How dangerous would a second Trump term be? The conventional wisdom says that after learning his lesson during his first term, Trump would be unleashed in a second term to do anything he wants with no one to push back against him. Maybe so. But I've never been too sure about this. For starters, keep in mind the three main things that motivate Trump:
- Appearing tough and getting the best in negotiations.
- Retribution against those who have laughed at him (elites) or who caused him real or perceived harm.
- Flapping his mouth and always being the center of attention.
Given all this, what is Trump likely to do in a second term? I'm reluctant to confess this, but my take has long been that it won't be a lot worse than his first term. Let's break this down by all the actions he might take. These are in no particular order:
- Stop aid to Ukraine. He might. A lot of Republicans would be on his side, and he's always been mad at Zelenskyy over the events surrounding his first impeachment.
- Appoint lunatic cabinet members. Yes, to some extent. But even a Republican Senate full of loyalists will place limits on this.
- Build the wall. This makes him look tough, so he'll probably do it. Republicans prevented this in his first term but won't in a second term. However, although this is a waste of money, it's not likely to do lasting harm.
- Deport 20 million illegal immigrants. This is big talk, like "Mexico will pay for it." But it's not feasible. It would require enormous manpower and enormous expenditures, and even at that it wouldn't work. What's more, the business wing of the party would fight hard against it. In the end, Trump might beef up ICE, but not a lot more.
- Place 10% tariffs on everything from everybody. It's unclear what Trump really wants to do on tariffs, but the maximal version isn't workable. National security goes only so far as a justification, and Trump is bound by treaty obligations just like any other president. I wouldn't be surprised if he tightened tariffs on China, but not much more.
- Appoint lots of conservative judges. Yep.
- Cut taxes on businesses and the rich. Yep.
- Kill the Inflation Reduction Act. He might very well try to do this. It's a signature Biden initiative, so it would fit his retribution motivation, and green spending is unpopular among Republicans.
- Tell the Justice Department to indict his political opponents. This is mostly big talk, used as a campaign device. Once he wins, he won't really care that much.
- Tell the Justice Department to end its cases against him. Absolutely yes.
- Repeal Obamacare. This is hard to call. He might want another crack at the one big piece of retribution that failed in his first term. But with the ACA now ten years old, it's not clear if he'd have the votes.
- Replace 4,000 civil servants with political loyalists. Again, this is mostly big talk, though Trump would probably love to do it. The problem is that he'd likely need congressional approval, and I think there would be some Republican holdouts. Plus Democrats would filibuster it. Plus there are practical issues involved in trying to hire this many people. In his first term Trump (along with every other president) had trouble even filling the thousand or so presidential appointees already on the books. Plus Democrats would get to do the same thing the next time they're in office.
- Drill for oil everywhere. Yes. But honestly, we pretty much do this already.
- Ban abortion nationwide. Trump knows this would be political suicide, and he cares way more about his own reputation than he does about abortion. He won't do it. Nor could it pass Congress anyway.
- Project 2025. This has gotten lots of attention recently, but it's really just standard boilerplate from the Heritage Foundation. Trump has given no serious sign that he plans to use it as a blueprint, and he isn't really a blueprint guy in the first place.
- Refuse to leave office after four years. This won't happen. The Constitution requires him to leave and there's no way around that. There is zero possibility of amending the Constitution and zero possibility of Trump rounding up the physical force necessary to stay in office illegally.
- Destroy democracy. Trump's assault on the 2020 election was obviously an enormous assault on democracy. But everything else Trump did was handled in the ordinary way. Bills passed through Congress. Supreme Court justices were confirmed by the Senate. Court orders were obeyed. This will continue.
- Endless chaos. Absolutely yes. This is all part of Trump's pathological desire to always be the center of attention.
- Pull out of NATO. Trump has mostly gotten what he wanted from NATO (bigger defense spending), and in any case NATO is pretty popular in Congress. He'll keep up the big talk, but he won't seriously try to leave our oldest and most basic military alliance.
- Freedom cities. Oh please.
- Sending the National Guard into high-crime cities. This is big talk, but it won't happen. Crime has plummeted since Trump left office, and if he gets back in it won't be long before he proclaims America safe once again.
