I read the Time magazine, How Far Trump Would Go, interview with the former president and presumptive Republican nominee for President and am afraid.
I am afraid for our republic, our democracy, and our way of life and the world. I am afraid for anyone who is non-white and who does not conform to the narrow, evangelical christian fueled, vision that this man has for America. Actually, it is clear that he has no vision for America other than his self-aggrandizement. The opening paragraph of the article lays out the major concerns. It reads as follows:
What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.
Later in the article the impact of a Trump presidency was summed up as follows:
Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”
My bottom line is that everyone needs to read this summary of the interviews and decide for themselves whether they want an imperial presidency or whether the president should be the ultimate servant of the people and leader of the free world.
-- Bob Doan, Odenton, MD
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