[zogrodea]

Would you mind explaining what the negative practical consequences would be in the event of a Trump nomination?

The worst thing I remember from him (an action which was truly horrible) was related to ICE separating children from their families.

In my country (the UK), I don't see a huge personal difference in my daily life when either one of the two mainstream parties is elected. So I'm interested in where your comment comes from.

I do have my own views of course, but neither seems significantly more dystopian to me than the other.

[AdamN]

You didn't notice Brexit - a distinctly Tory-enabled change that wouldn't have happened if the Lib Dems or Labour had been in charge?

[mike_hearn]

There's nothing distinctly Tory about Brexit.

1. The Lib Dems also made a promise on an in/out referendum and it was in their 2010 manifesto. You may not recall this because in 2008 Jo Swinson said “the Liberal Democrats would like to have a referendum on the major issue of whether we are in or out of Europe” but by 2016 she was saying she can't forgive Cameron for allowing a vote.

2. Cameron only conceded on allowing a vote due to losing voters to UKIP, a different political party. He clearly didn't want to do it but his hand was forced by the voters.

3. Labour of course committed to and held the original in/out referendum in 1975. They also committed to holding a referendum on the EU Constitution, a promise they backpedalled on after similar referendums were lost in the Netherlands and France. Their 2015 manifesto promised an automatic referendum on any further transfer of powers to the EU.

So all the major UK parties other than the SNP have a history of either promising or holding referendums on the EU. That isn't a surprise because the EU was a major source of constitutional stress and voter unhappiness on all sides of the political spectrum.

[zogrodea]

That's a legitimate point. The referendum was 8 years ago and I was 18 back then so there might be some myopia on my part.

[thatguymike]

You haven't experienced a government other than the Tories, so it seems a bit rich to say you haven't seen a difference from who's elected.

Some direct consequences of the last Republican government off the top of my head include abortion becoming much harder for many, many people; inequality-increasing tax policies; it becoming much harder for agencies to govern on things like climate change; and an attempted murderous coup in the capital? I don't think you can say it was inconsequential, regardless of your politics.

[zogrodea]

I mentioned I never saw a difference in my daily life specifically, in response to a Trump presidency being called "dystopian". I was of course alive when Labour was in charge and have memories of that time, but people still went by their daily lives just the same from what I can tell.

The same goes for much on your list, except for increasing inequality which impacts people's standards of living. Some other comments produced better lists regarding the impact of his presidency (things I had not heard before and some which I wasn't think of like the pandemic - although I'mm not really sure either way how much better someone else would be in his place for that one).

(Brexit did shake things up when that happened - I was hearing about jobs being paused at the time and people being unable to work.)

[_heimdall]

I don't actually remember exactly what the abortion changes were during his presidency specifically. Were most changes there at the state level during his office, or were there federal changes too? Roe was overturned on Biden's watch, though I guess you could pin that on Trump-appointed judges.

> inequality-increasing tax policies

Both parties are pretty bad about taxes though, especially when you consider money printing and federal deficit spending. Both aren'ttechnically a tax but they serve the same function of eroding individuals' buying power. The same goes for inflation, not technically a tax but it does erode the value of our money and if you ask the federal government they believe they, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve, can control inflation.

> it becoming much harder for agencies to govern on things like climate change

Are you thinking about the Chevron ruling here? If so that was Biden too, unless you want to blame the judges Trump appointed.

> attempted murderous coup in the capital

That's an unnecessarily inflammatory argument. We don't need to debate the specifics or exactly what happened, and I expect we largely agree, but if that was a murderous coup attempt it was an absolutely piss poor attempt and an even worse response from a government that would be legitimately under attack at that point. If it was a murderous coup inside the capital building I wouldn't expect our military to leave anyone standing.

[lobocinza]

Anyone calling that a "murderous coup" is just repeating narratives without thinking and/or just haven't lived enough to know what a real "murderous coup" is.

For context this is what a coup attempt look like and this isn't what I would call murderous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUzc2Ilw_O8

[stubybubs]

> unless you want to blame the judges Trump appointed.

I mean, yes. That was the point of Mitch McConnell withholding Obama's SCOTUS seat nomination because it was too close to the end of his term, only to ram through Trump's pick in record time when RBG died. This was the plan, to get the court.

"Under Biden" is completely disingenuous, the cases were not brought by the Biden administration, and were ruled on largely by Trump and Bush appointees.

[_heimdall]

That could easily be a Mitch McConnell problem though. The president's job in that case is to make an appointment, Congress's job is to review and approve those in a timely manner. People may not like who Trump appointed, I don't personally know enough about them beyond news articles to have a strong opinion, but Mitch is the one who held up the appointment for nearly a year if I remember right.

> "Under Biden" is completely disingenuous, the cases were not brought by the Biden administration, and were ruled on largely by Trump and Bush appointees.

I don't think it's any less disingenuous than blaming it on whomever appointed the judges. Blame the judges if you want, but now you want to pull in Bush as though he would have known so long ago thdt Roe would finally get challenged and that Congress would continue to sit on its hands rather than codify Roe into law?