- Close the Department of Education. Congress has to do this, and it probably won't since plenty of them would object (it's a source of power). And even if Trump did manage to close it down, it's meaningless unless he also shuts down all the programs currently managed by the department. He's given no indication that he plans to do that.
- Roll back Biden-era rules on electric vehicles. Yes, he'll probably do this. He has the authority; it would be a poke in the eye to Biden; and Republicans are mostly on board with it.
Aside from the usual Republican practice of cutting taxes and appointing conservative judges, Trump will probably build the wall, increase some tariffs, gut the environment, and appoint some nutballs. He might try to overturn Obamacare, kill IRA, and end aid to Ukraine.
That's it. That's my best guess about what a second Trump term will be like. Unlike most incoming presidents, I don't think Trump has anything that could seriously be called a policy agenda. He just wants to prove he can win. Once in office he'll preside over a potpourri of unrelated bad policy initiatives, but probably not anything too out of the ordinary for a Republican president.
Plus endless chaos. And, admittedly, a lot of tail risk that you wouldn't have with an ordinary Republican.
But by far the most likely outcome is that a second Trump term would be bad but not catastrophic. The United States is a very big ship, and even Trump can't turn it much in only four years. There's even an upside: If Trump wins, maybe it will give Democrats some time sit back and think seriously about why so many people refuse to vote for them even when the alternative is Donald Trump.
The tribunal judge took one last look at KD. "Sir, do you have anything to add before I announce my verdict?"
Disheveled with long white hair and a beard, KD was not the blogger we knew. Locked away, time had worn him down to a Biden. He mumbled, "I guess I was wrong?"
[boom!]
Without pause, the judge slammed his gavel. "Order in the court! I find you in contempt for criticizing Trump."
Not having learned his lesson, KD remarked, "Oh come on..."
[boom!]
"Want to go for the trifecta?"
"Sure, why not. I have but one life to give to my..."
[boom!]
The judge roared, "GUILTY! Off to Siberia for life!"
Already resigned to his fate, KD trailed off while being dragged by his irons, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..."
Unamused, the judge turned to the bailiff, "Gag him."
"Mmmphf, mmmn mmfn mmunf..."
Taze him.
[bzzzzzz!]
As the doors cracked open, the faint, familiar sound of the closing of Devo's "Don't shoot!" played on the sound system above the din. One particularly dorky fella looked at KD's contorted face as he was being dragged out, and gruffly whispered the final lines of the song, "Don't taze me bro! Don't taze me bro!" -- the requiem to a left of center blogger of some repute.
I enjoyed the sample and would like to purchase the Kindle version of the novel.
Shorter KD: It Can't Happen Here
or, if it does, i'll already be dead.
Yeah. Kevin's constant desire to call out extremism and doomsayers is a worthy attribute but sometimes he really does miss the mark.
This is one of them. There is no way Trump doesn't sign a nationwide abortion ban and if Republicans have control of both houses it will pass. Even if they can't get there that way the Comstock Act will get a full workout. The notion that Trump won't utilize the justice dept to get revenge is really off target. He didn't pull this off the first time because even people like Jeff Sessions were offended. He won't make that mistake again. If you want to argue that Trump really doesn't know anything about public policy and how to use it--that is probably true, but the people he surrounds himself with will. That is exactly what the Heritage Foundation is planning for and as despicable as they are they do know what they are doing.
Yes. In his view, what he did wrong in his first term was appoint people recommended by the party insiders, appointees who turned out to be disloyal. He won’t make that mistake again. And the people willing to swear eternal fealty will be 1) rabid ideologues who will say anything to get into the positions from which they can impose their far-right agenda, and 2) ambitious incompetents who just want to sit in the big chair in the fancy office. The damage is inevitable. The machinery of government will grind to a halt, or be thrown into reverse.
The real danger is that when their economic "policies" start causing havoc like crazy inflation, Trump starts a war as a distraction.
He obviously learned a few things from his first term, like 1) have a pliable attorney general from day 1 2) have a pliable VP from day 1 3) have a pliable Joint Chiefs honcho from day 1. All 3 of those tripped him up in the first term and I doubt he will let it happen again.
