16 | SAM MAGAZINE 3/25 In November 1942, when Britain for the first time successfully halted an offense by the seemingly invincible, steam-rolling German Wehrmacht, Winston Churchill noted the event by famously remarking, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is, however, perhaps the end of the beginning.” This would also be a fair summary of the current state of the Trump presidency. Obviously, the circumstances are entirely different. Churchill, after all, was speaking in the aftermath of an actual victory, at the moment when there was a clearly visible turning of the tide. The Trump administration, by contrast, appears to be still pressing forward and liberals, Democrats, and anti-MAGA Republicans still are in disorderly retreat. Indeed, on the face of it, MAGA opponents would seem to have very little reason for cheer. The President celebrated the Fourth of July holiday by signing his “Big Beautiful Bill” into law. The bill included provisions that substantially advanced many or most of the important components of his MAGA agenda. Equally impressive, in pressing the bill through Congress, the President publicly displayed his personal political power, forcing recalcitrant members of the Republican Party – from the party’s left, right, and traditional center – to drink what probably most of them privately regarded as a distasteful concoction and what many, probably correctly, regarded as political poison. Legislative high-water mark What needs to be appreciated, however, is that this is the last significant piece of legislation that President Trump will ever get passed. True, unless the midterm elections give control of the Senate to the Democrats, for the next three years the President will continue to be able to appoint loyalists to essentially all executive and to most judicial positions. But for virtually all legislation, the President needs support from 60 percent of the Senate The End of the Beginning KOLUMNI Edward Rhodes is a professor of Government and International Affairs at George Mason University. Rhodes is best known for his research into the philosophical and cultural roots of American foreign and national security policy. Rhodes served for six years on the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, the Congressionally mandated, nonpartisan body that reviews and certifies the official, published account of American foreign policy
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