Challenging Trump’s anti-democratic vision

Bob Sheak, May 8, 2024

The anti-democratic thrust of Trump’s views, widely endorsed by Republicans, is continuously being modified. However, it is clear that if he is elected in November 2024, he wants to institute reforms that will end American liberal democracy, replace it with an illiberal political order, with the president in command, all the while looking for ways to diminish or eliminate the influence of his critics and Democrats.

Robert Kagan analyzes this threat in his book, Rebellion: How Antiliberalism IS Tearing America Apart – Again. In effect, Trump wants the Republican Party to win absolute control, which would mean control by a “minority” of the voting population, particularly by the rich and powerful. Ari Berman delves into this issue in his new book titled “Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People – and the Fight to Resist It.”

Autocratic confirmation

Trump also looks abroad for confirmations of his views, for example from authoritarian leaders in Russia and Hungary. His friendly relations with Putin are well known. Kate Sullivan gives some examples of the relationship (https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/10/politics/trump-russia-nato/index.html).

“As president, Trump privately threatened multiple times to withdraw the United States from NATO, according to The New York Times. Trump has described NATO as ‘obsolete’ and has aligned himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who wants to weaken the alliance. Trump has long praised Putin and went as far as to side with the Russian leader over the US intelligence community over Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.”

Trump as messiah

Trump welcomes support for his power bid from wherever it comes. For example, he seems to welcome being thought of as a messiah, however outlandish the notion, because it helps to boost his ego and because it reflects support for him among Christian Nationalists, his most numerous constituency. (See Tim Alberta’s book, The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism).

David French analyzes this fabrication and contends obviously that Trump is no savior and that a “significant part of American Christianity is spiraling out of control” (https://nytimes.com/2024/03/31/opinion/donald-trump-dune-savior.html). Here’s some of what he writes.

“The signs are everywhere. First, there’s the behavior of the savior himself, Donald Trump. On Monday of Holy Week, he compared himself to Jesus Christ, posting on Truth Social that he received a ‘beautiful’ note from a supporter saying that it was ironic’ that ‘Christ walked through his greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.’

“On Tuesday, he took to Truth Social to sell a $60 ‘God Bless the USA Bible’ (the ‘only Bible endorsed by President Trump’), an edition of the King James Bible that also includes America’s founding documents. ‘Christians are under siege,’ he said. The Judeo-Christian foundation of America is ‘under attack,’ Trump claimed, before declaring a new variant on an old theme: ‘We must make America pray again.’

“Two weeks ago, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, told a Christian gathering that Democrats ‘want full and complete destruction of the United States of America.’ Kirk is a powerful Trump ally. He has millions of followers on social media and is hoping to raise more than $100 million in 2024 to help mobilize voters for Trump.

“‘I do not think you can be a Christian and vote Democrat,’ Kirk said, and ‘if you vote Democrat as a Christian, you can no longer call yourself a Christian.’”

French continues.

“All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of so-called prophetic utterances that place Trump at the center of God’s plan to save America. According to these prophecies, Trump is God’s choice to lead America out of spiritual darkness, to save it from decline and despair. In this formulation, to oppose Trump is to stand against the will of God.

“There are Trump prophecy books and a Trump prophecy movie. The prophecies can be very strange. The prophet will speak as though God talked to him or her directly. In this widely watched video, for example, the prophet says, ‘Donald Trump will be in power once more’ and ‘he will reign again; it’s only a matter of time.’ In this prophecy, the prophet says there is ‘actually a scripture appointed for the day’ that Trump was born. As he explains the prophecy, the crowd applauds; its belief is palpable.”

There is a “method” underlying this belief in Trump’s spiritual lordship. French writes: “The MAGA method is clear. First, it whips up its people into a religious frenzy. It lies to convince them that the Democrats are an existential threat to the country and the church. It tells worried Christians that the fate of the nation is at stake. Then, just as it builds up the danger from the Democrats, it constructs an idol of Trump, declaring his divine purpose and spreading the prophecies of his coming return. He is to be the instrument of divine vengeance against his foes, and his frenzied foot soldiers are eager to carry out his will. They march eagerly to culture war, flying the flag of the House of Trump.”

French points out that Trump’s religiosity is hardly in the authentic Christian tradition. “Jesus was emphatic. In Matthew 25, Jesus said he would know his followers as people who served: ‘I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.’ And how do we serve Jesus in that way? Christ’s answer was clear: ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

The fuller agenda

Certainly, there is much more to Trump’s anti-democratic and politically and existentially threatening agenda. Here are eleven examples.

believes he cannot be defeated in upcoming 2024 presidential election, unless the election is “rigged”
encourages the maximum production and consumption of fossil fuels, despite the steady rise of global warming
claims to be a job creator, though his record here is weak
appoints sycophants to his cabinet and staff, and eliminate civil service protections for thousands of executive-branch workers
pursues a draconian migration policy, including the detention and removal of millions of undocumented migrants living in the U.S. carried out with military troops – and extends the wall on the southern border
facilitates efforts to make voting more difficult, especially for lower-income and black and Latino Americans
keeps taxes low for corporations and the super-wealthy and support a regime of deregulation and privatization
diminishes the already fragile social safety net
supports efforts by the states to virtually end legal access to reproductive health care and abortion
encourages easy access to gun ownership
will promote violence against opponents when necessary to maintain social order

—————

#1 – The Big Lie

Trump has claimed over and over again that Biden’s presidential victory in 2020 was based on massive election fraud.

Trump remains the leader of the Republican Party. He unceasingly claims that he won the 2020 presidential election, despite the overwhelming evidence that he did not (e.g., The January 6 Report by the House January 6th Committee). The evidence. “In total, the Trump Campaign and allies of President Trump filed 62 separate lawsuits between November 4, 2020, and January 6, 2021, calling into question or seeking to overturn the election results. Out of 62 cases, only one case results in a victory for the President Trump or his allies, which affected relatively few votes, did not vindicate any underlying claims of fraud, and would not have changed the outcome in Pennsylvania.” Indeed, “In every state in which claims were brought, one or more judges specifically explained as part of the dismissal orders that they had evaluated the plaintiffs’ allegations or supposed proof of widespread election fraud or other irregularities, and found the claims to be entirely unconvincing” (p. 210).

The Big Lie is widely accepted by Republicans

Most Republicans in the U.S. Congress accept or go along with this false claim, as reflected in the vote on choosing a Speaker taken by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. The litmus test for House Republicans was that a Speaker should be someone who accepts Trump’s lies about winning the 2020 presidential election and his right-wing agenda. Marc Elias provides some information on the new Speaker Mike Johnson’s views and record (https://democracydocket.com/opinion/a-big-lie-ring-leader-becomes-speaker-of-the-house). The article was published on Oct. 30, 2023.

