The likely Republican nominee for president—the one who is cruising to victory in battleground state after battleground state against the genuinely hapless President Joe Biden, according to new New York Times/Siena College polling—is plotting his revenge on Democratic critics, planning to pursue a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown on dissent and looking to pink-slip everyone in the federal government who doesn't bend the knee to him. The scariest part is that's just the beginning.
How do I know all this? Because he's said so.
A chilling Monday report in The Washington Post outlined the Trump team's plans should he become the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. Trump, the report claims, may appoint Jeffrey Clark, currently facing charges in Georgia stemming from the conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election, attorney general. It was Clark who was prepared to use the Insurrection Act to deploy federal troops against protesters in major cities if Trump succeeded in extra-judicially installing himself in power in January 2021, and both Clark and Trump remain fixated on the idea of crushing protests with military force in the event of a Trump restoration.
If you're wondering why they want to do this even though a) no one mounted a serious effort to prevent Trump from taking office in 2017 and b) no one will do so in 2025 if he is legitimately elected (even with another Electoral College misfire), you're overthinking it. Threatening hypothetical protesters with tank turrets and tear gas is pure fascist wish fulfillment, part and parcel of the 45th president's lifelong obsession with using violence against innocent and marginalized people. You can draw a straight line from his late 80s calls to execute the (innocent) Central Park Five to cheering on police brutality to his final destination of using the U.S. military to murder American protesters like his heroes in Moscow and Riyadh.
A violent crackdown against peaceful demonstrations would be only the opening act in a presidency dedicated to vengeance and power grabbing. In 2016, Trump was nearly friendless in the Republican intelligentsia and had trouble getting anyone reputable to join his transition team or plan the early days of his presidency. This time around, the GOP and its affiliated institutions are his handmaidens, and the plans for a second Trump term are referred to as "Project 2025" in right-wing thinklandia, which has been almost thoroughly conquered by the America First impulse. Newsflash: They've been busy.
Make no mistake—there's nothing laughable about their plans. Once the streets have finished running red with dissident blood, Trump and his allies are going to liquidate the federal government, purging anyone who isn't a loyalist from any executive agency they like, or as they like to put it, "fire rogue bureaucrats" and "all of the corrupt actors in our National Security and Intelligence apparatus." They also promise a "truth and reconciliation commission" to investigate all of the ways that poor, put-upon Donald Trump was wronged. It should probably go without saying that Trump will order whatever lickspittle runs the DOJ to open investigations into Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and whoever emerges as the Democratic Party leader if this catastrophe actually transpires.
While that's happening, the unhoused will be rounded up and installed in "tent cities" on "large parcels of inexpensive land." Billions of dollars in endowments will be seized from universities that pursue policies of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and refuse to teach sanitized versions of American history. America will realign itself with the lawless, criminal regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin against democratic allies by "dismantling the entire globalist neo-con establishment." Investment funds will be legally banned from considering anything other than pure profit.
Birthright citizenship will be outlawed and if the courts don't like it, he'll probably just do it anyway. A new national credentialing board will certify only the teachers who "embrace patriotic values" while funding is channeled to those states and schools that agree to submit to the far right's education agenda. Gender-affirming care will be banned in all 50 states and doctors who don't comply will become political prisoners just like those who perform abortions today in 21 states and counting. I could go on, but I implore you to browse the website yourself to see what you're in for.
While this is happening, the 10,000 most obsequious jerks in America will be screaming about how this is all the fault of you and your lib friends, how you deserve your fate and how much "real Americans" will savor your suffering. Prepare to hear once again incessantly 2017's right-wing battle cry of "This is how you got Trump!" There will be no attempt to square last year's disingenuous rhetoric about free speech with a nationwide crackdown on thoughts and ideas that upset Donald Trump and his fragile friends for the simple reason that they have no shame whatsoever and couldn't care less what you think or feel about anything. They have a country to take over and will have no qualms about using tactics they only recently decried as part of a "radical left" plot to destroy America.
Will all these plans withstand judicial scrutiny? Perhaps not at first but give it a few more years and the last Republican institutionalists—people who care about anything other than the raw exercise of right-wing power—will be purged from the courts and from Congress. By the end of his next four years, the forces of Trumpism will have uncontested control of the party, the judiciary, and the country.
Good news though: your interest rates might come down. The choice is yours, I guess!
David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. His writing has appeared in The Week, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Washington Monthly and more. You can find him on Twitter @davidmfaris.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Trump's Planned Revenge Tour Would End Democracy—He Says So Himself
2
0
09.11.2023
The likely Republican nominee for president—the one who is cruising to victory in battleground state after battleground state against the genuinely hapless President Joe Biden, according to new New York Times/Siena College polling—is plotting his revenge on Democratic critics, planning to pursue a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown on dissent and looking to pink-slip everyone in the federal government who doesn't bend the knee to him. The scariest part is that's just the beginning.
How do I know all this? Because he's said so.
A chilling Monday report in The Washington Post outlined the Trump team's plans should he become the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. Trump, the report claims, may appoint Jeffrey Clark, currently facing charges in Georgia stemming from the conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election, attorney general. It was Clark who was prepared to use the Insurrection Act to deploy federal troops against protesters in major cities if Trump succeeded in extra-judicially installing himself in power in January 2021, and both Clark and Trump remain fixated on the idea of crushing protests with military force in the event of a Trump restoration.
If you're wondering why they want to do this even though a) no one mounted a serious effort to prevent Trump from taking office in 2017 and b) no one will do so in 2025 if he is legitimately elected (even with another Electoral College misfire), you're overthinking it. Threatening hypothetical protesters with tank turrets and tear gas is pure fascist wish fulfillment, part and parcel of the........
© Newsweek
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Rami G Khouri
Nikkei Editorial
