Presidential candidates usually promise that everybody will be happy if they win. One of the historically unusual aspects of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is that he is promising to punish his political enemies in the event he gains power. “I am your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” he vowed last year.

Trump has been persuaded to turn down the volume on the threats of vengeance, but his allies are continuing to advance this message. Lara Trump, the candidate’s daughter-in-law whom he installed as co-chair of the Republican National Committee because the incumbent merely cast doubt on the 2020 election without going so far as to conclusively say Trump won, unleashed this terrifying promise:

He showed us a whole lot that we didn’t know was going on — within the media, within Washington, D.C. He exposed a lot of people. So they have to do everything they can to keep him out of that White House ’cause they know Donald Trump gets in for four more years, the jig is up for them. The gloves are off. There are no holds barred here. He is going full-throttle. He’s not worried about winning another election. It’s four years of scorched earth when Donald Trump retakes the White House.

Lara Trump: “It’s 4 years of scorched earth when Donald Trump retakes the White House.” pic.twitter.com/be0oFuDwH2

This is consistent with the approach Trump has consistently taken to the office. As president, Trump saw himself as the leader of a faction, rather than the entire country, openly favoring states and areas that he saw as loyal. He used policy to punish owners of independent media, and sicced special prosecutors on his “deep state” enemies.

As a candidate, he’s promising pardons for the violent offenders who assaulted police officers in a coup attempt and manically insisting presidents should be given “total immunity” to commit crimes while in office. (He’s made five posts on this theme Friday morning alone.)

Trump’s conservative apologists either ignore all this or wave it away by pointing to his first term, when Trump’s attempts to weaponize government against his enemies proved ineffectual or were thwarted by uncooperative appointees.

But this isn’t some obstacle Trump is unaware of. The candidate and his inner circle are deeply aware of his inability to crush his enemies during his first term. They are engaged in serious planning efforts to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Now, it’s possible they will fail. But to ignore their plain intention to turn the government into a weapon of vengeance against a slew of enemies, ranging from political figures to media, is to gamble with the future of the republic.

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