In the spring of 1989, the Chinese Communist Party used tanks and troops to quell a pro-democracy demonstration in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Most of the West was horrified by the offensive that left at least hundreds of student activists dead. But one prominent American was impressed.
“When students flocked to Tiananmen Square, the government almost ruined it,” Donald J. Trump told Playboy magazine the year after the massacre. “Then they were ruthless and terrible, but they controlled it tightly. “That shows you the power of the force.”
It was an inconsequential phrase in an interview that covered many topics, granted to a journalist who was writing a profile of a 43-year-old businessman and celebrity who at that time was not participating in politics. But Given what Trump has become, his glorification of the repression of democratic protesters is steeped in foreshadowing.
Trump's violent rhetoric as he campaigns for the US Presidency has drawn comparisons to historical fascist dictators and contemporary populist autocrats. Facing four criminal trials, he could appear more dangerous to American-style democracy than he did in his first term. But he has decades of glorifying political violence and speaking admiringly of autocrats. AND During his four years in the White House, Trump violated democratic norms.
What would be different in a second Trump Administration is not so much his character, but his environment. The forces that somewhat contained his autocratic tendencies in his first term would be weaker. As a result, the most extreme ideas of Trump and his advisers would have a greater chance of becoming reality.
No US president before him had toyed with the idea of withdrawing from NATO, the Western military alliance. Trump said he would fundamentally reevaluate “the purpose of NATO and the mission of NATO” in a second term.
He has said he would order the Army to attack drug cartels in Mexico, which would violate international law, unless the Mexican government authorizes it.
Their plans to get rid of undocumented immigrants include extensive raids, huge detention camps, deportations on a scale of millions per year, suspending asylum, attempting to end birthright citizenship for babies of undocumented parents, and using troops as immigration agents. .
More than anything, Trump's promise to use the Justice Department to exact revenge on his adversaries is a blatant challenge to democratic values. Coupled with the way he tried to get prosecutors to go after his enemies during his Presidency, it would end the decades-long norm of having investigations independent of White House control.
In all of these efforts, Trump would be supported in a second term by a well-funded external infrastructure. New conservative think tanks led by veterans of the Trump Administration have emerged. A coalition has been drawing up “EU First”-style policy plans.
While in office, Trump flouted democratic norms. He gave his daughter and son-in-law jobs in the White House despite an anti-nepotism law. He used emergency powers to spend more money than Congress authorized on a border wall.
However, some of his potentially most serious transgressions failed to materialize. Trump pressured the Justice Department to prosecute his adversaries. The department opened several investigative files, including an attempt to find a basis for charging Hillary Clinton with crimes connected to the origins of the Russia investigation. But prosecutors did not file those charges.
And his impeachment efforts were unsuccessful. Trump sought to subvert his 2020 election loss and fueled the Capitol riot, but Vice President Mike Pence and congressional majorities rejected his attempt to stay in power.
There is reason to believe that various strongholds that limited Trump in his first term would be absent in another.
Four years of his appointments created an entrenched Republican supermajority on the Supreme Court that would likely now side with him in some cases he lost, such as the June 5-4, 2020 decision that prevented him from ending a program that protects against deportation of certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children and were raised as Americans.
Republicans in Congress were often complicit and enablers. But some key Republicans in Congress occasionally denounced his rhetoric or curbed his most disruptive proposals. In 2017, then-Senator John McCain cast the deciding vote against Trump's effort to repeal a law that makes health insurance coverage widely available.
Republicans in Congress are likely to be even more malleable in a second Trump term. The party has grown accustomed to Trump's willingness to cross boundaries, and even views it with enthusiasm. And Trump has worn down, outlasted, intimidated into submission or ousted key Republican lawmakers who take independent stances and have demonstrated the occasional willingness to oppose him.
McCain, who was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, died in 2018. Former Rep. Liz Cheney, who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and helped lead the committee that investigated those events, he lost his seat to a pro-Trump opponent in the primary elections.
Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and the only Republican Senator to vote to find Trump guilty in his first impeachment trial for trying to force Ukraine to open a criminal investigation against Hunter Biden by depriving the country of military aid , has announced his retirement.
After Trump left the Presidency, there were many proposals to codify into law democratic norms that he violated. Ideas included tightening limits on presidents' use of emergency powers and making it harder to abuse their pardon power and authority over prosecutors.
In December 2021, when Democrats still controlled the House of Representatives, many of these proposals were approved. But the initiative died in the Senate.
The debate in the House of Representatives was largely based on a premise that reduced its urgency: Trump was no longer there. Republicans dismissed the bill as a strike against Trump.
“Donald Trump—unfortunately—is no longer President,” said Arkansas Representative Rick Crawford. “It's time to stop living in the past.”
CHARLIE SAVAGE, JONATHAN SWAN AND MAGGIE HABERMAN. THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/us/politics/trump-2025-overview.html, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-12-14 19:40:07
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