The promise Donald Trump is sure to keep
He wants more freedom to fire civil servants, but he should weigh the long-term consequences

Donald Trump’s politics are so elastic that it is impossible to be certain what he means when he promises, as he did on election night, to “govern by a simple motto: promises made, promises kept”. Will he judge himself a failure if he does not end the war in Ukraine before he takes office?
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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “On his majesty’s civil service”
United States
November 16th 2024- What Trump’s picks suggest about how his presidency will go
- Senate Republicans flex their independence
- The man picked as defence secretary wants to purge the Pentagon
- Mike Waltz wants America to focus on the threat from China
- Climate change and the next administration
- The demographic detail of Donald Trump’s victory
- The promise Donald Trump is sure to keep

From the November 16th 2024 edition
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Donald Trump’s approval rating is dropping
He is beating his own record for rapidly annoying American voters

Can Progressives learn to make progress again?
In the political wilderness, Democrats are asking themselves how they lost their way

Tracking Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown
And why that is increasingly hard to do
America’s progressives should love standardised tests
New evidence in a long-running argument
Abortion becomes more common in some US states that outlawed it
Shield laws have profound implications for how federalism works
Will the Supreme Court empower Trump to sack the Fed’s boss?
A case that tests the president’s power to dismiss officials has implications for the central bank