Bob Sheak, August 29, 2024

Who he is

The New York Times Editorial Board offers a summary of Trump’s moral unfitness to be president (https://nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/11/opinion/editorials/donald-trump-2024-unfit.html).

“He lies blatantly and maliciously, embraces racists, abuses women and has a schoolyard bully’s instinct to target society’s most vulnerable. He has delighted in coarsening and polarizing the town square with ever more divisive and incendiary language. Mr. Trump is a man who craves validation and vindication, so much that he would prefer a hostile leader’s lies to his own intelligence agencies’ truths and would shake down a vulnerable ally for short-term political advantage. His handling of everything from routine affairs to major crises was undermined by his blundering combination of impulsiveness, insecurity and unstudied certainty.

This record shows what can happen to a country led by such a person: America’s image, credibility and cohesion were relentlessly undermined by Mr. Trump during his term.

“None of his wrongful actions are so obviously discrediting as his determined and systematic attempts to undermine the integrity of elections — the most basic element of any democracy — an effort that culminated in an insurrection at the Capitol to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power.

“On Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Trump incited a mob to violence with hateful lies, then stood by for hours as hundreds of his supporters took his word and stormed the Capitol with the aim of terrorizing members of Congress into keeping him in office.”

“He praised these insurrectionists and called them patriots; today he gives them a starring role at campaign rallies, playing a rendition of the national anthem sung by inmates involved with Jan. 6., and he has promised to consider pardoning the rioters if re-elected. He continues to wrong the country and its voters by lying about the 2020 election, branding it stolen, despite the courts, the Justice Department and Republican state officials disputing him. No man fit for the presidency would flog such pernicious and destructive lies about democratic norms and values, but the Trumpian hunger for vindication and retribution has no moral center.”

Thom Hartmann comments on Trump’s involvement in the insurrection (https://commondreams.org/opinion/the-politics-of-joy-versus-the-only-thing-republicans-have-left-cruelty). He writes:

“When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election by seven million votes, he sent a violent mob against the US Capitol. As they tried to murder the vice president and speaker of the house, covered the walls of the building with feces and defaced priceless paintings, Trump gleefully watched on live television for over three hours while refusing to call in the national guard or take any other meaningful action.

“Five civilians and three police officers died as the result of his sending that murderous mob because all he and his GOP have left is cruelty.”

Ignoring the law

In a report for Citizens for Ethics (CREW), Brie Sparkman and Sara Wiatrak write that, as of March 2024 [updated June 4], “Donald Trump has been personally charged with 88 [now 91] criminal offenses in four criminal cases” (https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/trumps-91-criminal-charges-and-where-they-stand). They continue:

“This total reflects charges related to Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, election interference in Georgia, falsifying business records in New York, and mishandling classified records after leaving the presidency. Donald Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to be criminally indicted.”

Responses to the 2020 presidential loss

Here is a summary from Melissa Murray and Adrew Weisman’s book, The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents With Commentary.

“Trump’s alleged scheme to reject the results of the 2020 presidential election involved: pressuring state legislators in battleground states, through threats and lies, to alter the vote tallies; enlisting slates of fake electors, including through fraud, in battleground state; filing false lawsuits; breaking into state election machines; plotting to seize voting machines; lying about Georgia election workers and pressuring them to lie about election fraud; enlisting the DOJ to say that it was investigating serious allegations of fraud when it was not and had in fact reported it had found no material fraud; and pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to violate his oath of office on January 6 and lying about his supposed assent that he had the power to reject the counting of the votes, when he told Trump he did not” (p. xxvii).

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What next from Trump?

If elected in November, Trump, his party, and allies have a plan referred to as “2025.” The plan, over 900 pages in length, is aimed at destroying American democracy. It has been developed by people at the right-wing Heritage Foundation and other Trump adherents. If implemented, it would make Trump an unaccountable and authoritarian/fascist “leader” and give him the power to turn the Department of Justice and other executive agencies into compliant extensions of this power.

The Plan calls for the removal of thousands of experienced civil servants who will be replaced by Trump loyalists, regardless of their competence. Given the opportunity, he will further stack the courts with ultra-conservative judges. The plan includes proposals for the detention or deportation of tens of millions of undocumented U.S. residents – and anyone Trump and his minions identify as opponents. They will push for tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, while privatizing Social Security, Medicare, and other parts of the social safety net. Trump wants to replace the Affordable Care Act, but hasn’t offered an alternative. He favors the privatization of the public schools and likes the idea of diverting funds from them to private and charter schools.

Although Trump argues from one side of his mouth that he will not support a national ban on abortion access, his record against reproductive rights is well known and suggest that it is naïve to believe there will not be a ban. He brags to right-wing evangelicals, an important Trump constituency that America is indeed a Christian society, ignoring the constitutional separation of religion and the state and that the majority of Americans do no hold extremist religious views. His notion of “freedom” (for employers) does not allow much room for occupational safety laws or unions. Generally, he and his allies want massive deregulation. This is also true of his energy policy, one that is based on maximum use of fossil fuels, including coal. Trump and his allies reject the findings of experts that the planet is growing hotter as the U.S. and other rich countries continue to increase their use of these fuels. Trump has recently said that he wants to impose high – tariffs on products from China, having little knowledge about their potentially detrimental effects on American consumers. It is well known that he is attracted to authoritarian leaders.

We should not forget that his angry, spiteful, maliciously narcissist person would, as president, have the power to start a nuclear war.  

Twenty-seven psychiatrists and mental health experts came to the following conclusion, among others, in their book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.

“We are gravely concerns about Trump’s abrupt, capricious 180-degree shifts and how these displays of instability have the potential to be unconsciously dangerous to the point of causing catastrophe, and not only for the citizens of the United States”

Rejecting the results of the 2024 presidential election if he loses

C. J. Polychroniou, a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. points to relevant information (https://commondreams.org/opinion/implications-2024-election-us). The article was published on August 24, 2024.

“The 2024 U.S. presidential election is enormously important for many of the reasons you cited, although we shouldn’t be oblivious of the fact that parochialism is what drives most American voters. That said, this election is indeed unlike any other in modern history also because American voters are so polarized that the threat of civil breakdown is real. In fact, I believe that Trump is already laying the groundwork for rejecting the election result if he loses. This is why he calls Democrats’ replacement of Biden a ‘coup’ and even ‘a violent overthrow’ of a president. And back in March, he said that there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the November election.

