Donald Trump is now well into his second term, the desk once again occupied by a man who treats the Constitution like terms and conditions he didn’t bother to read. We are now trundling cheerfully towards the mid-terms like passengers on a bus with no brakes not knowing what is coming next.

If it feels surreal, that’s because it is. This is no longer a warning from history, this is the bit that future documentaries will pause on, lower the music, and ask: “But why didn’t anyone stop this?”

The First Term Was the Trailer

That first term? That was the preview. The pilot episode. The “it can’t possibly get worse than this” phase that absolutely could.

We had Sharpie hurricanes, disinfectant medical advice, staring straight into eclipses, and Twitter tantrums fired off at 3am like drunk texts to democracy itself. At the time, it all felt ridiculous — comforting, even, because ridiculous people can’t be dangerous, they get laughed out of office don’t they?

Turns out in America they can. Very.

Now He Knows Where the Guardrails Were

This time around, it’s different. The chaos feels more deliberate. The man who once flirted with overturning an election is back with fewer restraints, longer grudges, and a handy mental map of which institutions pushed back last time.

Judges are “sorted”. Civil servants are “cleansed”. The media remains “the enemy”. Protesters are “thugs”. Anyone asking awkward questions is “un-American” and probably “radical left” just to be safe.

And still, we’re told not to worry. Again. It’s just noise. Just Trump being Trump. Just politics. That sound you can hear is the bar being lowered further into the earth’s crust.

Mid-Terms: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Now we’re heading towards the mid-terms, and the tension isn’t subtle anymore. It’s just… there. Sitting in the room like a bad smell no one wants to mention.

If the results go his way, they’ll be “the most secure elections ever”. If they don’t, well you can already hear the warm-up acts: rigged, stolen, corrupt, traitors. Lawsuits. Rallies. “Very angry people.”

Democracies don’t usually collapse in one dramatic moment. They wobble. They bend. They normalise things that would once have ended careers. People cope with humour, sarcasm, memes because laughing is easier than admitting you’re scared. We all do it.

How History Will Remember This Bit

Future generations will look back at this period and genuinely struggle to understand it. Not just Trump, we know what he is, or should do. They’ll ask how so many people looked at all of this and said, “Yes, let’s do that again.”

They’ll wonder why the warning signs were treated like entertainment. Why January 6th became a footnote for some. Why rules bent. Why accountability always seemed to be just around the corner, but never quite arrived.

And the answer will probably be depressingly simple:

Because it was easier to laugh.

Because it was easier to deny.

Because it was easier to believe it couldn’t really happen…until it already had.

The mid-terms are coming. And history isn’t taking notes anymore, it’s already writing the chapter.