“The newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (La.) is no ordinary Republican election denier. He was a ringleader in one of the most dangerous efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He used his position as a lawyer and member of Congress to legitimize the fringe legal theory underpinning the ‘Big Lie.’ Other than former President Donald Trump, he is arguably the most culpable federal elected official in what transpired on Jan. 6, 2021.

Johnson “combines MAGA Republicanism with Christian nationalism. Shortly after becoming speaker, Johnson told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that anyone looking to understand his world view should ‘go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it.’

“When it comes to issues of democracy, Johnson is an avid vote suppressor and an accomplished election denier. He is best thought of as a cross between Jim Jordan and John Eastman.”

#2 – A retrograde climate/environmental policy

One of the most disturbing aspects of Trump’s discourse is his dismissal of the indisputable evidence on the climate crisis.

Lisa Friedman identifies “Five Major Climate Policies Trump Would Probably Reverse if Elected” (https://nytimes.com/2024/04/26/climate/climate-politics-trump-would-reverse.html).

1. Coal and Gas Power Plants

“The fossil-fuel-burning plants that keep our lights on or power our heat and air conditioning are responsible for a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the United States. Reducing them is key to Mr. Biden’s plan to tackle climate change.” For example, “Environmental Protection Agency regulations finalized on Thursday would force coal plants to either deploy technology to capture virtually all their emissions, or shut down. New gas plants constructed in the U.S. also would have to meet strict emissions standards.”

“Mr. Trump has deployed a mixture of truth and falsehoods when describing this policy. He has said it will force coal plants to shut down, which is likely accurate. He also said it will force gas plants to close, which is not true. And he has said that renewable energy cannot keep the lights on, also untrue.

“If elected, Mr. Trump said he will reverse the regulation on coal-burning electricity and ‘green-light the construction of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of brand-new, beautiful power plants that actually work.’”

2. Automobile Emissions Standards

“Mr. Biden has imposed limits on pollution from automobile tailpipes, rules designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032.

“Mr. Trump has said those regulations will lead to a ‘blood bath’ in the U.S. economy, ‘kill” the auto industry and trigger an ‘assassination’ of jobs. He has pledged to reverse them.”

3. The Inflation Reduction Act

President Biden signed into law in 2022 the nation’s largest investment in fighting climate change. “It contains more than $370 billion in tax credits over 10 years to help shift the U.S. toward cleaner forms of energy, offering incentives to companies to make electric vehicles, batteries and to consumers to buy those vehicles, switch to solar energy and buy things like electric heat pumps to heat and cool their homes.

“Mr. Trump, who has called the I.R.A. ‘the biggest tax hike in history,’ is widely expected to try to gut much of the law.

“Incentives for people to buy electric vehicles, which Mr. Trump has called ‘one of the dumbest’ decisions he’s heard, would certainly be on the chopping block, Republicans said. So would measures to support businesses that install electric-vehicle charging stations.

“Tax credits for solar- and wind-power, could be in the cross hairs of his administration, as could incentives for consumers to buy heat pumps or make their homes more energy efficient.”

4. Oil and Gas Drilling

“If he wins a second term, Mr. Trump has promised to ‘unleash domestic energy production like never before.’ Primarily he is talking about coal, oil and gas, the three main fossil fuels.”

“Mr. Trump has promised to immediately lift that pause and greenlight pipelines and other energy projects.

“‘We’re going to drill, baby, drill, right away,’ Mr. Trump told supporters in January.” As president, Trump is expected to “revive drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the country’s premiere wildlife sanctuary. Mr. Biden canceled seven oil leases in the refuge last year.”

5. Global Climate Negotiations

“As president, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement, a 2015 accord in which all nations agreed to cut their greenhouse gases to keep global warming within relatively safe limits.

“Mr. Biden returned the U.S. to the global deal on his first day in office and has pledged to cut U.S. emissions roughly in half this decade, and to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere before 2050.

“Mr. Trump’s likely policies would add four billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, according to a study by Carbon Brief, a climate analysis site.

“Many foreign leaders felt that the four-year absence of the world’s superpower during the Trump administration was a setback. They fear another American withdrawal would delay progress at a time when time is running short to avert the most catastrophic impacts from global warming.”

#3 – Hardly a big job creator

Lawrence Wittner analyzes Trump’s “empty promises on jobs” (https://counterpunch.org/2024/05/02/donald-trumps-empty-promises-on-jobs).

Wittner reminds us that in mid-2015, Trump announced his candidacy for president of the United States and declared that he would “be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

“With Trump’s election, however, just the opposite occurred. During the four years of Trump’s presidency, the United States lost 2.7 million jobs. As a result, he was the only president since 1939, when the U.S. government began compiling such employment statistics, to preside over a net loss of jobs.

“Indeed, when it came to job creation, Trump was vastly outperformed by the other presidents. Bill Clinton oversaw the biggest gain, 23 million additional jobs, followed by Ronald Reagan (16 million), Joe Biden (14 million), and Lyndon Johnson (12 million)―all the way down to George W. Bush (1.4 million). During the presidency of Barack Obama, Trump’s much-reviled predecessor, the United States added 11.6 million jobs.

Trump’s defenders point to the disruptive effect the Covid-19 pandemic had on the American economy. Although the disease crisis certainly undermined employment during his presidency, it’s also true that his denial and mismanagement of the public health emergency deepened its human and economic impact in the United States. Furthermore, even before the pandemic hit, job creation during the Trump presidency was relatively weak. During Trump’s first 31 months in office, employment growth in the United States averaged 176,000 jobs per month. During Biden’s first 31 months in office, employment growth averaged 433,000 jobs per month.”

#4 – Plans to appoint sycophants and radical right experts to his cabinet and staff, and eliminate civil service protections for thousands of executive-branch workers

Bob Ortega, Kyung Lah, Allison Gordon and Nelli Black, report in-depth on Trump’s plan in a second term to purge the executive branch of workers who are not expressly committed to him (https://cnn.com/2024/04/27/politics/trump-federal-workers-2nd-term-invs/index.html). Here’s some of what they write.

“At one campaign rally after another, former President Donald Trump whips his supporters into raucous cheers with a promise of what’s to come if he’s given another term in office: ‘We will demolish the deep state.’

“In essence, it’s a declaration of war on the federal government—a vow to transform its size and scope and make it more beholden to Trump’s whims and worldview.

“The former president’s statements, policy blueprints laid out by top officials in his first administration and interviews with allies show that Trump is poised to double down in a second term on executive orders that faltered, or those he was blocked from carrying out the first time around.

“Trump seeks to sweep away civil service protections that have been in place for more than 140 years. He has said he’d make ‘every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States’ at will. Even though more than 85 percent of federal employees already work outside the DC area, Trump says he would ‘drain the swamp’ and move as many as 100,000 positions out of Washington. His plans would eliminate or dismantle entire departments.”

“While Trump’s plans are embraced by his supporters, policy experts warn that they would hollow out and politicize the federal workforce, force out many of the most experienced and knowledgeable employees, and open the door to corruption and a spoils system of political patronage.”

