Guest Editorial: The danger ahead if Trump wins
American voters have a critical choice in November. They will either reelect President Joe Biden or elect former President Donald Trump, who has only become angrier and more extreme since he lost the 2020 election that led to the violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
A vote for a third-party candidate or the decision to stay at home is a vote for Trump, who proved during his time in office that he is unfit to be president and has been clear about his intentions to govern in a more authoritarian way if he’s president again.
Those who are considering voting for Trump, someone other than Biden or not voting at all should realize how dangerous a second Trump presidency would be.
Trump has already laid out a sweeping set of policy goals should he win a second term.
If implemented, Trump’s plans for a drastic government overhaul will be far more consequential than that of his first term.
Let’s take a look at Trump’s proposed agenda:
Dismantling and weaponizing government
Trump will seek to dismantle the government as we know it, including stripping tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections.
To increase his executive authority, Trump will seek to reissue a 2020 executive order known as “Schedule F” that would allow him to reclassify masses of government employees. He wants to require that federal employees pass a new civil service test. Trump is seeking to fill the government with loyalists so that he can do as he pleases.
Encouraging police violence
Trump would push to send the National Guard to cities to quell violence. He says local police should be empowered to shoot suspected shoplifters in the act. “Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store,” he said in one recent speech.
Demonization of immigrants
More should be done to protect the southern border and a comprehensive immigration plan is long overdue.
But under Trump, immigrants would be further demonized and face mass deportation. Trump says he would immediately direct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to undertake the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. He would target people who are legally living in the United States but harbor “jihadist sympathies” and revoke the student visas of those who espouse anti-American and antisemitic views, reports The Associated Press.
Exploiting racial fears
If elected to a second term, Trump says he intends to pursue policies that would address what he says is a “definite anti-white feeling” in America. In his second term, Trump has vowed to levy taxes and fines against schools he sees as “too woke,” which would mean whatever he determine it to mean. He has expressed support for laws targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in higher education.
Ruthless retribution
“Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice,” is the opening of a Time magazine interview in which Trump lays out his agenda.
Trump promises to be more ruthless in his second term and has promised revenge and retribution.
An open admirer of the autocratic leaders of China, Russia, North Korea and Hungary, Trump is seeking essentially an imperial presidency.
Conservatives think Biden is too progressive. Progressives think he’s too conservative. Despite the disagreements that voters may have with Biden’s leadership and policies on immigration, inflation, the Israeli-Hamas conflict and other issues, he respects the election process and has not expressed admiration for America’s enemies like Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Unlike Trump, Biden has not sought to stoke racial resentment and xenophobia for his political benefit.
Biden should be given credit for a strong economy that has created tens of thousands of good jobs. He should be credited for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which invests $1 trillion to fix the nation’s roads, highways, bridges, mass transit and broadband access expansion while creating over 2 million jobs over the next decade. He should be credited for passing the $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act, the single most significant legislation to combat climate change and build clean energy in our nation’s history.
Whatever voters think of Biden’s record, Trump must be stopped.
The election in November will decide if America will go down a dark and dangerous path.
As Time prophetically warns:
“Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”
Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune
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