The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election will serve as one of the most impactful and significant presidential elections in American history. Very few other elections in modern U.S. history come close to the national, international, and long-lasting influence that such a decision will have.
The choice between Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for the Democratic ticket and Donald Trump and JD Vance for the Republican ticket is a decision that has massive ramifications for every issue; the border and immigration, national security and defense, women’s rights and access to abortion and reproductive healthcare, gun control, and many more. With the potential for the chief executive to appoint at least two Supreme Court justices, this next election will be significant in determining the direction of the United States.
As such, with so many undecided young and old voters, it is important to look at what a future Trump administration would look like and what the American people would be in for.
A Second Trump Presidency
If Donald Trump is elected, there will be four more years of Donald Trump, equalling to 1,461 days of Donald Trump as President of the United States.
In a second Trump presidency, first off, the numerous legal cases against him would likely disappear or be substantially delayed due to his presidency. From an additional legal perspective, Trump would likely be able to appoint Supreme Court justices to the court and would find younger, more conservative, and more unqualified justices to appoint as he has done with Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh during his previous administration. These individuals would sit on the court for decades and be able to influence U.S. law for generations to come, no longer concerning themselves with the concept of justice, instead making life easier for corporations and wealthy elites, further suppressing the rights of women, and working to make the United States subordinate to an intellectually dishonest legal theory. With the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Trump aims to flood the agency “with stalwart conservatives unlikely to say “no” to controversial orders from the White House [and] restructure the department so key decisions are concentrated in the hands of administration loyalists rather than career bureaucrats”, effectively weaponizing the agency for his own personal goals and desires as outside commentators have alerted for years. This kind of desire for absolute loyalty to the president is something that would be replicated across all government departments and agencies, as detailed by individuals close to the Trump campaign and the man himself.
Other agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service, would, like the DOJ, be weaponized and utilized not for investigating crime but to carry out the bidding of a demagogue.
From a military and national defense/security standpoint, naming Trump as the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces would not just make America weak, but place the country at a disadvantage with our enemies and embitter our allies. With Ukraine, perhaps the most serious foreign policy and military issue facing the United States (and the globe), it is possible that Trump “could cease military support for Ukraine, meaning it would eventually run out of the weaponry it needs to resist Russia”. However, others have found with justification that Trump’s views on Ukraine are unable to be ascertained with certainty, the only certainty being that as it pertains to Ukraine, “the Trump presidency would be a roller coaster”.
In terms of China, it is almost assured that Trump would act more hawkish than before, with another trade war likely to resume and aim for him to be even more isolationist which helps their foreign policy. Such policies suggest that the Indo-Pacific would struggle under Trump while heightening tensions throughout the region, threatening an already tense geopolitical ecosystem. Trump and his team have also insinuated the United States would leave the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), which would effectively gut the organization and leave Europe at the hands of Russia. Elsewhere, Trump has made it clear he desires to engage in massive attacks directed at Mexico, actions that are legally baseless and would serve to only be a failure and enrage a close, continuing, and vital ally. While some would simply discount this as bluster, the fact that plans are being developed by homeland security advisors close to Trump suggests otherwise.
From an intelligence and national security standing, numerous former intelligence and national security officials have voiced their concerns about Trump turning the espionage services into “weapons of “retribution” against domestic political opponents, skewing intelligence findings in favor of authoritarian leaders and undermining information sharing with U.S. allies”. Given we had seen this in Trump’s prior administration, with U.S. Intelligence Community Inspectors General removed and unqualified loyalists named to high positions of national security oversight, this is not a fantasy, but rather an extreme likelihood.
In a homeland security sense, a Trump win in 2024 would see a less secure America. On immigration, Trump has advocated for and recommended uprooting or barring from the United States “millions of undocumented immigrants … years or even decades after settling” as well as using military funds “to erect sprawling camps to hold undocumented immigrants … shut down asylum requests by people arriving at the border … [and] end birthright citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil to undocumented parents”. Furthermore, according to Project 2025, the wide-reaching “conservative” plan by the far-right Heritage Foundation which Trump has disavowed (in spite of being seen with the project’s founder and exchanging staff with the project) the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “would be dismantled, and immigration-related agencies from across the executive branch would be combined into “a stand-alone border and immigration agency” (except for the Transportation Security Administration, which would be privatized)” while the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would be forced to expedite cases, lose the ability to close cases administratively, retain a massive records system of non-citizens, limit or eliminate visa for victims of human and sex trafficking, do away with temporary protected status, increase costs for applications, and house children in ICE detention as well as revoke guaranteed protections for migrant children. Calling these policies draconian is not hyperbole nor are the connections between the Trump campaign and Project 2025 fictional. They are documented and frighteningly real.
While Biden’s record on immigration and the border has been criticized by both the left and the right (in many instances unfairly), the fact that Republicans openly destroyed one of the best border security deals in recent history out of a desire to continue to use the issue as political hay is incredibly telling of Trump and the GOP’s commitment to actually resolving the issue and making America safer.
