Be Prepared To Expect The Worst, In A Second Trump Reign
Victor Hugo, the great 19th century, French writer, playwright and poet, once offered these words of warning, “Nothing is more imminent than the impossible.”
Hugo’s prescient words should sound the alarms over trump as he tries to goose step back to the White House to fulfill his most noxious plans that many have thought “impossible.” Hugo’s warnings are as relevant today as when he penned them while writing “Les Miserables,” about the days leading up to the French Revolution.
In these days when autocrats like trump are gaining sway in democracies around the world, the way to avoid the impossible is to accept that it may be imminent and not some plan for the distant future. And act.
In interviews, trump has said that when he is reelected, he will impart his own nihilistic visions, using the most dystopian measures to satisfy his perverse goals. And if he is not reelected, trump did not rule out violence to win back the presidency.
In recent comments, trump said he is reserving judgment about whether the 2024 election will be “honest.” Asked if he would accept the election results, if it shows he lost, he said, “I will look at it at the time. I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time.”
In 2016 debates, trump would not comment on whether he would vow to live with the principle of a peaceful transfer of power in this country. He didn’t in 2020 when after losing the election; trump encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol to gain him the presidency.
In May, trump again refused to disavow violence and said, “If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”
Trump expects to win back the presidency honestly but said he will “let it be known” if there’s something wrong with the 2024 election.
“I’d be doing a disservice to the country if I said otherwise,” trump said. “But no, I expect an honest election and we expect to win maybe very big.”
Trump’s goal is nothing less than to normalize his fascist plans to retain a false veneer of democracy.
“The normalization of the right does not necessarily make it less extreme,” Italian political scientist and international relations expert Nathalie Tocci, said in a recent column in the New York Times.
Tocci wrote that a trump reelection would unleash other autocratic leaders like Italy’s right wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who has fascist roots, and would be “more than happy to show her true face.” Meloni would “not think twice” in joining trump and his autocratic brother, Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, to force Ukraine to surrender to the Russians. Trump has long mirrored Orban who fancies himself a hero of the people as he demonized migrants, attempted to neuter the judiciary and subjugated the news media.
Trump has many sinister plans and the government has safeguards to avoid fascism but, as George Orwell wrote in 1945, the ability of governments to carry out their designs “depends on the general temper in the country.” And the temper is rising in trump’s favor.
If reelected, trump would put the nation in a state of tyranny, but he said only “for day one. I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.” To accomplish his goals, trump would bring on board an army of devoted, far right conservatives, who have supported his claims of a rigged 2020 election, including Robert Lighthizer, who heads the America First Policy Institute; Russ Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America; Tom Homan, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation; and Stephen Miller, president of America First Legal.
His advisors would include such sycophants as Chris LaCivita, Jason Miller, Susie Wiles, Dan Scavino, Vince Haley, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway.
Among other malevolent plans:
· He would allow states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans.
· He would lord over a vast deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country. To do this, trump said he would support building migrant detention camps and deploying the U.S. military, at the border and inland, even though such action would violate federal law. Along with deportations, trump would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget with or without congressional approval.
· He would decide whether to withhold funds appropriated by Congress for programs that he opposed.
· He would fire any government lawyer who doesn’t carry out trump’s order to prosecute someone, breaking with a longstanding tradition of independent law enforcement. This could extend to federal attorneys currently leading trump prosecutions. In effect, trump would transform the quasi-independent Justice Department to be directly under his thumb.
· He also would likely pardon himself in the event that he is found guilty of various felony charges, including election interference, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., willful retention of national security secrets and falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments.
· He has vowed to prosecute President Joe Biden on alleged corruption charges.
· Trump would weigh pardons for each of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including more than 800 who have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury.
· Trump said he might opt against helping an ally that was attacked in Europe or Asia if he believed the country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. At a campaign rally, trump said that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country who he didn’t be believe was footing enough security costs.
· Referring to U.S. aid to Ukraine, trump reportedly said recently that he “wouldn’t give a penny” to Ukraine. “If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay? They’re much more greatly affected. We have an ocean in between us. They don’t.” NATO nations have to date given more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine. Trump has even said he would consider withdrawing military support in South Korea if the nation doesn’t boost its financial participation.
· He would eviscerate the U.S. civil service and deploy the National Guard or the Army to American cities if he deemed it necessary to quell dissent.
· Trump would shut down the White House pandemic-preparedness office.
· He would staff his administration with lackeys who back his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen because of widespread Democratic voter fraud.
· He would continue his 2017 tax cuts which largely were a huge windfall to the richest Americans.
· Trump would go white hot on his protectionist agenda by boosting tariff by more than 10 percent on all imports, and perhaps even a 100 percent tariff on some Chinese goods. Trump has dismissed independent analysts who determined that his first term tariffs may have cost the U.S. $316 billion and more than 300,000 jobs.
Trump also said he would press for laws to reverse “a bias against White” people and rescind President Biden’s executive orders to boost diversity and racial equity.
“I think there is a definite anti-White feeling in this country and that can’t be allowed,” trump said.
He retreated from earlier comments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said he is “not sure a two-state solution anymore is going to work.” As far as pro-Palestinian protests in the U.S., trump said he wouldn’t hesitate to call in the National Guard of even the U.S. military against to quell demonstrations.