In the event of another Trump presidency, will the Orange Man restrain the desire to seek vengeance on his political enemies, or will he succumb to the temptation to play ‘dictator for a day’, unleashing mayhem in the process?
Perhaps it would be the understatement of the century to say that Donald Trump has a grudge to bear. Not only was his first term as president overshadowed by the dual hoaxes known as Russiagate and Ukrainegate, but the legal entanglements continue to follow him out of office as well. This has made Orange Man the first former president in American history to be hounded with state and federal lawsuits. And should he get elected to another four years in the Oval Office, nobody should be surprised if the reprisals against his arch-nemesis begin in earnest.
“If I don’t get Immunity, then Crooked Joe Biden doesn’t get Immunity,” Trump fumed in January on his social media site. “With the Border Invasion and Afghanistan Surrender, alone, not to mention the Millions of dollars that went into his ‘pockets’ with money from foreign countries, Joe would be ripe for Indictment.”
This sort of vendetta mentality is more worrisome in light of Trump’s stated desire to play “dictator for a day.” While it’s unclear what sort of cases the former president intends to bring against Biden, we can expect every legal channel available from the height of his office will be explored – investigations into high treason, abuse of office, corruption, mishandling of classified documents, etc.
As he wraps up his business with the Biden clan, Trump won’t waste any time revisiting the signature issue that got him elected president in 2016, which was his promise to secure the border and build a wall. This will prove to be a messy affair as the US military, working in cahoots with local law enforcement, will be tasked with carrying out sweeping raids aimed at deporting millions of illegals around the country.
Trump floated the idea of doing something similar during his first term, but he was refuted by attorneys over fears of legal repercussions. This time around, however, he will surround himself with more obedient staff, who are already dreaming up ways to make a militarized border “perfectly legal.”
Despite fierce criticism from human rights organizations, the Trump administration will also suspend asylum requests by people arriving at the border, while halting birthright citizenship for children born on US soil to undocumented parents. Meanwhile, the concept known as ‘sanctuary cities’, which gives illegal migrants the ability to settle around the country at huge expense to taxpayers, will be abandoned altogether due to ‘violations of constitutional law’.
On the question of crime, which has exploded on Biden’s watch, Trump proclaimed that our “once great cities have become unlivable, unsanitary nightmares, surrendered to the homeless, the drug-addicted, and the violent and dangerously deranged.” His plan to address the crisis is to prohibit urban camping and contain the homeless in tent cities, which will be overseen by “doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug-rehab specialists.” Trump said the money the US saves from “ending mass, unskilled migration” will cover the costs.
On the energy front, Trump will roll back Biden’s policies, which are ostensibly engineered towards saving the planet from climate change, a concept that does not resonate in Republican circles. Trump will shelve the Democrat’s solar and wind projects, while bringing back his own vision of delivering endless supplies of oil from Canada through the Keystone XL pipeline.
On the foreign scene, Trump began a trade war with China in 2018, and that reckless policy looks set to continue. As an integral part of his ‘Make America Great Again’ program, the Republican candidate continues to view the Asian economic superpower as an enemy rather than a robust trading partner (trade between the US and China amounted to $758 billion in goods and services last year). Trump has pledged to begin “aggressive new restrictions on Chinese ownership of assets in the US, bar Americans from investing in China and phase in a ban on importing key categories of Chinese-made goods like electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals.”
Trump has an equally suspicious view of Washington’s relations with NATO, especially those members of the Western military bloc that are in arrears on their membership payments. The presidential candidate’s campaign website contains one cryptic line on the matter that will keep Brussels up at night: “We have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally re-evaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.”
Despite tense relations with the bloc, Trump says that, should he be elected president, he will end the Ukraine conflict “in twenty-four hours.” How would he pull off that magic trick? By cutting Kiev off from the gravy train, which has already delivered Zelensky and the military industrial complex tens of billions of dollars of US taxpayer money. Considering the latent militancy the pervades Capitol Hill, however, curbing this appetite for destruction may represent the toughest uphill slog for Trump 2.0.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.