Ignoring global warming

Andes Oppenheimer, journalist at the Miami Herald, worries whether U.S. voters will elect a climate skeptic in times of record-breaking heat? (https://miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article289090739.html). The article was published on June 7, 2024.

“Trump has repeatedly mocked climate change warnings and promotes fossil fuels, ignoring the scientific consensus that climate change is likely caused by man-made greenhouse emissions. As crazy as it sounds at a time of record heat waves, Trump is publicly vowing to reverse the Biden administration’s ambitious laws to combat global warming. According to the Trump campaign website, a second Trump administration would unleash a wave of oil drilling and speed up approvals of fracking permits in public lands. ‘To keep pace with the world economy that depends on fossil fuels for more than 80% of its energy, President Trump will DRILL, BABY, DRILL,’ the campaign’s official website says. The Trump campaign website also says that, ‘from day one,’ the former president would kill hundreds of laws to combat global warming adopted by the Biden administration, including rules to reduce car emissions and subsidies for buyers of electric vehicles. Trump would also again order a U.S. withdrawal from the 2016 Paris Agreement to control climate change, which calls on countries to substantially reduce planet-warming emissions. Trump had pulled out of the Paris Agreement at the start of his term, but Biden later reversed that decision.”

“At an April fundraiser with oil company owners and executives at his Mar-a-Lago compound, Trump promised to go out of his way to help fossil fuel industries if they donated $1 billion to his campaign, The Washington Post reported. Trump specifically vowed to scrap current policies that encourage production of electric vehicles, wind and solar energy, and other green power sources opposed by the oil industry, the Post said.”

Hardly a friend of workers

Lawrence Wittner, Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany who has written extensively on peace movements, foreign policy, and economic inequality, considers Trump’s record on American workers (https://commondreams.org/opinion/trump-working-class). The title of his article, published on May 21, 2024, says it all: “Trump Didn’t Lift Up the Working Class. He Stepped on Its Neck.” Here’s some of what he writes.

“Although Donald Trump, as president, proclaimed in his 2020 State of the Union address that he had produced a “blue-collar boom” in workers’ wages, the reality was quite different. Using his control of the executive branch of the U.S. government, Trump repeatedly undermined the wages of American workers by blocking raises and imposing wage reductions.

“Only the preceding year, Trump derailed vital wage legislation. In July 2019―with the pathetically low federal minimum wage stuck at $7.25 per hour for a decade and some 13 million workers holding two or more jobs to support their families―the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the Raise the Wage Act. If enacted, the legislation would have gradually increased the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour over a six-year period. But, instead of supporting the legislation or proposing an alternative, the Trump White House announced that, if the Senate passed the House bill, Trump would veto it.

“Consequently, the measure died in the Republican-controlled Senate. According to the AFL-CIO, the legislation would have raised the pay of 40 million American workers.

“That same year, Trump’s Department of Labor succeeded in rolling back planned wage increases for millions of workers by restricting eligibility for overtime pay. In 2016, the last year of the Obama administration, the Labor Department had issued a rule substantially raising the income level below which workers were paid time and a half for work done beyond 40 hours per week. But the Trump Labor Department, seizing on a delay in implementation occasioned by a judicial decision, lowered the level by more than $20,000, thus depriving 8.2 million American workers of the right to overtime pay secured under Obama.

“In August 2018, Trump canceled a scheduled 2 percent pay raise for millions of civilian federal employees, leading to criticism even from some Republicans. This action, plus other administration assaults on the rights of public employees, led to a massive flight of workers from government service. By the fall of 2019, there were 45,000 vacancies in the Department of Veterans Affairs alone. To fill these vacancies, the Trump administration hired large numbers of temp workers at low wages and with minimal benefits.

“Yet another administration policy that undercut workers’ wages emerged with the Trump Labor Department’s issuance of a “joint-employer” rule. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 had been fashioned to ensure that businesses using staffing companies or subcontractors would be accountable for complying with basic workplace protections. Even so, the Trump administration’s joint-employer rule substantially limited liability for wage and hour violations, thereby making it harder for workers to hold all parties accountable. As a result, U.S. workers lost an estimated $1 billion annually thanks to subcontracting or wage theft by employers.

“Of course, not all Trump administration attempts at holding down wages succeeded. In 2017, the Trump Labor Department proposed that employers could simply pocket workers’ tips, as long as the workers were paid the minimum wage. Economists estimated that this policy would lead to the loss of $5.8 billion per year in tips for workers, 80 percent of whom were women. But after the discovery that Trump’s Secretary of Labor had gone to great lengths to hide his department’s findings about how harmful the new policy would be, Congress stepped in and amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to prohibit employers from seizing the tips of their employees.

“Another Trump administration failure occurred in connection with reducing the wages of farmworkers, some of the most exploited, lowest-paid workers in the United States. In mid-2019, the Labor Department proposed a new regulation that would change the rules of the H-2A visa program, used by agricultural employers to hire migrant farmworkers for seasonal work―for example, by President Trump’s wineries. As one of the rules changes would lower wage rates for H-2A farmworkers and, consequently, for their U.S. counterparts, the United Farm Workers challenged it in federal court and, ultimately, prevailed.”

Concluding thoughts

Trump is the head of the Republican Party, enjoys support from large swaths of corporate America, has a hardcore, cult-like following of tens of millions who seem to welcome the thought of having a king-like president. He benefits from the conservative Supreme Court. He preaches violence and retribution. His policy views are essentially anti-democratic and self-serving. If he wins the presidential election, the US will look more like, say, Hungary, with an authoritarian government, the absence of civil and political rights, a court system that legitimates whatever the leader does. Anne Applebaum, a staff writer at the Atlantic magazine and author, has published a book titled “Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World,” that delves into such issues.

The big question is whether Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, the Democratic Party, and their supporters can win enough votes – and electoral votes –  in November to alter the dire path on which Trump would govern. The platform is strong on progressive taxes, civil and gender rights, support for workers and unions, strengthening gun regulation, and protecting consumers. But it is weak or unclear on how to stop and reverse global warming, seems to reject an arms embargo on US weapons sent to Israel, and needs to flush out the details on what an “opportunity economy” includes. So far, under Biden’s presidency, there are also plenty of laudatory developments, namely, the economy has grown, wages are up, inflation has fallen. At the same time, sadly, they endorse the bipartisan call for ever higher military spending.  