He doesn't have to start a war, he'll let Putin take Ukraine and mainland China fully control Taiwan. There goes our chip supply--and comments made by the Trump-Vance ticket is already causing havoc in the stock market.
No need for overseas wars, and besides, he likes the idea of beating up on Americans. If any protests pop up about unbearable inflation, the badgeless little green men will be back to take care of it, with helicopters. Who would stop him or say no?
+10
The naivety of the other commneters about what Trump will do to American citizens, as opposed to foreigners, is stunning.
Trump adores Putin/Xi/Kim for killing and jailing Russians/Chinese/Koreans, and he will kill and jail Americans to adore himself.
"14. Ban abortion nationwide. Trump knows this would be political suicide, and he cares way more about his own reputation than he does about abortion. He won't do it. Nor could it pass Congress anyway."
I think you are wrong.
The Comstock Act gives the AG the right to prevent most all abortions.
How could the AG survive the far right from screaming if they didn't try to do it?
Can you find 5 votes on SCOTUS that wouldn't uphold the idea that the Act can be used to virtually ban abortions?
Can anyone tell me what I am missing?
THanks
On my way to the border, I met a dorky man by the side of the road with an 80s boom box playing a familiar song.
"Tiny people, with little guns
Little armies march, to little drums
What do they want?
What do they want?
Tiny soldiers, with little guns
Little tanks, no bigger than your thumb
They want you
Little people, with tiny brains
Little bullets flowing, in their veins
What do they want?
What do they want?
Tiny people with little guns
Little armies march, to little drums
They want you, you
You, you, you, you"
Why was I constantly passing this guy? Did I see a finger wag? Was that a smirk? Damn him.
"Meeeeow?"
No Charlie, we're not there yet.
Wake up, it's 1984.
Pollyanna strikes again. Kevin's political judgements have gotten about as bas as his frequent legal analyses. And his legal analyses are really bad. I only read this site out of long habit (Kevin was better years ago, or at least I thought he was) and because, for whatever reason, it has a very interesting comments section. (Even though his comment software really sucks; for one thing, it sorely needs a like function.) Enjoy the Fourth Reich, Kevin; I'm sure you'll have plenty of mind numbing charts about it until the brownshirts (redhats?) shut you down and toss you in an internment camp.
It's not so much Trump you have to worry about than the crazies that will be part of his administration. He couldn't care less about policy or anything that doesn't affect him personally. He'll just sit back and watch his minions do whatever they want to do. Imagine people like Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller running amok. Each one of them jockeying to get approval from dear leader for some atrocious act or another.
"Appearing tough and getting the best in negotiations." His history in real estate development was that he was an incompetent negotiator who always over paid. He countered this by never paying his vendors until and unless they successfully sued.
'Appearing' to get the best in negotiations isn't the same as getting the best in negotiations.
True that!
comstock is a perfect example of something that no one talked about when roe was the law
but i can bet you that there were a lot of people at the federalist society who knew about it, and they waited until roe was dead to pull its moldering corpse out of the grave
so i doubt kevin's crystal ball sees all the creative crap alito and crew will invent after the T2 administration is sworn in
"Refuse to leave office after four years. This won't happen. The Constitution requires him to leave and there's no way around that. There is zero possibility of amending the Constitution and zero possibility of Trump rounding up the physical force necessary to stay in office illegally." In 4 years he'll make the present Biden look like a spring chicken.
"Pull out of NATO. Trump has mostly gotten what he wanted from NATO (bigger defense spending)" Trump's claim that NATO increased spending was always a bald face lie. Most of the nations bordering Russia were already spending nearly 3% of GDP on defense (and didn't increase their already ridiculously high levels) , and most of the rest don't and didn't increase their spending either.
Trump might not last four more years. If he does I'm sure they can come up with some weird excuse why he could stay for another term. Maybe because he didn't have consecutive terms? All they need is some flimsy excuse for their bought-and-paid-for SCOTUS to rubber stamp the idea. No one thought that the immunity argument had any validity and look what they did with that. Maybe they will find a way to simply invalidate the 22nd amendment.
