This year has been dominated by the Russia-Ukraine war, recession, the China-US standoff, and the Hamas terrorist attack and Gaza war. Yet as earth-shattering as these conflicts and tragedies are, the next two years could aggravate them and surpass them all if the threat of a second Trump presidency comes to pass. At a moment that urgently needs a firefighter to stamp out the embers of conflict, Americans and the rest of the world may find an arsonist in the White House. It is not just the survival of American democracy that will be on the ballot in 2024 but stability and progress everywhere.
A second Trump administration, in which he has brazenly vowed to be a dictator on day one, would be a disaster. Domestically, Trump’s “new independence” is no longer just an economic agenda. Gone is the 2016 talk of massive deregulation, privatisation of public services and big tax cuts. Instead, his policies are based on his personal prejudices and his desire for vengeance: deporting homeless people from urban areas, imposing death sentences on drug traffickers, legitimising “shoot and kill” even for shoplifters, repatriating the children of illegal immigrants whom he accuses of “poisoning the blood of our country”, purging free-thinking academics in educational institutions, and – what he says he will make his first act – clearing out what he calls the “vermin” and “traitors”, namely those government officials who would refuse to be yes men for his grotesque policies.
