President Donald J. Trump—Part ll

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

By David Scharfenberg Globe Staff July 7, 2024


Late last year, in an essay in The Atlantic about the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy, writer David Frum warned against a failure of imagination.

The former president, he wrote, “operates so far outside the normal bounds of human behavior — never mind normal political behavior — that it is difficult to accept what he may actually do, even when he declares his intentions openly.”

In the months that followed, this became the essential argument of the #2024Resistance:

When Trump tells us he will be an autocrat in a second term, believe him.

Believe him when he threatens to deploy troops on domestic soil. Believe him when he promises to jail his political enemies. Believe him when he pledges to sweep millions of undocumented immigrants into sprawling detention centers.

The message feels even more urgent after the last couple of weeks.

Trump’s trampling of a feeble Joe Biden in their debate seemed to edge him closer to the White House. And the Supreme Court decision granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution encouraged his worst instincts.

Now a question that once felt distant has crept uncomfortably close: Could this be it?

Could Donald Trump actually topple American democracy?

The answer, you may be relieved to learn, is almost certainly not.

Cruel policy won’t break us
The defining feature of the reporting and commentary surrounding a second Trump term is its sweep.

The Atlantic published the Frum essay in an issue devoted entirely to the dangers of a restoration.

There were pieces on the lapdogs Trump would install in the upper reaches of government, on the folly of pulling out of the NATO alliance, on the specter of unchecked misogyny, and on the consequences of a retreat on climate.

This, to be clear, is how the press should be writing about the former president. It’s the only way to convey the breadth and ambition of the Trump project.

But the mash-up coverage has had an unintended consequence, conflating bad policy with lasting threats to American democracy.

Immigration is the signal case.

Any ambitious piece on Trump’s autocratic tendencies inevitably turns to his pledge to round up the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, toss them into detention centers, and ship them back to their home countries.

The Orwellian elements are undeniable.

Surveillance. Cruelty.

Trump, if he has his way, will pull apart huge numbers of mixed-status families and decimate entire communities.

But his plan does not, ultimately, pose an existential threat to the American way — for two reasons.

The first is practical: It’s wildly implausible.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, doesn’t have anything approaching the staff required to detain millions of people.

Trump’s allies have suggested he could deploy the National Guard, but federal law bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. And any move to deputize large numbers of local police officers or FBI agents would encounter sharp resistance.

“Imagine the political scandal when a desperate parent goes to the FBI and says, ‘My daughter has been kidnapped, what are you going to do?’ and the FBI says, ‘I’m sorry we can’t help you, all of our agents are involved in going around and arresting grandmas,’” says Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council.

And even if the federal government somehow managed to find and arrest all of the people who are here illegally, it would have to funnel them into an immigration court system that already has a backlog of 3 million cases.

The typical wait for a hearing, says Reichlin-Melnick, would be 15 to 20 years.

There are other considerations, too — the optics of detaining children would be awful, and the economic hit would be significant.

Pulling thousands of strawberry pickers and broccoli cutters out of the fields would send food prices soaring.

Little wonder that Trump never followed through on the mass deportation promises he made in his 2016 campaign.

But even if Trump pulled off a smaller, still-harrowing campaign of expulsion — and this is the second point — he would not be meddling with the basic machinery of American democracy.

Mass deportation may be cruel. But it is lawful.

And the republic has survived centuries of misguided, and often nakedly racist, immigration policy — from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to President Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback,” which herded large numbers of immigrants into wire-fenced camps and then marched them across a scorching desert to Mexico.

Admittedly, these are among the most shameful chapters in American history. And Trump may very well write another.

But as long as citizens opposed to his immigration policies — or for that matter, his abortion and climate policies — can stage protests, elect representatives and senators of their choosing, and, eventually, pick a new president, democracy will survive.

Troops and prosecutions
Trump is threatening maneuvers that would cut closer to the democratic core.

And in some cases, it must be said, those maneuvers could succeed.

Among the most worrisome possibilities: sending US troops into American cities.

When protests over the murder of George Floyd erupted near the end of his first term — most of them peaceful, but some quite destructive — Trump appeared in the Rose Garden and declared that if local officials refused “to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents,” he would “deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”

He eventually backed down in the face of heated opposition from figures like Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But “if I had it to do again,” Trump told a pair of Washington Post reporters after leaving office, “I would have brought in the military immediately.”

There’s reason to think he will be more aggressive in a second term. He’s determined to surround himself with more pliant advisers.

And if he wanted to use troops to quell unruly opposition to his administration, he would have some legal cover.