Bob Sheak, August 16, 2024

The story of nuclear weapons begins in the United States. The U.S. government under the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the greenlight for the project to build a bomb to commence, the first atomic bombs were then created and tested, and, under dubious assumptions, the bombs were subsequently used to blow up two Japanese cities, causing massive destruction, death, and lasting radiation illnesses. The testing and development of nuclear bombs continued, as did the costs to people and the environment. Sadly, the U.S. and other nuclear-armed countries are now in the process of “modernizing” their nuclear arsenals. This is despite the fact that the majority of countries in the U.N. General Assembly have voted to ban nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the U.S. unfortunately maintains a “first use” policy with respect to nuclear weapons and Trump will have the power to launch nuclear weapons if he becomes president.

Background

Here is a summary of what occurred in what became known as the Manhattan Project from the Wikipedia online encyclopedia (https://wikipedia.org/Manhattan_Project).

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“The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with support from the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army component was designated the Manhattan District, as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the name gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US$2 billion (equivalent to about $24 billion in 2021).^[1] Over 90 percent of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10 percent for development and production of the weapons. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

“The project led to the development of two types of atomic bombs, both developed concurrently, during the war: a relatively simple gun-type fission weapon and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon. The Thin Man gun-type design proved impractical to use with plutonium, so a simpler gun-type design called Little Boy was developed that used uranium-235. Three methods were employed for uranium enrichment: electromagnetic, gaseous and thermal. In parallel with the work on uranium was an effort to produce plutonium. After the feasibility of the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, was demonstrated in 1942 at the Metallurgical Laboratory in the University of Chicago, the project designed the X-10 Graphite Reactor and the production reactors at the Hanford Site, in which uranium was irradiated and transmuted into plutonium.

The Fat Man plutonium implosion-type weapon was developed in a concerted design and development effort by the Los Alamos Laboratory.

The project was also charged with gathering intelligence on the German nuclear weapon project. Through Operation Alsos, Manhattan Project personnel served in Europe, sometimes behind enemy lines, where they gathered nuclear materials and documents, and rounded up German scientists. Despite the Manhattan Project’s tight security, Soviet atomic spies successfully penetrated the program.

The first nuclear device ever detonated was an implosion-type bomb during the Trinity test, conducted at New Mexico’s Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range on 16 July 1945. Little Boy and Fat Man bombs were used a month later in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, with Manhattan Project personnel serving as bomb assembly technicians and weaponeers on the attack aircraft.

In the immediate postwar years, the Manhattan Project conducted weapons testing at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Crossroads, developed new weapons, promoted the development of the network of national laboratories, supported medical research into radiology and laid the foundations for the nuclear navy. It maintained control over American atomic weapons research and production until the formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in January 1947.”

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Destruction and death

Hiroshima

Here’s some of what we learn from the Texas A&M University’s “Narratives of World War II in the Pacific” (https://tamucc.edu/library/exhibits/s/hist4350/page/the-aftermath-of-the-atomic-bomb). The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.        

“Citizens were unaware of their fate and were going on about their days. Men, women, and children all fell victim to the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. The bombing of Hiroshima caused the deaths of thousands of citizens instantly and more to the nuclear fallout and the lack of infrastructure which would lead to the deaths of many more Japanese civilians due to the devastating destruction by the atomic bomb.”

“The United States main goal for the Atomic Bomb was for it to be used on military targets only and minimize civilian casualties as much as possible. Hiroshima was used by the Japanese Army as a staging area but was also a large city with a population of roughly 410,000 people. Hiroshima was selected for the first bomb to be dropped and to be observed for future bombs that could be used in the future.

“August 6^th, 1945 was a typical morning for Hiroshima. The city was flourishing with activity of people going to work, children playing, and businesses opening. The warning signs began around 7A.M. with air raid sirens which was a common occurrence for the people of Japan and most ignored it. Around 8:14 A.M. however, is when Hiroshima changed forever.”

“Once the initial explosion took place, it is estimated that 60,000 to 80,000 people died instantly due to the extreme heat of the bomb, leaving just shadows of where they once were. Fires broke out and spread rapidly while people were trying to find loved ones as well as figure out what exactly had happened.^[2] The lack of people physically able to fight the fire and the weather increased the fires and the whole city became a blazing fireball all from a single bomb. Not only were people instantly vaporized, the people who did survive the initial blast, succumbed to radiation sickness and would later die a painful slow death. Sometimes symptoms did not reveal themselves until weeks or even years after being exposed to such high levels of radiation.” Over time, at least 60,000 more people died of radiation sickness.”

Nagasaki

Shampa Biswas writes on the bombing of Nakasaki on August 9, 1945  (https://thebulletin.org/2023/08/what-can-we-learn-from-oppenheimer-about-the-blind-spots-in-nuclear-storytelling).

“Fat Man laid a city [of Nakasaki] to waste, quickly killing between 60,000-80,000 people, the death toll eventually rising to over 130,000. Nagasaki is now the site of an elaborate Peace Memorial whose central story is the victimhood of Japan. It is a deeply moving story, but one told through a nation-making lens, with barely a nod to Japan’s own war crimes or its uneven redressal of the claims of first- and second-generation hibakusha, the surviving victims of the bombing.

“The Nagasaki Museum tells its heart-breaking story through photographs and objects: dented household pots, ripped clothing, bones of a human hand stuck to a piece of metal, a replica of the destroyed ruins of the Urakami cathedral at Ground Zero, pictures of scarred and dead bodies and a city leveled flat. It is a story that makes you weep for a devastated past and hope for a more peaceful future.”

The genie is out of the bottle

The Russians’ atomic bomb

The Russians exploded their first atomic bomb in 1949 (https://history.com/this-day-in-history/soveits-explode-atomic-bomb).

The US tests the first hydrogen bomb, followed by Russia

“On November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated ‘Mike,’ the world’s first hydrogen bomb, on the Elugelab Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands. The 10.4-megaton thermonuclear device instantly vaporized an entire island and left behind a crater more than a mile wide. Three years later, on November 22, 1955, the Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb on the same principle of radiation implosion. Both superpowers were now in possession of the so-called ‘superbomb,’ and the world lived under the threat of thermonuclear war for the first time in history.”

Other countries get the bomb

The Union of Concerned Scientists keeps a record (https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/worldwide).

“Nine countries possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. In total, the global nuclear stockpile is close to 13,000 weapons. While that number is lower than it was during the Cold War—when there were roughly 60,000 weapons worldwide—it does not alter the fundamental threat to humanity these weapons represent.

