What Would a Second Trump Term Look Like?

by Rod Williams, Dec. 11, 2024- If you have not drank the Trump Kool-Aid and are not concerned about the dangers of a Trump second term, you are not paying attention.  A Trump second term will be much different than Trump's first term. I was relatively pleased with the Trump policies of his first term and certainly pleased with his Supreme Court picks.  I did not vote for Trump in 2016 but did in 2020. While I disliked the chaos, and mean tweets, and hateful rhetoric, Trump governed pretty much like a Republican. It was not until his attempted coup that I really soured on Trump.

In Trump's first term, there was no deep field of experienced Trump supporters from which to choose for key positions in the admirations. He had to rely on traditional Republicans for White House staff and cabinet level positions.  These were people who believed in the rule of law.  He was surrounded by people like Jeff Sessions and William Barr, who would tell the president, "We can't do that." "It's not legal."  Also, there were advisors who would explain to the president that it would actually be dangerous to pull troops out of South Korea and Germany. Trump had people around him who would provide wise counsel and people who would moderate his worst impulses.

In his second term, Trump will surround himself with nothing but loyalist and yes men. Trump respects nothing but loyalty.  He has even turned against his picks for the Supreme Court because they ruled against him in one of his challenges to the 2020 election. He has also turned against The Federalist Society. 

We cannot expect a Mike Pense who will stand up to the president and refuse to help him overturn the results of an election, in a second Trump term.  We can expect people like Roger Stone and Steve Bannon to fill critical positions.  When running for president in 2016, Trump told people he would be their voice; now he says he will be their retribution.  

I urge you to watch the above video. Bill Krystal interviews Jonathan Karl, the author of Tired of Winning. Krystal was the founder and of the political conservative magazine The Weekly Standard and is now editor-at-large of the conservative on-line publication The Bulwark. Over the years he has worked for several conservative think tanks. 

Jonathan Karl has known Donald Trump since his days as a New York Post reporter in the 1990s, and he covered every day of Trump’s administration as ABC News’s chief White House correspondent. Karl makes the case that from his exile in Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump has become more extreme, vengeful, and divorced from reality than he was on January 6, 2021.

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