Think you know how bad Trump unleashed will be? Look at the evidence: it will be even worse

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

66% : We truly live in the age of "alternative facts", and that gives Trump enormous freedom.
57% : Trump won big and everywhere: gaining ground in 48 of the 50 states, in counties rural, urban and suburban, across almost every demographic, including those groups such as Hispanic voters, who were once reliably Democratic.
54% : This was a knockout that has Trump on course to bag every one of the battleground states and to be the winner of the popular vote, the first Republican to pull off that feat in 20 years.
54% : In Salem, Virginia, last weekend, I heard Trump hail the glories of "liquid gold", meaning oil, leading the crowd in a chant of "Drill, baby, drill".
51% : But, as an earlier entertainer turned president - and Trump combines the two roles - liked to say: You ain't seen nothing yet.
49% : The result is that Trump will have control not only of the White House, but also the Senate and most likely the House as well.
49% : Thanks to Trump, that bench now has a six-to-three rightwing majority, and it has already issued the blank cheque he craved.
47% : This time he can surround himself with true believers, including the apostles of the notorious Project 2025 plan that Trump disavowed during the campaign but which he is now free to implement - thereby ensuring a full-spectrum takeover by Maga loyalists of the machinery of the US government.
41% : That process is inevitable, but the longer it goes on the more it helps Trump, by removing one more check on the power he will soon wield.
41% : We know how Trump wants to rule because he has said so, telling a Fox News interviewer he would be a dictator "on day one".
39% : This week, that basic urge proved stronger than any misgivings about Trump.
39% : The threat of legal jeopardy that once hovered over Trump will melt away.
36% : From a public health crisis to the end of Nato, the threats are clearAre you ready for Trump unbound?
34% : Throw in fear of migrants and the accusation that Democrats are the party of the liberal coastal elites, in thrall to the progressive fringes and out of touch with ordinary people - both sentiments expertly inflamed by Trump - and you have the ingredients for a crushing defeat.
33% : What, then, will be left to hold Trump in check?
30% : I asked one seasoned hand what practical tools the party had to restrain or even scrutinise Trump, given that they will soon lose their current ability to launch congressional investigations and convene official hearings.
28% : Joe Biden had moved to preserve it; Trump will send in the rigs.
28% : But when Trump renews his oath on 20 January, those restraints will look either badly frayed or entirely absent.
27% : There are next to no John McCains to give Trump the thumbs-down this time, certainly not enough to cause him trouble.
27% : We know that Trump has contempt for Nato's core principle of mutual defence.
26% : Admittedly, Republicans had majorities on Capitol Hill when Trump took office eight years ago too, but here's the difference.
17% : Now, the mainstream press can reveal the most damning evidence about Trump and it goes nowhere.
11% : Trump is now free to abandon Ukraine to Vladimir Putin's wolves, free to make Nato a dead letter - which it will be the day Trump is sworn in on 20 January.

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