Can the world survive 6 more years of Donald Trump?

[Cheetah]

I'm quite certain that the world will still be around after 6 more years of Trump, and fairly certain it won't contain much more cesium-137 or strontium-90 than we expect from normal reactor operations.

I'm also fairly certain that the formal rules of the Constitution won't be thrown out. Even if he avoids a lethal heart attack by cheeseburger overconsumption or anything, Trump won't attempt to stay in office past the end of his term or suspend elections. That's not how electoral authoritarianism works - you trample every other liberal democratic norm, but elections themselves happen reliably and the letter of the Constitution, as interpreted by the reliably conservative SC, is followed. But I will sketch out a scenario that I think is roughly what the future would look like.

Voter suppression is ratcheted up in many states by striking any non-voters off of voting rolls following a failure to vote even in a midterm, and early voting is ended in several states that currently allow it. Gerrymandering becomes even more extreme following the Republicans' strong showing in 2020, with sophisticated algorithms used to create a map resembling this in about half of all states. Democrats counter, but they still only hold 12 state governments outright following 2020 and can't come close. With the similarly gerrymandered state legislative districts, they're not likely to hold much power in 2030 either.

Secure in their 7-2 majority following the deaths of Ginsberg and Breyer, Roe v. Wade is chipped away at in a series of rulings that don't quite overturn it but allow so many arbitrary restrictions that all the clinics have closed in many states with GOP control.

Grants to states for welfare, education, environmental protections, etc. are slashed and requirements for welfare are tightened to the point where most people who need it cannot jump through all the hoops necessary.

Trump's popularity nosedives in 2022 as the Iran War goes miserably and the market crashes, triggering a new recession. The Dems manage to narrowly carry the Senate, 51-49, and come within 10 seats in the House despite the extreme gerrymandering. This does allow them to reject some of the stuff he tries to do in the last two years of his term.

Global trade falls and average tariffs increase following Trump's actions, but the economic effects are smaller than anticipated worldwide and most other countries do not impose tariffs against each other, sticking mostly to retaliatory tariffs against the US. Even the Chinese recession following the US market collapse in 2022 seems to have more to do with financial contagion and the high amount of bad debt than to its decreased exports to the US.

The invasion of Iran, coordinated with Saudi Arabia and Israel in 2021, meets fierce resistance and takes four months to topple the government. Once in nominal control, Shia militias wage an effective guerrilla war several times the scale of Iraq, with plenty of mountainous terrain to exploit. A fierce campaign of airstrikes, mostly by drone, results in more recruitment than militant deaths. By 2024, the American death toll has reached 20,000; the Iranian one somewhere above 600,000. Our allies for the war turn out not to be very helpful either, especially following the Islamist coup that overthrows the Saudi royal family in late 2022.

Trump's relations with the rest of the West improve somewhat, mostly because right-wing nationalism becomes the dominant political force in much of Europe. Trump remains unpopular internationally and the leaders try not to be seen to be supportive of him, but Trump gets along better with them all the same. By 2024, most of Europe is ruled by parties or coalitions with substantial right-wing populist elements. Macron is defeated in 2022 and replaced with an ardently right-wing LR president, who wins in part by shifting right and getting votes from FN voters; Marion Le Pen gets barely half her mother's total. Merkel chooses not to run in 2021 as the CDU is taken over by people with considerably tougher stances on immigration and multiculturalism; they nearly gain an outright majority Bundestag as AfD contracts in those elections and easily govern with the FDP. Trudeau and the Liberals are re-elected in 2019 but are forced to rely on the NDP in a confidence-and-supply arrangement; this fails during the 2022 recession, and Doug Ford's Conservatives win the ensuing election in a landslide. The only large country to visibly shift left is the UK, where Labour wins easily following the Brexit debacle and Corbyn becomes PM.

Relations with North Korea go through cycles of threats/missile+nuke tests/etc and friendly periods; the status quo more or less remains. Relations with Russia continue to be chummy, and Trump eagerly follows his suggestion for funding for human rights organizations to be cut. Freedom House downgrades the US to "Partly Free" - why not tell the truth now that it's no longer being funded? Relations with China continued to be strained because of his erratic tariff policy; the incident in 2020 where he agreed to lower tariffs only to raise them in response to a perceived slight on Twitter was especially problematic. But there is nothing resembling a military conflict.