As for the rest of it, the last time around Trump had some people around to hold him back a little. They won't make the second mistake twice. Trump won't care that much but they are putting together lists of people to do the bidding of the far right.
It will be a bloodbath. Maybe it won't be too bad for wealthy, straight, white guys, but everyone else will get it in the neck.
The Court gutted Section 3 of the 14th Amendment by deciding it was not self-enforcing, but required legislation by Congress. Could they decide the same about the 22nd?
Not much worse? Really?
He will gut the Civil Service.
He has a shadow government ready to roll on day one to implement project 2025.
Possibly appoint 3 more judges to the SCOTUS.
He will throw Ukraine (and Taiwan) to the wolves.
before alito & thomas even retire, i bet trump expands the court to thirteen to equal the number of circuits.
Oh, Kevin. Trump isn't going to do most of the damage, he is going to appoint loyalists who have their own agendas and then not care if they pursue them. That's going to do the damage. Project 2025 was written by people Trump is already promising to appoint to powerful positions.
But this is the big ticket item beneath Project 2025's big plans:
"Replace 4,000 civil servants with political loyalists. Again, this is mostly big talk, though Trump would probably love to do it. The problem is that he'd likely need congressional approval, and I think there would be some Republican holdouts. Plus Democrats would filibuster it. Plus there are practical issues involved in trying to hire this many people. In his first term Trump (along with every other president) had trouble even filling the thousand or so presidential appointees already on the books. Plus Democrats would get to do the same thing the next time they're in office."
Why do you persist in believing that Republicans want government to work? All Trump needs to do (or his OMB appointment, one of the Project 2025 leads, needs to do) is fire 4000+ experienced senior governmental employees.
Then leave their jobs unfilled for four years.
The firing might be halted in the court, but the Supreme Court is in the tank for this use of executive authority. Leaders across government bureaucracy who have kept things working smoothly even across budget cuts and employee slashing and forced use of contractors, will suddenly vanish, taking their institutional knowledge with them. And their subordinates will suddenly become "acting" officials, meaning the top two or three layers of government bureaucrats will all be "acting" positions and those people won't be able to do their old jobs.
After four years of this, many government programs will be crippled. Who cares if you can't end Obamacare in Congress if you can cripple payment processing by gutting the people who handle that? Who cares if you can't eliminate Social Security if you can gut the claims department so that people with legitimate claims can't actually get them adjudicated, much less paid? The next layer down of workers will retire or quit as they get massively overburdened. Meanwhile Trump's OMB guy is hiring 24-year-old Republican loyalists who understand that the job of government is to protect the interests of a small number of Americans, not everyone.
Democrats would get to do the same thing? The Senate normally batch approves hires through unanimous consent. Republicans started halting that. And you're ignoring all the other officials needing Senate approval.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2023/may/23/resolution-would-allow-bulk-senate-confirmation-wi/
Two years into Biden's term, Senate Republicans had allowed the confirmation of 515 out of 1,200 positions. That's under half. And of course they're going to approve military appointments (barring Tuberville), or the next Republican appointed to head the FBI, or Treasury officials or other positions they actually value.
They just block the rest. Further, the Senate can't get other business done while handling nominations one at a time.
New laws and government business grinds to a halt, at least in areas where Republicans want it halted. Regulatory agencies, the FEC and the FCC, the IRS (especially the tax fraud division), SSA, the VA, anything connected to welfare. Meanwhile, the military, the CIA and FBI (maybe), State and Treasury, are operating at least somewhat normally.
One last point. Right now, the Potus isn't going to call up some deputy over at the IRS and say "do X or I will fire you." Under the proposed expansion of which positions count as political, Trump could call someone up and say "I'm planning to make your position political and fire you. But maybe you could do me a favor, though..." and that person suddenly has strong incentive to do the favor. Trump would for sure like that, and if it leads to some possibly criminal activity, well, the Supreme Court says he can't be prosecuted afterward.
Yes, there’s no need to fire 4000 people and appoint 4000 replacements, a second Trump administration would be focused on a much smaller number of positions most critical to the agenda. Retribution, and the undoing of ACA, IRA and other initiatives by former Presidents Trump hates, will be high on the list. And regulatory agencies, as you note. The targeted removals will serve pour encourager les autres.
