Why I fear the worst if Trump triumphs today

The 2024 US election is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in the country’s history. Donald Trump’s attempt to retake the White House represents the ultimate stress test of the American democratic experiment.

The January 6 insurrection should have ended Trump’s political career in 2021, but when Republicans in the Senate backed away from impeaching him, they threw a political lifeline to a man who had done so much damage to the nation’s political institutions.

A host of previous associates have come out and criticised the former President, including some of the most senior members of staff from his first term. The former chairman of the joint chiefs, retired general Mark Milley, told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is “now the most dangerous person to this country”; someone who is “fascist to the core”.

It was an assessment met with agreement by Trump’s former Secretary of Defence, General James Mattis. In a recent interview with the New York Times, General John Kelly, Trump’s longest serving Chief of Staff, said, based on his experience, Trump met the definition of a fascist and would rule the country like a dictator - 13 officials from the Trump White House signed an open letter backing that claim, joined by more than 100 former staffers and national security leaders from past Republican administrations who have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

'The enemy within'

As his campaign has progressed, Trump’s language has grown more apocalyptic and revenge-fuelled, with his rage focused on those whom he perceives to have wronged him.

He recently proposed using the military to go after “the enemy within”, a group that includes senior Democratic politicians Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. Using dehumanizing language, he has denounced his enemies as “communists, Marxists, fascists” and “radical left thugs that live like vermin”.

Despite repeated evidence of Trump’s dark and dangerous rhetoric, Republican congressman and right-wing pundits have played down these comments, untroubled by these calls for retribution against political enemies. With a compliant Supreme Court that recently legalised a blanket Presidential immunity, there are real concerns about where that retribution will lead.

Trump’s political career has revolved around portraying immigrants as enemy invaders and his campaign has taken this rhetoric to worrying levels. 

Last December, in terms that echoed Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda; he said immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”. These words have real world consequences - his lies about Haitian immigrants in Ohio stealing pets for food have led to bomb threats and a splintering of a previously integrated community.

Trump’s political resurrection is indicative of the disparate realities US citizens are living. The algorithmically led content that drives the social media business model has funnelled inflammatory content into the smartphones of voters. Conspiracy theories have flourished on these platforms; eroding the concept of an objective, shared reality.

Trump's ascension 

One of Trump’s most prominent backers is Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. Since purchasing the X platform (formerly Twitter) in 2022, Musk has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council and it has become a repository for lies and conspiracy theories. Trump and Musk have used X to push disinformation about election integrity, undermining voter’s faith in the system, and laying the groundwork for a contesting of the final result.

Trump’s ascension is also evidence of the weaknesses in a US media which has become too beholden to the greater viewership that Trump’s grotesquery generates. Traditional media outlets have normalised Trump’s extreme rhetoric; treating it as politics as usual.

The effect has been to create a kind of false equivalency between the candidates, with Harris being held to a much higher standard than Trump. Details of her policy plans have been parsed by journalists whilst Trump’s campaign platform has little content beyond insults, threats, and appeals to nativism.

Trump’s effect on international security must also be considered. He has regularly questioned the validity of NATO, suggesting in February he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO country that was “delinquent” as it had “failed to pay” its dues.

He has repeatedly disparaged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, criticizing his calls for further funding assistance from the US government; mockingly referring to him as “the greatest salesman in history”. Indeed, it is notable that his most venomous comments are spared for his fellow US and international allies. Authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are spoken of in far more respectful and glowing terms.

There are genuine concerns Trump would offer Ukrainian territory to Russia via a hastily constructed peace deal, thereby encouraging Putin to set his sights on other post-Soviet states like Moldova and Poland.

Objectively, the Biden Administration should have planned a successor the moment he was sworn in in January, 2021. The short time frame since Harris was announced as Democratic nominee has made it difficult for her to define what her administration would look like.

She has promised to be a president for all Americans and to reach across the political aisle. Should she emerge victorious, much work needs to be done to make real positive change in the lives of US citizens, too many of whom feel the system is rigged against them.

There are ongoing issues with the cost of living, access to healthcare, and a lack of jobs. A Harris administration must also focus on healing the deep divisions in the country.

The choice for America could not be more stark – sober competence or impulsive instability. A second Trump presidency would further pit Americans against each other. A Harris Presidency could create the space for citizens to re-engage positively with the political system; to see each other as fellow Americans and not as the enemy within.