The horrible truth is, Donald J Trump is back.
After winning against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, he is once again the president-elect of the United States. He will return to the White House this coming January, exactly four years after he incited an insurrection to remain there after losing the 2020 election. This will make him only the second man in history to serve nonconsecutive terms as US president (the other one was 19th-century Democrat Grover Cleveland). He is also on track to become the first Republican to win the popular vote in a presidential election in 20 years.
Trump has been impeached, faced multiple criminal trials and received felony convictions, but, in the end, none of this mattered to his supporters.
He has made one of the most stunning political comebacks in American history.
All this means that the world will not only witness a repeat of his first term in power. There is also every reason to believe, once back in office, he will build an administration much more oppressive, racist and consequential than the one he led in 2017-2021.
Trump’s second inauguration on January 20 will unleash a far-right, semi-autocratic regime, and an assault on what remains of representative democracy in the US on a federal level.
A few weeks before the election, Trump provided his fact-free version of an American past as his vision for the nation’s future.
“You know, our country in the 1890s was … probably the wealthiest it ever was, because it was a system of tariffs,” he said. “And we had a president – you know McKinley, right? He was really a very good businessman, and he took in billions of dollars at the time.”
Forget the fact that William McKinley didn’t become president until 1897. And never mind that then-US Representative McKinley helped lead the US into the Panic of 1893 – one of the most severe financial crises in US history – as his tariffs bill hurt the economy in the middle of a 20-year period of economic stagnation for most Americans.
What is important here is that Trump seems to view this period in American history – marked by extreme poverty, unchecked racist violence and widespread suffering at home and abroad – as a prime example of lost American greatness.
Trump’s plan for the US centres around old-style laissez-faire economics, isolationism, and white male supremacy – a real attempt at bringing the US back to the 1890s.
On the foreign policy front, Trump 2.0 will see an exacerbation of existing policies that already proved destructive and costly.
The first presidential term of Trump, and that of Joe Biden after him, were marked by an insistent refusal by Washington to engage in any effort to uphold international law and defend the rules-based order the US helped build after World War II. Under Trump 2.0, this purposeful disengagement, which had horrific consequences across the world, will intensify into a new era of American isolationism, and likely pave the way for new conflicts and power struggles.
Trump has hinted that, as president, he would not support Ukraine in its ongoing war effort against Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him because I feel very badly for those people. But he should never have let that war start. The war’s a loser,” Trump recently said in reference to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s war-time president. There are widespread fears that Trump’s reluctance to back Ukraine in this war could lead to losses on the battlefield and on the diplomatic front that could prove devastating not only for Ukraine, but the security and stability of all its European neighbours.
And when it comes to Palestine, Trump appears in favour of giving Israel even more freedom to continue with its genocide than Biden, who did next to nothing to try and stop the carnage. “I’m glad that Bibi decided to do what he had to do” despite Biden’s attempts to restrain him, Trump said last month in reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, supposedly to defeat Hamas in Gaza.
This non-interventionist approach will likely embolden rogue regimes across the world to end any pretence of adherence to international law and the liberal order. Trump 2.0 will usher in a new era of renewed devastation to nations and communities already suffering from conflict and overall geopolitical instability.
On the economic front, Trump says he will introduce higher tariffs on goods from China and other nations, all in an effort, supposedly, to help the US economy. Except in this era of globalisation, such tariffs will likely have a chilling effect on US finances. At least one study on Trump’s tariffs plan suggests that, if the policy is implemented, the median income of Americans would drop between two and four percent and unemployment will rise, particularly in the manufacturing sector. There would also likely be a global economic ripple effect, causing higher inflation rates, stock market volatility, and trade wars.
Domestically, he will eagerly implement the Heritage Foundation’s much-feared Project 2025, and use it as a blueprint to ensure that the US remains a safe haven for unbridled, corrupt capitalism and the rich white men and megacorporations who benefit from such corruption.
Meanwhile, the marginalised groups Trump identified during his campaign as America’s enemies – undocumented immigrants, Arab and Muslim Americans, transgender folks, among others – will face increased oppression and discrimination. Once again, white male supremacy will openly become the law of the land.
“We will get them out of our country. I will ban refugee resettlement from terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip, and we will seal our border and bring back the travel ban,” Trump said at an event marking the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 terror attack on Israel, referring to his infamous “Muslim ban”.
In 2017, Trump directed his threats of deportation and entry bans specifically at people from Muslim-majority countries who he called “jihadists”. But throughout his 2024 campaign, he made it clear, over and over again, that his ambition is to deport and ban all undocumented migrants, and any other brown and Black migrant and refugee he can, whether they are from Central and South America, the Caribbean, Africa or the Middle East.
Under Trump 2.0, with Republicans likely controlling both chambers of the US Congress, American women will face increased reproductive repression. A national abortion ban will be within reach, one that Trump said should start at 15 weeks into any pregnancy. Regulatory limits on access to contraception will also be a likely scenario. Transgender folks, meanwhile, can expect legislation that would ban federal dollars being used for gender-affirming healthcare, and even threaten doctors with criminal action for providing such care.
The entire structure of the federal civil service will also face significant threats. Under Project 2025, Trump and Congress would eliminate the US Department of Education (DOE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They would privatise the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the National Flood Insurance Program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the federal housing loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and all federally subsidised student loans.
Trump himself has said that he would go after leading government officials personally after he takes the oath of office on January 20. “Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump said last month about special counsel Jack Smith.
Smith has been prosecuting the now president-elect for the January 6 insurrection and the mishandling of classified documents since 2023. Smith is not the only official in Trump’s crosshairs. According to NPR, Trump has issued more than 100 threats to his opponents, including Vice President Kamala Harris and former US Representative Liz Cheney.
Trump will now be able to get away from his conviction in New York, his various trials and lawsuits across the US, and his debts in the US and abroad, possibly even through pardoning himself for all his actions since 2016.
Make no mistake. Trump’s upcoming second term in office will see efforts at all levels to remake the US into a conservative, evangelical, capitalist-theocracy. The coming four years will be marked by persecution, oppression, retribution, and needless death from forced pregnancies, mass deportations, nonsensical public health decisions, and preventable wars.
America is going back to Trump. The US and the world should be prepared for the second coming of Trump and the new global order he will try to create. The world should prepare, and resist.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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