Accountability or bust: Trump’s second term test

Republicans weren’t supposed to have a big night Tuesday — but they had a worse one than expected.

As usual, Democrats, who have had little to celebrate beyond street protests and government shutdowns, framed the results as a referendum on Donald Trump. That claim is exaggerated, but Republicans would be foolish to think the administration’s performance played no role. Weak candidates in blue states don’t explain everything. The message should be taken as a call for maintenance, not panic.

If the Trump administration restores trust through accountability and delivers tangible improvements to ordinary Americans, it will earn a political legacy that lasts generations.

The consensus takeaway is the right one: President Trump should return home and focus on his domestic agenda.

That shift already seems to be under way. Immediately after the election, the president summoned Republican senators to the White House to urge them to revoke the filibuster and pass a bold domestic program. Whether or not ending the filibuster is strategically sound, the impulse behind it shows Trump recognizes that his domestic agenda needs care and attention.

On Thursday, the president followed through by announcing a new affordability initiative, including a deal with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to slash the prices of popular weight-loss drugs.

The missing element

Any serious domestic agenda must center on accountability. Trump’s original campaign gained enormous traction on that theme for a reason. Like affordability, accountability resonates because both expose a corrupt system that favors elites and leaves ordinary Americans powerless. The Epstein saga, still festering years later, stands as Exhibit A — another example of “the big guys getting away with it again.”

That resentment fueled Trump’s rise in 2016 and explains his staying power today. It also helps explain Mamdani’s massive win on Tuesday. Americans are sick of a rigged system, and they are rejecting that system.

Trump represents a chance to correct that system. His second administration has produced real accomplishments. But the obstacles remain daunting: a world in turmoil, an economy tilted against working people, a hostile bureaucracy protected by a conflicted judiciary, and a divided Republican Party that lacks a filibuster-proof Senate majority.

Many within that party seem more interested in positioning themselves for the post-Trump era than advancing his reforms. It’s a weak hand outside the executive branch — but it’s also why voters sent him back to Washington.

A coalition that needs proof

For Trump’s coalition to endure, voters must see results that affect their daily lives. They need proof that their votes produced meaningful change — not better conditions for elites or new foreign entanglements. They want to see powerful wrongdoers held to account and to believe the system can be fair again.

Foreign policy deals won’t secure that trust. Trump’s skepticism of interventionism can survive only so many “necessary” international arrangements. However worthwhile some of those efforts may be, domestic priorities must come first. Accountability and reform should lead.

That means confronting the deep state, disciplining the bureaucracy, and rewarding the citizens who put this administration in power. The ferocity of DOGE’s early efforts — once celebrated as a hallmark of domestic resolve — has largely evaporated. In its place, we’ve seen premature victory laps and deflections. The FBI supposedly reformed. The Butler assassination attempt, which nearly removed a political figure representing half the country, brushed aside as a bad day. The promise to deport illegal immigrants narrowed to the “worst of the worst.”

When government fails to deliver transparency and fairness, the people begin to question the entire system — and rightly so. Americans don’t separate political corruption from economic corruption. It’s all part of the same tilted playing field. Trump still embodies their hope of leveling it.

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Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Contributor via Getty Images

Too much sizzle, too little steak

That mission is undermined, however, by the self-promotional drift of several administration principals. Americans see endless television hits, turf wars, and personal branding. They hear more about Attorney General Pam Bondi than about the Department of Justice, more about Secretary Kristi Noem than Homeland Security, more about Secretary Howard Lutnick than the Department of Commerce.

Most of these officials are countering a hostile media landscape — a necessary lesson from the first Trump term. But the result has been an overcorrection: too much personality, not enough policy. Americans didn’t vote for celebrity cameos. They voted for results.

Trump’s cabinet would do well to follow his lead and return focus to the work at hand. Fewer cameras, more control. Roll up sleeves, reassert authority over agencies, and push through systemic reforms that prove Washington can change — permanently.

The road to renewal

If the Trump administration restores trust through accountability and delivers tangible improvements to ordinary Americans, it will earn a political legacy that lasts generations.

America could use that kind of durability — and that kind of hope.