Trump 2.0

WHAT WE FACE WITH TRUMP 2.O

He is corrupt. He is a felon, a sex offender and an insurrectionist who failed to stop the attack on the capitol that risked the life of his Vice President just so he could stay in power. Trump is a lawless man. He is also someone who is out for revenge. He was twice impeached but never convicted by the Senate thanks to Mueller and Mitch McConnell whose names will go down in the history books along with Merrick Garland and all those sheeplike Republicans as the pathetic weenies who failed to force him to go to jail for breaking the law and failed to stand up to this wannabe strongman dictator. Their failures and the failures of well meaning Democrats who missed the mark (see https://markinreport.com/2024/11/13/what-just-happened-and-why/)  that allowed Trump to come roaring back to power the way Hitler did because the Democrats have a toxic brand for too many Americans. The Dems are seen as too woke, too latte liberal, too “defund the police.” As a result we are going to have one of the most toxic administrations in the history of our country, namely, Trump 2.0.

We have been warned by his former aides and allies. Trump will try to end our nearly 250-year democratic experiment if he can do it. In his early appointments we are seeing the set up for that. Trump just picked Matt Goetz to be Attorney General, for example.

·The Daily Beast has reported that the money trail suggests that Gaetz paid for sex with women. In 2018, his friend Greenberg made Venmo payments to three young women totaling $900, describing the money on the app as for “Tuition” or “School.” Gaetz sent Greenberg $900 the night before on Venmo, writing in one transaction “hit up ___,” using a nickname for the 17-year-old. (Greenberg says they apparently cut off contact with her until she was 18.) At least one of those payments has been confirmed by the federal investigation. 

There was never an indictment because the witnesses and evidence were deemed insufficient.

Axios reports

Gaetz, who is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for sexual misconduct, is a MAGA provocateur and Trump loyalist despised by many of his colleagues.

Let’s face it. We are in for a shit show.  Trump wants only yes men to be in his administration. For that reason Trump is turning to his buddies and loyal friends and will try to get them into positions of power in government. Some of them have no former experience doing comparable jobs.

For example, Trump selected Pete Hegseth as his secretary of defense Tuesday, praising his status as a combat veteran and role as a co-host on Fox & Friends Weekend. Hegseth was deployed in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq while serving with the Army National Guard. The veteran is the former CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative organization that has communicated with Trump on the matter of veterans affairs and received backing from billionaire Charles G. Koch—one of the wealthiest people in the world. Hegseth has also made appearances on various Fox Nation series.

Trump announced Stephen Miller and three other longtime aides will take top White House roles Wednesday, after appointing billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency”.  He wants Kristy Noem to direct Homeland Security.

Trump is currently forming a government that will probably be a combination of a kakistocracy, kleptocracy, and plutocracy.

What, you say?

Where does kakistocracy come from?

Kleptocracy, also referred to as thievocracy, is a government whose corrupt leaders use political power to expropriate the wealth of the people and land they govern, typically by embezzling or misappropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population.

Trump will be responsible for the kleptocracy that he is about to install. There will be massive government deregulation to benefit corporate interests. Regulations that protect Americans will be in the hands of goofballs like RFK Jr. who thinks fluoride and vaccines are bad.

A plutocracy is a type of political system dominated by the wealthy. The purpose of a plutocratic government is to benefit the elite people of the society.

Trump 2.0 promises to be the most corrupt administration in US history. Trump is already being congratulated by obsequious people, people who want to get on the right side of the dictator-to-be: like Jeff Bezos who prevented the Washington Post from endorsing Harris because he knew Trump could win and once in office could hurt his business prospects.

WORRISOME STUFF

There’s a ultra-wealthy club of men that wants to rule the world that reminds me of SPECTRE or SMERSH from James Bond movies.  People like Trump, Musk, Putin, Rupert Murdoch, Peter Thiel and other super wealthy people in the world belong to that club and help each achieve their cross-border interests. You might call it a kind of axis of evil rich guys club.

That club helped Trump win this time. Trump is totally transactional: he is willing to give them what they want if he gets what he wants. Given the immunity decision of the Supreme Court, he doesn’t have to worry about any consequences for criminal acts anymore.

MASSIVE DEREGULATION

Trump’s run for president was also supported by tech bros and businessmen who want deregulation. Evangelicals and Christian Nationalists helped him to win. For these groups, Trump was their Trojan Horse- their way to get into power. He will give them what they ask for to get what he wants.

