Trump Would Govern as an Efficient Authoritarian

Unlike his previous term (boldface mine):

What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.”

Biden isn’t great, but Trump would be a fucking nightmare on multiple fronts (nearly every front, actually). And if he wins the White House, Republicans will likely sweep Congress again–and this time, there are even fewer ‘moderates’ in his party to stymie him. Essentially, every bit of progress made in the last four years–and there has been progress–would come to a grinding halt and reverse.

Naturally, of course, the media coverage isn’t about any of this, but instead they’re focused on how Biden is too old and polls where people say they’re doing alright but the national economy is tanking.

It would take decades to recover from another Trump–which is to say, Republican, administration–so young-ish voters who are on the fence about voting for Biden should release that, if Trump wins, they’ve essentially pissed away their future.

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