The Democrats do finally win the Presidency in 2024; Trump's approval rating remains at 30% as the "recovery" from the crash in 2022 grinds on. They even manage to win both the House and Senate narrowly. They'll lose the House in a landslide in 2026 thanks to their gerrymandering disadvantages, and practically nothing gets through the Senate due to the filibuster. But it will be fun while it lasts.

Now that's what I call bleak!

 

[aelf]

People are so stupid that I'm sure they'll be fine. Or at least they'll feel fine.

In my country, the government has always sought to remove the people's agency and some of them think it's utopia. Some people will feel fine as long as their bellies are full.

 

[miaasma]

the sheer number of people who align with literally anything trump does who seem to have come out of the woodwork since his campaign began suggests that 6 more years could be a reality

it'll probably be fine, in the sense that regardless of its leader the US seems to do no right

 

[Slaughter]

Trump is boisterous and a loud-mouth, but the US will be fine. I think he is overall a good leader, if a relatively chaotic one.

He is certainly far better than George W. Bush the Globalist Puppet invading the entire world, one country at a time.

 

[Bootstoots]

Now that's what I call bleak!

Just what I was going for - bleak in a realistic way. Nothing about nuclear war, the suspension of elections, putting people in FEMA concentration camps, civil war, or wars between great powers. The US and the rest of the world basically just keep getting crappier in the way they already have been. I call it The Crappening.

 

[FriendlyFire]

he'll be gone after 1 term, he got really lucky against Hillary and still lost by ~3m votes
Dems just need to nominate a more populist candidate like Biden, someone who can compete with Trump for the blue collar crowd.

Republicans elected G.W.Bush Twice
Trump for the moment has the support of Republican party, its oganisation, its superpacs and it war chest of funds.
Republicans are prepared to damage the FBI, CIA, US economy, western allies and themselves protecting Trump

 

[Broken_Erika]

Republicans elected G.W.Bush Twice
Trump for the moment has the support of Republican party, its oganisation, its superpacs and it war chest of funds.
Republicans are prepared to Destroy the FBI, CIA, US economy, western allies and themselves protecting Trump

FTFY

 

[Hygro]

Let's not fool ourselves here. The only person who can save the USA from 4 more years of Trump is Hillary Clinton, that's how the plot goes.

It's like in those anime where the hero tries to do something, fails miserably, and then, after 50 episodes of filler training montages, tries again and succeeds.

That's what Hillary is doing right now, filming training montages so she can truly shine in 2020.

I have terrible news, the main character of this americanime has this whole time actually been Romney.

 

[Dachs]

I have terrible news, the main character of this americanime has this whole time actually been Romney.

the late Harold Stassen

 

[AmazonQueen]

I'm quite certain that the world will still be around after 6 more years of Trump, and fairly certain it won't contain much more cesium-137 or strontium-90 than we expect from normal reactor operations.

I'm also fairly certain that the formal rules of the Constitution won't be thrown out. Even if he avoids a lethal heart attack by cheeseburger overconsumption or anything, Trump won't attempt to stay in office past the end of his term or suspend elections. That's not how electoral authoritarianism works - you trample every other liberal democratic norm, but elections themselves happen reliably and the letter of the Constitution, as interpreted by the reliably conservative SC, is followed. But I will sketch out a scenario that I think is roughly what the future would look like.

Voter suppression is ratcheted up in many states by striking any non-voters off of voting rolls following a failure to vote even in a midterm, and early voting is ended in several states that currently allow it. Gerrymandering becomes even more extreme following the Republicans' strong showing in 2020, with sophisticated algorithms used to create a map resembling this in about half of all states. Democrats counter, but they still only hold 12 state governments outright following 2020 and can't come close. With the similarly gerrymandered state legislative districts, they're not likely to hold much power in 2030 either.

Secure in their 7-2 majority following the deaths of Ginsberg and Breyer, Roe v. Wade is chipped away at in a series of rulings that don't quite overturn it but allow so many arbitrary restrictions that all the clinics have closed in many states with GOP control.

Grants to states for welfare, education, environmental protections, etc. are slashed and requirements for welfare are tightened to the point where most people who need it cannot jump through all the hoops necessary.

Trump's popularity nosedives in 2022 as the Iran War goes miserably and the market crashes, triggering a new recession. The Dems manage to narrowly carry the Senate, 51-49, and come within 10 seats in the House despite the extreme gerrymandering. This does allow them to reject some of the stuff he tries to do in the last two years of his term.

