Why A Second Trump Term Would Be Even More Dangerous Than The First
Trump laid out his agenda to TIME. If he wins, he'll have fewer guardrails and a loyal right-wing ecosystem that's created the legal framework to turn his dictatorial ideas into concrete plans.
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Last month, Donald Trump sat down with national politics reporter Eric Cortellessa of TIME Magazine for two wide-ranging interviews. In these interviews, which were released on Tuesday, Trump laid out his dictatorial second-term agenda, offering some of the most detail to date, other than his rallies and campaign website. Every American should read what he had to say and believe it.
Cortellessa summarized Trump's plan for “an imperial presidency” very succinctly, so I’ll share his synopsis here before breaking it down further. If you read any part of the TIME article, read this:
What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers.
He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen…
Whether or not he was kidding about bringing a tyrannical end to our 248-year experiment in democracy, I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles? Trump says no. Quite the opposite, he insists. “I think a lot of people like it.”
That stunning summation of what was covered in Cortellessa’s reporting and interviews with Trump doesn’t even include all of his plans. Trump’s second-term agenda also includes the centralization of power in the executive branch, outright dismantling of multiple federal agencies, bringing the FCC and FTC under direct White House control, rolling back environmental regulations, ending federal protections for LGBTQ+ people, pushing “Christian Nationalist” ideals, and undoing all progress made in diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government under the guise of religious freedom.
This agenda fundamentally erodes American democracy as we know it. It reshapes the federal government into Trump’s distorted, vindictive image. It erodes our freedoms, targets the marginalized, and seeks to punish anyone who dares defy Donald.
Depicting this as an “imperial presidency,” as this TIME article does, is not hyperbolic. It’s not alarmism. These are Trump’s own words, backed by 100 well-funded right-wing organizations at Project 2025, already drafting executive orders and training personnel to accomplish these plans.
These plans from Trump and his allies at Project 2025 culminate in an authoritarian plot that effectively turns the federal government into a tool of the far-right.
I’ve written extensively about this, discussed it on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle, and did a deep dive on the Meidas Touch Network with PoliticsGirl. Trump is on board with much of Project 2025, and it aligns with his Agenda 47.
Trump’s authoritarian impulses are not new. And some of these plans were even attempted during his first term. What makes this potential second term different and significantly more dangerous is that this time, Trump and his allies are prepared.
In an interview with MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle, TIME Magazine Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs discussed Trump’s potential second term. He made a point that I make often in this newsletter:
“It's really important for us to understand how the context around [Trump] has completely changed in the decade that he has been in our public consciousness... You can look at the courts, you look at Congress, you look at the people who are surrounding him... And when you talk about Project 2025, what we see is an intellectual and legal framework that has been developed around the former president, building an entire conception of what it would take for him to get done what he wants to get done."
Sam Jacobs is right. Unlike Trump’s first term, where he faced pushback from his own appointees and career civil servants, Trump is approaching his second term with an entirely different right-wing ecosystem behind him.
Trump now has 100 right-wing organizations at Project 2025, creating the intellectual and legal framework to accomplish his goals. They’re already screening ideologically and training thousands of loyalists. They’re also preparing executive orders so Trump can purge civil servants and then begin pursuing his authoritarian agenda.
Aside from an army of loyalists at the ready, Donald Trump has a more conservative judiciary, a 6-3 Supreme Court, and a Republican Party filled with MAGA loyalists. If he wins re-election, he’ll have far fewer guardrails. Trump didn’t know how government worked in 2017. If he takes office in 2025, he’s ready to weaponize government fully.
If Trump wins re-election, Trump’s dictatorial ravings won’t be empty threats. They’ll become concrete plans, many of which can be achieved through executive action based on the unitary executive theory that’s currently providing the basis for Trump’s authoritarian immunity claim. New York Times reporter Charlie Savage said in an episode of The Daily on Monday that he believes the Supreme Court could uphold many of Trump’s unilateral actions in a second term.
Americans should take this seriously. This is above partisanship. This election is about what kind of system we want to have in America. Do we want to shift towards a system where power can be consolidated in the hands of one unhinged man with no checks on his power? That’s what’s on the ballot in November. We shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture.
