‘A revenge term’: what would another four years of Trump look like?

It is a cold day in Washington. A crowd is gathering on the National Mall for the swearing-in of the 47th president of the United States. At noon on 20 January 2025, Donald Trump places his hand on a Bible, takes the oath of office and delivers an inaugural address with a simple theme: retribution.

This is the nightmare scenario for millions of Americans – and one that they are increasingly being forced to take seriously. Opinion polls show Trump running away with the Republican presidential nomination and narrowly leading Democrat Joe Biden in a hypothetical match-up. Political pundits can offer plenty of caveats but almost all agree that the race for the White House next year will be very close.

The fact that there is a more than remote chance of the twice impeached, quadruply indicted former US president returning to the Oval Office is ringing alarm bells. “I think it would be the end of our country as we know it,” Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, said on the ABC talkshow The View this week. “And I don’t say that lightly.”

someguy3,

The Axios website has reported on his plan to dismantle the “deep state” by purging potentially thousands of civil servants and appointing ideological loyalists. A recent New York Times newspaper article told how his team wants to fill the White House and government agencies with aggressive rightwing lawyers who would not challenge the expansion of presidential power.

And the Washington Post reported that Trump is discussing how to use the justice department to investigate or prosecute perceived enemies including his former chief of staff John Kelly, former attorney general William Barr and former joint chiefs of staff chairman Gen Mark Milley. The paper added that he is also considering invoking the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, which would allow him to use the military domestically to crush protests and dissent.

Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, said: “It would be a disaster for America. He’s already made it very clear that his second term is going to be a revenge term. He’s going to use the power of government to persecute and prosecute his enemies and to cement his own power, or at least the power of his allies and cronies.

PeepinGoodArgs,

The Axios website has reported on his plan to dismantle the “deep state” by purging potentially thousands of civil servants and appointing ideological loyalists. A recent New York Times newspaper article told how his team wants to fill the White House and government agencies with aggressive rightwing lawyers who would not challenge the expansion of presidential power.

That’s not Trump. That’s Project 2025, which will be implemented if any Conservative wins.

Something_Complex,

Hell, it would be hell.

He would sell Ukraine out, whore America to China and then lose every last piece of global influence that America still holds.

It took a kinda competent administration 3 years to reverse half of his shit.

We will probably end up dead after he collapsed the dollar

Pratai,

Abject humiliation and failure.

krashmo,

If he wins again then we deserve whatever happens.

Personally I don’t think there’s any way to avoid most of the consequences of him winning even if he loses. We’ll just postpone them a while. The Republican party doesn’t believe in democracy and they’re not even trying to hide it anymore. We will have to face that beast. Whether it’s in 2024, 2028, or later doesn’t make much of a difference.

SamsonSeinfelder,

You think you deserve to lose to trump and a shadow campaign of foreign actions that brainwashed half of your boomers, who were new to social media and whatsapp forwards, into thinking and believing in short incomplex solutions to big and complex topics?

Why do you deserve that? I would say you have a point if you vote for an ass out of free will, but there was a concerted effort by foreign powers that want to see the US on their knees. The PRC assumed that the US would be in shambles by the mid 20s because of culture wars and race wars. They actively amplified this prophecy by sending the right tictocs to the young and the right targeted memes to your uncle. Your uncle is too stupid to come up with funny memes like he is too stupid to grasp complex geopolitical scenarios. He most possibly believed that horse-dewormer and a uv-light torchlight his ass cure CoVID. If it even exists. But all that he learned from foreign misinformation and was amplified by the inept president that needs pictures and sharpies.

There are many stupid people in the world. But there are also guillable people that need only a poke from a foreign power to flip against their own interest if the poke is a meme and the meme is telling him that he is right in being a racist as es is too stupid to spell emphaty.

Augustiner,

Mate, it’s a little too easy to just blame foreign agents and idiots for all this mess. The radicalization process of the GOP has been going on for decades, the social divide has been widening and the US media is doing its part to stir the pot. Sure, Russian trolls played a part in whipping up the frenzy, but the main problem is a home made one, of unchecked capitalism without any regard for whom it might hurt. Without it, trolls wouldn’t have anything to feed on. Happy, well educated people don’t fall for that shit.