“But if, as promised, Trump were to change thousands of civil service jobs into politically appointed positions at the start of a second term, huge numbers of federal workers could face being fired unless they put loyalty to Trump ahead of serving the public interest, warn policy experts.”

Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, told CNN making vast numbers of jobs subject to appointment based on political affiliation would amount to ‘absolutely the biggest change in the American public sector’ since a merit-based civil service was created in 1883.

“One of the architects of that plan for a Trump second term said as much in a video last year for the Heritage Foundation. ‘It’s going to be groundbreaking,’ said Russell Vought, who served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump. He declined interview requests from CNN.”

“Vought focused on a plan he drafted to reissue Trump’s 2020 executive order, known as Schedule F. It would reclassify as political appointees any federal workers deemed to have influence on policy. Reissuing Schedule F is part of a roadmap, known as Project 2025, drafted for a second Trump term by scores of conservative groups and published by the Heritage Foundation.”

“Ostensibly, a reissued Schedule F would affect only policy-making positions. But documents obtained by the National Treasury Employees Union and shared with CNN show that when Vought ran OMB under Trump, his list of positions to be reclassified under Schedule F included administrative assistants, office managers, IT workers and many other less senior positions.

NTEU President Doreen Greenwald told reporters at the union’s annual legislative conference that it estimated more than 50,000 workers would have been affected across all federal agencies. She said the OMB documents ‘stretched the definition of confidential or policy positions to the point of absurdity.’”

“‘We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our National Security and Intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them,’ Trump said in a video last year. ‘The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled so that faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute conservatives, Christians, or the left’s political enemies.’

Project 2025’s blueprint envisions dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI; disarming the Environmental Protection Agency by loosening or eliminating emissions and climate-change regulations; eliminating the Departments of Education and Commerce in their entirety; and eliminating the independence of various commissions, including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.”

#5 – Trump Again Vows Mass Deportations and Won’t Rule Out Political Violence

Michael Gold writes on this issue

(https://nytimes.com/2024/04/30/us/politics/trump-time-migrants-election.html).

“Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Former President Donald J. Trump told Time magazine in an interview published Tuesday morning that if elected in November, he would deploy the U.S. military to detain and deport migrants, hedged on the possibility of political violence after the 2024 election and said he would permit states to decide whether to prosecute those who violate abortion bans.”

“At one point, Mr. Trump told Time that he would be willing to deploy the military as part of an extreme deportation operation he has said he plans to conduct if elected, and that he would be willing to bypass a law that prohibits using American troops against civilians.

“‘Well, these aren’t civilians,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.”

Unlike Democratic leaders in Washington, D.C., “Republicans want to cut benefits despite overwhelming opposition from the American people,” Altman said of federal lawmakers and the former president. Additionally, “Trump plans to sharply restrict immigration. This would harm Social Security by reducing the number of workers paying in.”

#6 – Facilitate efforts to make voting more difficult, especially for lower-income and black and Latino Americans

Trump and his allies and followers want to advance the interests of white Christian supremacists. Ari Berman refers to the rationale in his book Minority Rule. He writes:

“To entrench and hold onto power, shrinking conservative white minority is relentlessly exploiting the undemocratic feature of America’s political institutions while doubling down on a wide variety of antidemocratic tactics, such as voter suppression, election subversion, dark money, legislative power grabs, immigration restrictions, census manipulation, and the whitewashing of history” (p. 9).

#7 – Tax policy for the rich

Jake Johnson, writes on how tax rates for big corporations fell by nearly half after Trump cuts and, if re-elected, Trump plans to extend the cuts (https://commondreams.org/news/itep-trump-tax-law).

Johnson writes: “Large, profitable U.S. corporations have seen their effective tax rates fall by more than 40% since Republicans and their presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, Donald Trump, rammed through an unpopular law that they want to preserve and extend.

“According to a new report published Thursday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the tax rates paid by big and consistently profitable corporations dropped from 22% to 12.8% after the enactment of Trump’s tax law, which slashed the statutory corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.”

“ITEP’s analysis examines 296 Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies that were consistently profitable between 2013 and 2021. Even as the companies’ combined profits surged by 44%, they ‘paid $240 billion less in taxes from 2018 to 2021 than they would have paid under the effective rates they paid before the Trump law,’ according to ITEP.”

#8 – Diminish the already fragile social safety net

Trump and the Republicans want to limit the reach of Social Security and Medicare. Jessica Corbett writes that these programs must be defended. (https://commondreams.org/news/social-security-medicare). The article was published on May 6, 2024.

Corbett points out that these programs are financially viable for another 10 years at least due to the robust economy and high rates of employment. But Trump and the Republicans are attacking them and want to reduce benefits and access.

Corbett refers to the annual trustee reports that show that, contrary to right-wing criticisms, “Social Security is projected to be fully funded until 2035, a year later than previously thought, while Medicare is expected to be fully funded until 2036, five years beyond the earlier projection.” Nevertheless, “Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee to face Biden in November, ‘proposed cutting Social Security and Medicare every year he was in office, he’s said repeatedly he would cut them, his allies openly plan to target them, and just this weekend he dismissed them as bribes,’ noted James Singer, a spokesperson for the Democrat’s campaign.

“‘Let’s be clear, Donald Trump will steal the hard-earned Social Security and Medicare benefits Americans have been paying into their entire lives and he’ll use it to fund tax cuts for rich people like him,’ Singer warned. ‘President Biden keeps his promises. He has and will continue to protect Social Security and Medicare from MAGA Republican efforts to cut them—Donald Trump won’t.’”

Corbett continues.

“Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said Monday that ‘current and future American retirees should feel confident about both Medicare and Social Security, which [are] stronger due to the robust economy under President Biden. But the future of these earned benefit programs depends on who is elected this fall—both as president and to Congress.’

“Fiesta highlighted that Biden’s latest budget ‘calls for strengthening’ the programs whereas Trump recently said that ‘there is a lot you can do… in terms of cutting’ them and ‘the Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes around 80% of House Republicans, stands ready to make cuts as well.’”

Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare, also asserted that “Congress must act NOW to strengthen Social Security for the 67 million Americans who depend on it. We cannot afford to wait to take action until the trust fund is mere months from insolvency, as Congress did in 1983.”

According to Richtman:

Democrats in Congress “strongly support revenue-side solutions that would bring more money into the trust fund by demanding that the wealthy pay their fair share. Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) has offered legislation that would do just that—by maintaining the current payroll wage cap (currently set at $168,600), but subjecting wages $400,000 and above to payroll taxes, as well—and dedicating some of high earners’ investment income to Social Security.”

“‘The Social Security 2100 Act is co-sponsored by nearly 200 House Democrats and would improve benefits across the board while extending solvency until 2066, while Donald Trump and House Republicans continue their calls to slash Americans’ hard-earned benefits!’ Larson said.”