At least from the day Trump is sworn in, the clocking is ticking with less than 4 years to go. Plus, he can't run again in 2028. Trump will be a lame duck to some degree, and that gets worse for him each year he is in office.
The man has done great harm to the country, and to the voters he duped with his lies. Maybe after 2028 the Republican Party will regain some level of sanity. Just a big reduction in the lying and the number of BS conspiracy theories would be a major improvement. Nobody lies to sow distrust better than Trump. It seems MAGA supporters truly think every American institution is completely corrupt. They even think Fox is terrible now, haha. You know, too moderate.
It's quite likely Trumps behavior will scare away the rest of the moderates in the GOP and they will be replaced with people just like him. Dishonest con artists who will say anything and do anything to get what they want.
24. Pardon everyone involved in any Jan 6 offenses. Seems very likely. He doesn't need anyone else to go along and it's a way of saying they were right to do what they did and fight for him.
> Appearing tough and getting the best in negotiations.
I think you mean "appearing to get the best". NAFTA2 doesn't seem to be an example of actually getting the best. Trump simply claims he got the best without any evidence to back it up.
I see it as a rebranding, nothing more. He's not a good negotiator. like everything else about him, it's a lie.
while dancing to a gay sex anthem repurposed to celebrate it.
U! S! M! C! A!
it's fun to stay at the U! S! M! C! A!
> give Democrats some time sit back and think seriously about why so many people refuse to vote for them
Uh, because 1/3rd of adults don't vote, and half of the remainder cares more about racism and other ways of bullying the weak.
+1000
Just like the power to pardon, which Trump used liberally as a get-out-jail-free card for all his criminal cronies, he will, if given a second term, use the newly minted absolute immunity powers given to Presidents to create a national security pretext for anything he wants to do. No one will be able to question his motives or stop him. I find this terrifying. And it doesn't even touch on the appalling list of possibilities Kevin has outlined.
One other effect of a Trump presidency might be a resurgence in donations to Mother Jones …
Or they get shutdown by the soon to be reformed house committee on un-American activities. Or was that the Senate?
And, strangely enough… I have received an entreaty from MoJo specifically referring to Trump’s convention speech and how vital it was they get funding…
Fuck, Kevin, this is the guy who lost thousands of kids at the border intentionally. And put incompetent people into positions without congressional approval. And deported people on the flimsiest excuse, including those who knew no other country.
Congress lost most of the non-maga Republicans, so who'll stop him?
he only lost 1,488 kids.
(yes, the actual number claimed in a press release from kirstjen nielsen's department of homeland security.)
Nothing about climate change? LGBTQ rights?
Jesus Kevin, I could go on and on.
"But even a Republican Senate full of loyalists will place limits on this."
Any historical precedent for that?
They condemned him for Jan 6, then promptly forgot about it.
"Tell the Justice Department to indict his political opponents. This is mostly big talk, used as a campaign device. Once he wins, he won't really care that much."
Yet Kevin says one of the three major motivations for Trump is "Retribution against those who have laughed at him (elites) or who caused him real or perceived harm."
Which includes his political opponents.
So Kevin is contradicting himself.
Ukraine is a big one. If Putin takes Ukraine, where does he go next? The same argument he uses for Ukraine -- it has never really existed, has always been part of Russia -- also applies to the Baltic states. It isn't really true in either case but it is close enough to true to justify a move. And lets face it; Russia is enough of a basket case that the only way to keep his approval propped up and avoid getting a bullet in the back of his bubble-like head is to continue the never ending war. But Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are NATO members, as is Poland so that way lies world war. Furthermore, China is obviously watching. If Putin can get away Scot free taking Ukraine, what is to stop Chine from moving on Taiwan?
Regarding #23, you have to wonder what his new buddy, Elon Musk, thinks about that.
Also, you can expect any effort to address climate change to end and be rolled back and that would eliminate the possibility of keeping temperature change to 2 C. That simply won't be doable after Trump, and that would be catastrophic.
