Elections Have Consequences
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Filed under us-politics fascism trumpism
So, fellow citizens, you voted for a fascist. Remember that when a fascist says that they are going to do something, they are going to do it. It is not idle bluster. Here is what is likely going to happen in the next four years.
The deportations will begin as soon as Trump is sworn into office. All the immigrants with asylum cases will be rounded up first as they have their addresses on file with DHS. The stereotypical "illegal" immigrant, the one who has crossed the southern border on their own without documents will be harder to find. This will lead to police in friendly states detaining people who don't look like the "typical" American under suspicion of being "illegal" immigrants. The Trump administration will try to deport the people they have rounded up, but the countries they are trying to send them to won't accept them. This will lead to the expansion of the private immigration detention system and of temporary detainment camps. People will die in this system, not out of actual killings, but of neglect. There will be too many people in too few detention centers - tens of thousands will die. The Trump administration will refuse access to the detention centers as the people being detained there are not U.S. citizens (even though plenty are).
Once the detention system runs out of the readily available people to detain, the administration will revoke birthright citizenship. They will try to pass an amendment that removes it from the Constitution, but it will fail to be ratified by the required 3\4 of the states. Birthright citizenship will start to be revoked anyways, as the executive and legislative branches argue before the Supreme Court that it is within their power to regulate citizenship. By a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, the Supreme Court will agree. People who have their citizenship only due to birthright will have it revoked, and they will be fed into the detention system. The administration and friendly states continue to push this line and revoke the citizenship of any naturalized citizen convicted of even a misdemeanor. They, also, disappear into the camps.
In the judicial branch, the Trump administration will manage to appoint even more judges at every level including the Supreme Court. The judicial system will be completely subverted, and will become yet another arm of the Trump administration. The law will not matter, only loyalty to the Republican leadership.
On day one, Trump will fire the majority of the non-partisan federal bureaucracy. Only DHS and DOD are immune to the purges. The workers will never be replaced, and most federal departments will wither and die. No federal regulations are enforced, especially after the packed Judiciary repudiates the Chevron Doctrine. This leads to corporations having no oversight and having free reign to do whatever they want. Consumers have no recourse as there is no federal bureaucracy to issue rules, and no judge will ever rule against a business supported by the Trump administration. It is a time of record mergers and layoffs that always result from them. The rich get even richer and they get even more tax cuts from the friendly government.
One of the reasons why people claim to have voted for the fascists is that they would "Make Groceries Affordable Again". The opposite will happen, as all the immigrant farm workers and food processors are caught up in the alien pogroms. Prices of food skyrocket far beyond even the COVID era. The prices of other goods also increase exponentially, as the administration has instituted a 20% tariff on all overseas goods. Everything is far more expensive as everything has a supply chain that includes things from overseas. Inflation doesn't quite get to the levels of hyper-inflation, but the inflation rate is at a rate that has never been seen in the United States.
Healthcare is in shambles. Early in the administration, the Affordable Care Act is repealed in its entirety. Insurers, free from regulation, deny nearly every single claim and refuse to insure people with existing conditions. Inflation increases the cost of healthcare even higher than other sectors as the healthcare industry has always been at the forefront of cost increases. Abortion, needless to say, has been outlawed in all states. It clearly did not affect how the electorate voted, so why bother to keep it legal? It keeps the base happy!
LBGT folk are harassed and indicted as "sex criminals". Anyone who has received gender affirming care or has had a same-sex marriage is thrown into the detention system that was created for immigrants in the first days of the Trump presidency.
War has returned to the world that thought it had moved past it. Trump pulls out support for Ukraine, and Russia pushes back the under-supplied Ukrainians all the way back to the NATO frontier in Poland. Emboldened, Russia then seeks to finish its other frozen conflicts in Transnistria and South Ossetia. The Soviet Empire is back in all but name. The United States leaves NATO, throwing the world's entire security apparatus into disarray. China and North Korea seize their opportunity to settle their scores with Taiwan and South Korea. These wars leave the semiconductor industry in ruins, but it doesn't really matter as Americans can't afford things with semiconductors in them anymore anyways.
Is this doomerism? Yes. But many of these things have a good chance of becoming reality. I really hope I am wrong.