As we approach the white house return of Donald Trump, there seem to be two distinct views of what it portends. On the left, it means a mass roundup of illegals and their placement in concentration camps awaiting export—the economy in shreds without adequate labor. Inflation is roaring upward, fed by tariffs and rising prices. Tax cuts add to the flames by producing huge deficits. The resulting high interest rates put homes and much else out of reach.

Inequity will rise, with Trump’s billionaire friends growing richer while the rest of us fall further behind. Efforts to make businesses and institutions more diverse and inclusive are stalled or reversed. According to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, instead of a progressive, forward-looking society, we’ll be in the hands of the backward-looking “regressivists.”

Ukraine turned over to Russia’s tender mercies while our former friends and allies abandoned us. Belittled by Trump and harmed by his high tariffs, they retaliate, plunging the world into a deeper recession and raising the danger of World War III. Trump claims dictator powers.

While Gaetz withdrew from consideration as Attorney General, others nominated, such as Pete Hegseth for Defense, Robert Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services, and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, confirm the left’s fears that inexperienced extremists will run the government.

In fear of these horrible outcomes, blue states are checking their resistance options. The governor of California has even called for a special session of the state legislature to raise funds for legal action. Others are seeking ways not to cooperate with or impede the federal government.

For those looking at it from this progressive point of view, the future looks bleak. However, the landscape might be more favorable for success from a right-of-center perspective.

Most nominees are about what you’d expect from a Republican administration. Marco Rubio at State and Doug Burgum at Interior, and those other than the abovementioned ones will sail through Senate confirmation.

The one exception is Labor Secretary nominee Lori Chavez-Deromer. Her pro-organized labor stances seem at odds with Republican principles. Why Trump feels the need to placate union leaders is beyond me. Even though the teamster president spoke at the Republican convention, he failed to endorse Trump. Still, the president-elect probably received most of the union members’ votes. This outcome shows he didn’t need union leadership’s approval. He got plenty of labor votes.

Rubio at Statee and retired General Keith Kellog as special envoy to Ukraine and Russia may prove more hawkish than people realize. Trump can’t appear to abandon a friendly nation to Putin, and he hasn’t been averse to providing weapons that kill Russians, as shown by the javelins given to Ukraine in his last administration.

Kellogg has been critical of the way Biden has played the Ukraine war, especially the lack of timely supply and use of top-notch weapons. Threatening to supply longer-range weapons to bring Moscow and other major cities into range may incentivize Putin to take what he gained but realize the rest of Ukraine will be with the West.  

Trump has seen how a lost war forever poisoned the Biden administration and is likely to go out of his way not to be seen as a loser who turned his back on a friendly nation.

In his first administration, Trump had Iran against the wall with solid sanctions and actions. Iran is the most vulnerable of our adversaries due to Israel’s hammering of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s air defenses. Iran’s ally in Syria is facing renewed attacks from Assad’s enemies. A regime collapse is possible, given enough pressure. Destruction of Iran’s defense industry would eliminate a significant source of Russian drones.

Trump has real opportunities in the Middle East that could result in insignificant extensions to the Abraham Accords.

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and National Economic Director Kevin Hassert have free trade in their backgrounds. Their appointments might indicate that Trump is adopting an extreme tariff position as a bargaining position rather than desiring tariff walls. After all, Trump sees himself as a deal-maker.  

We know it is almost impossible to quickly mine or build anything in this nation. Regulations and bureaucracy account for a significant part of our failure. If Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can implement reforms bringing us in line with other business-friendly nations, we might grow out of the looming debt crisis. We could find similar benefits deregulation brought in the late 1970s and 80s. Prices decreased in critical areas such as transportation and energy, helping to end the terrible inflation.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates that federal regulations cost each household over $15,000 annually. The total cost of 2.1 trillion in regulation is almost equal to the income tax. Their new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has a huge target.

This attempt will be a battle royal, but fighting it is a necessity if we want to avoid becoming another failed top-down bureaucratic state such as Cuba or Venezuela.

Tom Homan, the new Border Czar, has only proposed the mass deportation of criminals. Who is against that?

Both Presidential candidates avoided real solutions to our debt problem, but the incoming President may have no choice but to confront it. As I’ve pointed out, the 10-year Treasury’s refusal to stay below four percent while the Fed is lowering short-term rates may signal that the market sees more inflation in the future and wants compensation.

Whether to pressure the Fed to lower interest rates, which would prove disastrous, or extend his government reform effort to include mandatory spending and budget priorities is likely in Trump’s future. Congressional Republicans are more likely to support needed actions, so Trump could go down in history as the great reformer, whether he intended to or not. How ironic, after all his claims never to touch social security and Medicare, Trump is the one to reform them.

No other policies undermined our faith in government institutions more than those pushed by during the COVID-19 epidemic. Lockdowns, closed schools, vaccine mandates, and all the different disruptions, the effects we still suffer, left us wondering why we put them in place. Didn’t anyone offer better solutions?

The answer is that many well-qualified people have joined me in offering a different path. My series (On This Site) on COVID-19 told this story. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was at the forefront of objecting to the lockdowns. One of the authors of “The Great Barrington Resolution,” signed by close to a million primarily medical and scientific people, recommended that we target those most at risk rather than an across-the-board lockdown. This path mirrored the Swedish COVID-19 policy, which had superior outcomes.   

The then NIH Director, Dr. Francis Collins, and key subordinate, Dr. Anthony Fauci, played a significant part in the failed policies and the suppression of alternative views. The appointment of Dr. Bhattacharya as the new NIH director will restore our faith in this institution. We’ll need it in any new health crisis.

There is no question NIH requires a new direction. For example, an NIH-funded study on the effect of some transgender drugs has been suppressed by its author apparently because it didn’t support a favored position. We deserve better, and maybe we’ll get it now.

Even though Trump has his failings, there are reasons to believe the dire predictions from the left may never arrive. Most Americans would agree that government reform is needed, and the president-elect has appointed some people capable of making improvements.

While awaiting results, we may have an entertaining cage match between Labor Secretay Lori Chavez-Deromer, a darling of the teacher’s unions, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, a school choice booster. Stay tuned.