Although deploying soldiers for domestic law enforcement is generally prohibited, the Insurrection Act gives the president broad authority to act in emergency situations.

Still, any talk of armed intimidation of political adversaries would breed intense opposition.

Governors and police chiefs and editorial boards would raise fundamental concerns about free speech and the American creed.

But they’d also point out — as Trump’s own aides argued when he was considering a crackdown on the Floyd protests in his first term — that a military presence is likely to swell the ranks of the demonstrators.

Escalation may not be an immediate concern for Trump and the loyalists he installs in the Cabinet.

But there would be deep anxiety up and down the military’s chain of command about a confrontation with tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens. Some officers might refuse to carry out what they considered unlawful orders.

The fight over the legality of military deployments would play out in the courts, too.

The American Civil Liberties Union is already preparing litigation arguing that the Insurrection Act wasn’t designed to curb protest.

The military is not the only force Trump would turn into an attack dog.

He’s also pledged to sic federal prosecutors on prominent figures like President Biden.

But if he moved in that direction, he could expect massive resistance.

Lawyers at the Department of Justice would threaten to resign en masse, just as they did at the end of his first term when he considered installing an attorney general who would pursue his baseless claims of election fraud.

And ultimately, bogus cases would fail in the courts.

This is not Russia.

As the judiciary showed time and time again during Trump’s first administration, it will not hesitate to toss out meritless claims — even when a conservative judge sits on the bench.

Biden, in particular, would have little to fear in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision granting presidents broad immunity for their official acts.

The Department of Justice is just one of the agencies Trump and his allies want to bring to heel in a second term.

Citing a Reagan-era argument for a “unitary executive,” they have argued that the president should have complete dominion over the executive branch.

This used to be a fringe theory. Congress has long enjoyed broad power to shape the government — and that has included endowing executive agencies with a measure of independence from the president. It’s part of the checks and balances at the heart of the American system.

But the courts have been more sympathetic to presidential prerogative in recent years. And Trump may very well have the legal runway to intervene with traditionally independent agencies.

There are practical limits to his power, though.

Take the Federal Reserve.

It is responsible, among other things, for setting interest rates. And Trump has long made it clear he prefers those rates to be as low as possible. He would surely feel tempted to tamper with them in a second term.

But the next president will appoint only two members of the Fed’s seven-member board of governors, limiting his sway.

And even if Trump could somehow force the panel to cut interest rates, he might think better of it. He’d risk inflaming the markets; highly politicized rate decisions are no one’s idea of sound fiscal management. And keeping rates too low for too long would ramp up borrowing and spending and send inflation soaring.

The cost of being tagged as the president “who caused gas and grocery prices to spike by hijacking the Federal Reserve might be pretty high, even for a relatively shameless administration,” wrote Josh Bivens, chief economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, in an email to Globe Ideas.

A second term for Trump would be worrisome in other ways as well.

He’s talked, for instance, of cleaning out thousands of career employees and appointing loyalists in their place.

And he could quash a media merger if he didn’t like the players.

Kash Patel, a one-time Trump aide who remains close to the former president, recently suggested that a new administration might even prosecute individual journalists. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you,” he said on a podcast hosted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

But First Amendment protections are strong.

And anyone who thinks serious journalists would stop investigating the Trump administration in the face of that kind of intimidation doesn’t know any serious journalists.

Take all we know, then, about Trump’s most troubling plans for a second term, gauge his prospects for success, and in the end, you get something far short of the end of democracy.

A truly scary troop deployment or two. Some upsetting incursions on the independence of federal agencies. Fizzled prosecutions. A big backlash at the polls in the 2026 midterm elections. And ultimately, an end to the tumult in four years.

Of course, it’s possible — even likely — that Trump is secretly harboring a more ambitious plan to obliterate the checks on his power and stay in office for years on end.

But here, the argument for an end to American democracy grows even more tenuous.

‘Democracy’s Resilience’
Trump’s rise in 2016 spawned a big, nervous literature on democracy’s fragility. Books and magazine features and academic treatises.

The concern wasn’t that generals around the world were rolling over presidential palaces in armored tanks. That was a rarity.

The real threat, we were told, was the charismatic populists who were winning election as president or prime minister and then destroying their countries’ democracies from the inside.

Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey. This was the new face of authoritarianism. This is what we had to worry about here.

But a little-noticed book published in January, “Democracy’s Resilience to Populism’s Threat,” makes a convincing case that the popular narrative is, if not all wrong, then deeply misleading.

