President Donald Trump’s inauguration at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025.
Presidential historian Alexis Coe has predicted a perilous four years for the Trump administration, as well as the GOP as a whole.
In an op-ed for MSNBC, Coe said former President Grover Cleveland’s second term – which she described as “a tragedy in four years” – should serve as a “cautionary tale” for Donald Trump.
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“In 1892, Cleveland, like Trump in 2024, was resurrected by unwavering party loyalty despite losing the previous election,” Coe wrote. “Both men, separated by time but united in their disdain for the ‘establishment,’ demanded fealty with the fervor of medieval kings suffering from lead poisoning.”
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But both leaders, she explained, proved to be incapable of handling national crises.
“For Cleveland, a Democrat, it was the Panic of 1893, a severe economic depression triggered by railroad overbuilding and shaky financing, which set off a series of bank failures. Within months, unemployment skyrocketed to nearly 20%, over 15,000 companies and 500 banks failed, and farmers in the South and Midwest faced ruin as crop prices plummeted.”
She explained that he made it all worse with his inflexibility, refusing to part from the gold standard and fiscal conservatism.
Trump’s version of this crisis was COVID-19, she said, which he faced “with a mix of self-absorption and pseudoscience that would make snake oil salesmen blush.”
For his next term, she predicted “domestic and global chaos” due to his “erratic policy shifts on tariffs, immigration and foreign relations,” adding that while Cleveland stubbornly refused to change and Trump changes far too frequently, both habits “risk the same disastrous end: a party in disarray.”
She explained that the midterm elections during Cleveland’s second term saw the largest House of Representatives swing in U.S. history, with Republicans gaining 130 seats. Senate Republicans also ended up with a 10-seat majority.
“If Trump’s second term is a disaster right out of the gate, his party may take a beating in the 2026 midterms,” she said, adding that conditions in the country are ripe for a third party to potentially gain popularity right now.
“Comebacks can be pyrrhic victories, triumphs that contain the seeds of their own destruction. Cleveland’s presidency imploded in a shower of broken promises and shattered alliances. So, too, might Trump’s — and with it, the future of a party that has hitched its wagon to a reality star that may well be a supernova in disguise. The stage is set for a performance that could reshape not just Trump’s legacy, but the very foundations of the Republican Party.”
She concluded by reminding readers that “in the theater of American politics, the most tragic plays are often those we’ve seen before.”
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