Of course, in January of 2017, Trump wasn't taking over the presidency from a senile old fool; just a leftist ideologue. But yes, a lot has changed.

American treasure Dr. Victor Davis Hanson has some of the details:

Trump’s inauguration in a few weeks likely will not resemble his 2016 ceremony.

In the 2016-7 transition, Democratic-affiliated interests ran commercials urging electors to become “faithless” and thus illegally reject their states’ popular votes and instead elect the loser, Hillary Clinton.

Massive demonstrations met Trump on Inauguration Day.

But now, today, after Trump's decisive victory, in the electoral vote and the overall vote count? A victory so decisive that even the most partisan Democrats are having to swallow hard at the notion that you just won't find a more decisive "will of the people" election?

In contrast, during the 2024-2025 transition, Trump has all but assumed the presidency. Over 100 foreign leaders have elbowed each other to be invited to Mar-a-Lago or to phone in their congratulations to the newly elected Trump.

Remember that in 2016 the left screamed “Logan Act” if a Trump transition appointee even talked with foreign officials.

One of the more remarkable aspects of this whole thing is, as Dr. Hanson points out, how Donald Trump is essentially the acting president; but then, well, he's done it before, and somebody has to act like they're in charge.

But Donald Trump can serve one more term. In the first two years, he will be working with a hair-thin GOP majority in the House, and a marginally more comfortable GOP lead in the Senate. What happens next? And what happens to the Republican Party and to the MAGA movement after Trump leaves office? Well, it's kind of early in the game for speculation, but I have some thoughts.

First: The Make America Great Again (MAGA) and the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movements are here for a while, forming a dominant force in Republican politics for a generation - maybe longer. Donald Trump has shown that it's possible to leverage those into a coalition of business owners and entrepreneurs, of blue-collar union laborers, of parents worried about boys in their daughters' locker rooms, and about the endless deluge of woke, woke, woke, to form an election-winning majority. The Democrats have become the party of the dependency class, of ivory-tower academics and coastal elites, and that's not enough to win, not at the presidential level. But will the GOP stay on this course? Or will they slip back into the establishment role of the Republicans as "the loyal opposition," the Washington Generals to the Democrats' Harlem Globetrotters?

Second: Much will depend on Congress. Some of Trump's second-term agenda can be handled largely within the Executive branch, such as much of his illegal immigration and mass deportation plans. But for more, and any long-term fix, he will need Congress on his side. As noted, he can count on a razor-thin GOP majority in the House, and a non-veto-proof majority in the Senate; and he can only count on that for two years. If the Democrats manage to wrest back control of either house, much of Trump's second-term agenda will be scuppered, and that will affect what happens next. Success is its own reward, but failure, even if it's just the failure to achieve success, is often its own punishment.

Third and finally: Much will depend on Trump's successor. We can presume that Vice President-elect JD Vance will be the heir apparent, but there's no guarantee. He may elect not to run; he has a young family, and the presidency is the most stressful job on the planet; some of that stress surely rubs off. He may also face a primary challenge. Among others, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is also popular with MAGA voters, is sooner or later going to want to take another crack at the job. 

Think also on this; it's rare for a party to hold the White House for more than two terms. While this is Trump's second term, it's also a non-consecutive term, so we are sort of in uncharted waters here. But a GOP nominee, we can expect, will be a MAGA standard-bearer, unless for some reason Trump's second term crashes and burns. While I don't find that likely, if the Democrats manage to seize either or both houses of Congress, every glove ever made will come off.

See Related: Dem Lawmaker Says She's Fleeing Congress Because Trump Tried to Kill Her on J6

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Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.

Donald Trump has remade the Republican Party in ways most of us never expected when the man came down the golden escalator in 2015 to announce his candidacy. His effect on national politics will be lasting as well; whatever else anyone can say about Donald Trump, no one can deny that the man has grit to spare. He has drive, determination, uncanny stamina, and always, always an eye on the main chance. He throws out ideas like confetti, some of them even serious, and he cracks jokes, many of them off-color, but people have to take him seriously; the way world leaders are reacting to his reelection certainly tells us that.

In January 2029, though, he will leave the White House for the last time and move into a well-deserved retirement, and the Republican Party will have to find a new standard-bearer. And the conservative agenda, MAGA, MAHA, and all, will have to be fought for, again and again. In matters such as this, there is no victory; there are only temporary reprieves. Donald Trump, in defeating Kamala Harris, has won us a reprieve. But what happens next? That remains to be seen. It is in the nature of government to grow ever larger and more intrusive, and there are many other factors, including our disastrous national debt.

Trump's reelection, to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, isn't the end. It isn't the beginning of the end. But it may well be the end of the beginning.