So here's the scariest story I can think of: What do you think is going to happen in a trump Second Term?
Yeah, we have to consider the implications. trump's threats to suppress voter turnout, ditch ballots, order states to end ballot-counting too early, and open refusal to respect any election result in favor of Biden means we are running the risk that trump can pull off a blatant theft of the whole shindig. Even if Biden secures 330-something Electoral Votes and 52 percent of the Popular Vote over trump's likely 44 percent, trump is going to pull every stunt (even the scary legal ones) he can to prevent a loss.
So in this timeline, gone darker by trump's own hand, what would the United States and the world look like by 2021?
We're already facing the madness of having a overly-skewed 6-to-3 ultra-conservative Supreme Court with Barrett added to it. What will likely occur anyway would be the end of any left-center identity of our legal system ranging from the end of abortion choice (also birth control and reproduction rights) for women as we know it, the destruction of Obamacare with no sign of a Republican replacement plan to fill the sudden health care void, and intent to deregulate every aspect of federal guidelines and policies.
Added onto that would be four more years of trump (and McConnell, if trump's electoral theft aids his Senate Republican allies) filling every open judicial seat with those most loyal to him and most likely to give him safe passage in case of criminal and civil cases filed against him. Extending outward into the 21st Century a cronyist legal system choking reform and sanity for at least 30 more years.
Also happening to us right now is the coronavirus pandemic, and the public panic trump has felt since April about cures and vaccines will lessen as the private disdain trump really has about the pandemic victims no longer has to be hidden. Oh, the medical system will struggle to create a vaccine and try to establish a protective model to keep the risks of COVID to a minimum, but trump and his power circle won't give a rat's ass except to squeeze money out of it for themselves. trump's promises about vaccinating everyone can't be taken at face value, and he shows no sign of ever taking it serious. Lacking federal leadership, the current pandemic woes could well stretch onward as each state falters and adapts to trump's plague-filled "new normal."
The economic situation is harder to predict because the major aspects of it - the financial sector of banking and stock investing, the employment factor, the potential loss of small and local businesses unable to keep open as the pandemic continues into 2021 - are not as interconnected as they ought to be. The Stock Markets fluctuate without regard to how the unemployment numbers are or how other economic indicators trend (A bad day with unemployment numbers could actually make the stock values go up). Unemployment is likely to persist near double-digits as local businesses and other social-based industries struggle to stay open (Disney just announced major layoffs at their parks). The flow of income is likely to persist in high-tech and any other industries that can survive in stay-at-home work environments, while low-tech and service economy jobs will be hardest hit. The pandemic could also affect the future of physical workplaces especially in large metros where now-vacant buildings become useless. There are a lot of factors at play here, not all of it good.
The sins of trump's first term of punishing, jailing, separating, and torturing immigrant families will go unpunished, and will lead into deeper degradations of ICE's victims. Human rights abuses of immigrants and refugees will worsen. Our entire immigration system - broken and clogged - may actually collapse on itself.
In terms of foreign policy...
One thing to consider is how trump "wins" his second term: trump will likely steal it, either through cowed state legislatures, biased courts, or by force (trump will not win it honestly through Popular vote, and is likely not winning the Electoral). An act of authoritarian brazenness so public that foreign nations would have reason to condemn it they way they would any dubious election. Public relations with what were once our strongest allies - NATO, Japan, a Southeast Asia trying to stand against Chinese influence - can fall apart. How can Europe pretend they support democracy if they have to congratulate trump after trump pulls any kind of police-state or even militia-backed coup?
trump has already tainted our foreign relations to its lowest point since perhaps the Vietnam War era, if not the 19th Century when the U.S. was not as dominant on the global stage. trump does not inspire confidence in our allies. Another four years of trump abusing our State Department and twisting foreign policy objectives to line his own pocket will take its toll and reduce the ability of future administrations to repair the damage done.
If there's anything to scare trump in a second term, it's the fact he'll be facing civil lawsuits and state-level fraud investigations that he can't avoid any further. trump will try to evade any accountability like he's done his first term to evade Emoluments cases and Mueller's investigations into the 2016 election. But in a second term trump - and the family members he relies most on to do his dirty work - will be facing likely criminal charges in New York state over his questionable accounting practices (cough fraud cough), and due to the separation between federal and state there is little trump can do to stop it (outside of breaking up the entire state government and legal system of New York itself). If trump takes that route (he might if it meant keeping donnie junior, Eric, Ivanka, and SIL Jared out of handcuffs), the covenant of the Constitution could get shattered and we're looking at an open-scale Second Civil War.
At the worst of a trump second term, the damage to our federal institutions and to the Constitution will be carved into the very foundations. trump will have more time and effort to corrupt the various Executive agencies to serve his whims, not the rule of law nor the requirements of civil service. Agencies in opposition to trump - the IRS, FBI, CIA, EPA, even HHS and CDC, the freaking POST OFFICE, anything deemed "Deep State" - will be defunded, destaffed, destroyed. Any hope we have now of a Biden administration restaffing and repowering as much as possible still won't see any improvement until 2023.