“For example, the warheads on just one US nuclear-armed submarine have seven times the destructive power of all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. And the United States usually has ten of those submarines at sea.

“Moreover, nearly all the major nuclear powers—including the United States, Russia, and China—are now significantly increasing their nuclear arsenals in size, capability, or both. This growing new arms race is raising the risk of nuclear war.”

The nuclear stock piles of the U.S. and Russia

“Today, the United States deploys 1,419 and Russia deploys 1,549 strategic warheads on several hundred bombers and missiles, and are modernizing their nuclear delivery systems. Warheads are counted using the provisions of the New START agreement, which was extended for 5 years in January 2021. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty on Feb. 21, 2023; in response, the United States instituted countermeasures limiting information sharing and inspections.

“However, both the U.S. and Russia have committed to the treaty’s central limits on strategic force deployments until 2026.

“New START caps each country at 1,550 strategic deployed warheads and attributes one deployed warhead per deployed heavy bomber, no matter how many warheads each bomber carries. Warheads on deployed ICBMs and SLBMs are counted by the number of re-entry vehicles on the missile. Each re-entry vehicle can carry one warhead.

“The United States, Russia, and China also possess smaller numbers of non-strategic (or tactical) nuclear warheads, which are shorter-range, lower-yield weapons that are not subject to any treaty limits.”

On the Brink

W.J. Hennigan, writes about national security issues for Opinion from Washington, D.C. He has reported from more than two dozen countries, covering war, the arms trade and the lives of U.S. service members. He reports in this article on how close humanity is to nuclear war

(https://nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/07/opinion/nuclear-war-prevention.html).

“In the fall of 2022, a U.S. intelligence assessment put the odds at 50-50 that Russia would launch a nuclear strike to halt Ukrainian forces if they breached its defense of Crimea. Preparing for the worst, American officials rushed supplies to Europe.

“Ukraine has set up hundreds of radiation detectors around cities and power plants, along with more than 1,000 smaller hand-held monitors sent by the United States.

Nearly 200 hospitals in Ukraine have been identified as go-to facilities in the event of a nuclear attack. Thousands of doctors, nurses and other workers have been trained on how to respond and treat radiation exposure. And millions of potassium iodide tablets, which protect the thyroid from picking up radioactive material linked with cancer, are stockpiled around the country.

Hennigan continues.

A nuclear playbook

“But well before that — just four days after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, in fact — the Biden administration had directed a small group of experts and strategists, a ‘Tiger Team,’ to devise a new nuclear ‘playbook’ of contingency plans and responses. Pulling in experts from the intelligence, military and policy fields, they pored over years-old emergency preparedness plans, weapon-effects modeling and escalation scenarios, dusting off materials that in the age of counterterrorism and cyberwarfare were long believed to have faded into irrelevance.

“The playbook, which was coordinated by the National Security Council, now sits in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the West Wing of the White House. It has a newly updated, detailed menu of diplomatic and military options for President Biden — and any future president — to act upon if a nuclear attack occurs in Ukraine.

The likelihood of nuclear war goes up

“‘At the heart of all of this work,” Hennigan writes, “is a chilling conclusion: The possibility of a nuclear strike, once inconceivable in modern conflict, is more likely now than at any other time since the Cold War [since 1992]. ‘We’ve had 30 pretty successful years keeping the genie in the bottle,’ a senior administration official on the Tiger Team said. While both America and Russia have hugely reduced their nuclear arsenals since the height of the Cold War, the official said, ‘Right now is when nuclear risk is most at the forefront.’”

Hennigan goes on.

If deterrence breaks down, the effects of a nuclear attack

“The toll of a 10-kiloton blast on a military target near a city could be thousands dead, even more wounded. Roads, tunnels and railways are impassable because of debris and destruction. It might be days before rescue workers can venture safely into affected areas.

“Cell towers and utility poles are knocked over and disconnected, causing widespread power failures. The electromagnetic pulse released from the detonation cripples electronic equipment within roughly a one-mile radius from the epicenter.

“The thousands of unburied dead, the open sewage and the fetid water are a breeding ground for disease and growth in insect populations that have a higher tolerance than humans for radiation. Flies appear en masse, laying eggs in corpses and the open burn wounds of survivors.

“The debris churned up by a nuclear blast, along with soot and ash from the raging fires, falls back to earth as thick, black water droplets laced with radioactive material. Black-rain showers can fall miles away from ground zero, staining nearly everything they touch.

“Radiation sickness begins with bouts of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Days or weeks after exposure, people who look fine can suddenly lose hunks of hair, become anemic and weak, and begin bleeding internally. Their immune systems can fail, rendering them helpless against the infectious diseases that start to spread: dysentery, typhoid, cholera.

“Some pregnant women who are near the blast later give birth to babies with microcephaly and other defects. Cancer of all kinds can appear decades later.

“If radioactive contamination from the initial blast passes through the food chain via animals and plant roots, damage to the ecosystem can linger for years.”

“Russia is replacing its Soviet-era hardware with new jets, missiles and submarines. And the other eight nations that have nuclear weapons are believed to be enhancing their arsenals in parts of the world that are already on edge.”

“Now that shared safety net of treaties and agreements is nearly gone. After a decade of diplomatic breakdown and military antagonism, only one major arms treaty between the United States and Russia remains — New START, which Mr. Putin suspended Russia’s participation in last year. The treaty is set to expire in February 2026.”

“That means we are just two years away from a world in which there are no major treaty limits on the number of strategic nuclear weapons the United States and Russia deploy. Already today, because of the New START suspension, the two nations disclose little information about their arsenals to each other and do not engage in talks for further agreements. If nuclear deterrence — however flawed a concept it may be — is to work, transparency about nations’ capabilities is critical. Without better communication, the risk of rapid escalation and miscalculation will grow.”

Nuclear winter – the end game

“Even a limited nuclear war could be catastrophic. A 2022 scientific study found that if 100 Hiroshima-size bombs — less than 1 percent of the estimated global nuclear arsenal — were detonated in certain cities, they could generate more than five million tons of airborne soot, darkening the skies, lowering global temperatures and creating the largest worldwide famine in history.

“An estimated 27 million people could immediately die, and as many as 255 million people may starve within two years.”

“The United States is now preparing to build new nuclear warheads for the first time since 1991, part of a decades-long program to overhaul its nuclear forces that’s estimated to cost up to $2 trillion. The outline of that plan was drawn up in 2010 — in a much different security environment than what the country faces today.

