Taylor Swift’s Era Tour is just winding up, but Trump’s Revenge Tour is just going through dress rehearsals to get ready for the kickoff in Washington D.C. on January 21st, 2025. Trump’s pick to head the FBI, loyalist Kash Patel, along with Pam Bondi as Attorney General and alleged woman assaulter, Pete Hegseth to head up the Department of Defense, is a clear indication the Justice Department and the military will be used, not to defend the Rule of Law and the U.S. Constitution, but will be used to harass, indict and prosecute Trump’s real and perceived enemies. In Trump’s case, an ‘enemy’ is defined as anyone who disagrees with him or tries to hold him to account for high crimes and misdemeanors. (As an aside, it is no small wonder that Biden decided to pardon his son, Hunter, given that he stood zero chance of being treated fairly under the new DOJ headed up by Trump loyalists!)
One thing I’ve learned about Trump after watching and listening to him over the last eight years is that he is quite often engaged in the type of behavior he is accusing others of. He has repeatedly stated that under Biden, the DOJ has been weaponized and the various indictments against him are witch hunts. You ain’t seen nothing yet!! Trump will unleash his herd of sycophants on countless witch hunts against innocent people whose only crimes have been to speak out and disagree with Trump or to try to hold him accountable under the Rule of Law the rest of us mortals must live by. During the course of these real-life witch hunts, the DOJ will indict and prosecute Trump’s “enemies” on trumped up charges (and, yes, I chose the word purposely).
I predict very dire consequences will result from Trump’s weaponization of the justice system, mass deportation agenda using the U.S. military and, giving his billionaire friends licenses to pillage and plunder the U.S. Treasury at the expense of the populace as a whole. The real question is, how many U.S. citizens will get imprisoned or killed because of these policies? If you think the number is zero, I will argue you are being very naïve.
Once the reality of what life under Trump will look like and how it is likely to adversely affect people’s finances, healthcare, and freedoms in general, I believe there will be largescale protests around the country. The U.S. Constitution says that people have the right of assembly. Trump, of course, does not believe people who disagree with him have any rights at all. He is already on record as wanting to shoot protestors in previous situations. Now, he has a military and a justice department to green light whatever action he wants. He is, after all, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, immune from official actions taken while in office.
If anyone believes there will not be protests against some of Trump’s more draconian policies, you are grossly underestimating how bad things could get. And in Trump 2.0, the more protests there are, the higher the likelihood they will be met with very forceful responses from the police, the National Guard and, perhaps, even the U.S. military. I firmly believe, U.S. citizens will be shot as these protests escalate.
In some of my previous posts I have talked about various metrics which could be used to see if life in the United States is getting better or worse. The most important metric might simply be to track the number of U.S. citizens who are imprisoned or killed for the simple crime of disagreeing with Trump and exercising their right to free assembly and freedom of speech. I think the number will be shocking.
If people thought voting for Trump was going to issue in an era of lower prices and lower crime, I believe they are going to be sadly mistaken. I believe the next four years are going to be some of the most violent since the days of the anti-Vietnam war protests of the late 60’s and maybe even worse. At least then, there were still some checks in place on the president. Now there will be none because the majority of Republican congresspeople have been infected with the Trump virus which makes them more interested in retaining their Congressional pensions and making sound bites for Fox News than standing up for the U.S. Constitution and the democratic ideals that have been the hallmark of this country for the last 250 years. They are all complicit in this descent into authoritarian rule. Buckle up and brace yourself for a very, rocky ride.