All of us who write about politics are writing these “what if he wins” pieces. It’s terrifying. I truly believe that his administration will implement as much of Project 2025 as he can get away with because he doesn’t ever have to face the voters again. (Either he will leave under the normal constitutional order or he’ll suspend elections and stay past his term under some BS emergency order.) He would also be unshackled by the rule of law now that the Supremes have given him immunity. Combined with his obviously degraded mental state and bitterness over his loss in 2020 and the legal consequences of his criminal behavior, he’s going to be on a mission.
Rolling Stone’s entry into this genre has some chilling quotes that I haven’t head before:
It was the second year of his presidency, and Trump was seething about gang members and drug lords. He wanted to see their bodies piled up in the streets. Specifically, he sought a series of mass executions — with firing squads and gallows, and certainly without the quaintness of an appeals process — to send a chilling message about the scope of his power.
Trump, who’d taken office inveighing against “American carnage,” wanted to create some of his own.
This violent fantasy became an obsession, according to former Trump administration officials. The 45th president brought up the topic so often during the early years of his presidency that one former White House official tells Rolling Stone they lost count. “Fucking kill them all,” Trump would say. “An eye for an eye.” Other times he’d snap at his staff: “You just got to kill these people.” Invoking the brutality of dictatorial regimes that Trump wanted to emulate, he’d add, “Other countries do it all the time.”
For Trump, the spectacle was crucial. “He had a particular affinity for the firing squad,” says one of the former White House officials. He’d say, “They need to be eradicated, not jailed.” Administration officials privately referred to this demand as Trump’s “American death-squads idea,” comparing it to the drug-war bloodbath carried out by Filipino strongman Rodrigo Duterte. (The sources, some still very much within Trump’s circle, requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about sensitive conversations.)
“Other countries do it all the time.” In his mind that means he shouTld be able to do it too. This is because he has no morals, principles or respect for democracy and the constitution. He is a monster.
Apparently, almost half the country either thinks he’s all talk (which, considering what he’s talking about, should still disqualify him) or they like what he’s saying. That’s a flashing red warning for our freedom.