Monday, December 2, 2024
Urban Planning

Predictions for Trump 2.0

While all sane people I know are losing sleep over the horrifying prospects of a second Trump presidency, not a day goes by, it seems, without another reputed sexual predator being floated as a cabinet pick.

Here are some of my predictions for the second Trump term. I’ll note that I’m wrong quite frequently, but I’d like to think this is a bit outside of the realm of noisy discourse around the topic of “everything will be awful, forever.”

 

Trump unconditionally pardons the January 6th insurrectionists.

This has been a hallmark of the campaign– talking about how the January 6th, 2021 insurrection, a day that shall forever live in infamy, was a love fest. The main complaint was the USCP’s defensive shooting of a radicalized QAnon extremist who was trying to break into the Speaker’s lobby. Much of the right wing was disgusted with the actions of Trump-backed rioters on January 6th, including members of Trump’s own cabinet and administration, who resigned in protest (symbolically, as they were on their way out of office, and, frankly, too little, too late).

But, it turns out, not disgusted enough.

To the far right, the date represents the time when “we showed those people who’s boss.” It showed mostly that the far right not only doesn’t respect things like the rule of law or even the notion of the peaceful transition of power, but that they respect only the expression of power. Unless, you know, it’s police officers shooting defensively against right-wing extremist rioters.

But “back the blue,” right?

The cognitive dissonance is leaving a ringing in our ears.

Truly extraordinary.

The DOJ’s relentless prosecution of rioters who, well, committed federal crimes by breaking into a federal building and assaulting police officers, among other things, has become yet another rallying cry for the folks in Trumpworld to complain about the justice department being “weaponized” against “political dissenters.”

For a point of historical comparison, the Nazis made the same complaints after many of them got locked up in an unsuccessful coup attempt. What’s less clear to me whether these folks will continue on some campaign of terror or go back to living in their respective mothers’ basements. Ask neonazi Nick Fuentes, who was recently doxxed after posting on Twitter, “your body, my choice. Forever.”

 

Trump attempts to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, also with disastrous consequences.

As I teach in a construction management program, we are always talking about how significant the labor shortage is for the construction industry. It’s especially ironic, given how the same construction industry complaining about the labor shortage is also substantially populated by major Trump voices.

In other words, if you think it’s bad now, wait til you lose percentage points of the entire labor market.

There are, of course, serious questions about this, including from the American military itself

 

Trump attempts to eliminate the impartiality of the Federal Reserve Bank, with disastrous consequences (or an inability to get it done in the first place.

Kai Ryssdal, the host of Marketplace on NPR, featured a guest the other day talking about Trump’s musings on basically exerting complete control over the Federal Reserve Bank. The guest pointed out that the Fed’s independence– as an entity that operates under the authorization of Congress but as an independent federal agency that is neither part of the legislative, executive, judicial, or “fourth branch” of the regulatory State- is vital to its success and its power.

I have read a lot of critiques of the Fed. Many of them are poorly structured– like G. Edward Griffin’s batshit tinfoil hat musings (one of the only audiobooks I have ever “returned” because of how bizarre it was). Or my favorite one on my eschatologically-obsessed evangelical father-in-law’s bookshelf: “On The Horns of the Beast: The Federal Reserve Bank and the New World Order.”

Critiques aside, one thing that the Fed does enjoy alongside the receiving of constant ire is a substantial amount of independence. This, the speaker argued, was part of the fed’s major value– the ability to advance monetary policy independently based on data, analysis, and planning for long-term stability of the monetary supply, capital markets, and the economy at large, including the international economy, which is substantially dependent upon a strong integration with the American economy to enable the flow of goods, services, and bucks. Trump has continually bragged about how he could fire Jerome Powell and replace him with someone more compliant.

The American economy is pretty strong. But the question is whether it is strong enough to withstand an intentional effort to completely dismantle the independence of the Federal Reserve Bank, whose decision-making has tectonic implications for the flow of all manner of capital across bond markets, debt markets, consumer credit markets, and international trade.

Trump attempts to hand Eastern Ukraine to Russia.

Among a shocking number of many of my leftist colleagues, there’s this sentiment that the Ukraine war could easily end if Ukraine would just hand Russia the eastern portion of the country. They argue that it doesn’t matter– it’s just the Donbass! The war, according to many clad in the tinfoil hat fashion of the day, is mostly a conspiracy of liberals to line their pockets, because, they allege, of the dubious connections between Burisma and Hunter Biden. (Hunter Biden, a private citizen who has been endlessly investigated with no evidence of criminal wrongdoing other than his crack addiction and a gun charge— which, you know, should make him pretty popular among the Republican Party?). Handing over the Donbass might or might not be acceptable to Russia. It is certainly not acceptable to Ukrainians, who want to keep their country intact.

It’s remarkable how quickly the Republican platform can go from “nationalism is good! Strong borders are good!” to “fuck these people, it’s not our problem.” It’s also remarkable how many of these same Republicans cheered on the wars in Iraq and told everyone they weren’t patriotic if they didn’t fall in line. Oh, and Afghanistan. And Vietnam.

[singing, from the birthday song] and many more.

The war is going pretty terribly for Russia, but it’s also not going great for Ukraine. Ukraine has been able to inflict, according to most estimates, a disproportionate amount of damages (in terms of casualties but also damage of military hardware) on Russia, but at a huge cost in terms of loss of life and little to show for gained territory, plus broad destruction of large portions of a number of cities and critical infrastructure. The country is substantially dependent upon procuring foreign military aid, ranging from sophisticated munitions (that employ thousands of hardworking Americans to build, in states that gleefully voted for Donald Trump) to basic ammunition.

But hey, fuck NATO, right? That’s what the guy is ostensibly about. Dismantling well-established alliances. Disruptive innovation, his fans might call it.

The return of Trump is marked by the removal of gloves in demanding the dismantling of the federal government, and the promises of revenge.

Trump fails to finish his second term.

Between the slurring of words, the mixing up of names, and the general increase in incoherence by the former President, plus the fact that he will be the oldest president ever having taken office, it seems thoroughly unlikely that he could finish a second term. This gives us President Vance. JD Vance has fashioned himself as the heir apparent by his general sycophancy to Trump, a man he once described as the American Hitler. This implies that Vance’s key interest here is in nothing other than power.

It seems as though Vance has undergone a substantial rightward shift, although what is less clear is whether this is mostly posturing to cop the Trump vote.

Perhaps the disappointing uncertainty at the end of this post is the fact that none of us actually knows how much he’ll be able to get done. It seems as though the dude got his whole party to fall into lockstep with anything he wanted for four years. While this was limited by the Republicans losing control of Congress in 2018, they now have a majority in Congress including a substantial majority in the Senate.

It’s not clear what specific horrors await, but if he is actually able to do anything he says he’s going to do, well, God help us.

Nat M. Zorach

Nat M. Zorach, AICP, MBA, is a city planner and energy professional based in Detroit, where he writes about infrastructure, sustainability, tech, and more. A native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he attended Grinnell College in Iowa, the Kogod School of Business at American University, the POCACITO transatlantic program, the SISE program at the University of Illinois Chicago, and he is also a StartingBloc Social Innovation Fellow. He enjoys long walks through historic, disinvested Rust Belt neighborhoods at sunset. (Nat's views and opinions are his own and do not represent those of his employer).

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