TRUMP GETS A PASS ON ALL OF HIS CRIMINAL WRONGDOING

Even now Jack Smith is winding down the January 6^th insurrection case and classified documents case against Trump, finding ways to close them out before Trump takes office. I doubt  there will be a sentence in the Manhattan case before Judge Merchan where Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts. I don’t think he will ever be held to account.

MORE CHAOS

Trump has not only disrupted our country, he has and will continue to disrupt the world. He has reinvented politics and turned it into a reality TV show where you must keep checking your cell phone to see what he has done now.

He did it by using democratic rules against Democrats, by counting on their hesitations about breaking norms and by daring rule abiding foes to have to be bold to beat him. Democrats and Republicans alike have failed to rise to the occasion ever since he came down the escalator at Trump Tower.

Trump created chaos and craziness in his first term but that will pale in comparison to Trump 2.0. Trump has learned how to work the levers of power, and he has allies who have created the playbook he will likely implement to deconstruct government.

PROJECT 2025

Project 2025 is 992 pages of the plan to deconstruct our government and replace it with loyalists who will do Trump’s bidding. Trump will attempt to install himself as a dictator and he might allow his loyalists to try to impose Christian nationalism on all of us which will include books banning and at least the attempt to abolish the Education Department and replace public education with a voucher system that will favor religious schools.  Hundreds of loyalists have already been vetted. Government workers who protect Americans from harm will be fired. All that knowledge will be gone the way Trump threw out the guidebook Obama left him in case there was a pandemic. Only loyalists will be put into positions of power.

DISINFORMATION

Trump has also created an alternate universe of propaganda and used “conservative” media megaphones to promote it. He will try to choke off sources of factual information once he is in power including already tottering legacy media like MSNBC and CNN and possibly other nationals news networks.

SUPREME COURT WILL BE WAY TOO EXTREME

Trump will stock the Supreme Court with extremists. He will replace Alito and Thomas with two very young very extreme right-wing justices who will be on that court for the rest of their lives generating rightwing holdings that favor corporations, suppress the rights of Americans, and keep Trump and the MAGAs in power. (By-the-way, Justice Sotomayor should step down right now so that Biden can replace her with a younger person like Kamala Harris and get that done before Trump takes office!) For the near future the Supreme Court will be way too extreme for most Americans.

Having an extreme Supreme Court that is out of step with Americans does not mean that the Supreme Court will never give way to a more moderate court. We have had very right-wing courts in the past in this country. Change will just take a very long time now because of new appointments of younger justices that Trump will be able to make.

PROGRESSIVE CHANGES ON THE BACK BURNER

Changes we had hoped to see in Washington like the end of the filibuster, statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington DC, binding ethics rules for the Supreme Court, Trump going to jail, rational gun control legislation, climate change legislation, taxing rich people so they pay their fair share, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, National abortion rights, and so much more. None of that will happen anytime soon on a national basis unless we can regroup for 2028 and Trump is dead by then.

PREDICTIONS

For many of us in the pro-democracy space this is a tough moment. Harris stood for wonderful values we believe in including the way we need to build supportive communities and the way we need to treat each other- with respect and with faith in the common good, following the law, being truthful, following rules and norms, paying our taxes, valuing other Americans no matter what their backgrounds are or the color of their skin, or their gender.

We almost made it to our 250^th birthday as a constitutional democracy. We almost became a multicultural, multiethnic democracy. But the attempt to get there before the electorate was ready for it was part of the reason Trump won. In the process HE was the one who forged a multiracial coalition of aggrieved working men.

But Trump is going to let those voters down.

We know what’s coming: Trump’s revenge and retribution against his so-called enemies, massive round ups and deportations of immigrants, deconstruction of government including the Dept of Education and Environmental Protection Agency, the installation of rich guys who will use government to enrich themselves more, loss of independence for the Dept of Justice and FBI who will be led by toadies who report directly to Trump and much more. Project 2025 is going to be implemented even though Trump pretended he didn’t know what that was.

BACKLASH 

One thing is certain: All of this is going to make millions of Americans very angry over time. Instead of getting more rights, freedom, money and success, the rich will get richer, government will be disgustingly corrupt, Trump will pursue his personal vendettas, the American people could possibly lose Social Security, Obamacare, Medicare, and Medicaid as well as the right to same sex marriage, abortion rights and other reproductive rights and much more. What he was elected to do to help Americans regain the American Dream is not going to happen.

LOOKING AHEAD

So, what good can come of this moment in history?

Biden is handing off a really strong economy to Trump just as Obama did. Trump will wreck it. People will be sorry they chose him. Backlash ignites the opposition.

First. Trump needs to be forced to fully own whatever happens in the next 4 years. His tariffs will screw up our economy pretty quickly and rich guys will get a boondoggle which will anger the people who voted for him.

He is not only old, but demented, mean-spirited and irrational. He won’t be saved by his aides the way he was last time because he will only have yes men around him this time. He will do stupid things that his aides stopped him from doing before.

Rounding up and expelling immigrants is going to be cruel and ugly. Children will be deported and families broken up. That needs to be covered by the news media. His actions will make decent Americans very upset and ashamed.

Second. Sometimes a drug addict has to hit rock bottom before he realizes how messed up he is and seriously commits to rehabilitation. Our democracy was already in need of rehabilitation. Our constitution needed to be modified to help us make progress, but unlike other democracies it was too hard to modify our constitution because it requires both houses to approve and 2/3 of the states.

There might be some good that comes from throwing out some of the old china in our china shop. For example, if the Republicans get rid of the filibuster that might be okay in the long run, assuming we have presidential elections in the future.

We can learn from countries like Portugal that threw out their dictator and reconstituted their democracy to be more boldly progressive. What the blue-collar voters really want is more what Bernie Sanders is selling. There is more that blue state America has in common with red state America than many might think.

Third. The governors of blue states will, at least in the short term, need to be the bulwark against Trump in their states. They are doing that. JB Pritzker, Maura Healy, Jared Polis and Gavin Newsome are already sounding the alarm and saying they will stand up to Trump. Many students will not want to go to college in red states. Many women working for companies in red states will ask to move to a blue state. States will become more like countries in Europe. We must work at flipping state houses red to blue across the country.

Fourth. Our legal system will be tested. It will have to stand up against Trump’s overreaches. Biden has done a great job of appointing new judges appointed in federal courts across the country.

As of October 31, 2024, the United States Senate has confirmed 213 Article III judges nominated by Biden: one associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 44 judges for the United States courts of appeals, 166 judges for the United States district courts. Before he leaves office, Biden needs to pack the courts with every judge he can get approved as fast as possible.

Fifth. State houses can act as a buffer if they have a Democratic majority in at least one of the chambers.

There is a bit of good news from this election when it comes to state houses. MN Democrats won a special election in the Senate to hold the majority in that state house. Wisconsin 5 seats were flipped red to blue. There was a 10- seat gain there, positioning the Dems for a 2026 majority. In North Carolina the rightwing supermajority was broken. Josh Stein, the newly elected Democratic governor in NC will not have to worry that his veto could be overridden by that legislature. In PA the Dems held onto a one seat majority.

Sixth. No one lives forever. For that we can be thankful and hopeful. So far there is no one else with the celebrity cult power of Trump on the horizon.

SO, HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND?

Will we turn away from politics and give up? Or will we stay active and rebuild our democracy from the ground up- starting with school boards, our local communities and state houses on up? Because that’s where we lost this election that Trump, Musk and Putin just won.

When Obama was president, the Democrats did not fortify those state legislatures. The Republicans ran way too many unopposed candidates. They still do. They took control of the state houses over the last 40 years and turned this country into what it has become: a country divided against itself that fell for Trump again.

We are also going to see how strong the backup safeguards are in our country; namely, the power of the governors and the power of our legal system. When Trump calls for Liz Cheney or Adam Schiff to be arrested without cause, it will be our legal system that stops that from happening. When Trump loyalists try to round up and expel legal immigrants and/or Dreamers (people who were brought to America by their parents as children and have lived in this country all their lives), our governors will need to step up to protect them. That will happen in blue states but probably not in red states to the detriment of those red states because without those workers many jobs will not be filled and there will be a consequential rise in the cost of goods and services, many people will not want to work in red states or go to college there.

The most important thing  Democrats need to do is to make sure Trump is blamed for the shit show he is about to unleash on America.

The most important thing WE can do is not lose hope and get active in our local government. We need to help good candidates to win elections up and down the ballot. We also need to figure out new media that can keep Americans informed about the truth in an entertaining way to attract listeners and readers.

Sometimes change happens quickly- like the fall of the Berlin Wall. Sometimes it happens more incrementally. If Americans realize that Trump was a huge mistake and the Dems can learn and regroup, if Trump is pushing daisies by 2028 or has become a babbling idiot because the guy has dementia like his dad did (and died of it) and it gets so bad he can’t function anymore, then change could happen more quickly.