Orbán and Erdoğan are worrisome cases, writes Kurt Weyland, a University of Texas at Austin professor of government.

But they are the exception, not the rule.

Weyland carefully examined 40 cases of populists with authoritarian aspirations stretching back to the 1980s and found that just seven managed to kill democracy.

Countries like the United States, with strong institutions, proved especially resistant.

But even in places with wobblier courts and constitutions, populists managed to topple democracy only under extraordinary circumstances.

Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori is the paradigmatic case.

He came to power in 1990 amid not one but two major crises — Peru was reeling from hyperinflation and living in fear of Maoist insurgents who had massacred civilians with hatchets and assassinated rivals with impunity.

Fujimori, a former agricultural engineer, had astonishing success on both fronts. A sharp neoliberal turn tamed runaway prices, and he quickly put the guerrillas on the run.

The president seemed a kind of miracle worker. And when he moved to disband Congress and shutter the courts in the spring of 1992, a remarkable 80 percent of the country was behind him.

This kind of overwhelming acclimation, Weyland found, is necessary if a populist is going to obliterate a country’s democratic institutions.

And it’s rare.

Rightist contemporaries in Argentina and Colombia were quite popular. But they successfully managed single crises — rather than the dual crises Fujimori mastered. And they were never able to match his lopsided majorities.

Each won a second term in office but had to step down when it was complete.

Crisis, it should be said, is not the only springboard to autocracy. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez used a surge in oil prices to build a socialist dynasty that lasted until his death.

But none of this is especially replicable in a place like the United States.

The American economy is too large and too diverse for a hydrocarbon windfall to transform the country’s politics; the fracking boom of the 2000s, you’ll notice, did not make George W. Bush king.

And the country’s wealth and stability prevent the kind of catastrophe — never mind dual catastrophe — that can turn a populist into a savior.

Hyperinflation is not a thing in the United States. Neither is guerrilla insurgency. And with the glaring exception of 9/11, the homeland has been safe for generations.

Even if Trump faced a string of monumental crises, he would have to handle them ably — even heroically — to have a shot at the kind of popular support he’d need to turn the United States into an autocracy. He hasn’t exactly impressed as a manager.

And the country is so polarized — and so divided over Trump, in particular — that it’s virtually impossible to imagine even great success garnering approval ratings in the 80 or 90 percent range.

Another safeguard against despotism: the checks and balances of the American political system.

The United States has two houses of Congress, often at odds with each other. It has two parties, often at each other’s throats. And it has a Constitution that is very difficult to amend. Those constraints can be maddening at times, preventing much-needed policy change. But they also make it exceedingly difficult for a figure like Trump to rewrite the rules and cement his own power.

In Europe’s parliamentary system, it’s much easier for a dangerous populist to command a majority in a unicameral legislature and push through the kinds of changes that can extend his run of power indefinitely.

Thus, writes Weyland, a figure like Orbán, the most prominent Western authoritarian, could “asphyxiate liberal democracy in perfectly legal ways.”

Restraint
This is not to say Trump has no chance of asphyxiating liberal democracy here.

He does pose a risk, even if it’s small.

This is a man who incited a violent, if ham-handed, coup after he lost his last election — and who is openly vowing “vengeance” on his enemies if he wins the next one.

Electing him president of the world’s most important democracy — again — would be a little mad.

There is value, then, in the anti-Trump crowd’s insistence that we imagine the worst.

But thankfully the Founders did the same. And the system they built to restrain tyranny should hold.


David Scharfenberg can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @dscharfGlobe.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/07/07/ ... democracy/

[a fan]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

He's listing the stuff Trump can't control....and this is intentional, imho.

What about the Courts? How are the Courts that Trump has packed working out for the working class and poor in America?

He also can control taxation and spending....THAT is where he's going to put working class Americans even further behind, although they don't notice it.

Wregget.....right now? We spend more money on payments on US debt than we do on K-12 Education. THAT is where Trump is tearing America apart.

[old salt]

Congress controls taxes & spending.

Unlike previous Presidents, Trump never invoked the Insurrection Act, deploying the active duty military to quell civil unrest or enforce US laws.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/in ... g-n1224356

https://www.history.com/news/little-roc ... 1-airborne

https://www.npr.org/2012/10/01/16157328 ... eadly-riot

[a fan]

Congress controls taxes & spending.

And you don't know what a Veto is...is that it?

And you and I both remember that when the "military was hollowed out", you blamed Obama for that, not Congress.

..forever moving to goalposts so that you don't EVER have to criticize a little R. You can be a partisan without doing this, you know.