Donald Trump’s Reckless Infatuation with nuclear weapons and a renewed nuclear arms race

Lawrence S. Wittner,Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press), reports on this issue in an article published by Foreign Policy in Focus, July 22, 2024 (https://fpif.org/donald-trumps-infatuation-with-nuclear-weapons).  

Trump has brought the world closer to nuclear midnight

Wittner writes: “Over the past decade and more, nuclear war has grown increasingly likely. Most nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements of the past have been discarded by the nuclear powers or will expire soon. Moreover, there are no nuclear arms control negotiations underway. Instead, all nine nuclear nations (Russia, the United States, China, Britain, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea) have begun a new nuclear arms race, qualitatively improving the 12,121 nuclear weapons in existence or building new, much faster, and deadlier ones.

“Furthermore, the cautious, diplomatic statements about international relations that characterized an earlier era have given way to public threats of nuclear war, issued by top officials in Russia, the United States, and North Korea.

“This June, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that, given the heightened risk of nuclear annihilation, “humanity is on a knife’s edge.”

This menacing situation owes a great deal to Donald Trump.

Trump’s record

“As president of the United States, Trump sabotaged key nuclear arms control agreements of the past and the future. He single-handedly destroyed the INF Treaty, the Iran nuclear agreement, and the Open Skies Treaty by withdrawing the United States from them.  In addition, as the expiration date for the New START Treaty approached in February 2021, he refused to accept a simple extension of the agreement—action quickly countermanded by the incoming Biden administration.

“Not surprisingly, Trump was horrified by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons―a UN-negotiated agreement that banned nuclear weapons, thereby providing the framework for a nuclear-free world.  In 2017, when this vanguard nuclear disarmament treaty was passed by an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations, the Trump administration  proclaimed that the United States would never sign it.

“In fact,” Wittner continues, “Trump was far less interested in arms control and disarmament than in entering―and winning―a new nuclear arms race with other nations. ‘Let it be an arms race,’ he declared in December 2016, shortly after his election victory. ‘We will outmatch them at every pass.’ In February 2018, he boasted that his administration was ‘creating a brand-new nuclear force.  We’re gonna be so far ahead of everybody else in nuclear like you’ve never seen before.’ And, indeed, Trump’s U.S. nuclear ‘modernization’ program―involving the replacement of every Cold War era submarine, bomber, missile, and warhead with an entirely new generation of the deadliest weapons ever invented―acquired enormous momentum during his presidency, with cost estimates running as high as $2 trillion.”

There’s more.

Trump considers the return of U.S. nuclear weapons testing

“Eager to facilitate this nuclear buildup, the Trump administration began to explore a return to U.S. nuclear weapons testing.  Consequently, it announced in 2018 that, although the U.S. government had ended its nuclear tests in 1992 and President Bill Clinton had negotiated and signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, Trump would oppose U.S. Senate ratification of the treaty. The administration also dramatically reduced the time necessary to prepare for nuclear weapons test explosions. In 2020, senior Trump administration officials reportedly conducted a serious discussion of U.S. government resumption of nuclear testing, leading the House of Representatives, then under Democratic control, to block funding for it.

“Though many Americans assumed that a powerful U.S. nuclear arsenal would prevent an outbreak of nuclear war, Trump undermined this wishful thinking by revealing himself perfectly ready to launch a nuclear attack. During his 2016 presidential campaign, the Republican nominee reportedly asked a foreign policy advisor three times why, if the U.S. government possessed nuclear weapons, it should be reluctant to use them. The following year, Trump told the governor of Puerto Rico that, ‘if nuclear war happens, we won’t be second in line pressing the button.’

“Indeed, Trump came remarkably close to lunching a nuclear war against North Korea. In August 2017, responding to provocative comments by Kim Jong Un, Trump warned that further North Korean threats would ‘be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.’”

“Trump’s threat of a nuclear attack triggered a rapid escalation of tensions between the two nations. In a speech before the UN General Assembly that September, Trump vowed to ‘totally destroy North Korea’ if Kim, whom he derisively labeled ‘Rocket Man,’ continued his provocative rhetoric. Meanwhile, the White House chief of staff, General John Kelly, was appalled by indications that Trump really wanted war and, especially, by the president’s suggestion of using a nuclear weapon against North Korea and, then, blaming the action on someone else.

According to Kelly, the military’s objection that the war would―in the words of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis ‘incinerate a couple million people’―had no impact on Trump. In early 2018, the U.S. president merely upped the ante by publicly boasting that he had a ‘Nuclear Button’ that was ‘much bigger & more powerful’ than Kim’s.

“What finally headed off a nuclear war, Kelly recalled, was his appeal to Trump’s ‘narcissism.’ If Trump could forge a friendly diplomatic relationship with North Korea, the general suggested, the U.S. president would emerge as the ‘greatest salesman in the world.’ And, indeed, Trump did reverse course and embark on a flamboyant campaign to pacify and denuclearize North Korea, remarking that May that ‘everyone’ thought he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Eventually, however, the U.S.-North Korean negotiations, including a much-heralded ‘summit’ between Trump and Kim, resulted in little more than handshakes, North Korea’s continued development of nuclear weapons, and Trump’s return to public threats of nuclear war―this time against Iran.

“Given this record, as well as Trump’s all-too-evident mental instability, we have been fortunate that, in a world bristling with nuclear weapons, the world survived his four years in office.

“But our good fortune might not last much longer, for Trump’s return to power in 2025 or the recklessness of some other leader of a nuclear-armed nation could unleash unprecedented catastrophe upon the world.

“Ultimately, the only long-term security for humanity lies in the global abolition of nuclear weapons and the development of a united world community.” Such goals seem less and less attainable.”

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Concluding thoughts

It is worrisome that Trump seems to think about nuclear weapons and nuclear war so nonchalantly. Everything we know about him is that he is impulsive, doesn’t read much, hates to lose, wants to be dominant, seeks revenge against his opponents, and wants recognition and acceptance as a great leader, if not a messiah with supernatural abilities.  He is encouraged to adopt a permissive approach to nuclear policies by key allies like the Heritage Foundation and, generally, the big nuclear weapons producers. For example, William Hartung reports on August 6, 2024 on “the Heritage Foundation” proposal to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal (https://commondreams.org/opinion/heritage-foundation-nukes).

