'There are no guardrails, there are only choices': 4 columnists predict Trump's new term

Just as President-elect Donald Trump’s transition process in 2016 foreshadowed his first four years in office, his ongoing preparations for his next term offer a glimpse into the country's future.

Four New York Times opinion columnists discussed Trump’s early moves – and what they signal – in an online conversation published Monday. They began with deputy opinion editor Patrick Healy recalling how the 2016 transition phase revealed what would become fixtures in his administration, including the "pressure for loyalty from his cabinet picks and other government officials; the jockeying for power and influence among conservative, campaign and establishment G.O.P. factions; [and] Trump’s constant tweeting."

"This foreshadowed a presidency in which Trump’s chaotic impulses were often channeled through the personnel of a normal Republican administration, which, like other Republican administrations, left the normal infrastructure of the federal bureaucracy entirely intact," Healy said.

Times opinion columnist M. Gessen added that compared to this transition process, Trump’s 2016 appointments seem “almost conventional.”

ALSO READ: The America-attacking Trump is coming for our military — and then he's coming for us

“And that, to me, may be the most informative thing now — this measure of how far we’ve devolved," Gessen said.

They also analyzed Trump’s current moves to predict his next four years in the White House.

“For me, the most significant development is what seems to be a broad infrastructure built to ensure fealty, not just to Trump but to a broader hard-right agenda that goes deep into the guts of government at many levels,” opinion columnist Lydia Polgreen said.

Polgreen said Trump will likely push through a conventional set of Republican economic policies, but warned that should offer no one any comfort.

“There is a tremendous amount of damage ready to be done, with very little restraint,” Polgreen said. “So much depends on the courage of lawmakers, bureaucrats, soldiers and judges. That is not a sturdy guardrail in any sense of the word.”

“There are no guardrails, there are only choices,” Jamelle Bouie concluded. “Will congressional Republicans choose to bend to Trump’s most authoritarian demands? Will courts give legal sanction to moves that violate the foundations of the constitutional order?”