US have been living on a policy of fuck you, got mine for decades. It’s a political, cultural and economical problem and it wasn’t invented by foreign agents, it’s home made. People are desperate, uneducated and feeling disenfranchised. If you present them an easy answer and act like you hear their problems, they’re gonna love you for it. A president like Trump was just a matter of when, not if. Blaming stupid people and foreigners won’t fix shit.

Also, it’s quite ironic that you have so many spelling mistakes, in a paragraph making fun of people for not being able to spell empathy…

krashmo,

You answered that really well. Everyone wants to simplify the situation so they can end up with something external to blame. That kind of thinking is part of how we ended up here in the first place. The truth is we all play some role in both the problem and the solution. We have to own that if we want to find a way forward.

SlopppyEngineer,

And typically the other party just says they’re the only option to maintain the status quo. Being the lesser of two evils gets some votes, but doesn’t bring an easy win. In general, saying what you’re against doesn’t get much votes compared to saying what you’re for. Although it didn’t help that the last time a guy promised change didn’t change much.

schizanon,
schizanon avatar

Stop talking about what Donald Trump is talking about! You're amplifying him, and energizing his fascists. You're normalizing this shit!

shalafi,

Unfortunately we gotta keep this shit front and center until the election. The risk that libs sit it out, thinking Biden is a shoe-in, is too large to ignore. We’ve already done this in 2016.

TechyDad,
@TechyDad@lemmy.world avatar

Ignoring him won’t make him go away. He’s (sadly) his party’s frontrunner by far. If we just close our eyes to the threat he poses, we’ll just repeat 2016 and Trump will get into the White House again.

Trust me, I want to be able to ignore him. Unfortunately, we’re not at that point yet

GentlemanLoser,

Incredibly naive jfc

jjjalljs,

I could imagine protests where he orders violence and then things quickly spiral out of control. I don’t know if the country would survive.

Telorand,

If he did, I would imagine it would create a lot of small pockets of violence around the country, causing a lot of chaos and damage. If he did that while Biden is still president, it’s possible we might see Martial Law declared and the National Guard mobilized within the US to restore order.

The country would survive, but a lot of people would be hurt and killed.

shalafi,

After 01/06, I’m willing to meet violence at the table. I am not big, macho or tough. Neither I am harmless, unarmed or unpracticed. Contrary to popular belief, the conservatives do not have a monopoly on arms.

Only thing I got going for me is bravery. I’m just dumb enough to act even though I’m scared shitless. If that sounds like tough talk, it ain’t, I’ll be shaking in my boots yet still be capable of acting. Been there, done that, know that much about myself.

At some point a man has to draw a line in the sand and say, “This shit stops today.” After 01/06, that line has grown much, much thinner for me. I will not grasp my pearls should these animals try to defeat my goddamned democracy again. America is my country. It is my wife’s country. America is my children’s country.

These assholes think they can take arms to the streets with impunity? They are free to test that assumption. I’ll not draw first blood, but I have my eyes open.

I will be at the local polls, taking the day off, and if I see armed men, I will stand as well. And they can interpret my intentions as they choose.

Anyway, here’s a fun exercise: Chug a load of caffeine/kratom/whatever, get wired up till you’re shaky. Take the gun you’re best at, mine’s my AR-15, run until you can’t breathe, put steel on target. (Didn’t do the shaky thing today, but damned if I didn’t do better with iron sights vs. the red dot. Weird.)

Not promoting violence, just sayin’, it’s interesting to see what you’re actually capable of vs. talking smack.

deegeese,

LOL @ devil horns in thumbnail.

Vilian,

devil at least do his work down there is hell

ninjan,

Crazy that things aligned to take that picture, unless that lamp is notorious for giving people horns in photos?

jaybone,

I’m not seeing how that’s a lamp.

ninjan,

Then you need glasses. It’s a round dome lamp which is wall mounted and that has a metallic rim. That rim is what looks like horns in the thumbnail. You can’t see the top of the rim because the photo is from below and the lamp glass is dome shaped so it protrudes a bit.

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