People Aren't Facing Up to the Horrors a New Trump Term Would Bring

[Nevilledog]

https://newrepublic.com/article/174535/people-arent-facing-horrors-new-trump-term-bring

No paywall
https://archive.li/jG1Ar


People forget just how awful the Trump presidency was: daily chaos, naked power grabs, corruption, pandering to religious extremists, weaponization of government for personal vendettas, degradation of our democracy, and the constant assault on the rights of women, persons of color, and LGBTQ people. In the past week both The New York Times and The Economist have helpfully reminded us that the next Trump administration will be even worse, because this time they’re coming in with a plan.

The first iteration of his administration was embarrassingly unprepared because he never expected to win. He and his people blew off most of the normal transition-related activities expected of a president. Michael Lewis’s book The Fifth Risk described how the comically inept Trump crew held meetings in the dark at the White House because they literally didn’t know how the lights worked. As a result of this incompetence, Trump’s administration was somewhat limited in how much damage it could do.

Next time will be different.

He’s coming back with the entire conservative apparatus at his back, having spent four years in the wilderness methodically planning how to permanently alter the political and legal landscape of the country to favor an anti-democratic minority. As Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams told The Atlantic, their goal is to “effect a realignment of our politics and take control of all three branches of government for a generation or two.”

Central to this is the plan to reinstitute Schedule F for federal employees, which would allow the administration to fire any federal employee with policy-making authority. In practice this means that a Trump administration would replace vast swathes of the federal government bureaucracy with sycophants and ideological fellow travelers bent on implementing pro-corporate, pro-religious, and anti-minority agendas. This weaponizes the entire federal bureaucracy against women and LGBTQ people.

*snip*

[edhopper]

1. The mainstream media

certainly isn't.

[RAB910]

8. The MSM is too busy normalize Trump's and the GOP's criminal and treasonous behavior

[peppertree]

18. Stands to reason. It's what Wall Street, the CEOcracy & the MIC want (w/ exceptions) so they do too.

With notable exceptions like MSNBC and Anderson Cooper.

I'm convinced that what saved him from Licht's axe (when that imp had it), was his being a Vanderbilt.

There goes a man who uses his privilege for good.

[Elessar Zappa]

2. He can't be allowed to regain the office.

We need all hands on deck including donating, volunteering time, and, of course, voting.

[vlyons]

3. No he is not coming back!

He will have been indicted in DC and in GA by then. Plus the vast majority of voters will not vote for him.

[anciano]

7. Agreed......

and I believe 2024 will be the "blue tsunami" we have been hoping for.

[vlyons]

9. me too!

GOPers will get spanked big time at the polls.

[Ligyron]

19. They absolutely will.

Not to rain on our parade here but they'll have a Plan B if they don't win and I think they realize they can't and won't win a fair election.

They only had a couple months to put together an attempt to overturn the last one, and as we all know, it failed miserably, but they've had time now, as that article points out, to try and come up with something better.

We need to have an answer for any contingency but that's above my pay grade. All I can do is GOTV. I just hope some good people are on it as we speak and most of the really smart ones are on our side.

Our sense of fairness is what does us in ad nauseam, plus no one likes to wrestle with pigs, but we may need to get dirty in order to save democracy.

[vlyons]

20. We can expect more stiffle and suppress the vote as their 1st tactic

Fewer polling places in blue districts, no polling places in college campuses, etc.

[LiberalLovinLug]

14. while we all hope this comes true, its dangerous to convince yourself of this so early

To even relax a tiny bit into complacency. To spread that message.
I think we all remember the horror show of that November evening in 2016. Where it went from, everybody all excited and ready for Hillary to give her acceptance speech in a glass ceiling room to give homage to her breaking the larger glass ceiling. It was a sure bet.

All it can take, like Comey's last minute email investigation false flag, is one or two carefully placed October surprises, or blowing up of a "senior moment" of Biden into a national security screech. Fox News and other RW media would be making bales of hay, but the rest of the "normal" MSM would probably also join in with a Tucker like,...."should we be concerned about this?...Just asking the question" Add to that of course all the voter suppression and gerrymandering.........this thing is not in the bag yet.

[allegorical oracle]

16. +++++

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. If TFG is re-elected in 2024, there will be no further POTUS elections

Link to tweet

[EleanorR]

5. Sounds like Erdogan post 2016

Thousands of civil servants fired, passports canceled, thousands detained, journalists imprisoned and media outlets shut down, judges sacked, books burned...