There has been “a flood of campaign contributions from ICBM contractors [which]  is reinforced by their staggering investments in lobbying. In any given year, the arms industry as a whole employs between 800 and 1,000 lobbyists, well more than one for every member of Congress. Most of those lobbyists hired by ICBM contractors come through the ‘revolving door’ from careers in the Pentagon, Congress, or the Executive Branch. That means they come with the necessary tools for success in Washington: an understanding of the appropriations cycle and close relations with decision-makers on the Hill.”

Hartung points out, “The Pentagon is in the midst of a massive $2 trillion multiyear plan to build a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines. A large chunk of that funding will go to major nuclear weapons contractors like Bechtel, General Dynamics, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. And they will do everything in their power to keep that money flowing,” as reported by Hekmat Aboukhater and William D. Hartung (https://counterpunch.org/2024/08/08/inside-the-nuclear-weapons-lobby-today).

It is also of concern that: “all three major nuclear powers are upgrading their nuclear arsenals” and “the one remaining U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control agreement is hanging by a thread.”

Trump’s advisers exacerbate the situation by encouraging him to renew U.S. nuclear weapons testing if he wins the presidency in November, a development that would surely lead to testing by Russia and China (https://nytimes.com/2024/07/05/science/nuclear-testing-trump.html).

A peace-oriented option

Lawrence Davidson, a retired professor of history, wants us to “think about how to build a more peaceful world”

(https://counterpunch.org/2024/08/13/lets-think-about-how-to-build-a-more-peaceful-world). He focuses on how to reform the United Nations and  recommends ending the veto power of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Indeed, “124 UN nations have endorsed a proposal to scrap the veto in connection with genocide, crimes against humanity, and mass atrocities.”

Bob Sheak, August 3, 2024

Project 2025, labeled the Presidential Transition Project, is the 920-page Republican Party plan to be implemented after (not if) they “win” the presidential and congressional elections in November. It describes how Trump and his allies intend to destroy America’s democracy and create something like a monarchy or fascist political order. Independently of the 2025 Project, Trump believes he will win the election and then become the absolute leader. The federal government will then be under his control, obviating the need for elections and the rule of law. The rich and powerful will be the chief beneficiaries.

According Project 2025, opponents of Trump will be imprisoned or deported, as will millions of undocumented workers residing in the country. Thousands of Trump loyalists will be appointed to executive branch jobs. And a full-blown right-wing agenda will be instituted, involving lowered taxes on the rich, deregulation, and privatization of critical public institutions. The social safety net will be eviscerated. The production and consumption of fossil fuels will be maximized and global warming will increase.

Wikipedia provides a detailed analysis of this anti-democratic project.

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Wikipedia’s description of Project 2025

Wikipedia: “Project 2025, also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project,^[3] is an initiative coordinated by the Heritage Foundation that aims to promote conservative and right-wing policies to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election.^[4][5] The Project asserts that the entire executive branch is under the direct control of the president under unitary executive theory.^[6][7] It proposes reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers as political appointees in order to replace them with people loyal to the president.^[8][9] Proponents of the project argue it would dismantle what they view as a vast, unaccountable, and liberal government bureaucracy.^[10] The Project seeks to infuse the government and society with conservative Christian values.^[11][12] Critics have characterized Project 2025 as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist plan to steer the U.S. toward autocracy.^{[11][13][14][15]} Legal experts have said it would undermine the rule of law,^[16] separation of powers,^[5] separation of church and state,^[17] and civil liberties.^[5][16][18]

Project 2025 envisions widespread changes to economic and social policies and the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Commerce, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuels.^[16][19] The blueprint seeks to institute tax cuts,^[20] but its writers disagree on protectionism.^[21] It recommends abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be transferred or terminated.^[22][23] Funding for climate research would be cut, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be reformed along conservative principles^[vague].^[24][25] The project seeks to cut Medicare and Medicaid,^[26][27] and urges the government to explicitly reject abortion as health care.^[28][29] The project seeks to eliminate coverage of emergency contraception^[26] and enforce the Comstock Act to prosecute those who send and receive contraceptives and abortion pills.^[29][30] It proposes criminalizing pornography,^{[31]: 5 [32]} removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,^[32][33] and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs^[5][33] and affirmative action^[34] by having the DOJ prosecute “anti-white racism.”^[35] The Project recommends the arrest, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants.^[36][37][38] It proposes deploying the military for domestic law enforcement.^[39] It promotes capital punishment and the speedy “finality” of those sentences.^[40][41]

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Why is Project 2025 so alarming?

Matt Cohen, a writer and researcher, addresses the question in an article published on Democracy Docket on July 9, 2024

(https://democracydocket.com/analysis/what-is-project-2025-and-why-is-it-alarming). Here’s some of what Cohen writes.

The project, designed to give Trump maximum power, is so extreme that even Trump has tried to distance himself from it.

Trump wants to “distant” himself from the project

Trump has recently tried “to distance himself from the extreme agenda of Project 2025,” claiming “I know nothing about Project 2025.” Trump added: “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s allies are behind the project

Cohen points out that, despite his claimed ignorance of Project 2025, “numerous former Trump administration officials contributed to the nearly 1,000-page mandate, including former Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli and Peter Navarro, a former top trade advisor to Trump. Trump also has deep ties to The Heritage Foundation, the group behind Project 2025, and the dozens of conservative organizations who contributed to the plan.”

“Though The Heritage Foundation organized Project 2025, the initiative is actually a coalition made up of more than 100 right-wing groups, including notorious groups like America First Legal, the Public Interest Legal Foundation and Moms For Liberty. According to NBC News, a huge web of right-wing dark money groups connected to Project 2025, led by the Leonard Leo-connected Donors Trust, has seen a large bump in donations since the project was announced. 

The chapters in the Project 2025 plan and 180-Day Playbook were written by “more than 400 scholars and policy experts from across the conservative movement and around the country,” the group says.

Implementing the project

Should Trump win the November election, he will be able to move ahead with the plan and, Cohen writes, “vastly remake the federal government most effectively to carry out an extremist far-right agenda.” 

“It is not enough for conservatives to win elections,” the project’s website states. “If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration. This is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project.”

Cohen continues.

“The opening essay of the plan, written by Heritage Project President Kevin D. Roberts, succinctly summarizes the goal of Project 2025: a promise to make America a conservative nation. To do so, the next presidential administration should focus on four ‘broad fronts that will decide America’s future.’”

#1 – Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.

#2 – Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.

#3 – Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.

#4 – Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls ‘the Blessings of Liberty.’

