efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. But the political honeymoon will not last forever.

From the moment he takes the oath of office, Trump will be under pressure to deliver on his promises. On the economy, his plans include extending his 2017 tax cuts, imposing sweeping tariffs and increasing oil production. Critics warn of potential economic instability and damage to international relations.

No issue was more central to his election campaign than immigration. He vowed the biggest deportation operation in US history and has already begun pressuring Mexico and Canada on border security.

Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

Allies have said they expect the Trump team to focus initially on an estimated 1 million migrants who most recently entered the country, have been convicted of crimes or who courts have otherwise determined are otherwise ineligible to stay in the US. But the plans could collide with huge and costly logistical challenges and provoke widespread protests.

The president-elect also vowed to launch an effort to fire or otherwise neutralise the influence of federal workers he considers disloyal and an impediment to his agenda. He could use legal intimidation or other means for retribution against perceived enemies, including political opponents, journalists and the so-called “deep state”.

Trump will also continue to wage a culture war. He has vowed to cut federal funding for schools that, in his view, promote critical race theory, transgender rights and vaccine and mask mandates. He remains a climate change sceptic and will likely reverse Biden’s agenda, withdraw from the Paris agreement and promote fossil fuels.

Meanwhile foreign leaders are making rapid calculations about how to respond to the new normal. They learned from the first term about Trump’s affinity for strongmen and emphasis on personal relationships.

Trump is aiming to end the war in Ukraine, potentially by offering concessions to Russia, and had promised to resolve the war in Gaza. His “America first” approach suggests increased isolationism and a potential weakening of alliances such as Nato. Yet in recent weeks he has also mused on seizing the Panama canal, buying Greenland and turning Canada into the 51st US state.

There is another key difference in the second coming of Trump. Corporate America is bending the knee, most notably the tech titans of Silicon Valley. Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, spent an estimated $200m to help get Trump elected and has emerged as a key adviser on the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, a nongovernmental task force.

Musk will be joined by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg at the inauguration. With Facebook having announced that it will stop using third-party fact-checkers, there are a concerns that a flood of disinformation will weaken democratic guardrails.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said: “I expect there to be some erosion. How much? I don’t know. But we’re not going to be able to fight back the way we could have because the people who control the outlets that could have helped us fight are caving and cowering and grovelling.

“Yes, I’m talking about you, Mr Facebook and Bezos – I’m just so sickened by them all. Their God is money and whatever their God tells them is the way to earn more money that’s what they do.”

In his farewell address this week, Joe Biden duly warned of the rise of an oligarchy and a tech industrial complex in America. But some Democratic strategists believe that the alliance could hurt Trump politically, undermining his claim to be on the side of the little guy against the elites.

Paul Begala, a former White House counselor to President Bill Clinton, said: “Trump won the working class. I’m angry about it but I really admire it. That’s a big deal for Republicans to win voters under 50 grand. But this is a way back [for Democrats].

“If Trump runs a billionaires boys’ club, which he seems to want to do – he’s got 11 billionaires in his government; that’s 11 more than Joe [Biden]; 11 more than Barack [Obama]; 11 more than George [Bush]; 11 more than Bill [Clinton] – the Democrats can say this is government of the billionaires by the billionaires and for the billionaires.”

Begala admitted: “I’ve never understood Trump: why he’s not for a $15 minimum wage right away, I’ll never know. But he’s not. He could revolutionise American politics but he won’t.”

The anti-Trump resistance feels muted compared to 2017, at least for now, and media outlets are adjusting to the new normal. The Disney-owned ABC News agreed to pay $15m toward Trump’s presidential library to settle a seemingly flimsy defamation lawsuit. The Washington Post, a relentless watchdog during the first Trump term, is in crisis as staff quit and subscribers fall. It declined to endorse a presidential candidate and, having launched the slogan “Democracy dies in darkness” in 2017, is now adopting the internal mission statement “Riveting storytelling for all of America”.

Some in Washington suggest fears that Trump is an authoritarian focused on vengeance and tearing down democracy are overblown. Others, however, warn that his campaign promises, cabinet picks and bombastic statements indicate his second term could be even more extreme and dangerous than the first.

Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: “It will not be a continuation of the first term. Trump 2.0 will be far more radical and we’ve already seen that during the transition both in terms of policy and in personnel. In many ways, Trump 1.0 will seem at least relatively normal compared to what is about to happen.

“You’re seeing this in Trump’s behaviour. Almost on a daily basis he is fraying the fabric of our society and feeding the divisions in American society. Part of the challenge will be the assaults will be on so many fronts. It will be everything, everywhere, all at once – and that will start from day one.”