“Social Security is the greatest anti-poverty program in history, and ensuring its solvency for future generations has been one of my top priorities in Congress,” Boyle said Monday, promoting the Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act, his bill with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). “Unfortunately, while Democrats and President Biden want to protect Social Security and Medicare, Republicans have made clear they want to tear them down.”

#9 – Support efforts by the states to virtually end legal access to reproductive health care and abortion

The Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in June 2022, giving the anti-abortion movement added vigor and justification to fight for further restrictions on access to abortion. The ruling allows states decide on whether to outright ban abortion. Anti-abortion activists want more, a national ban on abortion. Trump wants the individual states to decide, or so he says. But he also wants to placate the right-wing evangelicals, a crucial constituency, who would like to eliminate or severely limit access to abortion and have Trump, if president, issue a ban on abortion.

Public opinion is opposed to abortion bans

The anti-abortion movement has momentum in many states, but public opinion today is on the other side, supporting “choice.” Steven Shepard looks at some of the evidence (https://politico.com/news/2023/04/08/republican-party-abortion-trap-00091088).

He refers to a 2022 national exit poll that found “29 percent of voters believed abortion should be ‘legal in all cases,’ while another 30 percent thought it should be ‘legal in most cases.’ That left 26 percent who thought it should be ‘illegal in most cases and only 10 percent who said it should be illegal in all cases.’” That is,

“roughly six-in-10 voters supporting legal abortion in most cases — with the median voter supporting some restrictions — and just over a third who want it to be entirely or mostly illegal.” Another 2022 midterm exit poll in Wisconsin found

“a combined 63 percent of Wisconsin voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while only 34 percent thought it should be illegal in all or most cases.”

Republicans want to portray “Democrats as too permissive, willing to support ‘abortion on demand, for virtually any reason, up until the moment of birth,’ according to a press release from the Republican National Committee on Thursday [April 6, 2023].

“‘But” Shepard points out, ‘those attacks are largely falling flat. President Joe Biden has said repeatedly he supports the Roe v. Wade framework, which allowed states to impose modest restrictions on abortion later in pregnancies. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 1 percent of abortions in 2020 occurred after 20 weeks of pregnancy,” that is, after 5 months of pregnancy.”

#10 – Encourage easy access to gun ownership

The argument for gun regulation rests most fundamentally on the premises that the ownership of guns should be regulated, and that gun ownership is not an absolute, unlimited right of citizenship. It is commonsense for most people who think about gun rights and control to exclude children, those with violent criminal records, the certified mentally ill who are a danger to others, from the right to gun ownership, and, more controversially, to limit the places at which people can have weapons.

However, for decades since the early 1970s, opponents of gun regulation, most prominently the National Rifle Association (NRA), have used their political influence to foster a one-sided interpretation of the Second Amendment to keep the federal government and many states and local governments from adequately regulating access to guns (gun ownership) by private citizens. Trump is an outspoken supporter of the NRA and of maximum gun rights.

Meredith McGraw reports on Trump’s remarks at a meeting of the NRA on February 9, 2024 (https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/09/trump-promises-nra-that-if-elected-no-one-will-lay-a-finger-on-your-firearms-00140818). At the meeting, Trump promised that if elected “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” and he would roll back Biden-era gun restrictions. McGraw quotes Trump,

“‘Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated on my very first week back in office, perhaps my first day,’ Trump said at the NRA’s Presidential Forum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

“The former president specifically said he would roll back the Biden administration’s ‘Zero-Tolerance’ policy that revokes federal licenses from firearm dealers that violate gun laws. And he said he would undo regulations on pistol braces, or stabilization devices that have also been used in gun massacres.”

“In a statement released ahead of Trump’s speech, John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety said, ‘With Trump recently telling Americans to ‘get over’ school shootings, we know what a second term would be like: The NRA would once again treat the White House like its clubhouse, and the bipartisan, life-saving progress we’ve made on gun safety will be in grave danger.’”

#11 – Violence against opponents may be necessary

Kenny Stancil cites research that “12 Million US Adults Think Violence Is Justified to Put Trump Back in White House” (https://commondreams.org/news/12-million-us-adults-think-violence-justified-to-restore-trump-presidency). The article was published on June 9, 2023. He writes,

“More than two years after the deadly January 6 insurrection, 12 million people in the United States, or 4.4% of the adult population, believe the use of violence is justified to restore former President Donald Trump to power, The Guardian reported Friday.”

“We’re heading into an extremely tumultuous election season,” Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor and CPOST director, told The Guardian. “What’s happening in the United States is political violence is going from the fringe to the mainstream.” [CPOST is the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Threats.]

“The CPOST survey conducted in April found that 20% of U.S. adults still believe ‘the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,’ down only slightly from the 26% who said so in 2021.

“‘What you’re seeing is really disturbing levels of distrust in American democracy, support for dangerous conspiracy theories, and support for political violence itself,’ Pape told The Guardian.”

“‘Once you have support for violence in the mainstream, those are the raw ingredients or the raw combustible material and then speeches, typically by politicians, can set them off,’ said Pape. ‘Or if they get going, speeches can encourage them to go further.’”

“Several right-wing candidates who echoed Trump’s relentless lies about President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory lost in last year’s midterms. But more than 210 others—including at least two who participated in the January 6 rally that escalated into an attack on the U.S. Capitol—won congressional seats and races for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, underscoring the extent to which election denialism is now entrenched in the GOP and jeopardizes U.S. democracy for the foreseeable future.”

“The research center’s most recent survey found that ‘almost 14%—a minority of Americans, but still a significant number—believe the use of force is justified to ‘achieve political goals that I support,’ the newspaper reported. More specifically, 12.4% believe it’s justified to restore the federal right to abortion, 8.4% believe it’s justified to ensure members of Congress and other government officials do the right thing, 6.3% think it’s justified to preserve the rights of white Americans, and 6.1% believe it’s justified to prevent the prosecution of Trump.’”

“More optimistically, the survey found that over 77% of U.S. adults want Republicans and Democrats in Congress to issue a joint statement condemning any political violence.

“‘There’s a tremendous amount of opposition to political violence in the United States,’ Pape remarked, ‘but it is not mobilized.’

Meanwhile, the country is awash with privately owned firearms, according to political scientists Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware in their book, God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America. They cite the research of American University scholar Cynthia Miller-Idriss, who estimates “at least 75,000 to 100,000 individuals are actively involved with white supremacist extremist groups, in addition to the 15,000 to 20,000 people who belong to militia organizations comprising some three hundred different groups….” (pp. 226-227).

Concluding thoughts

Trump wants power and, as the record indicates, will do anything to obtain it. The point is that to understand well what he and his supporters want and to reveal their anti-democratic intentions and subversive tactics. Such knowledge and understanding may not in the end by sufficient to prevent an illiberal and violence-tolerant movement from destroying American democracy, but they are absolutely necessary to help rouse citizens to become informed and active, and at least vote to keep the anti-democrats out of government.