Cohen elaborates. “The rest of the document sketches out, in detail, how the next Republican administration can execute their goals on these four fronts. That includes comprehensive outlines on what the White House and every single federal agency should do to overhaul its goals and day-to-day operations — from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Defense, Small Business Administration and Financial Regulatory Agencies. Every sector of the executive branch has a detailed plan in Project 2025 that explains how it can carry out an ultra-conservative agenda.” 

Cohen writes, “Project 2025 is ‘a remarkably detailed guide to turning the United States into a fascist’s paradise.’ The primary document of Project 2025… lays out what is essentially a ‘Christian nationalist vision of the United States, one in which married heterosexuality is the only valid form of sexual expression and identity; all pregnancies would be carried to term, even if that requires coercion or death; and transgender and gender-nonconforming people do not exist.’”

One troubling provision includes “a detailed plan to essentially purge the federal workforce of tens of thousands of workers in favor of hiring ones who will adhere to the conservative principles of Project 2025.” It speaks to just about every facet of American life, including “anti-abortion advocacy, voter suppression, anti-climate policies, and anti-LGBTQ advocacy.” 

—————-

Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes identify Project 2025 as “a New Pax Romana” (https://counterpunch.org/2-24/-7/30/project-2025-a-new-pax-romana).

“Although the Roman Empire described itself as being in favor of life and peace, the various Caesars and their enablers regularly dealt death and destruction in their wake. They spread the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace), including a taxation system that left the poor in debt servitude, a military that caused terror and violence across the then-known world, and a ruling authority that pitted whole communities against each other, while legislating who could associate with whom (passing marriage laws, for instance, that banned gay, inter-racial, or even cross-class marriages). The emperor in power in Jesus’s time, Caesar Augustus, was known for ushering in a Golden Age of Moral Values that went hand in hand with that Pax Romana, and it meant war and death, especially for the poor.

“Fast forward millennia and that world bears a strange resemblance to the media distractions, violence, and regressive policies that MAGA and other extremists are pushing forward in our times. Whether it’s Donald Trump’s assertion that “I alone can fix your problems”; Supreme Court and state legislative attacks on reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, and trans youth in the name of family values; cuts to welfare, healthcare, worker’s rights and other life-sustaining programs to protect corporate interests; the militarizing of endless communities by allowing guns (especially AR-15 rifles) to proliferate, while offering only thoughts and prayers to the victims of violence, the MAGA movement is promoting culture wars and extremist policies under the banner of Christian nationalism. In doing so, its leaders are perfecting a disdain for the excluded, exploited, and rejected that hurts the poor first and worst, but impacts all of society.”

The Formal Project 2025 Takeover

“The wholesale capture of the state is the ultimate goal of its Christian nationalist architects. Project 2025 simply clarifies just how they plan to implement their drive for power.  Each of its sections — from ‘taking the reins of government’ by centralizing executive authority in the office of the President to securing ‘the common defense’ by expanding every branch of the military — is worth reviewing.

Theoharis and Barnes note this: “The longest section focuses on ‘general welfare’ and it should be no surprise that the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development are subject to significant cutbacks, including:

* Imposing yet stricter eligibility standards, work requirements, and asset tests to constrain access to Medicaid, even though more than 23 million Americans have been unenrolled from that program since 2023;

* Revisiting how the “Thrifty Food Plan” is formulated to minimize food-stamp allocations, while imposing onerous work requirements on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), even though most of its recipients work and/or are in households with children, elderly people, or people with disabilities;

* Ending universal free school meals by removing the “community eligibility provision,” which allows school districts with high poverty rates to provide free breakfast and lunch programs to all children in need;

* Eliminating Head Start, which has served 39 million children and families since 1965 and currently serves more than 800,000 poor families with young children, while shuttering the Department of Education;

* Ending “Housing First” programs and prohibiting non-citizens, including mixed-status families, from living in low-income public housing; and

* Imposing a “life agenda” and a “family agenda” that will restrict access to abortion and reproductive rights, and otherwise curtail LGBTQ+ rights.

“Such proposals would undoubtedly be deeply unpopular. In fact, as people learn more about Project 2025, opposition is growing, even across party lines. Most Americans want a government that would provide for the down-and-out, who are a growing segment of the population and the electorate, as well as one that supports abortion rights, voting rights, and the freedom of expression. At least 40% of us — 135-140 million people — are either poor or one emergency away from economic ruin, including 80 million eligible voters. Project 2025’s social welfare cuts would, in fact, push significant numbers of people across the poverty line into financial ruin.”

“Today, tens of millions of poor people in this country are on the front lines of our failing democracy and increasingly militarized society. They are the true canaries in the coal mine, already living through the violence of a society that has prioritized war and profits over addressing the pain and toll of low-wage jobs, crushing debt burdens, polluted water and land, and lives cut short by poverty, the police, and the denial of basic human rights. They can undoubtedly also foresee the drive toward an ever-deeper warfare state and the possible fallout from Project 2025 if Donald Trump and J.D. Vance win this year.”

The Supreme Court smooths the way for Project 2024

“From its recent rulings, it’s clear that the Supreme Court is hastening Project 2025’s agenda judicially, both in terms of specific future policies and the executive power grab at the heart of that mandate (and now of that court’s rulings). In June, for instance, it ruled in favor of the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, which enacted a law to fine, jail, and ultimately expel its unhoused residents. That precedent will only exacerbate the already hostile terrain confronting unhoused people, seeding firm ground to 2025’s plan to eliminate even more housing projects.

Worse yet, as the Nation’s Elie Mystal recently made clear, in just a few weeks of rulings, the court “legalized bribery of public officials, declared the president of the United States absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for ‘official acts,’ and made the power to issue regulations subject to the court’s unelected approval.”

As Mystal warns, “There’s no legislative fix for the problems the court has created… [and] they will continue to do all the things Republicans want that nobody elected

“In addition, in the legislative arena, Congressional debates around the Farm Bill echo Project 2025’s plan to cut food assistance by limiting updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, the current formula that determines SNAP allocations. For example, at the state level, a Republican supermajority in Kansas voted last year to override the governor’s veto and enact work requirements for older recipients of SNAP benefits.

“Overall, various Project 2025 priorities are already being implemented at the state and local level, with reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, public education, social welfare programs, and unhoused people under serious threat in Republican-run states across the country. Since the Supreme Court decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, 21 states have enacted full or partial bans on abortion.”