Global trade falls and average tariffs increase following Trump's actions, but the economic effects are smaller than anticipated worldwide and most other countries do not impose tariffs against each other, sticking mostly to retaliatory tariffs against the US. Even the Chinese recession following the US market collapse in 2022 seems to have more to do with financial contagion and the high amount of bad debt than to its decreased exports to the US.

The invasion of Iran, coordinated with Saudi Arabia and Israel in 2021, meets fierce resistance and takes four months to topple the government. Once in nominal control, Shia militias wage an effective guerrilla war several times the scale of Iraq, with plenty of mountainous terrain to exploit. A fierce campaign of airstrikes, mostly by drone, results in more recruitment than militant deaths. By 2024, the American death toll has reached 20,000; the Iranian one somewhere above 600,000. Our allies for the war turn out not to be very helpful either, especially following the Islamist coup that overthrows the Saudi royal family in late 2022.

Trump's relations with the rest of the West improve somewhat, mostly because right-wing nationalism becomes the dominant political force in much of Europe. Trump remains unpopular internationally and the leaders try not to be seen to be supportive of him, but Trump gets along better with them all the same. By 2024, most of Europe is ruled by parties or coalitions with substantial right-wing populist elements. Macron is defeated in 2022 and replaced with an ardently right-wing LR president, who wins in part by shifting right and getting votes from FN voters; Marion Le Pen gets barely half her mother's total. Merkel chooses not to run in 2021 as the CDU is taken over by people with considerably tougher stances on immigration and multiculturalism; they nearly gain an outright majority Bundestag as AfD contracts in those elections and easily govern with the FDP. Trudeau and the Liberals are re-elected in 2019 but are forced to rely on the NDP in a confidence-and-supply arrangement; this fails during the 2022 recession, and Doug Ford's Conservatives win the ensuing election in a landslide. The only large country to visibly shift left is the UK, where Labour wins easily following the Brexit debacle and Corbyn becomes PM.

Relations with North Korea go through cycles of threats/missile+nuke tests/etc and friendly periods; the status quo more or less remains. Relations with Russia continue to be chummy, and Trump eagerly follows his suggestion for funding for human rights organizations to be cut. Freedom House downgrades the US to "Partly Free" - why not tell the truth now that it's no longer being funded? Relations with China continued to be strained because of his erratic tariff policy; the incident in 2020 where he agreed to lower tariffs only to raise them in response to a perceived slight on Twitter was especially problematic. But there is nothing resembling a military conflict.

The Democrats do finally win the Presidency in 2024; Trump's approval rating remains at 30% as the "recovery" from the crash in 2022 grinds on. They even manage to win both the House and Senate narrowly. They'll lose the House in a landslide in 2026 thanks to their gerrymandering disadvantages, and practically nothing gets through the Senate due to the filibuster. But it will be fun while it lasts.

Depressingly realistic I think.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Not sure I can cope with another god knows how many years of Trump, May and now Steve Bannon's coming to Europe to revitalise the loonies over here (as if they weren't bad enough already).
I'd become a lighthouse keeper but they've automated all the lighthouses.

I've read about Bannon's plan to unite the European far right. There's only one tiny problem: Far right Europeans don't really like foreigners, which includes Europeans from other countries.
There'll be some talk about common goals and enemies, our shared European culture and Christian values. They will be friendly to each other and maybe set aside their long standing resentments and make a show of unity for a while, but sooner or later someone will try to clarify which Christian culture is the real Christian culture.

Orthodox Christians are backwards and superstitious people who were under Turkish rule for so long that they're basically half Muslim.
The Catholic Church is a front for the globalist banking elite and/or a pedophile cabal and the Pope is Literally The Devil !
Protestants are just Jews pretending to be Christians.
And why are we a Christian culture ? Jesus was a damned Jew. That's not our culture ! We should be worshipping the old gods.

OK, let's table that for now. We're all white and...
Well, Slavs and Italians aren't really white...

And then someone will bring up our shared history. At that point they'll realize that there isn't one European history, but many European histories. Polish and German right wingers have differing opinions on who is to blame for WW2. French, English and German right wingers might disagree on the causes on WW1.
A gifted far right diplomat (ha!) could get everybody to agree that all wars were started by the Jews Globalists. Then a German will bring up the "Bombenholocaust" (bomb holocaust, the politically correct term for the Allied bombing campaigns on German cities during WW2, because it's at least as bad as the alleged Holocaust).