Katrina Vanden Heuvel calls for a “bold, populist, popular, and progressive domestic agenda” that is reflected in the 2025 Congressional Progressive Caucus’s “Progressive Proposition Agenda (https://thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-progressives-election-congress). The CPC platform “details reforms vital to our nation’s security. It lays out the next steps in addressing the climate crisis. It calls for reforms vital to democracy—including instituting same-day voter registration, ending partisan gerrymandering, and curbing the role of Big Money in our politics. It would eliminate the filibuster in the Senate, ban congressional stock ownership and trading, and strengthen judicial ethics, while boldly demanding expansion of the number of Supreme Court justices.

“It also lays out a populist agenda to counter the choke hold of wealth and entrenched interests on our political economy—expanded anti-trust measures, higher taxes on stock buybacks, a minimum tax for the rich, and a crackdown on private equity and hedge fund rapaciousness, particularly in healthcare and housing.”

In 2024, the stakes are far greater than saving the Republic from Trump and his reactionary agenda. If Democrats take back the House, expand their majority in the Senate and keep the White House, reforms that can make a fundamental difference in the lives of all, especially poor and working people, are possible. In 1944, amid a war abroad, Franklin Roosevelt called for an economic bill of rights as central to the postwar recovery. With the Proposition Agenda, the CPC offers bold steps towards fulfilling that goal. And the CPC’s growing power adds credibility to that promise.

The escalation of right-wing violence and intimidation

Bob Sheak, Feb 24, 2024

Introduction

This post continues my criticisms of Trump and his allies. Here, I compile evidence supporting the view that they want to undermine the political processes of the country in ways that will end any hope of strengthening liberal and progressive democracy and replace it with an anti-democratic, autocratic (authoritarian, fascist) alternative. Their efforts are intensifying. If they should succeed in the 2024 elections, America’s democracy will be seriously, perhaps irreparably, corrupted. Meanwhile, they will do their best to keep Biden and Congressional Democrats from winning legislatively, distract and frighten people with cultural wars, and generally attack their opponents.

What Trump and his allies want

The Republicans want a society in which there is a strongman leader and have been steadfast in their support of Trump, the Republican Party, and seemingly content to be driven by grievances and conspiracy diatribes that reflect the worst aspects of America’s history and society.

They want revenge against their Democratic opponents, appear little interested in supporting democratic institutions, are willing to live with political chaos as long as they or their leaders have political power, and dismiss or reject policy proposals that address important issues such as the climate crisis, corporate power, poverty, civility in public discourse. They have no regard for the common good or the civic norms of fairness.

Little regard for verifiable evidence

They also live in a post-truth world (see Lee McIntyre’s book Post Truth or Cass R. Sunstein’s book, Liars: Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception). McIntyre describes Trump’s no-viable-evidence “strategy” as follows.

“1. Raise questions about some outlandish matter (‘people are talking,’ ‘I’m just reporting what I read in the newspapers’), for instance, Obama was not born in the United States or that Obama had Trump wiretapped.

“2. Provide no evidence (because there isn’t any) beyond one’s own conviction.

“3. Suggest that the press cannot be trustedbecause they are biased.

“4.This will lead some people to doubt whether what they are hearing from the press is accurate (or at least to conclude that the issue is ‘controversial’)

“5. In the face of such uncertainty, people will be more prone to hunker down in their ideology and indulge in confirmation bias by choosing to believe only what fits their preconceived notions.

“6. This is the ripe environment for the proliferation of fake news, which will reinforce items 1 through 5.

“7. Thus, people will believe what you say just because you said it. Belief can be tribal” (p. 15). Indeed, the Republican Party, led by Trump, has become the party willing to use any means, including violence and intimidation, to achieve their anti-democratic goals. Power, not truth, is the ultimate goal.

Trump’s electoral base

Trump’s political power in the Republican Party is based on his electoral base of millions of voters, perhaps at present representing 30-40% of the Republican electorate. Without its support, Trump’s power evaporates.

Trump has so far been able to unify disparate right-wing forces into an unquestioning populist base of support for himself. This populous base includes advocates of unfounded and conspiratorial views of society, some committed to the use of violent methods to achieve their goals, along with overlapping special interest groups devoted to maximum gun rights, closed borders, Christian nationalism, white supremacy.

This is a population that generally takes Trump’s word as definitive, while rejecting the views and evidence from scientists, experts, the “dark state” of government civil servants, and the “fake news.” Emotions and ideology trump evidence. Indeed, some see Trump as chosen by God. They love his admonitions invoking “law and order” and his disparaging statements on the “black lives matter” movement and immigration. And, of course, his continues to rant about “the big steal,” referring to his misbegotten, discredited, view that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Many of the Trump supporters accept the idea that the Democrats are “radical socialists” and electing them will take the country down a path where all individual “freedoms” are lost.

Trump’s base is motivated less by economic distress than by ideological commitments and special interests. Robert A. Pape, political-science professor at the University of Chicago and Keven Ruby, Senior research associate of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, find that “a closer look at the people suspected of taking part in the Capitol riot suggests a different and potentially far more dangerous problem: a new kind of violent mass movement in which more ‘normal’ Trump supporters—middle-class and, in many cases, middle-aged people without obvious ties to the far right—joined with extremists in an attempt to overturn a presidential election” (https://theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/the-capitol-rioters-arent-like-other-extremists/617895).

A quick overview of their goals

Trump, his massive electoral base, the Republican Party, and their allies push or go along with policies that are anti-democratic, even unlawful, including:

(1)a strong unitary executive; (2) the disregard or hollowing out of the rule of law; (3) the political cleansing, curtailment, or elimination of programs advanced by Democrats or other opponents; (4) the institution of a xenophobic border policy; (5) the forced removal or imprisonment of undocumented residents; (6) the creation and support of alternative media based on right-wing partisan goals and values; (7) the support of programs that disproportionately benefit the rich and power; (8) the criminalization of dissent; (9) the use of the military to deal with dissenters (use of the insurrection act); (10) alliances with Putin and other autocratic leaders, and (11) an end to US participation in NATO

In this post, I will focus on domestic issues that show the anti-democratic thrust of Trump and his allies.

#1 – A dictatorship where the ends justify the means

If Trump wins the presidential election, he says that he wants to create a dictatorship – a goal with fascist overtones.

Robert Reich argues that the Republican Party is already a fascist party (https://commondreams.org/opinion/the-united-states-now-has-a-fascist-political-party). Here are key points from Reich’s article.

“I hate to say this, but America no longer has two parties devoted to a democratic system of self-government. We have a Democratic Party, which — notwithstanding a few glaring counter-examples such as what the Democratic National Committee did to Bernie in 2016 — is still largely committed to democracy. And we have a Republican Party, which is careening at high-velocity toward authoritarianism. Okay, fascism.”

Reich continues. “We are witnessing the logical culmination of win-at-any-cost Trump Republican politics — scorched-earth tactics used by Republicans to entrench their power, with no justification other than that they can.

