I agree with Stranger_On_A_Train that it’ll be much easier for them to tear things down than build things up. There will be a lot of damage and pain as government institutions are dismantled and international commitments are abandoned. But I don’t think the worst of the scary fascist predictions, like elections being suspended, or a mass deportation program instituted, will happen. At least, not in the next 4 years.
I also agree with Little_Nemo that at this point, trump is not the greatest problem; the far-right wackos that are being let in the door because of trump’s reelection are the real problem.
What happens after the next 4 years is the big question. trump’s reelection has been compared to ‘America taking back her abusive ex’; an apt analogy. But I also think it’s kind of like America falling off the wagon-- they say alcoholics often need to hit rock bottom before they can truly make the real necessary steps to recover. I don’t think a trump admin 2.0 is going to be competent enough to create or continue enough ‘bread and circuses’ style surface conditions of high employment, low prices, low taxes, etc., while at the same time, working their fascist agenda in the background and laying the groundwork to elect a far-right Republican in 2028 who will continue with the real ‘Project 2025’ work. I don’t wish for things to go really bad in the next 2 to 4 years, but I think trump 2.0 will fuck things up enough that people will wake up and push back at the voting booth. I hope as soon as 2026, as with the 2018 ‘blue wave’. And then. hopefully, a Democratic leader will arise in 2028 who can convince America to come back to her senses and get back on the Democracy wagon.
I found this article to be a worthwhile read. It’s from almost three years ago:
Though it more directly pertains to another current thread, what I’ll be watching most closely is the first few Trump appointments – high level staff and Cabinet Secretaries.
I suspect he will be more successful than last time in supporting true loyalists to him. Plus, he has a unified Congress - and sympathetic courts - to assist. I think Trump’s main goal is going to be trying to insulate himself from current and future prosecution, and to increase his personal wealth. Running a close third is punishing enemies - if for no reason other than to dissuade others from opposing him in the future.
Outside of those 3 concerns, I doubt he really cares much about ANY social or political issue. I really don’t think he cares about immigration, abortion, etc.
I really appreciated the laugh. Will Trump’s dreams of higher education remain unfulfilled?
On that note, though, look for increased anti-college rhetoric and the closure of hundreds of colleges and universities over the next four years. Some of this is already underway.
Also, what Florida and Oklahoma are doing to Republicanize education will start in many more red states and districts.
Here’s the break down as I see it. These are the various groups that are gaining power.
Trump: The good news Trump is no Hitler. He has no ideological agenda that he’s trying to impose. He talked about immigrants but that’s just something he found on his campaign. He doesn’t really care all that much about the issue; it’s just something he used to get elected. Once he’s in office, he won’t bother putting any effort into it, just like he didn’t bother in his first term. He’ll just sit back, collect bribes, sexually assault some women, and hold rallies where people shout his name.
The magas (aka the far-right wackos): They’ll cause some problems. Trump’s election will make them feel big but their lives aren’t actually going to get any better. Trump’s not really going to do anything for them other than feed them bullshit. So they’ll still believe Trump is great but they’ll be angry and confused as their lives are still fucked up. And that means they’ll go on occasional rampages and hurt people.
The apparatchiks: These are the ones I see as a bigger problem. They won’t be out rioting so they won’t get much public attention. They’ll just be quietly digging themselves into power with Project 2025. They don’t really care about Trump but they’ll find it useful for the next four years to pretend they support him in order to ride his coattails. Trump’s dumb enough that he’ll believe they’re loyal to him but these people are only looking out for themselves. They’ll turn on Trump when it’s to their advantage to do so. What these people are seeking to do is create the Deep State; a political system where they stay in power, decade after decade, regardless of who gets elected. And they’ll use that entrenched political power to siphon public money into their own pockets and shut down any attempts to clear them out.
The big bosses: These guys are the ones in charge. They’ve got the money and the power. They don’t hold office. As far as they’re concerned people like Congressmen and Judges and Presidents are just employees. Their goal is to have a tame government that makes them richer and doesn’t otherwise interfere with them. A government that doesn’t make them pay taxes but hands them lots of money other people paid. They don’t care what laws the government enacts because they know laws don’t apply to them. Trump thinks he’s one of these guys but the real big bosses see Trump as just a wannabee.
There are several wrong assertions here. If he believes in any of his policies, it’s immigration. He’s been quite consistently racist for decades, and his inhumane treatment of suspected Latin American illegal immigrants is a plausible manifestation of this. And this treatment hardly qualifies as “he didn’t bother”.
Does Trump treat black people like shit? Of course he does, he’s an asshole.
He also treats white people like shit. Trump treats everyone like shit.
Trump doesn’t believe in white supremacy. He believes in Trump supremacy.
