'We knew': Analyst who predicted worst Trump abuses says they're 'all coming to pass'

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to New Jersey, U.S., June 6, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

One Washington Post columnist predicted in 2024 that should he win election to a second term, Trump would launch an unprecedented attack on his political opponents and democracy itself. Now, he's chastising Americans for not doing more when they had the chance.

In a Friday essay, the Post's Colbert I. King wrote that "Trump's own record, his musings on the campaign trail and the words of his inner circle" should have been all Americans needed in order to forecast everything the 47th president of the United States would do during his first months back in the White House. King recalled his July 3, 2024 column, in which he warned that a term-limited Trump would run roughshod on the Constitution with little to no interference from the other two branches of government.

"Prosecutions will warp into persecutions. Political foes, real and imagined, in the press and online and in the politicians’ suites, will be subjected to Trump’s whims and power," he wrote last July. "Pardons and clemency will rain down like manna on Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists. Russian President Vladimir Putin will once again have a friend in the White House and an ally against NATO and the West. Immigrants and people from Muslim-majority countries will face an aggressively hostile federal government. Civil rights and LGBTQ+ progress will grind to a halt. The economy will function on behalf of the haves, to the detriment of the have-nots and the left-out."

"I take no pleasure in recalling those thoughts," King wrote in his latest column. "In fact, they are painful, because it’s all coming to pass."

King then went point-by-point to remind readers that Trump has indeed pardoned January 6 insurrectionists, used the power of the presidency to pursue his political enemies, taken a friendly position with Vladimir Putin in the midst of the Ukraine war, imposed yet another travel ban from predominantly Black, Brown and Muslim countries, threatened LGBTQ+ rights across the country and is actively pushing for legislation that would gut safety net programs lower-income Americans rely on to extend tax cuts that are overwhelmingly skewed in favor of the rich. The Post columnist also didn't mince words for Democrats, calling them "congenitally disorganized" in the face of an administration they had plenty of time to prepare for and who so far remain powerless to stop.

"The problem is, we knew all that last year," King wrote. "And we see it, obediently endorsed and implemented by his political sycophants, at work today."

"Are people still not paying attention?" He added.

Click here to read King's latest column in full (subscription required).