“There is also a multi-state strategy underway to preempt community-led efforts to implement guaranteed income programs. At least 10 states have challenged basic income programs with legislative bans, funding restrictions, constitutional challenges, and court injunctions, while four Republican-led states — Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, and South Dakota — have already completely prohibited such programs.

And in lockstep with Project 2025’s call for military expansion, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker recently released a report proposing that $55 billion be added to the Pentagon’s already humongous budget in fiscal year 2025 while raising military spending by hundreds of billions of dollars in the next five to seven years. The report, “Peace Through Strength,” revives the false idea that spending ever more on war preparations makes us safer. Not only is Wicker distorting Cold War history, but his prescriptions ignore our experience of the past 20 years of military buildup and the disastrous Global War on Terror. According to the Costs of War Project and the National Priorities Project, this country’s post-9/11 wars have cost at least $8 trillion, taken millions of lives, and displaced tens of millions of people globally, while precipitating climate chaos through their polluting emissions. If implemented, Wicker’s plan would only increase the risk of yet more destabilizing conflicts, offering a modern Pax Romana promise for yet more war and death.”

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Trump tells supporters there will be no need to vote anymore after he and other Republicans win their elections in November.

Edward Carver reports on this in an article published in Common Dreams on July 27, 2024 (https://commondreams.org/news/it-ll-be-fixed-trump-tells-supporters-no-need-to-vote-in-the-future). On July 23, 2024, Trump “told rally-goers at a far-right Christian event in West Palm Beach, Florida that they needed to vote ‘just this time’ and wouldn’t need to do so after four more years…”

“‘Christians, get out and vote!’ the former president told attendees of the event, hosted by the far-right youth advocacy group Turning Point Action. ‘Just this time. You won’t have to do it any more, four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.’”

“‘Get out–you gotta get out and vote,’ he added. ‘In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.’”

Carver cites Katie Phang, an MSNBC host, who interpreted Trump’s remarks to mean that he would try to remain in power indefinitely, if reelected.

“In other words, Trump won’t ever leave the White House if he gets reelected,” she wrote on social media.”

“He has in the past expressed admiration for strongmen around the world, and has framed his 2024 campaign as one of retribution, even calling his opponents ‘vermin.’ He and his allies have threatened to prosecute their political enemies—political figures and bureaucrats—if they take power in 2025.”

“‘I love you, Christians, I’m [unclear word or words] Christian, I love you.’

Many Christians seem to love Trump back. A Pew poll from April showed that more than 80% of white evangelicals support the Republican nominee.

————–

Using the Military and police to enforce obedience to the anticipated fascist order

The ACLU reports on July 19, 2024 that “Trump Promises to Militarize Police, Reincarcerate Thousands, and Expand Death Penalty” (https://aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/trump-promises-to-militarize-police-reincarcerate-thousands-and-expand-death-penalty).

“Donald Trump has long identified himself as the candidate of ‘law and order’ but, during the Trump administration, ‘law and order’ translated to a severe approach to criminal punishment and policing that failed to make us safer.

“Today, his proposed policies for a second term promise to double down on these ineffective tough on crime tactics. If reelected, a second administration threatens to accelerate mass incarceration and roll back decades of progress by encouraging aggressive policing practices, enacting draconian sentencing regimes, and expanding the use of the death penalty.”

Trump on the Criminal Legal System

“Specifically, Trump’s law enforcement policies call for further protections for abusive police, including condoning the use of force against protesters, which he once described as a ‘beautiful thing to watch.’ This rhetoric risks encouraging state actors to take a similarly brutal approach. Beyond rhetoric, however, Trump is also likely to immediately rescind President Joe Biden’s 2022 executive order on policing. Doing so would eviscerate one of the most substantial federal actions on police reform since George Floyd’s murder and roll back important changes to use of force standards, including restrictions on chokeholds and carotid restraints.

“These expected policies will have an outsized impact on marginalized communities, especially the Black community, which is far more likely to experience police abuse. We also know that a second Trump administration intends to deputize local law enforcement to aid an unprecedented mass deportation effort that would decimate communities.

“Additionally, Trump has promised that, if reelected, his administration will accelerate mass incarceration efforts by directing federal prosecutors to seek the most serious charges and maximum sentences, pressuring local prosecutors to take a similarly draconian approach, and re-incarcerating thousands of people on home confinement. His administration will also expand the use of the death penalty – despite Americans’ increasing opposition to capital punishment – by broadening the category of crimes punishable by death, sentencing more people to die, and killing every person on federal death row.

“While Trump will have a singular impact on the federal system, ultimately, state and local governments control most of the substantive parts of state criminal legal systems, including policing, prosecution, sentencing, and conditions in prisons and jails. Today, there are over 1.6 million people in state and local jails and prisons, compared to just over 200,000 in federal jails and prisons. But even without direct control of state systems, Trump will play an important role in setting the tone for state policies and many of his plans will have a ripple effect across the country.”

“Trump’s time in office also underscored the need to continue to hold his administration accountable for its unlawful actions. From 2017-2021, the ACLU filed more than 430 legal actions against the administration, including lawsuits aimed at defending the right to protest against police brutality, protecting the health and humanity of incarcerated people during the Covid-19 pandemic, and stopping mass surveillance by law enforcement.

“Our Roadmap: If Trump returns to office, he can expect that he will be met with the same fierce response the ACLU brought during his last administration.

Specifically, we will use the courts to halt the Trump administration’s attempt to carry out one of, if not the largest, carceral events in our nation’s history: the senseless return to prison of nearly 3,000 individuals released on federal home confinement during the pandemic. Additionally, we will use litigation to challenge any efforts to return to unconstitutional methods of execution, and expose the racism and cruelty inherent in the death penalty, as we continue to seek its total abolition.

“The ACLU will also advocate for Congress to constrain the funneling of military equipment to local police, fight for legislation to end sentencing disparities, and, under any administration, continue to push for the full implementation of the First Step Act. Importantly, we’ll use our expertise and resources to advise and assist members of Congress on how to prevent a future Trump administration from manipulating our legal system.”

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Concluding thoughts

US democracy, the rule of law, the protections provided by the US Constitution, all will be at unprecedented risk again. Trump, his MAGA base, and his many powerful backers seem all too willing to follow him down a fascist path.

Will American voters defeat him and the other extremist Republicans? It comes down to whether a majority of voters oppose his candidacy and whether the popular vote is not negated by the Electoral College.