[old salt]

Congress controls taxes & spending.

And you don't know what a Veto is...is that it?

And you and I both remember that when the "military was hollowed out", you blamed Obama for that, not Congress.

..forever moving to goalposts so that you don't EVER have to criticize a little R. You can be a partisan without doing this, you know.

You mentioned only the President. Congress negotiates & passes a budget.
The President may submit a budget that he wants, but it has to be passed by Congress, then the President signs it or vetoes it.

Congress was willing to pass just a DOD increase, but Obama insisted on matching non-defense increases to bust the budget caps.

[a fan]

You mentioned only the President. Congress negotiates & passes a budget.

And sends it to the President.

So the POTUS is responsible for the bill. If he doesn't like it? Veto it.

It's HIS bill when he signs it, OS. But please, keep dancing. We're enjoying the entertainment.

Congress was willing to pass just a DOD increase, but Obama insisted on matching non-defense increases to bust the budget caps.

....aaaaaand there goes your claim that Congress is responsible for taxes ands spending. Boy, that was fast. All it took was changing the POTUS from a R to a D....and you see partisanJeezus, and change your mind.


BTW....... what happened to the "matching of non-defense increases" when Obama left office and Trump showed up, Old Salt?

Not only do you not know....you don't care. Dems are bad, R's are good.

[old salt]

You mentioned only the President. Congress negotiates & passes a budget.

And sends it to the President.

So the POTUS is responsible for the bill. If he doesn't like it? Veto it.

It's HIS bill when he signs it, OS. But please, keep dancing. We're enjoying the entertainment.

Congress was willing to pass just a DOD increase, but Obama insisted on matching non-defense increases to bust the budget caps.

....aaaaaand there goes your claim that Congress is responsible for taxes ands spending. Boy, that was fast. All it took was changing the POTUS from a R to a D....and you see partisanJeezus, and change your mind.


BTW....... what happened to the "matching of non-defense increases" when Obama left office and Trump showed up, Old Salt?

Not only do you not know....you don't care. Dems are bad, R's are good.

You failed to mention Congress, you blamed only the Presidents.

I've told you that I did not agree with the non-DoD spending increase which Trump approved & his tax cuts, except for the SALT cap (which happened to increase my taxes)

I agreed with the emergency pandemic spending but it went on for too long.

[a fan]

You failed to mention Congress, you blamed only the Presidents.

I've told you that I did not agree with the non-DoD spending increase which Trump approved & his tax cuts, except for the SALT cap (which happened to increase my taxes)

I agreed with the emergency pandemic spending but it went on for too long.

Great! Happy to blame Congress. Who passed the fat tax cuts?

And who passed the fat spending bills under Trump?

Both cases? Your party. And your President.

See? We can agree.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

He's listing the stuff Trump can't control....and this is intentional, imho.

What about the Courts? How are the Courts that Trump has packed working out for the working class and poor in America?

He also can control taxation and spending....THAT is where he's going to put working class Americans even further behind, although they don't notice it.

Wregget.....right now? We spend more money on payments on US debt than we do on K-12 Education. THAT is where Trump is tearing America apart.

I defer to you, AF. You're much more well-read on politics than I.

[a fan]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

He's listing the stuff Trump can't control....and this is intentional, imho.

What about the Courts? How are the Courts that Trump has packed working out for the working class and poor in America?

He also can control taxation and spending....THAT is where he's going to put working class Americans even further behind, although they don't notice it.

Wregget.....right now? We spend more money on payments on US debt than we do on K-12 Education. THAT is where Trump is tearing America apart.

I defer to you, AF. You're much more well-read on politics than I.

Well....you support the guy. I'd advise you to be more sure of what you're supporting. If you're a one issue voter (Israel) and that's the end of it? That's cool. But if other things like the size of the Federal Government is an issue....take a look at what Trump did before casting you vote.

And if you do that, and still vote Trump? That's cool. Never tell a man how to vote.

What I WILL tell people to do is: nominate better candidates. D's and R's act like we had "no choice" but to nominate Trump and BIden. This is a big fat lie. Be better. Us indies are sick of choosing between dumb and dumber. And for DELIBERATELY putting someone in their 80's in the White House.

Reagan was 77 when he left office, FFS. And by all accounts, had Alzheimers while in office. What the heck are we doing this election?

[Typical Lax Dad]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

He's listing the stuff Trump can't control....and this is intentional, imho.

What about the Courts? How are the Courts that Trump has packed working out for the working class and poor in America?

He also can control taxation and spending....THAT is where he's going to put working class Americans even further behind, although they don't notice it.