“Democracy is about means. Under it, citizens don’t have to agree on ends (abortion, health care, guns, or whatever else we disagree about) as long as we agree on democratic means for handling our disagreements.

“But for Trump Republicans, the ends justify whatever means they choose —including expelling lawmakers, rigging elections through gerrymandering, refusing to raise the debt ceiling, and denying the outcome of a legitimate presidential election.”

“Without two parties committed to democratic means to resolve differences in ends, the one remaining (small-d) democratic party is at a disadvantage in seeking ends it deems worthy. The inevitable result: Eventually it, too, sacrifices democratic means to its own ends.”

Reich concludes: “I don’t believe Trump alone is responsible for the birth of modern Republican fascism, but he has legitimized and encouraged the vicious rancor that has led much of the GOP into election-denying authoritarianism.”

#2 – Trump’s anti-democratic record and rhetoric

At a campaign reception in Boston on December 5, 2023, Biden spent part of a speech making a case against Trump’s threat to U.S. democracy. It is a useful summary (https://whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/01/05/remarks-by-president-biden-at-a-campaign-reception-weston-ma). Here’s some of what the president said.

“Listen to what he’s [Trump’s] actually saying these days. He’s saying it out loud. He says, ‘2024 is the final battle.’ He goes on to say, ‘I am your retribution.’ He talks about, quote, ‘We’re a failing nation.’ He goes on to say — and these are all quotes — ‘Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country.’“Trump proudly proclaims himself an election denier. You know, he’s the only losing candidate in American history to — not to accept the will of the American people.”

“The same man who encouraged supporters to go to the Capitol on January 6th, who for hours sat in the private dining room I have off the Oval Office watching him threaten his own vice president who refused to break his oath to the Constitution.

“And now, the same man promising pardons to those convicted felons and insurrectionists — ‘if I’m elected’ — he’s going to pardon them. That’s what he says. “The same man who said it was time for, and I quote, ‘termination of all rules, regulation, and articles, even those… in the Constitution.’ This guy means it, and he’s saying it out loud. “Now his supporters are saying he should invoke the Insurrection Act — you know, the use of the U.S. military on domestic soil — against political opponents to — and in American cities.” “If — he said — if he’s returned to office, he said he’ll go after those who oppose him and root out what he called the ‘vermin.’ American vermin. A phrase you may recall from history used in the ‘30s in another country — a specific phrase with a specific meaning, and it echoes the language you’ve heard in Germany in the ‘30s. “And it wasn’t the first time he used the language of the ‘30s. Trump also said — and he talked about, quote, ’the blood of our country is being poisoned…. What in God’s name is going on?” “Trump’s new Speaker supports a national ban on abortion under any circumstances. And as we’ve just seen, radical bans in states all across America have been supported by them.”

“And Trump has vowed again to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would mean 40 million Americans would lose their health insurance, parents couldn’t keep their kids on their insurance plans up to — under age 26, and 100 million Americans with pre-existing conditions could be denied health insurance. It’s the 51st time they will have tried it. Not a joke.

“Extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress will not support the essential assistance to Ukraine unless we fi- — we follow the most draconian actions possible to keep immigrants out of America, building walls and the like. On my very first day, I sent a comprehensive immigration bill to Congress asking for a significant increase in the number of — of folks at the border — a significant increase in all the security we needed in terms of hi-tech [high-tech] stuff. But the Republicans refused to act. They wouldn’t act — they won’t act on it. I don’t think they want to solve it. I think they want to keep it as a problem without the tools to make it any better.
#3 – Trump’s reelection would mean chaos for the country

There has been some reporting on how Trump says he wants to be a “dictator.” Contrariwise, William Cooper argues that his presidency is more likely to produce “chaos” than a dictatorship (https://cnn.com/2023/12/11/opinions/trump-elections-2024-dictator-cooper/index.html).

“Trump himself is on the bandwagon, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity Tuesday night that he would be a dictator, though only on ‘day one’ of his presidency. ‘We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling,’ he said. ‘After that I’m not a dictator.’ Last month, he used the rhetoric of history’s worst dictators against his political opponents, vowing to ‘root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.’”

Cooper argues that, while Trump as president will have the power to cause social, economic, and political chaos, he will not be a dictator, even for one day.

“The widespread fear that Trump will actually be a dictator, however, is misplaced. If Trump wins the 2024 election, American democracy might be suspended, at least temporarily. But it won’t be replaced by a dictatorship, which is a coherent and recognizable system of government. Instead, if Trump wins, my view is that American democracy will be replaced by American ‘chaosracy’ — an incoherent, volatile and unpredictable mix of some government institutions that function democratically and some that don’t.”

For example, “The federal bureaucracy can’t simply be ‘purged.’ Valid federal legislation authorizes and funds government agencies — and powerful unions protect their workers — so the courts won’t allow federal employees to be fired en masse absent duly enacted legislation. Republican presidents have long tried to shrink the administrative state. They’ve failed miserably.

“Trump-appointed judges, all confirmed by a majority of the Senate, have shifted the federal courts sharply to the right. But they have also shown their independence and ruled against Trump repeatedly. The Supreme Court allowed a New York prosecutor to receive Trump’s tax returns, denied Trump’s effort to end DACA and rejected Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“The Senate, furthermore, still has to confirm, by majority vote, all executive-level presidential appointments (including at the Department of Justice). Trump can’t just appoint, for example, Rudy Guliani as attorney general, Steve Bannon as secretary of defense or Michael Flynn as secretary of state. And pardons only apply to federal offenses, offer no protection under state law and may be voided in court if they are preemptive and not specific. They are hardly a license to go about committing major crimes. Just look at Bannon, who was pardoned by Trump in his border wall case and later convicted for refusing to cooperate with the January 6 committee in Congress.

“Unlike a dictator, Trump wouldn’t control most government activity — at the federal, state or local level. If the Democrats take the House in 2024, would Trump control how they vote on legislation? Would he force state court judges to govern how he wants them to? Local school boards?”

“Given his historic unpopularity ratings, the resistance to a second Trump term will likely be fierce at every level of government.”

But, Cooper writes, “[t]he one way Trump could actually achieve a dictatorship is if he commandeered the military to use force — or its threat — throughout the country on his behalf. But there’s no reason whatsoever to think he could pull that off. Trump has long had strained relations with military leaders, including his secretaries of defense John Mattis and Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.

“As we saw with Milley — who actively opposed Trump’s attempt to reverse the 2020 presidential election results — military leaders won’t just obey Trump’s illegal initiatives. The military doesn’t ‘take an oath to a wannabe dictator,’ Milley said in his departing speech last September. ‘We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America — and we’re willing to die to protect it.

#4 – MAGA’s violent threats are warping life in America

David French compiles evidence on how “MAGA’s Violent Threats Are Warping Life in America,” involving attacks on Democratic – and indeed all – opponents with the goal of driving them out of politics so that Republicans, led by Trump and other reactionaries, can dominate the political system at all levels (https://nytimes.com/2024/02/18/opinion/magas-violent-threats-are-warping-life-in-america.html).

