11/14/2024
I expect something along the lines of the following, but of course I hope I am wrong.
In the first few days (probably the first day, January 20th), Trump will declare a national emergency, based on a (fake) immigration/border crisis/invasion, to immediately enhance his powers as president.
Trump will then institute Schedule F to politicize the civil service and purge everyone in the upper ranks who are not loyal to him. He will also institute a process to purge the top ranks of the military of anyone not loyal to him.
Then I expect him to take some extreme actions, like the Muslim ban last time, or taking away temporary protected status of certain groups (such as Haitians), so as to spark outrage and protests. He will then suppress those protests using the military and/or national guard, likely violently.
He will also threaten the independent news media with taking away their broadcast licenses, and intimidate people like Jeff Bezos who owns the Washington Post, but needs government cooperation and contracts for his other businesses.
The media is already largely a propaganda machine for him, but he will want to intimidate or eliminate the last vestiges of independent media.
As for mass deportation, he is surrounded by fellow racists and white nationalists, so they will not be careful about who they deport. Lots of people who have lived here for decades and committed no crimes will be deported. A lot of families will be broken up. There will be internment camps to hold immigrants before they get deported.
I also expect major efforts to restrict the right to vote. I fully expect him to follow the Hitler/Putin/Orban playbook for destroying a democracy and creating an autocratic government. There may be elections, but they will be like the elections we see in Russia, Hungary, and Venezuela.
Hopefully I am wrong. And of course we must fight every step of the way. We’ll see.
