Yesterday’s edition of the NYT “The Daily” podcast was twice as long as usual. Titled “Trump 2.0: What a Second Trump Presidency Would Bring,” it’s described this way:
In a special series leading up to Election Day, “The Daily” will explore what a second Trump presidency would look like, and what it could mean for American democracy.
In the first part, we will look at Tump’s plan for a second term. On the campaign trail, Trump has outlined a vision that is far more radical, vindictive and unchecked than his first one.
Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, political correspondents for The Times, and Charlie Savage, who covers national security, have found that behind Trump’s rhetoric is a highly coordinated plan to make his vision a reality.
My first instinct was that this effectively made the NYT political team part of the Biden re-election effort, as so many of its staffers and liberal commentators have been demanding. As I listened though, I decided that this is simply deep reporting, staying on just this side of commentary. While it’s rather clear that neither the show host nor the reporters are Trump fans—or, indeed, likely Republican voters even in more normal times—they were, as Swan rightly noted, not engaged in “fan fiction.” They are merely taking the words that Trump says over and over again in his campaign rallies both seriously and literally.
There’s not yet a transcript available (given them another day or so) but the Charle Homans Magazine feature “Donald Trump Has Never Sounded Like This” that I dissected Saturday and the December 4 essay “Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First” by Savage, Swan, and Haberman are presented as background reading.
UPDATE: The first comment, by @Scott, reminds me that a key takeaway of the piece is that Trump has decided that the chief problem of the first administration was that he surrounded himself with too many people who were more loyal to the system than to him. He won’t make that mistake again.
While I was quite displeased with the performance of “Trump’s Generals” as well as figures like Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, they nonetheless at least cared somewhat about norms and the rule of law. Second term appointees won’t be so encumbered.
Indeed, one of the panelists noted that as much as liberals hate the Federalist Society, it was precisely lawyers brought up under that system that was the chief restraint on Trump. Yes, they have a different view of the law than those in the Democratic establishment. But, fundamentally, they believe that the law—and the Constitution—matters.
The other point that I recall striking me is that, unlike Establishment—or, indeed, even Tea Party—Republicans, the people who would serve in key posts under Trump next go-round do not want a smaller, less powerful government. They think those guys are “suckers.” No, they want to use every bit of power that a Unitary Executive can muster to get wins for people like them and to crush everyone else.