More than 300,000 books have been removed from Turkish schools and libraries and destroyed since the attempted coup of 2016, according to Turkey’s ministry of education.

Turkey’s education minister Ziya Selçuk announced last week that 301,878 books had been destroyed as the government cracks down on anything linked to Fethullah Gülen, the US-based Muslim cleric who is accused by Turkey of instigating 2016’s failed military coup. Gülen has denied involvement.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/06/turkish-government-destroys-more-than-300000-books

[republianmushroom]

6. true, i agree

30 months and counting

[keep_left]

10. The Claremont Institute...what a surprise. The "think" tank that's been the vanguard of making...

...Trump some sort of "intellectual"!

More than any other far-right "think" tank, Claremont has always been the institution to defend the indefensible, a veritable fifth column supporting the worst excesses and atrocities of the Trump regime. Trump consiligliere John Eastman is a major figure at Claremont.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216965911

Claremont publishes several make-work "journals", par for the course with wingnut welfare, including the execrable American Greatness.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217850281#post5
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/24/claremont-john-eastman-trump

Another "think" tank that has aided and abetted the Trump regime is the Heritage Foundation, which in recent years has gone overtly fash.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=18111909

[Hortensis]

11. How many of our up to 15M undocumented immigrants would

be picked up while dropping their kids at school and stuffed into holding camps awaiting nations to deport them to? What would happen to the kids this time? What would happen to those held when our next pandemic sweeps through? There will be one under them. In future heat waves, power failures, blizzards?

Closer to home, what'd happen to those they identify as opponents, such as from social media posts, voting records, etc, who require professional licenses to work? Those who work for employers that have to stay in good with local officials, big wigs, government contractors? Are the wrong color or gender for jobs white men want? Neighborhoods that can't get municipal services to respond?

Just one sort of problem, multiply by many.

[Brainfodder]

12. FEAR MONGERING a 77 year old whiner and followers is funnier by the minute? HE LOST LITERAL VOTERS!

Snapping independents and democrats should also not be under estimated?

Besides aint this really about race and classes not parties, politic party: changeable with a form, just the easy scapegoat?

[J_William_Ryan]

13. "...they literally didn't know how the lights worked."

Now Trump and his people know how the lights work – and know how to destroy America’s democracy and establish the tyranny of Republican minority rule.

[Lonestarblue]

15. IF the 2024 elections are truly fair, then Trump will not win.

That’s a big if given Republicans have spent the past couple of years passing voter suppression and nullification laws. The swing states that Biden won that gave him the Electoral College were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin. In Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, his margin of victory was slim—from 10,000+ in Arizona to 20,000+ in Wisconsin. Those states gave him the 306 Electoral College votes to win.

Now imagine that the No Labels candidate siphons off 20,000 or so votes from Biden in each state. If Republicans can flip just three states (Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia with 37 EC votes), Biden loses. Wisconsin Republicans have already proven their corruption by submitting a fake EC slate to Congress for the 2020 election. I’m sure they’re working on ways to do it again without being caught.

Georgia’s legislatures has given itself powers it did not have in 2020. Affecting the cote in Fulton County alone could switch the results. And we’ve already seen that Republican officials in Coffey County are corrupt. How many other counties have similar corrupt officials?

This election is not in the bag.

[allegorical oracle]

17. Find myself fretting over dozens of ways he can destroy our country. From resuming his wall-building

and pipeline installations to destroying Native American and wilderness sites. What wall there is impedes wildlife migration and the razor fencing at the border is killing deer and coyotes and other animals that get caught in it (not to mention people). He will resume drilling and mining in the national parks and will likely ignore climate change issues altogether.

The wide array of potential damage he can do gives me nightmares. And then he could refuse to leave after four years.

[Kaleva]

21. Preparing for catastrophic climate change has my attention

10s of millions, maybe 100s, are going to die . Most of the survivors will be facing extreme hardships.

[WarGamer]

23. In time, billions.

Many countries will be in DEEP DEEP trouble sooner than later... India comes to mind.

[WarGamer]

22. He won't make the same mistakes twice.

In 2017 he let the RNC guide him into the job, relying on people like Paul Ryan and Sessions, etc...

If he wins in 24, in 2025... it'll be a team of Federalist Society lawyers probing the limits of Constitutionality to change the very essence of the US Gov't.

He'll ignore the calls for political people as appointees and will surround himself only with loyal minions.

[NotVeryImportant]

24. True, with one edit

All other current Republican candidates would implement the same or similar thing.