Nikki Haley's withdrawal from the Republican primaries has effectively sealed it: Former President Donald Trump will challenge Joe Biden for the Republicans in November. There is more clarity about his plans this time than eight years ago.
“The Institutionalization of Trumpism”
The Donald Trump of 2024 is not the one of 2016: He is prepared. As erratic as Trump appears in public, representatives of many conservative lobby groups and think tanks have been working strategically for a long time in the background to create the best possible conditions for him. This includes the fight against the “Deep State” that Trump has identified. At a campaign rally last year, he shouted: “Either we destroy the 'Deep State' or it destroys us.” You have to take that literally.
There are concrete plans to transform the executive branch in the event of a second term. On the one hand, the federal administration should be significantly smaller and, on the other hand, Trump loyalists should fill positions at all levels. The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, among others, formulates what this should look like in “Project 2025”. It's about saving the country “from the grip of the left-wing radicals,” says the website. The project screens potential administrators and government employees and screens for political leanings. The goal: a database of around 20,000 Trump supporters that the president could use in case of doubt. Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts summed up the project as: the “institutionalization of Trumpism.”
With all severity against migrants
Illegal immigrants poisoned “the blood of our country.” Donald Trump has said this several times during the election campaign. He promises to take even tougher action against migrants than in his first term in office. Trump said last fall that he would carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” His staff says that millions of illegal immigrants, even if they have been living and working in the USA for decades, should be expelled from the country without a hearing and held in camps before being deported.
Trump also plans to revive the “Muslim travel ban.” After several failed attempts in court in 2017, Trump made it drastically more difficult for citizens of 13 Islamic states as well as North Korea and Venezuela to enter the country; Biden lifted the orders on the first day of his term in office. In order to reduce the number of arriving migrants, Trump wants to build “even more wall”. Stephen Miller, one of the architects of Trump's migration plans, spoke of the “most spectacular measures” to suppress migration. Many of the steps planned by decree could be challenged again in court.
No more money for Kyiv
In terms of foreign policy, Ukraine would be the first to feel the consequences of a second Trump term in office. Trump has announced that he will end American military and economic aid to Kiev. He has also said several times that he would end the war within 24 hours – he just had to meet with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. The latter called Trump's announcement “dangerous”: it would mean that Putin could keep large parts of the territories occupied in the war of aggression. The allies in Europe would effectively have their hands tied. Trump is betting that he can stop Putin, with whom he got along well, from wanting to conquer more areas of the former Soviet Union, be it Moldova or the Baltic states.
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