Chuck Darwin<p>Does a second term for Donald Trump represent an existential threat to American democracy?</p><p>Even for those fortunate Americans outside of the Trump cult of personality, some are skeptical. </p><p>Some of that skepticism, perhaps, comes from focusing on the outcome of the January 6 insurrection rather than on the full sweep of Trump’s attempt to overturn the results for two months before it was stopped in Congress that night. </p><p>And some of the skepticism, for well-meaning individuals like Shadi Hamid, is a diehard faith in American institutions, a faith they feel was vindicated by Trump’s failure to end democracy then. </p><p>Of course, the legal community was nearly united in its assumption that Trump's immunity claim had no basis in law at all, <br>and the Supreme Court surprised them. </p><p>⭐️Who knows how they will surprise us when Trump 🔸inevitably 🔸challenges the result of an election on some equally invented grounds. </p><p>It is odd to still have an unyielding faith in the face of such an enormous uncertainty.</p><p>But more than trying to convince you of how Trump might go about it, what I really want to say to those of you who are still open to the idea that the threat is greater than you suppose, is this:</p><p>💥He will try.💥</p><p>He tried then, and if given the opportunity, he will try again. </p><p>Moreover, if he wins we may find in hindsight that defeating him in 2020 only to reelect him in 2024 was the worst possible sequence of events. </p><p>The efforts of 2017–2021 were haphazard, poorly thought out and disorganized, <br>but there was a significant degree of learning on the part of those few stable figures in Trump’s inner circle such as Stephen Miller. </p><p>And a four-year break allowed time to process what was learned and formulate a less haphazard approach; </p><p>most famously, though not at all exclusively, <br>seen in <a href="https://c.im/tags/Project2025" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Project2025</span></a>.</p><p>But even setting all that aside, <br>even assuming that his odds of success in 2025 will be no higher than they were in 2017, <br>any reasoning person must concede: </p><p>♦️he will try.♦️</p><p>A <a href="https://c.im/tags/mass" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>mass</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/expulsion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>expulsion</span></a> on the scale of 15–20 million people would be, bar none, the largest in the history of the world. </p><p>Even if Trump’s people only manage to hit a quarter of their goal, the result will be 🔸human suffering and death on an enormous scale. 🔸</p><p>The path to hitting <a href="https://c.im/tags/deportations" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>deportations</span></a> of that level would necessarily involve significant weakening of the very safeguards that Hamid and others were banking on protecting our system of free and fair elections.</p><p>🔥He will try. 🔥</p><p>And even a partial failure would be a humanitarian catastrophe, <br>and break many of our already battered institutions.</p><p>Is it worth it? </p><p>For what?</p><p>Do not promote false equivalences. </p><p>Do not pretend there is some symmetry of risk here.</p><p>And do turn out to vote the entire Democratic ticket, <br>no matter what state you live in.</p><p>⭐️He will try, so you had better.⭐️</p><p><a href="https://www.liberalcurrents.com/he-will-try/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">liberalcurrents.com/he-will-tr</span><span class="invisible">y/</span></a></p>