The Second Trump Presidency

Donald Trump has won the 2024 presidential election. Predictions that come to mind at the moment:

1. He will have the biggest inaugural crowd in American history. This time he will insure that it is literally true.
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2. He will abandon Ukraine and cozy up to Russia.
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3. He won't leave NATO, but he will continue to present difficult problems for the alliance.
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4. He will double down on our support of Israel.
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5. He will become more aggressive against Iran.
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6. Jack Smith will be fired. The federal cases against Trump for stealing documents and for attempting to steal the 2020 election will end.
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7. The situation for illegal immigrants will become more dire, both for those trying to enter the country and those already in the country. Businesses that "employ" (exploit) immigrants, whether legal or illegal, will have a harder time finding workers, especially agriculture.
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8. He will continue his campaign against the Affordable Care Act.
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9. He will use the Justice Department, and the IRS, to persecute political enemies and anyone he believes has slighted him.
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10. His vision of America will grow darker and darker.

Trump may very well win both the electoral college and the popular vote. If he wins the popular vote he would be only the second Republican presidential candidate to achieve this in the last 36 years.--Percy

Another prediction:

11. If given the opportunity, he will appoint more ultra-conservative Supreme Court justices.

--Percy

Yep. Trump's tariff proposal would shift more of the tax burden from the rich to the poor.I don't think it's possible to create a progressive tax structure in a representative democracy where the rich can lobby representatives for special treatment in return for donations, gifts, etc., without limit. Combined with the ability of politicians to convince millions of people of lies I think we've reached the point where we only resemble a representative democracy in that on a designated day each year we make marks on pieces of paper.--Percy

At this point I'm only capable of watching in horror, and I can't even do that because I can't bring myself to look at the news. It won't really begin to get bad until January 20th - maybe I'll have developed more intestinal fortitude by then.I wonder if those who voted for Trump will ever realize what they have done, or will they not even realize their democracy is gone?--Percy

Nevada and Arizona have not been called yet in this map, but whether they've been called officially or not they are definitely going for Trump, so this was an overwhelming electoral victory for Trump, 312-226: The popular vote wasn't close either (not a final tally): 72,957,805 to 68,415,122 (50.8% to 47.7%)Trump has a mandate.--Percy

I guess perception is everything, but I think that most of the time the phrase "lesser of two evils" is not intended literally. It might be more accurately expressed as choosing the greater of two lessers.But in this case one of the candidates *was* truly evil while the other was just a normal sane person and quite arguably not a lesser. The country chose vengeance, grievance and power madness over sanity, rationality and sensibility.--Percy

From the Washington Post: Trump allies push to punish Jack Smith in first test of retribution vowI know most people don't have access to the Washington Post, so here are a few excerpts:

Washington Post:

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Even as Jack Smith moved to wind down his federal election interference case against Donald Trump on Friday, House Republicans took an initial step toward investigating the special counsel, setting up an early test of how the president-elect’s calls for retribution will play out.
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Elon Musk, the X owner who spent more than $100 million boosting Trump’s campaign, responded to the House Republicans’ letter by posting, “Jack Smith’s abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.”

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Trump vowed repeatedly on the campaign trail to stop Smith’s prosecutions and use a return to power to turn federal law enforcement against President Joe Biden and other critics, Democrats and former advisers. He argued without evidence that the federal indictments he faced were politically motivated. In the final weeks of the campaign, Trump said he would quickly remove Smith and suggested deporting him.

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“He should be thrown out of the country,” Trump said Oct. 24 on “Cats & Cosby,” a conservative radio talk show.
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The next Justice Department will look “critically” at what Smith’s team did over the past couple of years to “make sure nothing like this ever happens again,” the person said.
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[Trump adviser Mike] Davis said he hopes the multiple branches of the government go after Smith. “There should be several investigations: House Judiciary, Senate Judiciary, DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility and a criminal probe,” he said.

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Scary stuff. The criminals will be running the courthouse.--Percy

I think the average American is poorly educated, leaving them unable to tell truth from lies, good information from bad. Unless you're an Elon or a Bezos trying to maximize your businesses' opportunities under Trump, you couldn't vote for him without being ignorant or dismissive of the clear consequences of a second Trump presidency.--Percy

When you say populists you don't actually mean populists. Trump is the populist. You're actually referring to those vulnerable to Trump's populist appeals.You must believe these people reasoned, "I'm insulted by those who say that supporting Trump must mean I don't understand that Trump is telling lies and is a threat to democracy, personal freedoms, the rule of law and the climate, so I'll show them! I'll vote for Trump!" Does that sound like a rational thinking process to you?By the way, someone who notes mistaken thinking is not an elitist. An elitist is not someone capable of simple logic and rational thinking.And most everyone *is* capable of simple logic and rational thinking, but only about those things of which they are knowledgeable and familiar. It is well understood in science that when a scientist ventures outside his own field he is often no better than a mere layperson. In the same way, many of the people who voted for Trump were making decisions involving concepts unfamiliar to them.January 6th should have been enough all by itself (not that there wasn't much else) to convince nearly everyone that Trump was a menace to democracy and woefully unqualified for high office, but it wasn't. What does that say about the 51% who voted for Trump?Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe understanding that democracy is fragile and can be lost, indeed has been lost in a number of countries in our own lifetime, is an elitist concept. If you can't recognize democracy when you see it, you won't miss it when it's gone. Only the elitists will know it's gone, and who cares about them.As a side comment, I don't want to get into the whole thing of, "The U.S. is actually a constitutional federal democratic republic." I think most of us are aware that the U.S. actually combines characteristics of both a republic and a democracy, but constantly using that terminology would make discussion awkward and lengthy. I'm just going to keep things simple and say that we live in a democracy. Most people will know what I mean.--Percy

You are projecting your own prejudices onto the unfortunate, and you somehow believe you can distinguish nationalities from appearance, or maybe you think you can distinguish the variety of Spanish accents. Your perceptions are filtered by your racism and by the constant conservative clamor you hear on YouTube videos and other outlets. The poor are only slightly more likely than the general population to have problems with alcoholism or addiction. Why do you keep giving your prejudices voice? You see only a tiny sliver of the lives of the poor, when they're in your grocery store or somewhere nearby. Your Safeway is not a poverty research center.While researching this I discovered it can take months to years for an immigrant to get work authorization in Denver. One way to guarantee someone will be poor is to withhold employment. While poverty is only one influence on theft, desperation can absolutely be a strong motivating factor. Says the grocery aisle researcher. What number is claimed? Are you referring to what you've written in the past when you claimed your store was the victim of a large number of organized gangs? Change your mind? There are some programs in Denver to house and provide employment to the poor. In the hierarchy of needs, food and shelter are at the top. Provide decent employment and you solve both.--Percy

One would have wished for an incoming president to awe the country with the quality of his nominations for senior positions in the executive branch, but president-elect Trump, true to form, has opted for shock. Here's a list of nominations so far: --Percy

I have no idea who you're talking about, but why do you continue giving your prejudices voice over and over again? Maybe you could take them somewhere they'd be welcome, like Truth Social.--Percy

Adding RFK's nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services to the list: The Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nominations must rank among the worst in history, right up there with Earl Butz (Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture), James Watt (Reagan's Secretary of the Interior), Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh.--Percy

Maybe a Trump supporter can tell us whether this approach to governance is what they actually thought they were voting for.--Percy

Adding Doug Burgum's nomination to the Secretary of Interior role: --Percy