What to Expect

You say it can't happen here? Guess again.

Welcome to Trump Part II. The three things we can count on from here on out are: 1) Incompetence, 2) Corruption and 3) Cruelty. That’s a given. How bad is it going to get?  All signs are that it’ll get worse than you can imagine. But we’ll find out soon enough.

First and foremost, though, it’s important to know who we’re dealing with and what they’re about. Make no mistake: when it comes to America’s extreme right wing, the only use they have for government is for the protection of their own power and property. Not yours. Aside from that, unless it can be bent to serve their purposes, they actively want to see your government crippled or destroyed entirely.

Why? In short, they don’t think anybody should have the right to tell them what to do. And they absolutely don’t want to cough up a penny if they can possibly avoid it. Insofar as government regulation is the only thing that can tell corporations what they can and can’t do, the goal of the right wing is, in the words of Grover Norquist, “to get [government] down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Then corporations will be able to do anything they want and there won’t be anything we can do about it.

Abortion? Race? Gay Marriage? The forces behind America’s right wing don’t care. Not at all. What they seek is power, and issues are only useful to them as a way to win. Their goal for over a century now has been to establish themselves as a “ruling class” – an elite that’s above the law. The recent Supreme Court immunity ruling did exactly that in establishing the president as having the absolute powers of a monarch. And they didn’t have to fire a shot.

Most of you probably recall that we fought a revolution against this. And we’ve now handed America over to them on a silver platter. 

What can you expect? The first Senate bill of the term is budget reconciliation, and it doesn’t require the 60 votes to force a filibuster (which the Republicans will probably eliminate anyway.) So here’s some of what you can expect out of the gate:

  • Right off the bat, Republicans will kill Obamacare. So a lot of coverage you now have will be eliminated, and for whatever you can still get, you can expect to pay a lot more.
  • Expect major changes in Social Security. If you’re already receiving benefits, the effects might not be severe at first, but when it comes those who have not yet reached retirement age, well, they’d be well advised to make other plans before they hit 65. (Note: Less than two weeks after the election, they’re starting already.)
  • The deportation process will start. Even if everything goes well (which it won’t), America will be transformed into a Stasi-like state, with neighbor spying on neighbor. Like it or not, undocumented workers make huge contributions to the economy, so the financial consequences will be major.
  • Foreign policy? With a totally compromised convicted felon as president, it will be a very long time before nations feel they can trust us again… if ever. Trump and the Republican Party now represent a major security risk to America – a vulnerability that our enemies will not fail to exploit.
  • Environment? Gun violence? Corporate scams? Let your imagination run wild and you probably won’t even come close.

English writer and historian Lord Action famously wrote in 1887 that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Was Lord Acton right? We’re about to find out. 

Things are moving very fast:

It’s November 13, 2024. The above is just this week – and it’s only Wednesday. They haven’t even finished counting the votes yet.

What happens now is a matter of speculation. But their Project 2025 blueprint gives us a pretty good idea. Most of the below is from the Harris for President website, but you can read the whole Project 2025 plan yourself here.

We can’t say we haven’t been warned. Comments/contributions welcome, as always. 

What is Project 2025 about?

In short, in conjunction with the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, the implementation of Project 2025 would give Trump virtually unlimited power.

The plan begins with a sweeping takeover of the federal government to consolidate power under Donald Trump. Inside pages of dense policy proposals, their intentions become clear.

“Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.”

