May22

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Trump's Plans for a Second Term Are Becoming Clearer

Assuming Donald Trump gets the members of his legal team on the same page and assuming he isn't convicted of anything anywhere and assuming he gets the Republican nomination and assuming he beats Joe Biden—which is a lot of assuming—what would he do in a second term? Axios has pieced together his likely governing program if he gets that far. In brief, here are the main points.

• Pardons: Trump has promised to pardon nearly all the Jan. 6 rioters. That is over 500 now and could reach 1,000 by Jan. 20, 2025. That would nullify what AG Merrick Garland has called the most important criminal investigation in the country's history. Needless to say, A lot of Trump supporters would get the message that they can riot about anything Trump doesn't like and not have to worry about federal charges.
  
  
• Ukraine: He would stop all aid to Ukraine and make deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin. One possible deal might be giving him U.S. military secrets or weapons in return for permission to build a 100-story Trump Tower Moscow with a giant penthouse on top as a present to Putin. The sky's the limit here, literally.
  
  
• Civil Servants: Trump never liked the 1883 Pendleton Act much. It said government jobs went to people on the basis of merit, not patronage. It also said the president can't just fire civil servants who don't agree with him because he wants to. Trump has found a workaround called Schedule F that allows the president to reclassify civil servants as policy makers, who can then be fired by the president at will. He would, on taking office, reclassify nearly all civil servants as Schedule F and fire most of them, replacing them with people whose primary loyalty is to him, not the Constitution. He would call it "draining the swamp." Unions and Democrats would fight him but the Supreme Court would probably go along with it.
  
  
• Education: An area Trump is quite interested in is education. He wants to control it. He would use executive power to fire "radical left" officials who accredit universities, would reward schools that abolish tenure, and would remove all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. He doesn't have the power to do any of these things, but he would do them anyway and take his chances with the Supreme Court. Given the composition of the Court, it might agree with him.
  
  
• Law enforcement: Trump has had some problems with law enforcement in New York already and will soon have them in Georgia and D.C. To prevent any relapses, he would defund the Justice Dept. and the FBI. At the very least, he would change the focus of the FBI and use it to go after his political enemies. Who knows what AG Giuliani might do (besides consume fistfuls of Viagra)?
  
  
• Gender Issues: He won't entirely eliminate the DoJ because he wants to use it to investigate Big Pharma and Big Hospital to see if they have covered up any negative effects of sex transitions. If they have, then the obvious next step is to ban sex changes altogether. Maybe that is the next step even if they haven't.
  
  
• Prosecutors: Trump has vowed to rid the country of "Marxist" prosecutors, that is, prosecutors who go after people he likes, such as rich tax cheats and police officers who kill unarmed Black people. The president certainly has the power to fire and replace all U.S. attorneys but Trump might even try to fire state prosecutors and see what the courts do.
  
  
• Crime: Trump wants to use the U.S. military to go after drug cartels and street crime. The military is forbidden from operating inside the U.S., but as commander-in-chief he would order them to do it anyway. Going after foreign drug cartels might actually be legal.
  
  
• Freedom cities: Trump doesn't like how U.S. cities are run and wants to create ten "freedom cities." to counter the trend. They would have flying cars and universities that could not ban conservatives from speaking. Women would get bonuses for having more babies. The rest is up in the air so far.
  
  
• Guns: Trump is in favor of laws that would allow anyone with a permit for concealed carry in one state to exercise that privilege in all the other states. So if someone has a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Texas, he could take the concealed weapon to California, no matter what California laws said.
  
  
• Abortion: Interestingly enough, Trump hasn't said what he wants on this issue yet. Most likely he will try to avoid saying anything until after he is elected. Then he will try to ban abortion nationwide since he won't have to worry about running again if elected in 2024.
  

Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said that what Trump wants is the trappings of a democracy but in reality a Potemkin village. We don't know all his real plans, but we wouldn't be surprised if he found some racist colonel in the army, promoted him to brigadier general, and told him to set up an operation to go to heavily Latino areas and ask everyone "Papers please?" Anyone who could not prove that he was in the U.S. legally would be put on a bus. When the bus was full, it would be driven into Mexico and the passengers dropped in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert. Now multiply this by a few hundred buses. Could it be done? Hell, it was done during the Eisenhower administration and called Operation Wetback. The only things that might hold Trump back are the Army (which would be neutered by putting an actual general in charge), the civil service (which would be neutered by Schedule F), and the courts (which are already neutered by Trump's three Supreme Court appointments). If you are planning to vote in a Republican primary, think carefully about your choice. (V)