What If Trump Wins?

 What If Trump Wins?

In November, the convicted felon Donald Trump will be on the ballot in every state as the presidential candidate of the Republican Party. All people of good will hope and pray that President Biden will defeat him. It wwould be better if Biden crushed him so that there was no doubt that the American voters had rejected Trumpism. But, tragically, there is the possibility that Trump will win. He doesn’t have to win a majority of the votes nationwide to do it. He didn’t win that majority in 2016. He became president only because of our anti-democratic electoral college system that gives disproportionate electoral weight to the citizens of small population states. We should all be terrified that he could do it again.

Maybe he won’t. I pray that he won’t. But I must also assert that it is not too early for us to start to plan for what we will do if he wins. There are various scenarios under which he wins. He could win the presidency but lost control of both houses of Congress. He could win the presidency and lose control of one house of Congress but retain control of the other. If he fails to gain control of at least one house of Congress, his ability to damage American democracy, which is something he does want to damage, actually wants to destroy, will be limited; but he will still control the entire executive branch of the federal government. He will have to have his nominees for many of the positions within that branch confirmed by the Senate, so who controls the Senate really matters. If the Democrats control the Senate, they could pledge themselves never to approve a Trump appointment to a position of responsibility in the government of a person who wants to destroy the functioning of the institution for which he or she has been nominated rather than to run that agency for the benefit of the American people. They could do the same thing with Trump’s judicial appointments. Sadly, the Senate Democrats have a lousy record of approving unqualified judicial candidates. They tend to roll over, play dead, and confirm whoever the president wants. Under a Trump presidency, that would absolutely have to change. I don’t have much confidence that it would, and Trump could get around the constitutional provision for Senate confirmation by appointing “acting” cabinet secretaries and never submit to the Senate for confirmation. Thus, even if the Democrats control the Senate after the November election, their ability to stop the damage Trump will set out to do to American democracy would still exist to some extent, but it probably would not be a major obstacle for Trump to overcome.

Here’s the nightmare situation. Trump wins the presidency. MAGA Republicans, who will do whatever Trump tells them to do, win control of both houses of Congress. There are vacancies on the Supreme Court. Trump would nominate unqualified MAGA flunkies, and the MAGA controlled Senate would confirm them, putting the Supreme Court even more under Trump’s control than it is today. Trump could then do what he says he will do. He could, and would. politicize the Department of Justice. He could stop the implementation of all environmental regulations. He could institute fascist policies at the Mexican border. He could pull the US out of NATO. He could and would do whatever Vladimir Putin told him to do. Trump would be able to go a long way toward establishing the fascist regime that he wants to head so that he can rule the country essentially single handedly.

What then would those of us who understand what a threat to our nation that Trump poses do? I wish I had a better answer to that question. I will never advocate violence, so there must be nonviolent ways of limiting what Trump could do. This country has a long history of nonviolent civil disobedience in opposition to injustice. Perhaps millions of Americans would have the courage to put their bodies in the way of the operation of Trump’s fascism. They would have to be willing to pay the price of doing so. Trump might have armed people who would beat them and even kill them. They would have to be willing to go to jail. The Civil Rights Movement’s nonviolent campaign for justice eventually succeeded, at least to some extent; it had its share of martyrs, of people who died for their participation in that campaign. How many Americans would be willing to die as part of an effort to thwart Trump’s fascism? I fear not enough.

What else could we do? Refuse to pay taxes? That wouldn’t stop him, he’d just put the country farther in debt. Leave the country en masse? Many of us would like to leave, but where would we go? And how would that stop Trump? This, I think, is why I’m so scared of Trump taking control of the federal government. There really is nothing we could do. I don’t mean we shouldn’t try. I don’t mean we shouldn’t demonstrate against Trump and his regime without end. I don’t mean we should give up on supporting anti-Trump politicians. Not at all. It’s just that I fear that the MAGA movement is too strong. Too many people vote Republican out of habit, and the Republican Party is nothing like what it used to be. I’ll end by saying what I’ve said before: Heaven help us!