Even if the Democrats maintain control of the House (likely, there are few scenarios trump and the Republicans can do this election cycle to win that branch), there is no guarantee they can keep trump under investigatory control. Even if the Democrats win control of the Senate, there is no likelihood they can win enough seats to uphold any Impeachment attempt: 68 votes are needed, and only a clean sweep in 2020 could get them to 70 (the Democrats are looking at a 5-seat flip at best for 2020 to win Senate control 53 to 47, at worst Republicans can hold on 51 to 49 (boooooo). A Democratic supermajority in the Senate is near impossible). The best the nation can hope for from Congress is a slim Democratic majority in the Senate stopping trump from filling more judiciary openings with Far Right judges. A fully Democratic Congress could likely pass all the legislation that Mitch McConnell has held up since 2019, but then we'll be facing a trump vetoing every one unless he gets whatever he wants (his goddamn Wall, a repeal of Obamacare, keeping immigrants in baby cages, and more money to his pockets).
What a second term of trump will do to the national psyche is horrifying. The haters and ragers that trump currently empowers will sink deeper into their sadism and anger towards fellow Americans. Whatever is left of our public discourse will get drowned out by QAnon conspiracy theories and Fox Not-News fearmongering. A lot of Americans who will vote in the majority against trump (remember: he's NOT winning the Popular Vote. Any national result with trump getting over 44 percent will be goddamned lie) will continue suffering severe bouts of anxiety and depression: I am not exaggerating, trump's existence in the White House has generated unheard-of levels of anxiety among Americans.
Any trump "victory" this November will not be viewed as legitimate by a significant portion of the nation's population. While this is true of his first "win" in 2016, a lot of that was blunted by the reality of a broken Electoral College gifting trump the Presidency while losing the Popular vote by the largest margin since 1876 (when Tilden beat Hayes in the Popular but the fight over the Electoral votes went dubiously to the Republican Hayes).
This time, trump will not have that excuse: trump has been so open in his voter suppression efforts that any Popular vote changes to his favor will be attributed to his cheating. Any planned challenges by trump and his corrupted DoJ lawyers in the battleground states over the ballot counts and Electoral Votes will be viewed as intentional acts of sabotaging the results.
The public outrage to any subversion of the election results can well be on the scale of the massive protests like the Women's March in 2017, and the ongoing Black Lives Matter marches right now. The sad thing is, we've seen these protests happen... and then, without any political power where it matters most, nothing happens. We haven't had protests on the scale of Belarus or Hong Kong or any other places facing ongoing suppressive rule. A response to trump's sabotaging of the election would - even compared to the chaos of 1968 in the American streets - require a response from Americans on a scale from city to city in full revolt our nation's ever known. I personally can't guarantee a massive uprising like that could happen, but the anger towards trump may be the final kick to the head that will wake the majority up.
At that point, we would likely see a response from trump's well-known, well-armed fanbase of White Supremacists and haters. Having been told to "Stand By," any mass protest against trump post-election will trigger the wingnuts into attacking like they've done at the BLM protests this year.
On the other hand in the timeline where Biden does secure the Popular Vote - polling above 50 percent, that's likely - and ekes out the Electoral College win despite trump's efforts to stop it we would still see a violent response out of the gun-toting wingnuts, because they'll be convinced from trump's gaslighting that Biden cheated.
Blood in the streets - even in a Biden win - will be unavoidable.
Another reality that's unavoidable is the fact trump is going to get older. trump is already 74 and will be nearing the average life expectancy of healthy American males (78). And trump is not a healthy American male. For all of his shenanigans over his annual checkups, there is no way that flabby orange lifeform is under the weight limit (239 lbs) of being morbidly obese. Rumors of drug abuse abound. And trump's unscheduled visit to Walter Reed in 2019 still raises cause for concern. Just look at trump (before looking away in disgust). Does he LOOK like he's healthy enough to live another four years?
Even if trump stays alive to 2024, our Darkest Timeline threatens to get darker still because the bastard keeps talking about wanting a THIRD term. Whining that he wasn't treated fairly since 2016, trump claims he's entitled to a "do-over" and so he deserves four more years after no matter what. Never mind that the 22nd Amendment clearly spells out there is no goddamned way that would happen. If trump gets his second term, he's scheming to break whatever's left of the law to force his third.
A second trump term does not look appealing in any way shape or form, America.
For the LOVE OF GOD, don't let him even try to steal it. Even in the possibility of violence from trump's fascist militias, we dare not fall back against trump's onslaught of our rights as voters to choose better leadership than him.
1 comment:
I filled my ballots out last night, and will take them down to the drop box in Oakhurst today or tomorrow, depending on when Briana finishes filling her ballots out (we have like 12 propositions this time, and it takes a while to read enough about them to know how to vote properly. This is why voting by mail is so good; you can sit with your laptop for a few hours and get each choice right).
Now that he has covid, perhaps Fergus will get his wish and be president for life.
Most likely not, though, and the underlying pathology of the Republican voting base is something we have to deal with Fergus or no Fergus, and that has been true for decades now. Will it be ugly? You bet. Is it necessary? Yes it is. Like the way Driftglass puts it, the nation cannot long endure half Fox and half free.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
Post a Comment