THE EVENTS OF RECENT MONTHS HAVE QUASHED any remaining notion that Donald Trump might abandon his quest for political power after being turned out of office by voters two years ago. He is still holding his trademark rallies, sometimes complete with QAnon call-outs, in principle to support Republican candidates but in practice holding on to center stage to hawk his own accomplishments and grievances.
The former president has had plenty of help in staying in the public eye. The House’s January 6 Committee recently voted to subpoena him to testify. The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, his home in Palm Beach, Florida, in search of classified documents he kept after leaving office. And multiple other legal woes have ensured that some news of each day features Trump.
A Trump bid for the White House in 2024 is looking increasingly likely. Despite his legal troubles, he remains a strong favorite among Republicans, of whom only a quarter prefer that he sit the next one out, according to a September poll. A criminal charge against Trump would barely shake the devotion of his political base, the same poll says; judging by the reaction to the Mar-a-Lago raid, it might even fire up his supporters all the more. Not even a conviction, complete with a prison sentence, need prevent him from running: Eugene V. Debs, a labor activist, ran for president in 1920 while serving a six-month sentence for his role in a railroad strike.
If Trump does run and his opponent is Joe Biden, he’d win, according to at least one recent poll. As the possibility of a potential Trump second term presents itself, more Americans will wonder—or worry, given that 61 percent of Americans, mostly Democrats and independents, don’t want him to run—what the 45th President of the United States might do as the 47th president.
In recent speeches, he has conjured a dark vision, reminiscent of the American carnage speech he gave at his inauguration in 2017: an America going up in flames with the blessings of a cabal of progressive Democrats and their puppet masters. “There is no higher priority than cleaning up our streets, controlling our borders, stopping the drugs from pouring in and quickly restoring law and order in America,” Trump said in a speech this summer. “Despite great outside dangers, our biggest threat in this country remains the sick, sinister and evil people from within.”
The specifics of Trump 47’s policies—to the extent that Trump bothers with policies—are a matter of speculation. But some broader actions seem certain, according to current and former Trump insiders interviewed: avoiding his first-term approach of appointing people who might protect him from his worst instincts and instead packing the administration with loyalists; trying to get a firmer grip on the military with an eye to consolidating power; drastically shrinking the civil service and throwing a steady diet of red-meat culture-war goodies at his base.
