The people have spoken in this week’s election. But if Donald Trump does (or tries) all he’s promised (or threatened), he’ll suffer the same repudiation he suffered in 2018 and 2020. With likely full GOP control of Congress and a vice grip on the Executive Branch, he could do a lot of damage in two years and even more in four, but there will be election pay-backs and boomerangs.
In his post-election speech to supporters, Trump claimed to have won “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” To do what? Stage a massive deportation of illegal migrants, which is bound to mistakenly ensnare legal migrants? Such detainees may be stored in ugly holding pens before being expelled, prompting Hispanic voters to regret their near-majority support for Trump.
Trump has been indicted for serious crimes—including trying to overthrow the 2020 election and inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol—but now, as president, he will escape accountability. He’s promised to fire his chief federal prosecutor, Jack Smith.
He promised to “drain the swamp” of thousands of federal bureaucrats whom he thinks joined the “grownups” in his first administration in curbing his worst instincts. As president he fired one top aide after another. Now he plans to revive his 2020 executive order allowing him to replace the bureaucrats with personal loyalists and toadies who’ll serve his political and financial interests ahead of those of the American people. That invites serious corruption scandals, which will hurt his approval ratings.
He plans to personally rule every Executive agency including the presently-independent Justice Department and FBI—and, if he can, add to his personal supervision a host of traditionally independent agencies including the Federal Reserve and Securities Exchange Commission.
He said he will deploy the Justice Department to wreak vengeance on political adversaries that he describes as “vermin” and “the enemy within,” falsely accusing those who have prosecuted him for crimes of doing so for political reasons.
He’ll surround himself with a bevy of clumsy extremist or anti-democratic long-time supporters such as Steve Bannon, the ultra-nationalist populist dedicated to dismantling the “administrative state” and Roger Stone, famous as a GOP “dirty trickster.” Both had to be pardoned by Trump on his way out of office in 2021.
Then there is Robert Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine conspiratorialist whom Trump has indicated might have influence on administration health policy. And Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who Trump has promised to appoint as czar of government “efficiency.” That could mean slashing federal programs by $2 trillion, they say.
Musk’s influence may be more problematic yet. He detests government regulation, especially of his own companies—Tesla, Space X, the Starlink satellite company and X (formerly Twitter). If so, “government efficiency” may involve less oversight of Musk’s firms. And Musk presents a potential security risk. He’s in touch with Vladimir Putin, who reportedly persuaded Trump to deny Starlink service to Taiwan “as a favor” to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Musk also denied Starlink service to Ukraine as it planned attacks on Russian shipping off Crimea.
Musk companies have numerous contracts with the US government, many of which involve classified information. Trump has indicated the government may stop using the FBI to conduct security background checks and substitute private investigators. Musk’s “efficiency” agency could involve choosing which investigators.
Trump’s election has aroused deep anxiety among US foreign allies, who fear he will deliver Ukraine to Russia by cutting off US aid, which in turn could encourage Putin to commit further aggression in former Soviet satellites. If he invades a NATO country like Poland, the US is treaty-obligated to go to defend that nation, risking nuclear war.
Unless, of course, Trump goes through with a plan he floated in his first term to pull the US out of NATO, which could force every European ally to buckle under to Russia—and every Asian ally to sue for peace with China. That shift in world geopolitics presumably would offend many Americans used to considering this country as “leader of the free world.”
For the sake our country, I hope I’m wrong about all this and more, such as the danger that his new tax cuts and sky-high tariffs will re-ignite now-falling inflation. It’s a long list of potential exploding cigars, but I can’t be wrong on all of it. So get ready for more first-term-style chaos and (provided they learn how to appeal to America’s working class) big gains for Democrats as in 2018. That year was when Democrats won a net of 41 House seats, and in 2020 they took back the White House.