Wregget.....right now? We spend more money on payments on US debt than we do on K-12 Education. THAT is where Trump is tearing America apart.

I defer to you, AF. You're much more well-read on politics than I.

Well....you support the guy. I'd advise you to be more sure of what you're supporting. If you're a one issue voter (Israel) and that's the end of it? That's cool. But if other things like the size of the Federal Government is an issue....take a look at what Trump did before casting you vote.

And if you do that, and still vote Trump? That's cool. Never tell a man how to vote.

What I WILL tell people to do is: nominate better candidates. D's and R's act like we had "no choice" but to nominate Trump and BIden. This is a big fat lie. Be better. Us indies are sick of choosing between dumb and dumber. And for DELIBERATELY putting someone in their 80's in the White House.

Reagan was 77 when he left office, FFS. And by all accounts, had Alzheimers while in office. What the heck are we doing this election?

EXACTLY. I don’t belong to a political party and prior to Trump, a person would be hard pressed to tell if I were a “republican” or “democrat” based on my ballot. I just told one of my conservative friends that Trump beat a lot of decent people on his way to the nomination and the party has fallen in line. Don’t blame other people and definitely don’t blame “liberals”.

[CU88a]

OPINION
GUEST ESSAY

The Enormous Risks a Second Trump Term Poses to Our Economy
July 8, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ET

By Robert E. Rubin and Kenneth I. Chenault

Mr. Rubin is senior counselor to Centerview Partners and was the U.S. Treasury secretary from 1995-99. Mr. Chenault is chairman and managing director of General Catalyst and a former chairman and chief executive of American Express.

Not long ago, one of us was having lunch with someone who manages a multibillion-dollar fund when the subject turned to the prospect of a second Trump term.

This person was disturbed by many of Donald Trump’s actions and concerned about what the November presidential election could mean. But when it came to one issue — the economy — he was untroubled. “We didn’t do so badly last time,” he said. “There are some things I don’t agree with, but I don’t think it will matter that much.”

We fear this is an increasingly common view. We’ve spoken to many leaders in business and finance who, when it comes to economic policy, are open to the premise that Mr. Trump is a normal presidential candidate.

We strongly disagree. The two of us have been involved in business, government and policy for many years — more than a century of experience between us. We’ve worked with elected officials and business leaders across the ideological spectrum. And we believe a straightforward assessment of Mr. Trump’s economic policy agenda — based on his public statements and on-the-record interviews, such as the one he recently conducted with Time magazine — leads to a clear conclusion.

When it comes to economic policy, Mr. Trump is not a remotely normal candidate. A second Trump term would pose enormous risks to our economy.

At a time when our country was already on an increasingly risky debt trajectory, President Trump’s first-term tax initiatives added an estimated $3.9 trillion to the national debt, according to Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute. Mainstream analyses concluded that the result — increasing demand in an already full employment economy while having a negligible effect on business investment — added very little benefit in the shorter term and virtually nothing in the longer term.

And Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda would further harm our fiscal picture. A Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget report said that extending the 2017 tax cuts alone would add another $3.9 trillion to the federal debt and increase our debt-to-G.D.P. ratio by approximately 10 percent. This would likely lead to higher interest rates and greater inflation while undermining business confidence, and could reduce our resilience in the face of future national-security or economic crises.

Mr. Trump would also reduce legal immigration at a time when our economy needs additional workers at all skill levels. Companies are already moving some operations outside of the United States in order to find needed staff. Ordering the military to deport millions, as he has threatened to do, would not only lead to widespread social instability but also fail to approach the issue of undocumented workers in a way that meets our economic needs.

On trade, raising tariffs across the board — as Mr. Trump has promised repeatedly to do — would increase prices for American producers and consumers, reduce our global competitiveness and likely lead other countries to retaliate against our exporters.

On regulation, while many business leaders have differences of opinion with President Biden, a second Trump term poses considerable risks. Mr. Trump has made clear that his regulatory approach will not be driven by cost-benefit analysis, in which potential social and economic benefits are weighed against potential concerns. Instead, he says he will use regulation to reward loyalists and punish perceived enemies.

In his first term, Mr. Trump personally directed the Justice Department to block a merger between AT&T and Time Warner because he was reportedly unhappy with the coverage of him on CNN, which was owned by Time Warner. In a second term he’s promised to take this approach further, for example, by pledging to reward political allies in the oil and gas industry by throttling renewable energy, one of the world’s fastest growing industries, and one where we are in fierce competition with China.

