President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office: Cause for concern? (© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)



Prediction is a difficult thing. There are, though, times when it is a bit less difficult, the time when a trend can be recognised. Such was the case of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1980s. The trend was economic decline and the inability to adopt new technology. The collapse duly occurred.

Can we make predictions about the Trump presidency? What is the trend from which we can extrapolate? All we have is his past career and his campaign speeches, but they are probably enough to make some predictions. His admiration for President Putin is a good indication of things to come both in foreign and in domestic policy.

Will he build a wall along the Rio Grande against illegal immigrants? That was, after all, his first campaign promise. He will not. It is too expensive and it is not needed anyway. A much cheaper solution is to shoot immigrants who try to enter the country illegally — and it is much more effective.

Will he remove over two million illegal immigrants who have a criminal record? The number is probably not more than a tenth of what he claimed. He will be lucky if he can remove as many as 10,000.

Will he ban Muslims entering the United States? No, he will not. He will create the categories of Good Muslims and Bad Muslims. The former will be allowed in.

Will he lock up Hillary Clinton as he often threatened? No, he will not. It was a boast to show how determined he was, and how brazen he can be when dealing with criminals, however powerful they are. But having won he will regard Hillary as a spent force. She will not even be sent into exile.

What will he do with Obamacare? He might replace it with a cheaper variety but quite likely he will just scrap it.

Will he withdraw from the UN climate change programme? He will.

Will he bomb Raqqa more intensively? He will.

Will he renege on the Iranian nuclear deal? He won’t. It would take too much effort to understand all the implications.

What will he do with the Federal Reserve? Sack its chairwoman and place it under presidential control.

Intimidation will start fairly early, within the first 100 days. It might start with a particularly biting anti-Trump article in one of the liberal newspapers, say the New York Times. What will he do? He will not as yet have the power to put the journalist behind bars, as Turkey’s President Erdogan would do. He will just denounce the article as a foul attack on him by the old and discredited elite. Meanwhile, he will quietly encourage his faithful followers, those who chanted “kill Obama” at one of his rallies, to rid him of that turbulent journalist. They will oblige. They will beat up the journalist, who may or may not survive.