The List
My concerns about a second Trump administration.
So, what are my concerns about a second Trump administration? Here’s a list off the top of my head to put down a marker for future discussion, in no particular order.
- He initiates some version of his Schedule F proposal to transform much of the civil service into partisan positions.
- He orders the DOJ to cease all investigations into his behavior.
- He sells out Ukraine to Russia.
- He allows, indeed encourages, Israel to act with impunity in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon.
- He raises tariffs in a significant way and causes substantial inflation as a result.
- He appoints utterly unqualified persons to his cabinet.
- Along the lines of #6, he really does empower people like Elon Musk and RFK, Jr.
- He uses the DOJ to go after his enemies and eliminates the norm of DOJ independence.
- He allows things like child separation at the border.
- He engages in deportations that catch up and victimizes American citizens. This will manifest as breaking up families and will include Americans being deported. And, of course, victimized immigrants.
- He encourages violence by law enforcement.
- Attacks on the media via the FEC.
- Damage to the dollar as the global reserve currency.
- Deeper alliances with autocratic governments.
- He abandons the US role as a global leader of liberal democracy. This ends an important element of the post-WWII order.
- Repeal of the ACA.
- Some new version of the Muslim ban.
- J6 and related pardons.
The long-haul damage includes a diminishment of US global power because the US is not a leader of the liberal democratic world.
General concerns include the safety of trans citizens and the general empowerment of white nationalists.
What am I missing?
19. Rules that make gender affirming care difficult to access or straight up illegal, with a goal of forcibly detransitioning trans people.
Massive tax cuts at the same time as sizable promised increases in several areas of spending.
This is likely to provoke inflation, leading to an interest hike and thus to recession.
And/or a crisis of confrontation between the White House and the Fed.
Also a non-zero, and steadily rising, probability of an eventual bond market revolt, and subsequent fiscal emergency.
Something the US has generally not had to worry about overly much since WW2.
The end of free elections.
A Trumpist SCOTUS majority that will roll back civil rights.
16 won’t happen – the ACA is the current status quo. At most he’ll twiddle around the edges to make it less affordable, but his Republican colleagues do not have and have never had a replacement.
He’s still an incompetent buffoon at heart, but the people around him are His People. He’s going to lean into that and let them go wild.
Good list. I feel he only cares about himself and ignores the world stage. Appointing unqualified people, more wealthy tax breaks, ignoring Ukraine/Israel and anything global (other than tariffs). It’s the other people in power and what they put in front of him that will be key. GOP will have to govern and have not done that very well in years. Gonna be a show for sure.
I need to get to bed but I am going to respond to #3 – if Biden doesn’t throw everything in the Department of Defense warehouse to Ukraine before January, that country will not exist by February.
And the bomb threats during the day from Russia would not have happened if Trump hadn’t okayed it in advance. There is no way such a crass, primitive stunt would have been perpetrated with no care taken to hide the source if they didn’t know they’d have Trump’s approval. This is how Russia really sees us now – we are p*ssy nation, an international joke.
Off to bed.
The ONLY thing you should be concerned about is that everyone you trust in the Democratic Party and everyone you trust in the media lied to your face about Joe Biden’s physical and mental state. If they’d told you the truth, you could have had a real primary challenge and either gotten a better candidate or given Kamala some campaign experience and an extra five or six months to prepare to take on Trump.
The Democratic Party and the mainstream media treated you like a chump. That’s the only thing you should concern yourself with because until you stop letting them treat you like a chump, nothing will get better.
Trump isn’t the problem. The Republicans aren’t the problem. The voters aren’t the problem.
YOU are the problem, something which is amply demonstrated by this post and the initial responses to it.
@ptfe: The oligarchs who paid for all this HATE the ACA because it empowers employees instead of corporations.
In retrospect, however, the ACA was brilliant because it preserved the awful system we had with just a few tweaks around the edges, so maybe that’s why it has lasted so long.
If it is repealed, I’m screwed. I’ll probably have to go back to work for coverage after years of retirement.