Trumps Second Term: Worst Case Scenario

I have always been a bit of pessimist. It is more of defense mechanism than anything. If I assume the worst is going to happen, when it doesn't, it feels like good news. When I was younger, during the Cold War, I'd wake up each day expecting Armageddon was coming. I'd put the radio on to catch the news, when the missiles weren't on their way, whatever I heard was happening in the world, yay, good news. We weren't all going to die today. 

When Trump was elected in 2016, this served me well. While others were shocked, stunned, and/or pissed off, I was thinking, "I knew it." In 2024, I do what I can to prevent him from being elected, but if it does happen, I will be prepared, emotionally anyway. What will his second term look like, I assume the worst of course. 

In 1934 Germany, an event took place, under Chancellor Adolph Hitler, often referred to as the Night of the Long Knives. I apologize for bringing up Hitler, but it is difficult not to when Trump is using words like "vermin" when he refers to Americans that disagree with him and is threatening retribution. For a three day period, Hitler's thugs (aka "brown shirts") went on a killing spree, executing Hitler's political opponents. The official number of victims is eighty but some say it was as high as a thousand. The real number was lost in the fog of war that was soon to come. It is something like this, that I see as a worst case scenario. Trump's "brown shirts", either under his direction or not, go after his political opponents. Not just other politicians, like Harris, Biden and Pelosi etc., but judges, lawyers, journalists, maybe even bloggers. He'll claim he had nothing to do with it and he'll get away with it. 

Trump's language at his rallies suggest that I am not too far off. He said some really disgusting things about fellow Americans, about me and probably you as well, and his crowd of supporters cheer him on. Some have even elevated him to a religious icon. What saved us from his first presidency is his administration's incompetence. Their total lack of direction was their ball and chain. This time around he already has more direction with Project 2025 backing him up. He also had a lot of traditional conservatives around him preventing him from going completely off the rails. His second administration, according to him, is going to have no such people in it. He has talked about a loyalty oath and firing anyone that won't sign it. 

Hopefully, I am wrong about all of this. Kamala Harris seems like a decent and capable person. Since, I'd vote for anyone running against Trump, she definitely has my vote regardless. 

My Grieving for American Democracy

American democracy is dying. It has been dying for quite some time, a long slow painful death. After this past week, one could pronounce it dead. Dead on arrival the moment Biden first talked at the presidential debate last week and showed us all how badly he had declined, intro to Diminished Joe. DOA at the moment that Trump told his first lie, first of many. If that didn't convince you, then certainly when the Supreme Court decided that the president couldn't be prosecuted for anything he/she did that was broadly related to their job ... certainly that killed democracy for you.

The first stage of grief is denial and you could say that is exactly where I was for the past decade or so until Thursday night when I laid down into bed to watch the debate. My wife already started it without me and within a couple of minutes I said "We are fucked" and she said "yup." This is when denial turned into anger, stage two of grief. I am angry that these are the two candidates we have to choose from. We are stuck with them: Biden, who looked like he was going to die on stage and couldn't put a coherent sentence together, and the unhinged Trump, the worst person in America ... a convicted felon, racist, sexual predator, a pathological liar and someone we already know was a truly awful president. 

I know what some of you are thinking, "but Mark, we have more than two choices. There are third party candidates." I have already considered this. The most popular and viable third party candidate, Robert Kennedy Jr., is just as bad of a choice as these two guys. Kennedy is a paranoid nut. If both my father and uncle were victims of public assassinations, I would probably be paranoid as well. He may be younger than our two octogenarians but his health is no better. He is just a notch better than Trump. 

I was on the Biden bandwagon until the debate. Joe has been an excellent president, one of the best in my lifetime. Originally, in 2020, I voted for Joe because I was voting against Trump not for Biden. As his administration progressed, I noticed a lot of good things happening: green spending, Judge Brown, childhood hunger going down, infrastructure spending, student loan debt loopholes sealed, bi-partisan deal on the border (that Trump killed) and elegantly walking a fine line in two foreign wars. His many years in the Senate has really paid off, but is he up to the job. I would like to point out that I still take Biden on his worst day over Trump on his best. The debate performance may have been Biden on his worst day, but for all we know, he has had a lot of these and his staff is just hiding it from us.

The most frustrating part of this is that both party have good and, some, young alternatives. Why are we stuck with these guys? The Democratic party has had plenty of opportunity to address this. Back in February, 2024, special counsel Robert Hur referred to Biden as "an  elderly man with a poor memory." Hur is not a political hack. He spent several days with the president. Why didn't they see this as a red flag? We have some great candidates that all poll well against Trump: VP Harris, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (MI), Gov. Gavin Newsom (CA) and Sec. Pete Buttigeig are all excellent candidates. We still have time before the convention to resolve this. Even the Republicans have some reasonable candidates. Both Mitt Romney and William Weld are still alive (my northeast bias is showing here). 

The next president will probably have two Supreme Court nominations. This is it folks. If you don't like what the Supreme Court is doing, we can't have another Trump presidency. Before I go into the next stages of grief: bargaining, depression and acceptance, lets try the defib pads one more time and see if we can resuscitate this Democracy ... unless you think Emperor Trump is good idea.