Trump Didn't Destroy America the First Time, So Logically We Should Let Him Try Again
Maybe this is a "three strikes you're out" situation
Concern about what Trump might do in a second term is usually met with the same rejoinder: “He was already president, and the worst didn’t happen.” Like all devilish arguments, this one contains an atom of truth — the worst things that people feared might happen didn’t happen. Of course, that’s partly because resistance liberals set the bar for “the worst things people feared” impossibly high; we basically ran a Manhattan Project in which our brightest minds developed exciting new theories about why we should spend morning, noon, and night pissing our pants.
The “it wasn’t a disaster last time” logic drives me insane. If you dodge a bullet, it doesn’t follow that bullets are therefore not dangerous. Here are some syllogisms that I consider analogous to the logic that Trump supporters deploy to wave away concerns about a second term:
Not every kid who ate paint chips died, therefore you should feed your child a steady diet of paint chips.
A plane once hit the Empire State Building, but the building didn’t fall, so it is good to fly airplanes into buildings in New York.
Germany tried to conquer Europe twice but failed both times, so we should let those loveable goofballs keep trying — it’ll be like Elmer Fudd trying to catch Bugs Bunny!
The worst didn’t happen with Trump because our institutions held strong. But let’s be clear: Trump absolutely did try to violate norms, ethics, and even the law. Thankfully, people in his administration thwarted his unlawful ambitions. Many of these events didn’t make headlines due to the old truism that a truck not on fire isn’t news. But — to continue the metaphor — Trump doused several trucks with gasoline only to have his lighter snatched away at the last minute. Let’s recall a few of the lower-profile incidents.
Trump did try to “lock up” Hillary Clinton. He hounded his Attorney General Jeff Sessions about it, telling him he’d be a “hero” if he investigated Clinton. Trump eventually got Sessions to appoint an attorney to investigate other alleged Clinton wrongdoing (remember Uranium One?), and that investigation found nothing. Trump tried to use his office to jail Hillary Clinton; he failed because people around him weren’t willing to turn the Justice Department into a den of thugs that would make Tony Soprano’s Bada Bing! club look like a legitimate enterprise.
Trump tried to fire Robert Mueller. He told White House counsel Don McGahn to call Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and tell him that Mueller had conflicts of interest and had to go. Trump thinks that what he did was fine because he didn’t use the word “fire”, apparently confusing the U.S. penal code with the game Taboo. Trump later tried to distance himself from the event by contending that he’s loathe to fire people, saying “I’m a student of history. I see what you get when you fire people and it’s not good.” So, Trump’s defense is plausible as long as you forget that he’s fired scores of people, he used to have a TV show on which he would famously fire people, and his catchphrase is “you’re fired.”
Trump tried to use the presidency to punish news outlets he didn’t like. When Trump cheered the Justice Department’s effort to block AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner — which owns CNN — it initially wasn’t clear whether: 1) Trump had suddenly formed strong opinions about the Sherman Antitrust Act, or 2) He was trying to fuck over a TV network he didn’t like. It later came out that, shockingly, the second factor was Trump’s motivation: He had told National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn to push the DOJ to file the suit. Cohn reportedly told Chief of Staff John Kelly “Don’t you fucking dare call the Justice Department,” probably because he understood that if Trump could use the executive branch to punish his enemies, Cohn would soon find himself delivering a flaming bag of dog shit to Rosie O’Donnell’s doorstep.
Trump reportedly called representative Mo Brooks multiple times in 2021 and asked him to “rescind” the 2020 election, remove Joe Biden from office, and hold a new vote. Brooks told Trump that was “was not a legal option, period.” Brooks was correct, though other acceptable answers include “are you crazy?”, “that sounds like a coup”, and “what kind of dumbass West Wing fan fiction have you been reading?” It’s also not clear why Trump thought a random House member could call new elections, so we can’t rule out the possibility that Trump also called mayors, city comptrollers, and junior high vice principals asking them to rescind the vote.
These incidents, incredibly, are B-sides in the Trump Abuse of Power Discography. And some people will look at them and think “See: The system works.” And, yes, the system did (basically) work.1 Of course, you could also load a walrus onto a crowded elevator, watch the elevator plunge 100 stories only to be stopped at the last second by the elevator’s emergency brakes, and say “See: Elevator safety works.” But I would argue that wrong lesson to learn from that incident is that shoving walruses onto elevators is fine and we should do it all the time.
Only about half2 of Trump’s cabinet officials support him for president. CNN recently published a collection of quotes from Trump’s former administration officials, and it reads like a compendium of the bitchiest put-downs from a 9th-grader’s slam book. Trump says this is standard grumbling from disgruntled officials, but it’s not. What typically happens when an administration leaves office is that the Junior Undersecretary for Inconsequential Bullshit writes a score-settling book that’s a transparent attempt to launch their vodka brand and/or OnlyFans account. What’s happening now is that Trump’s first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff just called him “fascist to the core.” This is not run-of-the-mill pettiness; this is a stark warning from the people who know Trump best.
Enormous credit should go to the administration officials who refused to break the law on Trump’s behalf. First among them, of course, is Mike Pence, who deserves a spot next to General Patton and Babe Ruth in the Pantheon Of American Heroes Who Were Also Legit Douchebags. If Trump wins a second term, we might once again muddle through without anything too awful happening. But I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would be comfortable taking that risk.
An earlier version of this article cited an NBC News analysis that found that 40 of 44 Trump cabinet officials didn’t support Trump’s run for president. That analysis was from 2023; a similar analysis from The Washington Post in August of 2024 found 24 of 42 officials for Trump. The article has been updated to reflect the newer numbers.
Why Doesn't the "Trump is a Fascist" Stuff Land?
The list of things a person needs to do to be an American in good standing is pretty short. You need to have seen the original Star Wars. You have to either like baseball or think cricket is stupid, either is fine. On July 4, you have to grill something,
Actually, I suppose the system worked until the president tried to stage an autogolpe and failed, but has thus far escaped punishment.
The precise number is hard to determine. This Washington Post analysis from early August found 24 of 42 cabinet members supporting Trump, though a few of the “pro-Trump” statements came in the form of anti-Biden statements when Biden was still the nominee. Before the primary, NBC News found that 40 of 44 officials opposed Trump’s bid.
What scares me most is that Trump had “Adults in the Room” the first time around to rein in his worst instincts. He won’t have those next time.
Meh. Harris and Biden barely avoided a nuclear exchange. The chicken little game with Trump would be much more convincing if the Democrats hadn’t just spent 4 years of complete incompetence, literal incompetence, being worse than Trump in every meaningful way.