‘Trump is all about attention grabbing climaxes that both rate and divert attention from his failures.’For years everyone has been dancing around Trump’s unpredictability, his bullying and his threats. It’s past time to reassert our values In two weeks, Donald Trump faces his moment of truth; transformational midterm elections that will drastically influence the rest of his presidency, for better or for worse.

Assuming that he cannot find a way around the constitutional ban on him running for a third time in 2028, he now has a limited time left to make sure he leaves office the most consequential president ever. Again, for better, or worse.

Motivated deeply by fame, that could make for an (even more) volatile ride than we’ve seen so far as his administration enters its final stages.

Whatever happens in the House and Senate elections, he remains commander in chief of the US armed forces with the power to unleash conflict, perhaps with even less restraint than he’s shown in his intemperate and economically reckless decision to go to war against Iran.

So, if in many ways this era has resembled reality TV, the finale is yet to come, and Trump is all about attention grabbing climaxes that both rate and divert attention from his failures.

His administration’s threats to livestream an execution – plans he’s now had to walk back – to shift the focus from Iran, and his betrayal of Ukraine while doing deals with Russia is a new low.

Such barbaric politically motivated “entertainment”, usually confined to the most gruesome of autocracies, announced by former Fox News host, now Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, may be a sign of things to come.

During Trump’s second term, although arguably better organised and deliberate than the first, there have been few limits on his behaviour, surrounded as he has been by yes people.

Having increased his vote in 2024, winning the trifecta of the White House, with majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, the president has been truly off the leash.

The 3 November midterms, in which all 435 seats in the House and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate are up for election, represent a likely turning point.

As in Australia, the issues motivating voters are predominantly hip pocket; cost of living and inflation, along with immigration, datacentres and AI.

And unlike his last presidency, when Trump’s economic performance was viewed positively at a similar point in the term, this time, voters blame his tariffs and war in Iran for high fuel prices and cost of living.

All of this means that the House is highly likely to swing to the Democrats in what may be less a “blue wave” than a “red undertow” and the Senate, while more borderline, may be lost as well. This is less an endorsement of the Democrats than a referendum on Trump, with his popularity at historic lows Should it play out that way, Trump will be faced with the prospect of spending his final two years of ultimate power with both hands tied behind his back.

When Obama lost the House amid economic woes in 2010, in what he described as a “shellacking”, and only narrowly held the Senate, it sharply limited his agenda for the rest of his term.

There was legislative gridlock that led to increased use of executive orders that in turn led to a deep split between Congress and the White House with threats of legal action over executive overreach.

Much the same happened after the 2018 midterms when Republicans lost control of the house in the largest Democrat gain since the 1970s but held the Senate.

Having followed Obama’s agenda of hope with his own agenda of disruption, Trump will strongly resist his final years in the White House being thwarted in the same way. And theoretically with no chance of a third term, there’s a high likelihood he will simply bulldoze his way through it with a sense of impunity.

Democrats will need to resist the urge to martyr him a second time with legal action and impeachment if, or when, he starts further stretching the system. Meanwhile, these changed dynamics have implications for Australia and the rest of the world.

For years, everyone has been dancing around Trump’s unpredictability, his bullying and his threats.

Tariffs have been used as a weapon, war has breached international law, humanitarian aid has been decimated, inclusion and equality have been called “woke”, immigration has been weaponised, human rights have been eroded, and national sovereignty has been ignored.

Australia’s moves to regulate the US tech firms, to take back some control of our own information landscape, are a perfect case study, with concerns that asserting our own data sovereignty could lead to trade retaliation. Here is an opportunity to reassert our values. If Trump is a lame duck, surely we can say what we really think?

Since he was first elected in 2016, boundaries have shifted, and that’s enabled some scary behaviour that’s seeped into communities, communication and politics around the world.

Even here, where we have had longstanding bipartisan agreement against the death penalty, the ascendant One Nation supports bringing it back. Only we can reset the boundaries of political populism.

Perhaps threatening to livestream an execution in front of a firing squad is a red line, or maybe we’ve already crossed it.

Zoe Daniel is a three-time ABC foreign correspondent and former independent member for Goldstein