French refers to examples at all levels of the socio-political system.

At the national level

He refers to a new book by journalists Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman titled Find Me the Votes, in which they “report that Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis had trouble finding lawyers willing to help prosecute her case against Trump. Even a former Georgia governor turned her down, saying, ‘Hypothetically speaking, do you want to have a bodyguard follow you around for the rest of your life?’

French adds: “Willis received an assassination threat so specific that one evening she had to leave her office incognito while a body double wearing a bulletproof vest courageously pretended to be her and offered a target for any possible incoming fire.”

French also points out that “Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal Jan. 6 trial, has been swatted as has the special counsel Jack Smith. For those unfamiliar, swatting is a terrifying act of intimidation in which someone calls law enforcement and falsely claims a violent crime is in process at the target’s address. This sends heavily armed police to a person’s home with the expectation of a violent confrontation. A swatting incident claimed the life of a Kansas man in 2017.”

He continues. “The Colorado Supreme Court likewise endured terrible threats afterit ruled that Trump was disqualified from the ballot. There is deep concern for the safety of the witnesses and jurors in Trump’s various trials.

“Mitt Romney faces so many threats that he spends $5,000 per day on security to protect his family. After Jan. 6, the former Republican congressman Peter Meijer said that at least one colleague voted not to certify the election out of fear for the safety of their family. Threats against members of Congress are pervasive, and there has been a shocking surge since Trump took office. Last year, Capitol Police opened more than 8,000 threat assessments, an eightfold increase since 2016.”

At the sub-national level

“In2021,” French writes, “Reuters published a horrifying and comprehensive report detailing the persistent threats against local election workers. In 2022, it followed up with another report detailing threats against local school boards. In my own Tennessee community, doctors and nurses who advocated wearing masks in schools were targets of screaming, threatening right-wing activists, who told one man, ‘We know who you are’ and ‘We will find you.’

“My own family has experienced terrifying nights and terrifying days over the last several years. We’ve faced death threats, a bomb scare, a clumsy swatting attempt and doxxing by white nationalists.” [Doxing is a form of cyberbullying that uses sensitive or secret information, statements, or records for the harassment, exposure, financial harm, or other exploitation of targeted individuals.] People have shown up at our home. A man even came to my kids’ school. I’ve interacted with the F.B.I., the Tennessee Department of Homeland Security and local law enforcement. While the explicit threats come and go, the sense of menace never quite leaves. We’re always looking over our shoulders.”

This intimidation “is systemic and ubiquitous, an acknowledged tactic in the playbook of the Trump right that flows all the way down from the violent fantasies of Donald Trump himself. It is rare to encounter a public-facing Trump critic who hasn’t faced threats and intimidation.”

The ominous result. “The threats drive decent men and women from public office. They isolate and frighten dissenters. When my family first began to face threats, the most dispiriting responses came from Christian acquaintances who concluded I was a traitor for turning on a movement whose members had expressed an explicit desire to kill my family.”

#5 – Trump and allies plot militarized mass deportations, detention camps

Heather Cox Richardson offers this summary in her missive of Feb 19, 2024.

Trump has promised his supporters that in a second term he would launch ‘the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.’ To deport as many as ten million of what he called ‘foreign national invaders,’ Trump advisor Stephen Miller explained on a November podcast, the administration would federalize National Guard troops from Republican-dominated states and send them around the country to round people up, moving them to ‘large-scale staging grounds near the border, most likely in Texas,’ that would serve as internment camps.”

Isaac Arnsdorf, Nick Miroff, and Josh Dawsey also delve into the immigration issue (https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/20/trump-mass-deportation-immigration).

“As president, Trump sought to use military planes and bases for deportation. Now, he and his allies are talking about a new effort that current and former officials warn could be impractical and dangerous.”

“Trump pledges that as president he would immediately launch ‘the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.’ As a model, he points to an Eisenhower-era program known as ‘Operation Wetback,’ using a derogatory slur for Mexican migrants. The operation used military tactics to round up and remove migrant workers, sometimes transporting them in dangerous conditions that led to some deaths. Former administration officials and policy experts said staging an even larger operation today would face a bottleneck in detention space — a problem that Trump adviser Stephen Miller and other allies have proposed addressing by building mass deportation camps.”

Arnsdorf and his colleagues continue. “Throughout his current campaign, the former president has exerted his influence on the immigration policy debate on several fronts. He pressured congressional Republicans to reject a bipartisan compromise to expand enforcement funding and powers, arguing that it would give the Democrats a political victory and that it was not restrictive enough. He has also escalated his use of dehumanizing language to describe migrants, accusing them of ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ and calling the record unauthorized border crossings an ‘invasion,’ an ‘open wound’ and a source of imminent terrorist attacks.

“But his deportation proposal is one part of his emerging platform that experts, current and former government officials and others described as especially alarming, impractical and prone to significant legal and logistical hurdles.

“‘You’re talking about officers in tactical gear going into communities, being videotaped in the streets, putting kids in car seats, carrying baby formula. Then what do you do with those families?’ said Jason Houser, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s chief of staff from January 2022 until March 2023. ‘Are you going to go into neighborhoods in Philly, New York, Baltimore and start tugging people out of communities? That’s what they want. It puts law enforcement and the communities at risk.’

“Reflecting on the ideas Trump and his team discussed during his presidency, Houser said, ‘Their ideas were psychotic.’”

“While advisers agree on border security, building a wall on the southern border and deporting migrants who have committed crimes after entering the country as winning political issues, one adviser expressed concern that promising to deport massive numbers of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime could hurt Trump in a general election campaign. Trump’s language and proposals are already under heavy criticism from the Biden campaign, as well as pro-immigration and civil liberties groups.”

“The Trump campaign has also said he would sign an executive order on his first day in office to withhold passports, Social Security numbers and other government benefits from children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States. The idea of challenging the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship would be sure to draw a court challenge. The proposal has been raised by Trump and Miller before, but the specific promise of an executive order indicated the campaign has put further effort into fleshing it out.”

“The pool of potential deportees is large. There are about 11 million immigrants in the United States without legal status, according to the most recent estimates. Nearly 7 million of those are known to ICE, which maintains a vast database of people eligible for deportation whose asylum claims and immigration cases are still pending.

“A smaller subset of that caseload — about 1.3 million people — remain in the United States despite having received a deportation order from an immigration judge. These potential deportees, if taken into custody, are the easiest for the government to send home, because they have already received due process. But ICE often doesn’t know where they are.

“Beyond those challenges, there are other major logistical and operational obstacles to the kind of mass deportations Trump has promised. The first is available personnel: ICE only has about 6,000 deportation officers nationwide. The amount of time it takes to recruit, hire, screen and train a new deportation officer is about two years, according to current and former ICE officials.