For all the problems a Trump term will bring, imo the worst will be that in 4 years we will have an autocracy, or banana republic ymmv. Inevitable GOP “enhanced” vote counting laws will insure that short of a landslide (with guillotines!), the GOP will never lose another election. If it’s close enough for a recount, they will win.
Yes. The tattered remains of the Voting Rights Act will be set on fire, and the GOP will jump up and down on the ashes. Onerous new burdens will be placed on would-be voters, and the Court will OK them because, you know, historically they all have precedent (the only precedent this Court respects, even if they have to invent it themselves).
In the next-to-last paragraph, Kevin says something about "a lot of tail risk." I honestly don't know what Kevin means by this, but can think of some amusing interpretations. Isn't Trump getting a little old for that now? And Stormy Daniels and E Jean Carroll must have taught him something about "tail risk!"
How much of Kevin's Panglossian attitude towards Trump 2.0 is because he's a middle-aged, middle-class (or better), straight white dude in Orange County... and how much because his multiple cancers will likely kill him before the Christofascists do their worst to America?
This comment was way out of bounds. There is no reason to throw someone’s medical diagnosis in their face, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
lol.
lmfao even.
Most of the really nasty stuff will be done by judges, so the politicians can pretend they had nothing to do with it. The more judges, the more nasty stuff.
Sorry Kevin but that sounds a lot like upper middle class white guy (which describes me too btw) “I’m safe so it won’t be too bad.” talk.
Retribution is probably the most dangerous thing, although along with it securing power and his legacy ... as by lining up Vance to succeed him.
If you consider that Aileen Cannon is completely unfit to be a judge, at least all she's doing is failing to allow prosecution against Schlitzohr when he's pretty clearly guilty of serious offenses.
What if the next Judge Cannon bends law and precedent instead to prosecute a political rival?
Dumpster was already disappointed with disloyalty from Billy Barr, who is a fascist in his own right and who perverted justice to protect Dumpster ... just not enough.
We can figure that the Justice Department will be run by absolute toadies, and occasionally they will take cases before a Judge Cannon. What will keep an Adan Schiff or a Jasmine Crockett out of a gulag -- ?
And most of Ukraine would be annexed by Russia, needless to say.
I hope that Biden drops out and an open Democratic Party convention and a new nominee draws all of the oxygen out of the news cycles through the election.
Kevin, I’m simply floored by your analysis.
The single most salient truth about another Trump term is in no doubt whatsoever, it’s genuinely terrifying, and you slide right past it:
He will end all U.S. efforts to combat climate change, authorizing a host of programs that supercharge it instead— and by the time he leaves office, the planet will have passed the point of no return.
No presidential choice has ever mattered as much— or will again.
Absolutely agree.
Kevin, I'd to see your take on this. Is this phenomenon entirely explained by the effect of Fox News et al? Is it that the Dems can come off as dull and hectoring compared to the Greedy Other Party, which doesn't give a damn about actually governing? Something else?
Oh come on, us Dems are obnoxious as shit. We are constantly trying to tell people how to change their language (LatinX? really?), dismissing any objection to our policies as racist, and in general looking like we hate White people. While our hearts are mostly in the right place, we can be a bunch of arrogant self-righteous humorless scolds. That is why a lot of Americans just won't vote for us Dems. We really need to change. We need more Sistah Souljah moments.
KD's comment section is a perfect example of this kind of thinking.
I literally go entire years without hearing a single person say the word Latinx, and I live in metro DC. I call troll on your alleged concerns. Nobody is policing language to the degree that you fear.
Listen to NPR?
oh, you mean, the nice polite republicans.
+++!
Hah! If you think NPR is Republican in any way, you must be the kind of Leftist who, for instance, finds AOC a little too squishy for your taste. Hey, you do your thing, man, but you gotta know your views are not, uh, particularly common...
I was pointing out to Austin up there that there is an awful lot of language policing going on. He might not recognize it for whatever reason. And he also kind of pissed me off by using the tactic of taking a small portion of a comment out of the overall tone of the comment and finding "problems" with it and thus "discrediting" the entire comment. Which is BS.)
What the heck is Kevin smoking? I need some of that!
probably medicinal cannabis to counteract the effects of his cancer treatments.