The White House is often quick to take credit for anything they like that comes out of the supreme court on their watch. Shouldn't they then also get blamed for what they don't like that happens under their watch? Or do they get the good without the bad?

[tocs3]

The thing that sticks with me is:

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-zte-order-after-china-...

Maybe it was completely reasonable but it looks a lot like foreign influence.

His overall tone is not constructive. His rhetoric is divisive and we (as a nation) do not really need much more dividing. Finding working middle ground is a direction we need to go.

[verdverm]

See the recent US Supreme Court decisions, Trump put 3 of them on there

- Roe v Wade

- Chevron Deference

- Presidential Immunity (which went above and beyond to say evidence from official acts can no longer be used in other trials)

It's worth noting that a second Trump term is likely to be very different from the first one. Good people tried to help the first time, most walked away or were fired for lack of loyalty. Trump also learned this the first time, and with Mike Pence, learned he needs to pick for loyalty above all else.

There is also Project 2025, which grew out of the first term failures (Trump did not deliver much of anything he said he would), and is a concerning, concentrated effort to "drain the swamp" (by replacing it with an exclusive golf course)

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, Trump's comments on NATO, and Chinese soldiers on the Poland-Belarus border have a lot of people worried outside of America.

[iJohnDoe]

I wish the world would pay attention to the points you made. It should provide a picture of what direction we’re heading in if Trump is elected again. It’s very concerning.

[verdverm]

Most people are tuned out, don't want to spend the time / energy / angst that it takes to curate / learn, so they only get the reduced / filtered content from the major sources, or more concerning the viral content on social media

[jauntywundrkind]

And some others want to donate $45m/mo to accelerate this shit.

[kyrra]

Chevron deference being upended will likely hamper anything Trump wants to do.

Immunity: the courts still get a say as to what is an official act.

Project 2025 is actually a conservative agenda. With the pick of JD Vance, I wouldn't expect much of that out of his administration.

[verdverm]

Chevron: The president appoints many judges, who will be overseeing the slew of cases that will happen

Immunity: In an ironic twist w.r.t to the Chevron ruling, this ruling says that judges should defer to presumed immunity, making the bar very high to bring a case. With the inability to bring much evidence, it will be even harder.

Project 2025: Most of the authors (31 iirc) are former Trump staffers, and even more are involved in the massive hiring / vetting / placing process. JD Vance was Heritage's top choice

https://www.vox.com/politics/360318/project-2025-trump-polic...

[bryanlarsen]

Google for "Project 2025". Hundreds of negative practical consequences proudly laid out for all to see.

[jauntywundrkind]

Dismantling Schedule F and making most government jobs political appointments - where people can be fired at whim - seems particularly madcap. A return to spoils of war system; anyone who doesn't totally fall in line can be axed.

John Oliver covered Project 2025 & got to Schedule F specifically, https://youtu.be/gYwqpx6lp_s#t=12m40s

[kyrra]

Did Trump or his staff write it? You realize he's disavowed it?

Yes, it's from many former staffers, but they are former staffers, not active. There has been very little policy debate this election cycle, so I honestly have no clue what Trump or Biden actually want to do with their second terms.

[bryanlarsen]

His VP has endorsed it.

[taylodl]

Trump "disavowed" it and then wished them good luck. Classic Trump. We're not stupid - we've seen Trump play this game before.

[piva00]

> In my country (the UK), I don't see a huge personal difference in my daily life when either one of the two mainstream parties is elected.

For how long were you an adult when the UK had a Labour government?

Also, the impact the Tories had is quite disproportional depending if you live in an affluent city, and has a white-collar job vs the rest of the UK.

[janice1999]

By their own admission OP was 12 last time Labour left office.

[benterix]

For Europe, this might be bad news as Trump made a few quite strong remarks as to what he will do to NATO when he gets to power again. In the worst case, it might mean Europe will surrender to Russia and Putin's troops will arrive to the border with Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, pushing the territory of his empire further to the West. It would be a sad time for all Europe, not just for Ukrainians.

[TheLoafOfBread]

That would be just repeat on Munich 1938. Putin won't stop, just consolidate and push further to the West. Moldova next. Then Baltic states. Then Poland. Does it sound insane? Well Ukraine-Russian war sound insane in the fall of 2021 when intelligence agencies were sending warnings what is about to happen.

[falcolas]

> Would you mind explaining what the negative practical consequences would be in the event of a Trump nomination?

Simply put, Trump and the current conservative majority would like to make the health and welfare of people I love illegal. It's in both Agenda 47 and Project 2025. Laws that continue this trend are being passed in most states where the conservative majority is in power.

Their health care would be banned.

Their lifestyle would be made illegal.

Their freedoms would be curtailed.

Those are the practical consequences that I care about most right now. There are more, but this is the top of my list.

[b0sk]

Sunak gracefully handed over the Prime Ministership to Starmer with zero hiccups.

You know what happened here? Trump tried to force Pence to not certify the election (VP certifies all the votes from the electors) and even appointed fake electors. And obviously the January 6th shenanighans.

