Why not? Trump has been always purely transactional when it comes to foreign policy. As long as his side makes more money than the otherside he won the negotiation.
Currently Russia is paying China for weapons, if we can take over that market we get more money China gets less. That’s a double win for the US. As for any danger to Europe, they’re a bunch of woke pansies who have been leaching off the US via NATO for years, if they can’t pay for their own defense they get what they deserve. Also Russia is Trump’s friend as evidenced by the help he provided in getting Trump (and likely other members of the GOP) elected. So working with him as an ally will encourage him to continue the support.
I do not share your optimism on this score at all. Courts? Maybe (maybe) they’ll rule against his most outlandish stunts, but he’ll appeal, appeal, and then probably ignore a verdict that displeased him. The whole “yeah, but what if we don’t”… aesthetic. Agencies? He plans to both gut them and fill them with toadies. Congress? IF Democrats retain control of at least one (house or senate), then maybe. Possibly. But he could always veto them. Or ignore them. Or threaten them.
This is the other issue. I have a hard time imagining a Trump victory that doesn’t also give Congress to the GOP. And then it will just be rubber-stamping everything Trump wants.
Look how quickly they moved on appointing a new member of the Supreme Court last time. When the pressure is on and there’s no one to stop them, shit just gets done.
What could he possibly threaten Congress with? I mean, they’re a coequal branch of government. It’s not like he could send a mob with blood in their eyes to interrupt their proceedings while they’re in session…
Just listen to what Trump says every day about what he thinks is happening to him: witch hunt, election interference, unfair courts, being persecuted, etc… That’s what he’s going to do to others if he is in charge again.
And except for America losing “soft power” by becoming a laughingstock around the world, and the Supreme Court becoming a puppet of the far right for many, many years to come, among many other catastrophes.
More to the point, however, this was a relatively cautious first term, with Trump having his eye on a second. Despite which, he so stubbornly clung to power that he instigated an insurrection and conspired to have the military seize ballot boxes and voting machines. What do you think is going to happen at the end of 2028? And how about the fate of NATO, and Trump’s best buddy Putin’s imperialist ambitions in Ukraine and far beyond?
In Germany leading up to the ascendence of the Nazi Party, moderates relied upon “the courts” to preserve order and protect individual rights. In response, Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler set up the Volksgerichtshof, a “special court” outside the Weimer, initially to prosecute the defendants in the Reichstag fire trial of whom all but one were acquitted by the Reich Court, but later used to persecute political opponents and people who were viewed as opposed to the Nazi regime. The courts of Weimer-era Germany were basically unable to stop abrogation of their constitution, and became completely irrelevant from 1934 onward.
Of course, Trump may not even need to do this; the Federal district and appellate courts have been packed by ‘conservative’ justices during Trump’s first term after being held open by McConnell, Grassley, et al in refusing to fill open appointments with nominees from the Obama White House, and of course the Supreme Court of the United States is heavily biased toward him. The notion that “the courts” are going to restrain the President or hold him or his enablers accountable even if they were so inclined is risible to anyone who recalls the Iran-Contra scandal.
Federal agencies are largely under the executive branch and can be instructed by the President about how to conduct their roles, only subject to limitations in their basic charters that can be contested legally (see above). A Republican-dominated Congress isn’t going to hold anything back from Trump, and even one with a Democratic majority in one or both houses but insufficient to override a presidential veto has little direct power over the President other than impeachment and removal, or to hold hearings and subpoena witnesses to testify.
Responses: mass political assassinations and the end of global human civilization as we know it.
Whether you think the predictions here are “alarmist” or not, I don’t think the OP has gotten the reassurance they hoped.
As for me, I reiterate something I’ve said many times: I don’t think “the United States with the current size and structure, except Trump dictatorship” is going to happen. Something different and bad could happen, but I just don’t think that specific scenario is at all plausible.
I think you identified the most significant risk here. Majority control of both houses and removal of the Senate filibuster could very well mean they could (and would) legislate the following with simple majority votes:
Repeal of the Civil Rights Act,
Repeal of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
Repeal of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Nationwide abortion ban
Expansion of the Supreme Court
Repeal of what’s left of the Voting Rights Act
Dissolution of the EPA, Dept. of Education, NLRB, CFPB, and other federal agencies they dislike
Repeal of the Clean Air and Water Acts
Privatization of Social Security
Repeal of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid
Repeal of federal subsidies for school lunch and other nutrition programs
Repeal of FDA-approved contraceptives such as birth control pills
Repeal of the Fair Labor Standards Act (which protects union rights, among other labor protections)
Weakening of regulatory agencies like the SEC and FDA
We live on a knife’s edge in which many of the legal rights and protections we take for granted could be swept away.
If you protest any of the above, you are disloyal, probably a terrorist, and can easily be incarcerated in some form for the good of the rest of (MAGA) society. There are plenty of folks who would love to be put in positions of power over others in the camps.
I’ve said before that I feel the current Republican plan is to recreate the kind of one-party system we saw in the southern states for several decades between the 1880’s and 1950’s. Essentially one party controlled elected offices and they used that control to ensure they controlled the outcome of elections, which allowed them to retain control of elected offices. There was no need to eliminate the opposing party because they had rendered it impotent.
I feel under another Trump administration, the Republicans will work on locking things up before 2028.
This thread has all of the breathless speculation of the worst alternate histories. Do people here actually believe what they are writing?
The alternate history part comes up when all opposition is encased in amber and Trump can simply do what he wants. Which I am assuming will not be the case if 5% of what people say Trump will do would happen.
Hitler actually killed people a decade before he was ever if office? Has Trump? Am I going to get a story about that now?
Wisconsin and North Carolina, to name two, are using almost the exact form of Jim Crow politics to maintain legislative locks in fitty fitty electorates. The voter suppression tactics differ in severity (and Dems can win statewide races) but it will take large national systemic reforms to put those practices to rest.
I do. As I noted, my post wasn’t just theoretical. I am describing a system that existed in this country for a long period. It happened here once so I see no reason why it can’t happen again.
I also feel that the Republican party is actively working on recreating that system and is a good way along towards its completion.
Or enough people that don’t care, which is more likely.
Shrug…
The worst possible outcome, the OP asks? Totalitarism, the regime where an individual, whatever he does, can always be accused of something and condemned, whatever the individual does or does not, because the law does not hold.
Worst case, Trump gets absolute immunity and wins by setting aside the constitution and compels all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