Trump doesn’t see himself as having any common cause with the magas. They’re the peasants and he’s the king. Yes, they love him which he feels is his due but that doesn’t mean he’s one of them.
As for his anti-immigrant stance, it’s not something Trump based his campaign around back in 2016. It was just one item on his vague list. But when he found it made the crowds roar, he moved it to the center.
However that’s all it is to Trump. It’s something he can yell out that makes a crowd of people cheer for him. He doesn’t really care what happens to immigrants; he just likes hearing people cheer his name.
Actually, after self-preservation (which he has already effectively achieved; Jack Smith’s investigation is being wound down and the Supreme Court has made him effectively untouchable from criminal or other legal sanction) I think Trump’s first priority is going to be vengeance even above wealth. He just can’t stop obsessing about all of the people who have wronged him—even if just by word or have incidentally slighted him by not bending to his will—and without any real constraints other than institutional reluctance in the DoJ he is free to send the entire executive authority of various agencies after whomever he wants to hurt most. This is sickening and absolutely a hallmark of fascism, but I have to admit a perverse anticipation of the day Trump and Elon Musk come to loggerheads because those are two narcissist that cannot share a spotlight, and as much as Elon has stumped for Trump up to this point he’s going to find that this won’t actually give him any special privilege when it comes to doing things Trump doesn’t like or care about. I predict an epic meltdown and an attempt at deportation or imprisonment for Musk is in the cards.
Trump doesn’t have any real ideology but he does have grievance, and that drives most of what stands in for ‘policy’ coming from him. He’s especially aggrieved at immigrants and particularly Muslims for no reason in particular, but he’s more or less an equal opportunity hater of everybody who he doesn’t consider a real American even if they’ve had roots here for generations. Even in that, he doesn’t have any particular philosophy to his racism; it’s just a gut reaction about what he doesn’t like. He’s like a child who won’t eat his vegetables bawling and throwing food across the table. But that also makes him super-easy to distract and manipulate by anyone in his inner circle clever enough to not respond to his provocations and wait out the temper tantrums, and now there are naked fascists in that coven that are smarter than Stephen Miller.
Not worth the SAN loss, and aligning yourself with such hideous entities, even in the service of restraining others, is not worth the social credit and corruption losses.
We’ll see. Depends on what form the vengeance takes.
I think this is perhaps the greatest area in which I could imagine some pushback from his toadies, out of fear of setting a precedent for what could come their way when/if they are out of power. They’ll readily trash the environment, the economy, OTHER peoples’ lives, international relations, established norms of interaction. But potentially risk themselves?
I expect A LOT of efforts to impugn and blackball. Not to mention not allowing them to participate fairly in govt contracts and such. Relocating offices from blue states. A lot of BS Congressional hrgs with unenforceable “findings.” Withholding government funds. Hell - could even withhold FEMA if a disaster hits a blue area of a blue state…
But actual criminal prosecutions/convictions - or worse? Like I said - we’ll see.
Well, the first one is in and it’s Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff. First female to ever hold that position. Daughter of Pat Summerall.
Long-time GOP institution - all the way back to Reagan. Certainly not MAGA, to the point that many folks can’t figure out why she works for Trump, other than payback against DeSantis for firing her (although she denies that).
Nah, they never think it will actually happen to them until it actually does, then they are shocked, shocked I said, that he will turn on them on a dime. They all think their loyalty will shield them from his petty wrath and somehow never clue into the reality that for Donald Trump “loyalty” is a one-way street littered with backup spikes and concealed mines.
I fully expect him to end teleworking for federal employees and force everyone back into the office. I really don’t want to drive on the DC beltway every day, but unfortunately for me it takes me longer to get to work by Metro.
We’ll see. A lot of conservative workers - and conservative contractors/clients/etc - prefer today’s virtual environment.
We’ve still got our full office space - which is a ghost town when I go in parts of 2 days per week. (The landlord basically gave us a sweetheart 10 year extension just to have tenants.) I wonder if any offices downsized their footprints?
That’s the kind of thing I could see him doing nationwide. He’s a real estate developer whose portfolio (and those of his buddies) probably took significant, and as yet unrecovered, hits from the pandemic and the persistence of work-from-home.
So would service businesses, public transit authorities, landlords, et cetera. There has been a broad bi-partisan push to get people to return to in-office work. The bigger question there is what happens if Trump actually follows through on relocating agency headquarters and operations to different cities across the Midwest and South? D.C. is a ‘company town’ and that would be enormously disruptive in a way that would not attract other tenants and businesses, and also force a lot of people to consider retirement or leaving civil service…which, of course, is the point.
Trump and Company can and will do anything they are not physically stopped from doing because they realize that laws do not matter much when you control those that enforce the law.