And to top it off, his current VP pick JD Vance has publicly said that if he were in Pence's position, he wouldn't have certified the election results. So 2028 will be interesting if these guys lose.

[anthony_d]

Trump can’t run in 2028. This will be his second term.

[marssaxman]

I don't see why he'd let such a technicality stand in his way, when actually losing the vote last time around was not enough to persuade him that he couldn't be president anymore.

[AnimalMuppet]

Most presidents want to be followed by someone from their own party, though Trump may be enough of a narcissist not to care.

Much less seriously, Trump can't run in 2024 either. See, since he won the election in 2020, he's already had his second term...

[kmos17]

Besides the excellent points outlining the awfulness of Trump’s first term in other responses to your question, the most important factor making him unfit for office is his complete refusal to accept any election he loses and the peaceful transfer of power. He is directly attacking the democratic process itself, as many authoritarian dictators have in the past.

Many of his supporters are fully cognizant of this, as much as they will publicly claim this is just pearl clutching by the left, they actually believe this is the best course of action, because the political discourse has been so deeply poisoned they do not think democracy is the best way forward. This has happened many times before in various countries with always horrific consequences.

[techostritch]

Admittedly I think it’s really hard to piece apart all of the different conservative coalitions.

There are vocal Republican influencers who talk about ending no fault divorce, ending the department of education banning abortion, ending social security, Medicare and Medicaid, more conservatives on the Supreme Court so certainly it could be bad if certain coalitions got their way.

And yet, I think power is distributed enough in America I don’t think too much of it can be dismantled. I think too many billionaires benefit from big government for the billionaires who benefit from small government to dismantle.

But I do think Republicans will deregulate the economy in a way that will put us on a crash course to another financial crisis. And the people who will really suffer will be the poor not the rich.

The other point I will make about a Republican presidency is that 1: people deify Trump and 2: Trump has made lots of promises to people who fundamentally disagree with each other. So there’s going to be lots of conflict in a Trump presidency, what will the people whose promises were broke do, especially those people who see Trump as a god? Will Trump turn on his working class MAGA base to make the billionaires who donated to him happy? I think he just might.

[troyvit]

> I think too many billionaires benefit from big government for the billionaires who benefit from small government to dismantle.

America's system of checks and balances in action.

[zogrodea]

Thanks for the reply. I suppose I have a hard time seeing much happening that will be too bad for ordinary citizens either way. I recall people panicking about a Trump presidency in 2016, but I never saw or heard many negative outcomes (for individuals) about his presidency so I don't quite understand it and have a hard time measuring how justified people's panic is.

[techostritch]

It all depends on what they do, Republicans want to make big change, big change in an economy this size will be disruptive, there will be winners and losers across the political spectrum, and losers for some groups will mean financial devastation. Elections have consequences.

I think a lot of it is how granular you look? Will millions of people be in camps and dead and 10’s of million unemployed in 4 years? Maybe not, but what is the statistic? 1 percent increase in unemployment leads to a 1% increase in suicides?

This is of course not to mention if your gay or trans or a woman who values the right to an abortion.

The republicans will try and go too far by some measure, even Joe Rogan who I would describe as a pretty classical liberal if not conservative libertarian said the other day “Republicans are not the answer, remember when George Bush was in office and we almost had Christofacism?”

[bryanlarsen]

Trump 2024 is going to be very different from 2016. Trump's first couple of years were hampered because he appointed a bunch of Bush people who were fine pushing Bush-type policies (like the tax cut) but dragged their feet on Trump's. And then his second couple were hampered by Congress and the Supreme court.

Trump 2024 will be able to do whatever he wants.

[taylodl]

Other than more than a million Americans died due to Trump's gross mishandling of the pandemic? The idiot damn near collapsed our medical system!

He also figured out a way to turn our farmers into Welfare Queens due to his misguided trade war with China. Trump disrupted the supply chains before the pandemic hit.

Finally, Trump managed to take an economy that was running on all cylinders and start curtailing economic growth - and that's before the pandemic hit. Trump drove the deficits up at a faster rate than Reagan - that's quite an accomplishment! That factors into inflation - as Reagan himself pointed out when he was complaining about Carter's deficits.

The United States simply can't afford four more years of Trump.

[zogrodea]

Thanks for enumerating; I never heard of any of that except for the pandemic (and I honestly don't know either way how much better/worse someone else would have done in that position).

I think this is the best comment for helping me understand the aversion to him. Most of it is about the economy which is easy to understand the impact of.

[AnimalMuppet]

Well, he ran insane levels of deficits. (You could blame the Covid disruptions to some degree, but part of it is probably just regular old fiscal irresponsibility.) That makes things look great for a few years, and then causes inflation and hinders economic growth later. So some people felt that the economy was better under Trump than under Biden, but Trump's economy was not sustainable.

If he's elected again, will he try to juice the economy by unsustainable spending again? I suspect so; it will make him popular, and he loves being popular. But it will cause problems for the next administration, just like last time. Probably worse problems than last time, because the debt from the first Trump administration hasn't gone away, so the total debt load would be higher.