Trump would also take unprecedented action to diminish the independence of the Federal Reserve, pressuring it to set interest rates for his short-term political gain rather than the long-term health of the economy. A top Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro predicts that Mr. Trump would fire the Federal Reserve chairman in the first 100 days of his second administration. Other allies have said that Fed decisions should be subject to consultation with or even approval by the administration. Such actions could do great damage to our markets and to our economy by politicizing Federal Reserve Board interest rate decisions and undermining the broader credibility of the Fed.

Mr. Trump has said he would like to withdraw from NATO obligations and has threatened to abandon our allies in Europe if they are attacked. Such threats would immediately shake confidence in America’s defense commitments and could embolden our adversaries to act in hostile ways, increasing global instability that threatens our supply chains and our markets and increasing the risk of armed conflict. Of course, if Mr. Trump were actually to follow through on these threats, the damage would be far worse.

The rule of law is an essential underpinning of our economy. Mr. Trump’s proposed plans would undermine the rule of law in multiple ways, including using the F.B.I. and the Justice Department to target his adversaries, likely doing the same with the I.R.S., firing United States attorneys if they refuse his order to prosecute a political enemy, using his pardon power to immunize political allies from the consequences of lawbreaking and continuing to reject the fairness and freedom of our elections.

Mr. Trump would also fill his cabinet and senior staff with people whose primary qualification is loyalty to him. In such a scenario, the White House and federal agencies would be expected to make decisions not on the policy merits but in order to satisfy Mr. Trump’s ego, angers, whims, personal business interests and political vendettas.

Nor would Mr. Trump and his allies stop there. They plan to replace up to 50,000 civil servants — nonpartisan professionals such as safety inspectors, researchers and procurement experts — with political loyalists. This may even include requiring people who are currently federal employees to take a loyalty test.

When it comes to managing crises — an essential component of any president’s economic stewardship — Mr. Trump’s first term paints a troubling picture. As the pandemic spread across the United States, Trump bungled the response with indecision, a focus on politics over the public well-being and erratic behavior. Economic damage from the pandemic was inevitable. But a more effective leader could have substantially limited that harm.

Even the Trump administration’s greatest success in combating Covid, Operation Warp Speed, is now barely mentioned by him because of political pressures. There will inevitably be economic, geopolitical or other crises in future years, and Mr. Trump’s reactions to Covid provide a deeply troubling view of how he would deal with them.

Some argue that many dire predictions raised at the start of Mr. Trump’s first term did not come to pass. But Mr. Trump himself has expressed regret that his first term was less radical than he would have liked it to be — and has promised that his second term would be nothing like the first. From 2017 to 2021, Mr. Trump, while extreme in many respects, was constrained by key appointees who came from the traditional conservative establishment, and by the need to appeal to the business community as he sought re-election. If he wins this November, he’s made clear that he’ll choose appointees who will be submissive to him — and he will have no looming re-election campaign providing an incentive to curb his most extreme impulses.

Nearly every element of Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda would create great risk of economic harm. In aggregate, there is a high likelihood that his agenda would lead to chaos and unpredictability, including global instability, in that way reducing investment and business activity. Meanwhile, inflation would be increased by tariffs, immigration restrictions and larger fiscal deficits.

Some may feel that we made it through one Trump term and are thus likely to make it through another. But a more apt analogy is that after surviving one round of economic Russian roulette, Donald Trump is asking us to take another spin — only this time with many more bullets in the chamber.

That would be a very dangerous game.

Robert E. Rubin is senior counselor to Centerview Partners and was the U.S. Treasury secretary from 1995-99.
Kenneth I. Chenault is chairman and managing director of General Catalyst and a former chairman and chief executive of American Express.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

He's listing the stuff Trump can't control....and this is intentional, imho.

What about the Courts? How are the Courts that Trump has packed working out for the working class and poor in America?

He also can control taxation and spending....THAT is where he's going to put working class Americans even further behind, although they don't notice it.

Wregget.....right now? We spend more money on payments on US debt than we do on K-12 Education. THAT is where Trump is tearing America apart.

I defer to you, AF. You're much more well-read on politics than I.

Well....you support the guy. I'd advise you to be more sure of what you're supporting. If you're a one issue voter (Israel) and that's the end of it? That's cool. But if other things like the size of the Federal Government is an issue....take a look at what Trump did before casting you vote.

And if you do that, and still vote Trump? That's cool. Never tell a man how to vote.

What I WILL tell people to do is: nominate better candidates. D's and R's act like we had "no choice" but to nominate Trump and BIden. This is a big fat lie. Be better. Us indies are sick of choosing between dumb and dumber. And for DELIBERATELY putting someone in their 80's in the White House.

