As we all contemplate another four years of Donald Trump, the second-guessing and finger-pointing has already begun. Maybe things would have been different if Joe Biden had decided, on his own, to live up to his pledge of being a transitional president by announcing he would not run for a second term. Maybe things would have been different if he had finished his campaign -- he beat Trump once, right? Maybe there should have been a real contest to see which Democrat should run instead of Biden. Maybe Kamala Harris wasn't the best candidate. Maybe Democrats should have gone with a more traditional (White male, in other words) candidate. Maybe she should have picked someone else to be on the ticket with her. There will be plenty of time to anguish over all of these and more (anguish is what Democrats do best, after all).

In the end, though, the American people wanted Trump, so we're all in for another rollercoaster ride for the next four years. Or less -- I find myself wondering how long it will take JD Vance to convince a majority of Trump's cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, so Vance can take over. Early 2026, perhaps? Wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Trump has promised many things to many people, a lot of them to happen on "Day One." He won't follow through on most of them, but I doubt many of his supporters will care. He certainly didn't follow through on many of the promises he made in his first term, but it never really seemed to matter that much to them. Trump's not really about policy, he's all about entertainment value above all else, and he was entertaining enough for his followers last time around.

We will enter a period of Republican excess, that much seems certain. They seem destined to overreach in their ambitions, and will likely do things that turn out to be wildly unpopular. Such is the nature of politics.

During Trump's first term, we were spared from the worst of his impulses by two things. First, he actually did have a few "adults in the room" who would explain why Trump's flights of fancy were very bad ideas. And the second was his own incompetence. Trump doesn't have a lot of follow-through. He gets mad, throws a tantrum, and then forgets about it. In his second term, however, there won't be any adults left in the room -- Trump will hire people solely on how loyal they are to him. They will likely do whatever he asks them to, without question. They certainly won't push back on him, they'll fall all over themselves to do his every bidding. So all we've got left as a check is Trump's incompetence -- which seems to be growing worse as time goes on. But it's a thin reed to cling to, admittedly.

The scariest thing is that the Supreme Court has already ruled that Trump cannot be held accountable for any "official acts." This green light is incredibly frightening. Trump is impulsive enough already, and now he knows ahead of time that he's never going to have to answer for any of it. And all he's got to do is to label everything "official acts," which I fully expect him to make the most of.

The only thing that there is to look forward to is the fact that Trump will enter office as a lame duck. He cannot run for president again, ever. The only way to change this is to pass a constitutional amendment, which is simply not going to happen. So at most, we've only got four more years of Trump to get through.

Personally, I'm going to try to keep away from the blame game. Could Harris have run a better campaign? Possibly. Would another candidate have made a difference? That's possible too. But then again maybe not. The American political landscape is so tribal now that it's hard to break through -- the polling barely shifted during the entire election, no matter what happened. The people who supported Trump were not ready to be talked out of doing so, to be blunt. The people who didn't were never going to suddenly get behind Trump. Politics isn't just tribal in American now, it is almost perfectly balanced. Occasionally Republicans gain an edge (as they just did) and occasionally Democrats gain an edge, but it's going to be a while before any politician can truly "unify" America behind them.

It's going to be a very long four years, and the Republican overreach is going to become unbearable, but at this point there's just no avoiding it. America may go through some fundamental changes and morph into something unrecognizable. That possibility has never really been a concern before now, but Trump has so completely taken over the Republican Party that it's doubtful any of them will stand up to anything he proposes, no matter how destructive it happens to be.

The thing about having a "strongman" leader is that they never accept any blame if things don't turn out as rosy as they promise. A new scapegoat will be trotted out instead, to distract the public from any gross failures. And Donald Trump is a master of distraction, we've already seen that in his first term. So although he's made sweeping promises to fix everything on Day One, when that doesn't turn out to be the case, he'll stage some center-ring spectacle to divert everyone's attention. Or he'll just lie and say everything is better than it ever was, all evidence to the contrary.

That's exactly what America voted for, and it is what America is going to get.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant