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Jamelle Bouie
By Jamelle Bouie
Opinion Columnist
In recent weeks, I’ve had a pretty smart idea of what Donald Trump would do if given a chance in the White House. And it is no exaggeration or hyperbole to say that this looks a lot like a set of plans designed to give the former president the strength and unlimited authority of a strong man.
Trump would remove as many public servants from the federal government as imaginable. Instead, it would install an army of political and ideological loyalists whose loyalty to Trump’s interests would far exceed their commitment to the rule of law or the Constitution.
With the help of those unscrupulous allies, Trump plans to turn the Justice Department against his political opponents by prosecuting his critics and rivals. He would use the military to quell protests under the law, whatever he hoped to do in the summer of 2020, and turn the strength of the federal government into the opposite of his supposed enemies.
“If I become president and I see who’s doing well and they’re hitting me really hard, I say, ‘Come down and accuse them. ‘They would be excluded from the election,” Trump said in a recent interview with the Spanish newspaper. -Univision language channel.
As the former president wrote in a haunting, authoritative message to his supporters on Veterans Day (echoing a speech he gave to supporters in New Hampshire that same day): “We promise to eradicate communists, Marxists, fascists. . . . and the bullies. ” of the radical left who live like vermin within the confines of our country, lie, borrow and cheat in elections, and will do everything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and the American dream.
Trump has other plans, too. As several of my Times colleagues reported last week, he hopes to institute a program of mass detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants. His aides have already drawn up plans for new detention centers on the U. S. -Mexico border, where illegal access is suspected. They would be detained until the government established their immigration status.
Given the former president’s rhetoric attacking political enemies and other supposedly unwanted groups, such as the homeless, Trump said the government “evicts” homeless Americans and places them in tents on “vast tracts of reasonable land on the outskirts of cities. “There is no doubt that some citizens would end up in those vast and sprawling fields.
Included in this effort to rid the United States of as many immigrants as possible is a proposal to target people here legally — like green-card holders or people on student visas — who harbor supposedly “jihadist sympathies” or espouse views deemed anti-American. Trump also intends to circumvent the 14th Amendment so that he can end birthright citizenship for the children of unauthorized immigrants.
In the past, Trump has signaled running for a third term after serving a second four-year term in the White House. “We’re going to win another four years,” Trump said in his 2020 campaign. “And then after that, we’re going to go on for another 4 years because they spied on my campaign. We deserve to go on for another 4 years. This would also violate the Constitution, but then, in a world where Trump manages to implement his authoritarian agenda, the Constitution – and the rule of law – would already be a dead letter.
It might be tempting to dismiss the former president’s rhetoric and plans as jokes or ravings of a madman who could end up in jail. But, to borrow an oft-used expression, it is vital to take the words of presidents and presidential candidates seriously and literally. .
They may fail – in fact, they fail – but presidents strive to keep their crusade promises and implement their crusade plans. In 2016, to rebuke those who suggested we not take it literally, we watched Trump try to do what he promised to do during his first term. He said he would “build a wall” and tried to build a wall. He said he would try to keep Muslims out of the country, and he tried to keep Muslims out of the country. out of the country. He said he would do everything he could to limit immigration from Mexico, and he did everything he could, and more, to limit immigration from Mexico.
He even suggested, in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, that he would reject an election defeat. Four years later, he lost his bid for re-election. We know what happened next.
In addition to Trump’s words, which we should treat as a reliable guide to his actions, desires and preoccupations, we have his allies, who are as open in their contempt for democracy as Trump is. Ensconced at institutions like the Heritage Foundation and the Claremont Institute, Trump’s political and ideological allies have made no secret of their desire to install a reactionary Caesar at the head of the American state.
As Damon Linker noted this month in his essay on those numbers for Times Opinion, they exist to give “Republican elites permission and encouragement to do things that, just a few years ago, would have been unthinkable. “
Americans are obsessed with hidden meanings and secret revelations. That’s why many of us are fascinated by revealing memoirs of political operatives or old documents like Nixon tapes. We pay the utmost attention to things that have been hidden from view. But the mundane fact of political EE. UU. La is that much of what we need to know is out in the open. You don’t need to look for it carefully or take a look at it; Just listen.
And Donald Trump is telling us, loud and clear, that he wants to end American democracy as we know it.
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Jamelle Bouie became an opinion columnist for the New York Times in 2019. Prior to that, he was chief political correspondent for Slate magazine, founded in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Washington. @jbouie
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