Or it will fall apart much earlier because of more general bigotry. Like the ITS did after Alessandra Mussolini (yes, his granddaughter) called Romanians a nation of criminals. The Romanian nationalists didn't like that.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I've read about Bannon's plan to unite the European far right. There's only one tiny problem: Far right Europeans don't really like foreigners, which includes Europeans from other countries.
There'll be some talk about common goals and enemies, our shared European culture and Christian values. They will be friendly to each other and maybe set aside their long standing resentments and make a show of unity for a while, but sooner or later someone will try to clarify which Christian culture is the real Christian culture.

Orthodox Christians are backwards and superstitious people who were under Turkish rule for so long that they're basically half Muslim.
The Catholic Church is a front for the globalist banking elite and/or a pedophile cabal and the Pope is Literally The Devil !
Protestants are just Jews pretending to be Christians.
And why are we a Christian culture ? Jesus was a damned Jew. That's not our culture ! We should be worshipping the old gods.

OK, let's table that for now. We're all white and...
Well, Slavs and Italians aren't really white...

And then someone will bring up our shared history. At that point they'll realize that there isn't one European history, but many European histories. Polish and German right wingers have differing opinions on who is to blame for WW2. French, English and German right wingers might disagree on the causes on WW1.
A gifted far right diplomat (ha!) could get everybody to agree that all wars were started by the Jews Globalists. Then a German will bring up the "Bombenholocaust" (bomb holocaust, the politically correct term for the Allied bombing campaigns on German cities during WW2, because it's at least as bad as the alleged Holocaust).

Or it will fall apart much earlier because of more general bigotry. Like the ITS did after Alessandra Mussolini (yes, his granddaughter) called Romanians a nation of criminals. The Romanian nationalists didn't like that.

My worry is they will cooperate enough to gain power in their own right in more countries, erode the EU (it may be a capitalist club but its a relatively liberal form of capitalism) and maybe start a few border wars.
I agree they can't work together in the long term , they have trouble cooperating even in the short term, as we see with Salvini trying to get other EU countries to take more refugees, something the far-right is bitterly opposed to elsewhere (not that British political leaders including Corbyn have been much different).

 

[Lexicus]

We saw how 8 years aged Obama and Bush. They were both young and healthy.
No way Trump survives 6 more years. Even the best heath care in the world doesn't help if you don't listen to them. And Trump doesn't listen to anybody.

There's no real indication that Trump takes the responsibilty of his job seriously, which Bush and Obama did, whatever else you can say about them. Not that I'm really disagreeing with you because I think "Trump drops dead in the next six years" is not so unlikely.

 

[rah]

Yeah, you're probably right about him not taking the job seriously he does take his tweets very seriously. So maybe death by tweet.

 

[warpus]

He's not that good at subverting democracy and attempting to destroying western civilization. The world will be fine, but it will be a bit rocky and weird for a while, and some more people might get peed on

 

[Bootstoots]

I've read about Bannon's plan to unite the European far right. There's only one tiny problem: Far right Europeans don't really like foreigners, which includes Europeans from other countries.
There'll be some talk about common goals and enemies, our shared European culture and Christian values. They will be friendly to each other and maybe set aside their long standing resentments and make a show of unity for a while, but sooner or later someone will try to clarify which Christian culture is the real Christian culture.

Orthodox Christians are backwards and superstitious people who were under Turkish rule for so long that they're basically half Muslim.
The Catholic Church is a front for the globalist banking elite and/or a pedophile cabal and the Pope is Literally The Devil !
Protestants are just Jews pretending to be Christians.
And why are we a Christian culture ? Jesus was a damned Jew. That's not our culture ! We should be worshipping the old gods.

OK, let's table that for now. We're all white and...
Well, Slavs and Italians aren't really white...

And then someone will bring up our shared history. At that point they'll realize that there isn't one European history, but many European histories. Polish and German right wingers have differing opinions on who is to blame for WW2. French, English and German right wingers might disagree on the causes on WW1.
A gifted far right diplomat (ha!) could get everybody to agree that all wars were started by the Jews Globalists. Then a German will bring up the "Bombenholocaust" (bomb holocaust, the politically correct term for the Allied bombing campaigns on German cities during WW2, because it's at least as bad as the alleged Holocaust).

Or it will fall apart much earlier because of more general bigotry. Like the ITS did after Alessandra Mussolini (yes, his granddaughter) called Romanians a nation of criminals. The Romanian nationalists didn't like that.

My worry is they will cooperate enough to gain power in their own right in more countries, erode the EU (it may be a capitalist club but its a relatively liberal form of capitalism) and maybe start a few border wars.
I agree they can't work together in the long term , they have trouble cooperating even in the short term, as we see with Salvini trying to get other EU countries to take more refugees, something the far-right is bitterly opposed to elsewhere (not that British political leaders including Corbyn have been much different).

