The Best-Case Scenario for the Trump Presidency

Yascha Mounk wrote for Slate about both “the best we can hope for” and the plausible outcomes of Trump’s presidency:

Last year was the most bitter year for liberal democracy since the depths of World War II. In just about every major election, populists carried the day by railing against the liberal order. Britain voted to Brexit, the Philippines to elect Rodrigo Duterte, and the United States to enthrone Donald Trump. (And then there was Italy, Slovakia, the regional elections in Germany, and much more besides.) By the end of the year, the string of upsets had become so constant that it was widely seen as a major victory when Norbert Hofer—whose ironically named Freedom Party has deep links to the neo-Nazi movement—“merely” got 46 percent of the vote in Austria’s presidential elections.

It’s tempting to take a pessimistic message from liberal democracy’s year of horrors: Populists will keep exceeding expectations. Just as Brexit and Trump were thought impossible in 2016, so too the major elections coming our way in 2017 will end in nasty surprises. Angela Merkel, the last adult in the room, will fall from grace. Geert Wilders, who has called for a ban of the Quran, will win elections in the Netherlands. And Marine Le Pen, whose presidency would ally France with Russia and pose an existential threat to the European Union, will conquer the Élysée Palace.