Reagan was 77 when he left office, FFS. And by all accounts, had Alzheimers while in office. What the heck are we doing this election?

I wouldn't exactly use the word support, so much as, he's a better candidate than Biden. Yes--Israel is supremely important to me. There are other issues too where I prefer Trump to Biden but that's the big one--Israel.

[jhu72]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

He's listing the stuff Trump can't control....and this is intentional, imho.

What about the Courts? How are the Courts that Trump has packed working out for the working class and poor in America?

He also can control taxation and spending....THAT is where he's going to put working class Americans even further behind, although they don't notice it.

Wregget.....right now? We spend more money on payments on US debt than we do on K-12 Education. THAT is where Trump is tearing America apart.

I defer to you, AF. You're much more well-read on politics than I.

Well....you support the guy. I'd advise you to be more sure of what you're supporting. If you're a one issue voter (Israel) and that's the end of it? That's cool. But if other things like the size of the Federal Government is an issue....take a look at what Trump did before casting you vote.

And if you do that, and still vote Trump? That's cool. Never tell a man how to vote.

What I WILL tell people to do is: nominate better candidates. D's and R's act like we had "no choice" but to nominate Trump and BIden. This is a big fat lie. Be better. Us indies are sick of choosing between dumb and dumber. And for DELIBERATELY putting someone in their 80's in the White House.

Reagan was 77 when he left office, FFS. And by all accounts, had Alzheimers while in office. What the heck are we doing this election?

I wouldn't exactly use the word support, so much as, he's a better candidate than Biden. Yes--Israel is supremely important to me. There are other issues too where I prefer Trump to Biden but that's the big one--Israel.

... is it Jewish welfare you are most concerned about, or is it Israel's? These are very different things.

[OCanada]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

He's listing the stuff Trump can't control....and this is intentional, imho.

What about the Courts? How are the Courts that Trump has packed working out for the working class and poor in America?

He also can control taxation and spending....THAT is where he's going to put working class Americans even further behind, although they don't notice it.

Wregget.....right now? We spend more money on payments on US debt than we do on K-12 Education. THAT is where Trump is tearing America apart.

I defer to you, AF. You're much more well-read on politics than I.

Well....you support the guy. I'd advise you to be more sure of what you're supporting. If you're a one issue voter (Israel) and that's the end of it? That's cool. But if other things like the size of the Federal Government is an issue....take a look at what Trump did before casting you vote.

And if you do that, and still vote Trump? That's cool. Never tell a man how to vote.

What I WILL tell people to do is: nominate better candidates. D's and R's act like we had "no choice" but to nominate Trump and BIden. This is a big fat lie. Be better. Us indies are sick of choosing between dumb and dumber. And for DELIBERATELY putting someone in their 80's in the White House.

Reagan was 77 when he left office, FFS. And by all accounts, had Alzheimers while in office. What the heck are we doing this election?

I wouldn't exactly use the word support, so much as, he's a better candidate than Biden. Yes--Israel is supremely important to me. There are other issues too where I prefer Trump to Biden but that's the big one--Israel.

... is it Jewish welfare you are most concerned about, or is it Israel's? These are very different things.

Reportedly Reagan as his second term was closing, was at a conference w the USSR ( Iceland/Norway?) ehete he digned sway our nuclear deterrent and someone had to go and retrieve the papers.

[OCanada]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

He's listing the stuff Trump can't control....and this is intentional, imho.

What about the Courts? How are the Courts that Trump has packed working out for the working class and poor in America?

He also can control taxation and spending....THAT is where he's going to put working class Americans even further behind, although they don't notice it.

Wregget.....right now? We spend more money on payments on US debt than we do on K-12 Education. THAT is where Trump is tearing America apart.

I defer to you, AF. You're much more well-read on politics than I.

Well....you support the guy. I'd advise you to be more sure of what you're supporting. If you're a one issue voter (Israel) and that's the end of it? That's cool. But if other things like the size of the Federal Government is an issue....take a look at what Trump did before casting you vote.

And if you do that, and still vote Trump? That's cool. Never tell a man how to vote.

What I WILL tell people to do is: nominate better candidates. D's and R's act like we had "no choice" but to nominate Trump and BIden. This is a big fat lie. Be better. Us indies are sick of choosing between dumb and dumber. And for DELIBERATELY putting someone in their 80's in the White House.

Reagan was 77 when he left office, FFS. And by all accounts, had Alzheimers while in office. What the heck are we doing this election?