“Detentionspace is also squeezed. The Biden administration is using about 38,000 beds at immigration jails and other facilities that hold migrants awaiting deportation. During the Trump years, the number exceeded 50,000, but never reached the kinds of capacity levels necessary for the kind of mega-deportation system Trump envisions.

“Some ICE officials said the agency could find more available beds in county jails. But Trump surrogates have gone further, suggesting they would put migrants in “camps” or “tents.”

“To arrest and deport families with children, the preparations are even more time-consuming. An operation targeting 20 to 30 families for arrest takes two to three weeks of planning, said Houser, the former ICE chief of staff. For ICE to reach a target of 300,000 to 500,000 deportations per year — a far more modest goal than Trump’s — Houser said the agency would need two to three times as many deportation officers as ICE has.

“‘You’re talking about building a major logistics apparatus that would still have to meet court and legal requirements for health care and child care,’ he said.

ICE officers and staff are burned out by the pace and intensity of their work over the past several years, according to a veteran DHS official who was not authorized to speak to reporters. For other law enforcement agencies, the drain on their resources would come at the expense of other legitimate priorities, the former DHS official said, and the operation would have to be continuous to deter new arrivals.

“‘It feels shortsighted, stupid and an enormous waste of money,’ the official said.

Another problem is so-called ‘recalcitrant countries’ that limit or refuse to take back deportees. Nations such as Venezuela and Cuba are already under U.S. economic sanctions, leaving Washington with reduced leverage to compel them to take more deportation flights.

“Even other nations that remain U.S. allies in Latin America set conditions on the number of flights and deportees they’re willing to accept. Passenger manifests have to be sent several days in advance. It’s not as simple as loading hundreds of people into a military transport plane and dropping them off wherever the president wants.”

“Trump pledged to immediately deport 2 million to 3 million people after his 2016 win but never came close to hitting those targets. At his administration’s high-water mark in 2019, ICE carried out 267,258 deportations and returns, Department of Homeland Security data show.”

“As the number of people in ICE custody jumped 22 percent in Trump’s first two years, the DHS inspector general uncovered ‘egregious violations of detention standards,’ including inadequate medical care, expired food, lack of recreation, moldy bathrooms and inadequate clothing and hygiene supplies. A separate inspector general’s investigation found ‘dangerous overcrowding’ in an El Paso facility, where a cell built for 25 people held 155.

“In June 2018, reporters and human rights activists toured a facility in McAllen, Tex., where children slept under foil sheets surrounded by chain-link fencing, after DHS acknowledged separating children from their parents at the border. Public outrage over an audio clip of a sobbing child forced Trump to halt the practice. DHS later identified 4,227 separated children, 3,147 of whom were reunited with their parent as of November 2023.

“Asked in 2023 whether he might reimpose family separation as president, Trump declined to rule it out and defended the policy. ‘I know it sounds harsh,’ he said in a CNN town hall. When you say to a family that if you come we’re going to break you up, they don’t come. And we can’t afford to have any more.’”

“As the president’s top adviser on immigration matters, Miller advocated for invoking the Insurrection Act to mobilize the Department of Defense, according to the former officials. Pentagon officials balked at the idea of using military bases and planes, current and former officials recalled, citing concerns of getting mired in an open-ended commitment or compromising troop readiness.”

#6 – Trump’s second presidency would mean more gun violence

Brett Samuels takes up this issue in an article for The Hill on Nov 2, 2023

(https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4319050-biden-trump-gun-violence-2024). Samuels refers to a memo the Biden campaign shared with the public. The memo, titled “Trump’s America in 2025: More Guns, More Shootings, More Deaths,” cites past Trump comments to argue the Republican front-runner would allow more firearms in schools and push for a national concealed carry law.”

“In a speech at an annual NRA meeting earlier this year, Trump vowed to protect the Second Amendment and argued the rise in school shootings was a result of widespread mental health problems in the country.

“He said if elected, he would support putting more guns in schools to protect them from future shootings, proposing a new tax credit to reimburse any teacher for the cost of a concealed carry firearm and training from a qualified expert.

“Trump also said he would ask Congress to pass a bill to create “national concealed carry reciprocity.”

At the same time, “President Biden has repeatedly pushed for congressional action on gun control and has taken executive action to try and address the problem, giving his campaign a clear contrast with what it views as a record of inaction from Trump.

“Since taking office, the president has signed executive actions to target the proliferation of ghost guns, which are difficult to track, and to bolster background checks. Biden in September established the Office of Gun Violence Prevention to focus specifically on the issue of mass shootings. He has repeatedly called on Congress to reimpose a ban on assault weapons.”

Biden in 2022 signed bipartisan legislation that enhanced background checks for gun purchasers between the age of 18 and 21, made obtaining firearms through straw purchases or trafficking a federal offense and clarified the definition of a federally licensed firearm dealer, among other measures.”

The president has the backing of major gun safety groups for his 2024 reelection, including Everytown for Gun Safety, Brady and Team ENOUGH, Community Justice Action Fund and Giffords.

“Joe Biden is, hands down, the only candidate in this race who has both the track record and the guts to stand up to the gun lobby and protect Americans from gun crime,” Peter Ambler, Giffords co-founder and executive director, said in a statement.”

Concluding thoughts

Trump and his allies want to undermine U.S. democracy. If they win control of the White House and both chambers of the U.S. Congress, they will have ample opportunity to do this.

U.S. history is, at least in part, a history of violence against indigenous people, people of color (especially, African-Americans), immigrants, workers and unions, women’s rights, and others. It is reflected in the Civil War, as southern white plantation owners and their government and grassroots supporters fought a losing and bloody war to expand slavery in the west. Adam Hochschild recaptures the government’s suppression of war opponents, socialists, and trade unions during WWI in his book, American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis. Kevin M. Krouse and Julian E. Zelizer edit a collection of essays by historians “to take on the biggest legends and lies” in American history. The book’s title: Myth America. Dana Milbank analyzes the “twenty-five year crack-up of the Republican Party” in his book, The Destructionists. Dan Pfeiffer focuses his book on the “big lie” promoted by right-wing media (Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the Mega Media are Destroying America). Among the most troubling books is the book by Malcolm Nance, They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency.

Malcom Nance does not mince words. He is a globally renowned expert on terrorism, extremism, and insurgency and best-selling author. He offers the following description of Trump’s electoral base in his book titled They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency (publ. 2022). This base is anti-democratic and willing to accept violence if necessary to achieve their goals.

“The Trump worshipping base has become an openly fascist movement. It endangers the nation with near constant threats to take up arms and create political instability through violence. The goals of TITUS [Trump Insurgency in the United States] are not just to alter and coopt the national dialogue but to dismantle the framework of government and the Constitution itself. They openly advocate the destruction of America’s diversity, multiculturalism, and equality. They continue to demand that an unelected dictator be put back into office. They want a strongman who will impose the will and ideology of forty million misguided people over the voices and lives of all other Americans” (p. 241).