To the editor:
As the 2024 election in November draws closer, I hear friends and acquaintances having one of two responses. One is to ignore the alarming possible outcomes because of the ugliness of the whole electoral landscape. The other is to look squarely at the realities of a second term for Trump and recognize the evil and tragic outcomes Trump would bring upon this country and world.
Below is a summary by Time Magazine interviewer Eric Cortellessa, who in April 2024 interviewed Trump as he told of his intentions for a second term:
“To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million illegal immigrants from the country, Trump said he would build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland.
He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans.
He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress.
He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding.
He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury.
He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense.
He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.” Eric Cortellessa, E. 2024. “How Far Trump Would Go,” Time.com, April 30.
These intentions are the stuff of nightmares! And they are just the beginning of Trump’s intentions. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”
With whatever abilities and means you have, will you sound the alarm calling people to vote to preserve our democracy, flawed though it is? We must face into the election and work for stopping Donald Trump’s authoritarian aims.
Trisha Lachman
Athens, Ohio