I wouldn't exactly use the word support, so much as, he's a better candidate than Biden. Yes--Israel is supremely important to me. There are other issues too where I prefer Trump to Biden but that's the big one--Israel.

... is it Jewish welfare you are most concerned about, or is it Israel's? These are very different things.

Why any Jew would vote for an antisemite who has directly or indirectly broken all 613 commandments and would probably end any chance for peace for a century escapes me. He did move the embassy and give away a lot of leverage. Wonder where he wants go build

I think some views of how are government, courts and Fed work are naive. You can move mountains indirectky as well. Everyone should take seriously 2025 and what they are planning to do. Even as Trump is now trying to create some space. It is one of his go tos.

[RedFromMI]

Project 2025 is there for a reason - the Christian Nationalists that are primarily behind it really want to move this country toward a theocracy where moral judgement is based on their particular interpretations of scripture and government and church have essentially no separation (at least with their version of church). Trump needs their votes, and since he is so transactional, he will give up some things to them in order to insure he can kill the court cases against him, and send the DOJ after his political enemies.

[a fan]

I know AF is, but I'm still not convinced he's going to make it. There are still four months for Trump to self-destruct, and still four months for the Dem machine, which you have to think is running 24/7, pushing the super-charged horsepower engine to the very limits of capacity, sifting through and vetting October Surprises--or one for each month remaining till election day, or every week even. I'm sure there's no shortage of potentials with this guy. In any event--and along those lines, here's a think piece from today's Boston Sunday Globe.

=============================

IDEAS
Donald Trump wants to destroy American democracy. He will fail.
Reports of the republic’s potential demise are greatly exaggerated.

He's listing the stuff Trump can't control....and this is intentional, imho.

What about the Courts? How are the Courts that Trump has packed working out for the working class and poor in America?

He also can control taxation and spending....THAT is where he's going to put working class Americans even further behind, although they don't notice it.

Wregget.....right now? We spend more money on payments on US debt than we do on K-12 Education. THAT is where Trump is tearing America apart.

I defer to you, AF. You're much more well-read on politics than I.

Well....you support the guy. I'd advise you to be more sure of what you're supporting. If you're a one issue voter (Israel) and that's the end of it? That's cool. But if other things like the size of the Federal Government is an issue....take a look at what Trump did before casting you vote.

And if you do that, and still vote Trump? That's cool. Never tell a man how to vote.

What I WILL tell people to do is: nominate better candidates. D's and R's act like we had "no choice" but to nominate Trump and BIden. This is a big fat lie. Be better. Us indies are sick of choosing between dumb and dumber. And for DELIBERATELY putting someone in their 80's in the White House.

Reagan was 77 when he left office, FFS. And by all accounts, had Alzheimers while in office. What the heck are we doing this election?

I wouldn't exactly use the word support, so much as, he's a better candidate than Biden. Yes--Israel is supremely important to me. There are other issues too where I prefer Trump to Biden but that's the big one--Israel.

That's fine. There's a HUGE difference between "i prefer Trump to Biden" and, "I'm a Trump supporter", and "I prefer Trump to all other possible Republican nominees".

These are all very different stances. Seems you fall in the first camp. And that's fine. I get it.

[old salt]

I just told one of my conservative friends that Trump beat a lot of decent people on his way to the nomination and the party has fallen in line. Don’t blame other people and definitely don’t blame “liberals”.

I agree. Apparently the thinking was that, according to their polling, they would lose more voters than they would gain if they nominated someone other than Trump, especially down ballot, putting control of both Houses of Congress in jeopardy as well.

Project 2025 is just there to smoke out the (R)'s who might serve in a Trump admin, then turn on him.
Unlike 2016, he now knows who's who in the (R) establishment & who he can trust not to leak & undermine him from within.
It's hard to imagine a more tightly controlled admin than Biden's. Look at how they've hidden his infirmities since the basement campaign.
...let's all fall in for the walk across the WH lawn to Marine One.

[old salt]

That's fine. There's a HUGE difference between "i prefer Trump to Biden" and, "I'm a Trump supporter", and "I prefer Trump to all other possible Republican nominees".

You don't afford me that distinction when I tell you that I prefer THE Republican candidate to Biden, even if it's Trump.
In the (R) primary, I was for any (R) candidates other than Trump & Vivek.

Anyone who now still supports Biden feels the same about THE Dem candidate, no matter who it turns out to be. Let's hear you knock them.

I'd happily support Joe Manchin, Jeh Johnson, Mark Warner or Larry Hogan over Trump.