That's why I tend to think the far right parties like AfD, FN, et al. won't actually take over outright in very many countries. At most they will end up in a few more governing coalitions, as with FPÖ in Austria or The League in Italy. Instead, right-wing populists will take over the main center-right parties in most countries, either through a leadership turnover or by the leaders themselves moving farther to the right in a bid to pick up votes from the far-right parties along with a few more working-class former leftists who are still voting for the neoliberal center-left parties. The true far-right parties end up returning to the fringe, beaten at their own game by formerly mainstream parties. They can have their little squabbles about what cultures are truly European, whether Orthodox or Catholic or Protestant values are "more European", or whatever, but only after most of their voters have gone to the populist versions of the former center-right parties.

The right-wing parties in power would have no trouble cooperating with each other on most issues; the EU is progressively weakened without being dissolved outright, migration policy becomes extremely strict region-wide, and rules about democracy and the rule of law are weakened to the point of basically meaning "as long as you hold regular elections that don't involve blatant fraud, you're fine".

The way right-wing populist takeovers have happened in Hungary, Poland, and the US all involved a more or less mainstream right-wing party taking over by moving right and becoming more populist, then slowly tightening their grip once in power. Turkey is a similar story except that it was never really democratic; Erdogan actually relaxed restrictions for his first few years only to then tighten them up dramatically, to the point where it's now an electoral dictatorship.

I don't know if the wave of right-wing populism will crest and break at some point due to demographic or other reasons, or whether it will find a way to evolve with the times, e.g. by playing second- and third-generation descendants of migrants against new migrants. I'm pretty sure the votes exist to make it the dominant political force in much of the West through the 2020s, though.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I have terrible news, the main character of this americanime has this whole time actually been Gary Johnson.

What's an FTFY?

 

[Akka]

I'm pretty sure the world will suffer more through environmental degradation than anything else that Trump will do (of course, he's happily participating to making said degradation worse).
I'll admit, though, to be cautiously curious about what his mavericking can mean for the world order in general, though.

 

[AmazonQueen]

That's why I tend to think the far right parties like AfD, FN, et al. won't actually take over outright in very many countries. At most they will end up in a few more governing coalitions, as with FPÖ in Austria or The League in Italy. Instead, right-wing populists will take over the main center-right parties in most countries, either through a leadership turnover or by the leaders themselves moving farther to the right in a bid to pick up votes from the far-right parties along with a few more working-class former leftists who are still voting for the neoliberal center-left parties. The true far-right parties end up returning to the fringe, beaten at their own game by formerly mainstream parties. They can have their little squabbles about what cultures are truly European, whether Orthodox or Catholic or Protestant values are "more European", or whatever, but only after most of their voters have gone to the populist versions of the former center-right parties.

The right-wing parties in power would have no trouble cooperating with each other on most issues; the EU is progressively weakened without being dissolved outright, migration policy becomes extremely strict region-wide, and rules about democracy and the rule of law are weakened to the point of basically meaning "as long as you hold regular elections that don't involve blatant fraud, you're fine".

The way right-wing populist takeovers have happened in Hungary, Poland, and the US all involved a more or less mainstream right-wing party taking over by moving right and becoming more populist, then slowly tightening their grip once in power. Turkey is a similar story except that it was never really democratic; Erdogan actually relaxed restrictions for his first few years only to then tighten them up dramatically, to the point where it's now an electoral dictatorship.

I don't know if the wave of right-wing populism will crest and break at some point due to demographic or other reasons, or whether it will find a way to evolve with the times, e.g. by playing second- and third-generation descendants of migrants against new migrants. I'm pretty sure the votes exist to make it the dominant political force in much of the West through the 2020s, though.

You're probably right, the main effect will be to drive our mainstream parties further right. Given that Corbyn is already calling for more curbs on immigration post-Brexit I think its already happening.

 

[Bootstoots]

You're probably right, the main effect will be to drive our mainstream parties further right. Given that Corbyn is already calling for more curbs on immigration post-Brexit I think its already happening.

Left-wing support for open or near-open borders is extremely recent; old-style leftists like Corbyn and Sanders have always favored a substantial amount of immigration control because of the effects of immigration on working-class wages. I'd only categorize that as a rightward shift if he favored doing anything like reducing social benefits for immigrants, restricting refugee admissions or the right to request asylum, or something like that.