Donald Trump’s Second Term: A Promise of Retribution or a Return to Normalcy?
As the 2020 presidential election approaches, former President Donald Trump and his allies have made it clear that if he is re-elected, he will use federal law enforcement to punish his political enemies and restructure the federal government to streamline implementation of his policies. This has caused a sharp divide among Republicans, with some raising an alarm and others downplaying Trump’s rhetoric, suggesting that concerns about it are overblown.
Trump has promised his supporters that he will be their “retribution” if he retakes the White House, and has used language reminiscent of the worst of European fascism in the 1930s and 1940s, calling his political opponents “vermin” and warning that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the United States. He has also expressed interest in reclassifying broad swaths of the federal workforce — tens of thousands of career civil servants — as “Schedule F” employees whom he could fire at will.
Trump’s closest supporters have echoed his threats. In an interview with former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon, Kash Patel, a former Defense Department official during the Trump administration, said that in a second Trump term, “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media … Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”
When asked in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity if he had any plans to abuse power, break the law, or use the government to go after people, Trump replied, “You mean like they’re using right now?” and did not answer the question.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie painted a dire picture of what he thinks another Trump presidency would look like during the Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday. “This is an angry, bitter man who now wants to be back as president because he wants to exact retribution on anyone who has disagreed with him, anyone who has tried to hold him to account for his own conduct, and every one of these policies that he’s talking about are about pursuing a plan of retribution,” Christie said.
Utah Senator and 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney has also expressed his concerns, telling The Washington Post this week that Trump’s base seems to want him to behave like an authoritarian. “His base loves the authoritarian streak,” Romney said. “I think they love the idea that he may use the military in domestic matters, and that he will seek revenge and retribution. That’s why he’s saying it and has the lock, nearly, on the Republican nomination.”
Former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney has been a vocal critic of Trump and served on the House panel that investigated the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. She told CBS News last weekend that she has no doubts about what a second Trump presidency would look like. “One of the things that we see happening today is sort of sleepwalking into a dictatorship in the United States,” she said.
Current Republican officeholders who are supportive of the former president often downplay his suggestion that he will use the levers of governmental power to punish his critics. During Wednesday’s debate, for example, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dismissed concerns about Trump behaving as an authoritarian during a second term. “Look, the media’s making a big deal about what he said about some of these comments,” he said. “I would just remind people that is not how he governed.”
Senator Lindsey Graham has said publicly he believes Trump’s comments to Hannity were meant to be “funny.” In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Graham disputed Cheney’s assertions about how Trump will behave in office, saying they stem from her personal animosity toward the former president.
“I think a continuation of the Biden presidency would be a disaster for peace and prosperity at home and abroad,” Graham said. “Our border is broken. The only person who is really going to fix a broken border is Donald Trump. When he was president, none of this stuff was going on in Ukraine. Hamas and all these other terrorist groups were afraid of Trump.”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University and author of “Strongmen:
