Opinion: Why It’s Not Just The Weather That’s Chilling D.C. Right Now

Donald Trump shifting through various faces on ripped paper
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

I had a friend many years ago who, after waking up drunk in an unfamiliar place, said that he was suffering from what he called “vuja day”—déjà vu turned inside out, or a feeling he had never experienced before. As with many drunks, he thought he was being funnier than he was. Because the sense he was having is one with which we are all familiar. In fact, there is a real French term for it, an opposite of déjà vu. It is jamais vu.

Washington is an odd place this week before the inauguration of Donald Trump as president. It is gliding toward the big day as though everything about it and Trump are familiar, almost comfortable. But the reality is that for many reasons the city and much of the country is actually suffering from a severe and potentially dangerous case of jamais vu.

That is, we’re heading into territory that is very much unlike anything we have ever seen before.

The last time Trump won, in 2016, was a shock to the system. It was itself a jamais vu situation, but one of an entirely different kind. After eight years of Barack Obama and the campaign of his heir apparent, Hillary Clinton, the election of an outsider was a blaring alarm of a wake-up call. There was a strong backlash. Amid Democratic circles—and even among many Republicans behind closed doors—the reaction was condescending. He was a reality TV star, an unprepared outsider, a sure-fire one and done president.

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But while he was voted out after one term, Trump was clearly not done. And whereas many in D.C. still hiss about his antics, his vulgarity and his ignorance, the prevailing sense this second time around is of resigned “normalcy.” My colleagues among the “sky is falling” Democratic cohort have been relatively quiet. Frankly, I’m a bit surprised.

Souvenirs are displayed at a gift shop in Washington D.C. on January 16, 2025 ahead of president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. / Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images
Souvenirs are displayed at a gift shop in Washington D.C. on January 16, 2025 ahead of president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. / Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images

It’s not that Dems do not fear the worst. They do. But the party is at, the moment, leaderless. Joe Biden seems like his presidency ended around the time of Jimmy Carter’s. (That’s perhaps unfair to our 39th president. Carter’s funeral was a much stronger and more effective anti-Trump statement than anything Biden has mustered in years.) They are not only without any firebrand voices leading them—the prevailing gerontocracy within the party is still trying to shut those upstarts down—but are sandbagging themselves, many are in the mode of showing how a smooth transition of power goes. “See how peaceful and compliant we are! That’ll teach you Republicans for your coups and your plots.”

Some, like John Fetterman, who is quickly and disconcertingly morphing into the love child of Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, are going even further, establishing themselves as Vichy Democrats and getting way too far out in front of what centrist support there is for measures like the Laken Riley Act, an immigration bill that will lay the groundwork for the mass deportations Trump has promised.

Others are taking more of a wait-and-see approach. While they expect Trump to try to follow through on some of his worst ideas, they also think that a dysfunctional GOP will inadvertently offer a roadblock on his revenge plans and anti-democratic desires. Let’s not forget our new president’s kleptocratic impulses either—it might just keep him and his team happy enough to busy themselves with personal enrichment and a little old-school Trumpian rebranding on our world maps. (What hijinks do you think the naming rights to Greenland will bring?)

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Incidentally, the past few weeks have not been encouraging for those viewing the tea leaves. It looks like Trump is following through with loyalty tests targeting civil servants, a deeply disturbing development that is contrary to our national interests. His politicizing the fire disaster in California similarly suggests a contentious, ugly period ahead. Yes, there will be tax cuts for the rich and yes, there will be ketchup stains on the wall.

Republicans too, though, are feeling a welter of emotions. Many are terrified of Trump and are engaging in acts of personal debasement that would be shocking in any other era. This includes the billionaires who are bringing frankincense and myrrh to Mar-a-Lago on a daily basis.

But there are also new rifts emerging in the party. MAGA true-believers (also known as the mouth-breathers caucus) like Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon are deeply fearful that Elon Musk’s DOGE bros will have more sway over their president than they will.

While the new Trump administration may be better organized than the last one (and, as a result, it may even produce some surprising successes), it is like to be riven by deeper differences like these, and in turn are likely to cause big, public conflicts. Many expect the break-up between Trump and Musk to be one of the decisive moments of the next four years; many GOPers are already privately saying that it is the tech bros and Wall Streeters of this world who will win that battle for long-term influence. (The robber barons always win in American politics. They don’t just influence the game. They are the game.)

So, then, we’ll have a more autocratic, loyalty-driven administration presiding over a GOP with razor-thin Congressional margins and the likelihood of big mid-term losses. There will be deep conflict over the present and future priorities of the party led by an ageing frontman who is gradually checking out, nut who very likely will remain deeply fearful of being upstaged thereby allowing for a sensible succession plan.

Add to that a fractious world in which all our allies and adversaries know Trump—and think they know how to manipulate him—and the end result could be a second term more turbulent and unpredictable than even the first four seasons of The Apprentice: White House edition, or a chapter in American life quite unlike anything we have seen before.