Economically, Trump’s specific policies and details are, for a former allegedly successful businessman, scarce. Before the national convention, he stated he “wants tariffs on trade partners and no taxes on tips … knock the corporate tax rate down a tick”, become more reliant on natural gas, coal, and oil, and “defeat” inflation, his campaign being tightlipped on the issue with journalists. With Trump continuing a policy of aggressively raising import tariffs, economists (even conservative ones) have noted that such policies “would raise the risk of a race to the bottom of further rounds of tariff increases [with] every reason to believe that a world trade war will once again be destructive of domestic and international prosperity”. Trump’s regulatory approaches would effectively “reward political allies in the oil and gas industry by throttling renewable energy” instead of being driven through a cost-benefit analysis and has expressed a desire to “diminish the independence of the Federal Reserve” objectively to support his own political goals rather than build the economy. Finally, Trump’s immigration policies would deprive the United States of skilled additional workers at a time when companies can quite easily move abroad for cheap labor. Trump’s policies overall would harm the American economy in an unprecedented and significant way, similar to the effect taking place in Republican controlled Florida.
With education, Trump has expressed a desire to “take federal funding from schools with curricula, books, or classes that address race, racism, gender, and sexuality … promised to eliminate school administrator positions that oversee [diversity equity and inclusion] initiatives … [and] abandon efforts to advance and legally defend affirmative action and DEI policies within military academies, federal minority contracting programs, and other federal programs” that benefit marginalized groups. Project 2025 as well details policies aimed to “shutter the Department of Education, restore prayer in schools, create an American Academy that awards low-cost degrees to students paid for by levying financial penalties against institutions that do not yield to his ideological standards, revitalize school choice, limit discussion of LGBTQ+ content in classrooms” all through the accreditation process. None of these decisions would promote a constructive, flourishing, or beneficial education environment; the entire aim of this is to control some while limiting others.
On crime, Trump has pledged to hire more police officers, mandate the death penalty for drug traffickers, “overhaul federal standards on disciplining minors … take on the radical Marxist prosecutors who have abolished cash bail” and mandate stop-and-frisk policing methods. He also has suggested using local law enforcement alongside others from the federal law enforcement community (whose mandates do not include immigration enforcement) to enforce immigration law and patrol the border as well as grant the police “immunity from prosecution”, his implication with that being the most important aspect. Finally, he is open to pardoning “every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021” while close advisors have suggested and recommended that Trump, while in office, investigate, prosecute, and incarcerate his enemies. These criminal policies are less about enforcing the rule of law, fostering respect for it, and more about protecting his own allies and subjugating individuals.
Finally, Trump has stated to his supporters that “in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote”. While many Republicans suggest his words were taken out of context or were simply common, Trump doubled down and refused to take back his comments in later interviews.
These are not the policy recommendations or desires of someone who wants another four years and four years only at the helm of the greatest military in the world, one of the most developed and diversified economies in the world, or the dominant superpower. These are the policies of someone who is set on being president for life and desires no challengers for him, his cronies, or his descendants. That is whom the Republican Party has allowed to lead their platform.
It is even more telling that, of the almost four dozen people to serve in Trump’s cabinet, usually the individuals to most strongly support their former, less than half have full-throatedly endorsed him for the presidency. However, the most informative and telling argument that a second Trump presidency would reflect this is the four years of his presidency from 2017 to 2021 where we saw a trade war with China, almost half a million dead from COVID-19, appeasement of the Taliban and the abandoning of Afghanistan, a rise in white supremacist violence, a lack of trust and growth in graft by elected officials, allowed more undocumented immigrants to sneak into the country, and an overall attempt to exert control and gain the most personal benefit for himself and his family. The four years under Trump are perhaps the most clear and damning indictment against allowing Donald Trump back to the White House.
Conclusion
A second Trump administration would spell disaster for the vast bulk of the American people, Democrat and Liberal, Republican and Conservative alike. The only individuals who would benefit from a Trump presidency would include the upper echelons of the Republican Party, the executives and board members of Fortune 500 companies, the remaining wealthiest 1% of America, and those whom Trump keeps close within his inner circle.
Would a Harris/Walz presidency be the absolute greatest gift to democracy or the United States since the FDR or Lincoln administrations? No, and it is fanciful to assume so as well as being a disingenuous argument, even though those in opposition to her presidency may claim. A Harris presidency would face substantial challenges, including immense and biting anger from Republicans, yet the entire Democratic party platform (especially with the selections of Harris and Walz as president and vice president nominees respectively) has consistently been producing messaging that is warm, positive, and based around cooperation, a marked difference from the tone set by the Republicans. Simply put, the other option is not at all attractive.
Trump’s America will not be beneficial or positive for the majority of Americans; we would see an America that no longer appreciates the rule of law, where women have no rights and are forced to be homemakers, where minorities and people of color are second class citizens, where the wealthiest 1% continue to accumulate more wealth at the expense of everyone else, where authoritarians abroad are allowed to subjugate their own people with no outcry from the international community, where law enforcement is able to abuse the populace without any reprimand, and where democracy is no longer free for all to partake in.
Be First to Comment