-New York Times, July 17, 2023

First: They’d make it easier to fire non-partisan government employees, like they attempted to do at the end of Trump’s administration.
Reissue Trump’s schedule F executive order to permit discharge of nonperforming employees. (Project 2025, a Mandate for Leadership, p. 535)
Then, they’d replace them with politically appointed Trump Loyalists.
“The modern conservative President’s task is to limit, control, and direct the executive branch….The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch.… Success in meeting that challenge will require a rare combination of boldness and self-denial: boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will”. (p. 43-44)
They’d end the independence of the Department of Justice and FBI…
“Conservatives have long believed in either ending law enforcement activities of independent agencies or ending their independent status. (p. 873)
…and turn them into enforcement arms of the White House.
The next conservative Administration must make every effort to obtain the resources to support a vast expansion of the number of appointees in every office and component across the department—especially in the Civil Rights Division, the FBI, and the EOIR.” (p. 569) “[This] would also place the FBI under a politically accountable leader.” (p. 549)
Trump and his Project 2025 allies overturned Roe v. Wade and unleashed extreme abortion bans across the country. Now, they’ll go even further. They’ll implement a 50-state “backdoor ban” on abortion — without Congress — and jail health care providers.
“Announcing a Campaign to Enforce the Criminal Prohibitions in 1r8 U.S. Code §§ 1461 and 1462.” (p. 562) Poject 2025 would resurrect a law from the 1800s called the Comstock Act to ban abortion nationwide and jail health care providers. (p. 459)
Don’t take our word for it. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation: A literal interpretation of the [Comstock] Act could potentially also apply to materials used to produce all abortions, not just medication abortions; would not have exceptions; and could affect other medical care, such as miscarriage management. – Kaiser Family Foundation, 4/15/24
And they’ll ban abortion medication, which is also used in a range of ways to protect women’s health.
“Abortion pills pose the single greatest threat to unborn children in a post-Roe world…. The FDA should reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs.” (p. 457)
They’ll force states to report women’s miscarriages and abortions to Trump’s Federal Government.
Project 2025 would “use every available tool, including the cutting of funds” to force states to report miscarriages and “exactly how many abortions take place within its borders,” including the “reason” for every abortion. (p. 455)
They’ll put limits on contraception access.
The President should “[e]liminate the week-after-pill from the contraceptive mandate as a potential abortifacient.” (p. 485) Allows employers to deny workers access to birth control coverage. (p. 483-85) It also calls for defunding Planned Parenthood, which provides access to contraception for over 2 million women each year. (p. 471)
And then rip away President Biden’s protections for a woman’s right to life-saving medical care.
The President should “reverse distorted pro-abortion ‘interpretations’ added to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. (p. 473)
They’ll also enable discrimination against LGBTQ+ Americans.
Rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics. The President should direct agencies to rescind regulations interpreting sex discrimination provisions as prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics, etc. (p. 584)
Project 2025 will cut taxes for Trump and his rich friends and pad their profits.
“The corporate income tax should be reduced to 18 percent.” (p. 696)
And cut taxes for wealthy families — offset by tax hikes on middle class families.
Project 2025 would restructure the tax code to benefit wealthy families. (p. 696)
Millions of low- and middle-class households would likely face significantly higher taxes under the Project 2025’s proposals. [Center for American Progress senior director for economic policy Brendan Duke] estimated that a middle-class family with two children and an annual income of $100,000 would pay $2,600 in additional federal income tax if they faced a 15% flat tax on their income due to the loss of the 10% and 12% tax brackets. If the Child Tax Credit were also eliminated, they would pay an additional $6,600 compared with today’s tax system, Duke said. By comparison, a married couple with two children and earnings of $5 million a year would enjoy a $325,000 tax cut, he estimated.

(CBS News, 7/12/24)

Despite promises to “save” Social Security, Republicans have released a 2025 budget that would reduce Social Security for 257 million recipients. Click here for details.

And when asked about cuts to entitlements like Medicare and Social Security, Trump said: “Oh we’ll be cutting,” and later doubled down, saying, “There’s a lot you can do…in terms of cutting.”

Trump has also called Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme,” supported raising the age for eligibility, and has been open to privatizing it.

But the big picture here is that Trump’s tax cuts for the rich are projected to blow an additional $3 trillion dollar hole in the budget. A deficit of that size will give Republicans the excuse they need for drastic cutbacks in Medicare and Social Security, if not elimination entirely for new recipients.

Republicans would also line Big Pharma’s pockets by ending prescription drug price caps for seniors, and banning Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.

“Repeal harmful health policies enacted under the Obama and Biden Administrations such as… the Inflation Reduction Act.” (p. 465)

“This ‘negotiation’ program should be repealed.” (p. 465)

First off, if you have a government job, be prepared to kiss it goodbye – especially if you’re not willing to sign a loyalty oath. (Be aware that “loyalty” may well mean having to spy on your neighbors.)

Private or public sector, either way they’d let employers drastically cut overtime — or eliminate it outright.

  • Return to Trump’s overtime rule, meaning 4 million middle class workers will lose overtime protections because of the salary they make.
  • Make remote employees work 10, instead of 8, hours in a day before they can earn overtime.
  • Prevent benefits from counting as part of workers’ overtime calculations
  • Allow employers to calculate overtime over four weeks instead of one. (pp. 587, 589, 592)

And if you’ve been trying to pay down your student loans, be aware that they’d reinstate crippling student debt payments.

“The new Administration must end abuses in the loan forgiveness programs. Borrowers should be expected to repay their loans” (p. 322).

“The Secretary should phase out all existing [income-driven repayment] plans by making new loans (including consolidation loans) ineligible…. If new legislation is possible, there should be no loan forgiveness, but if not, existing law would require forgiving any remaining balance after 25 years.” (pp. 337-38).

Laurence O’Donnell calls the Trump plan to replace taxes with tariffs is “the worst economic plan in history.” Watch the video here.

From USA Today, November 11, 2024:

Trump often touted promises for tariffs while campaigning for the 2024 election.

He suggested he would impose a tariff on all goods between 10-20%. He vowed to tax imports from Mexico, the U.S.’s No. 1 trading partner, by at least 25% if the country doesn’t help mitigate immigration to the U.S. Also, he has suggested a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.

That would mean average tariff rates at highs not seen since the Great Depression, the Tax Foundation said.

More than 10 analyses show Trump’s proposed tariffs would have a harmful effect on the American economy, according to the Tax Foundation.

The Tax Foundation analysis found the tariffs together add up to $79 billion, which theoretically leads to an additional $625 in taxes annually for the average U.S. household. The Tax Foundation also argues the tariffs would raise prices while reducing output and employment.

Estimates put the tariffs’ possible impact on consumers in perspective:

Contributing: Karissa Waddick, George Petras, Janet Loehrke

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