Many millions of Americans are acutely aware of the dangers to their lives and livelihoods should Donald Trump again be elected as president due to the domestic repression and economic chaos he appears intent on unleashing. But the threats from a second Trump presidency to American democracy and prosperity aren’t what I see as necessarily the most frightening. No matter how bad things get in terms of our domestic conflicts, I have a deep-rooted faith that the American majority will prevail, sooner or later, in defending our democracy and freedoms, though the cost could well be terrible. Rather, though I haven’t focused on either topic here at The Hot Screen during this election season, I worry that in the shorter and medium term Trump’s likely unleashing of foreign policy chaos would fuck over our country six ways to Sunday, and that on a longer timeline his likely sabotage of climate-friendly measures would inflict untold and perhaps irreversible harm on our country and our planet.
In the case of the first, the very real dangers of a Trump presidency are obscured by the way in which foreign affairs are siloed off into the realm of “the experts.” Even in the case of the United States’ support of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, where I believe President Biden made absolutely the right call to back Ukraine, the lack of a concerted, consistent effort to build a public consensus for this support has been glaring — and revealing of a real breakdown in democratic accountability for U.S. foreign policy. Simply put, even pro-democracy leaders like Joe Biden simply don’t encourage Americans to closely examine what the U.S. does overseas, or to see it as deeply important to inform Americans about foreign policy challenges.
Of course, most people have their hands full with managing their own lives, much less keeping up on domestic politics, and I don’t mean to say that there’s a sinister conspiracy to keep Americans uninformed as to foreign policy matters. Yet I think that, with the threats that Trump poses in our relations with the rest of the world, we are somewhat hamstrung by a long-standing weakness in public attention to foreign affairs that leaders of both parties have condoned (for example, with Joe Biden in the case of Ukraine) if not outright cultivated (for example, in the case of George W. Bush, who infamously told Americans after September 11 to go shopping rather than, say, talk with their neighbors about what it might mean to try to occupy Afghanistan and convert it to democracy at the point of a gun).
So when Donald Trump attacks America’s allies and praises American’s enemies, he doesn’t do nearly as much damage to himself, in terms of turning off voters, as he rightly should. To get right down to it: the prospect of Donald Trump pulling support of Ukraine and guaranteeing its destruction at the hands of Russia, with the accompanying chaos that would be unleashed on Europe, is chilling. It’s not just the likely slaughter of untold numbers of Ukrainians that should conjure nightmares, but the prospect that Russia would then turn its attention to other countries in Europe. This isn’t just a matter of principle — our economy, and the world economy, is deeply tied up with Europe. A larger war in Europe, or a grey zone between war and peace, is not a place that any of should want to inhabit. And yet Donald Trump, with his bizarre dedication to pleasing Vladimir Putin, and his obsessive attacks against American allies — fellow democracies that are treaty bound to protect us as we are to protect them — could send us on a destabilizing path of war or national isolation.
In ways that have not been adequately covered, Russia appears to have already decided that it is in a shadow war with the United States. In 2016, 2020, and now, Russian operatives are attempting to influence the presidential election and sow chaos in American politics, part of a larger anti-American initiative that has at least received some reporting. Meanwhile, as part of its war on Ukraine, it has been promoting a campaign of sabotage against European countries backing that beleaguered country, including an assassination plot against the CEO of a leading German arms manufacturer. Recently, the US Army’s top-ranking general in Europe warned that Russian sabotage could escalate conflict with Russia; speaking of the Russians’ violation of NATO airspace to attack Ukraine, he also noted that, “So, this is very real, and it could escalate … which means that we need to be ready to fight tonight.”
As Noah Smith writes in a chilling piece addressing the full range of chaos overseas that might result from a second Trump presidency, chaos in Europe is only one piece of a whole bucket of catastrophes that could ensue. Smith points to increasing coordination between Russia and China, countries that have a common interest in taking the U.S. down. And of Asia specifically, he writes, Trump could well act in ways that empower China, an authoritarian juggernaut. The result could be the loss of American allies and trading partners, and even war, as China might see an opportunity to invade Taiwan as a Trump administration looks the other way. Smith ominously but with plenty of justification paints a picture of a world where autocracies come to hold sway, as the U.S. forfeits its crucial role as a defender and example of democracy.
Smith’s warning is only supported by the evidence of Trump’s first term and his commentary since then. More than ever, Trump seems unable to grasp that Russia, China, and North Korea are not our friends or allies, even as he speaks of our actual friends and allies as if they were neither. Remarkably, he has said that Russia should do “whatever the hell” it wants to NATO members that don’t pay what he thinks they should for their defense — a statement that in earlier, healthier times would have been roundly condemned by members of both major U.S. political parties as borderline treasonous and utterly disqualifying for a would-be president to say.
As Smith summarizes, “Although it’s not possible to know for certain what the consequences of a second Trump presidency would be, it’s very possible that it would result in the U.S. essentially surrendering its European allies to Russia and its Asian allies to China — thus dramatically weakening America’s own ability to resist those enemies in the future.”
In some ways, I don’t think even Smith’s gloomy musings are dark enough. For instance, what’s to stop Donald Trump from actively assisting Putin with his invasion of Ukraine? As commander-in-chief, he could order the U.S. military to attack Ukrainian targets — and who would stop him? Here is where Trump’s visions of domestic repression dovetail with all manner of foreign policy insanity, as he would feel accountable to no one except himself and his deranged notions of personal advantage.
There is also the way in which Donald Trump’s fascistic message in the election’s closing days that America’s internal enemies — defined as anyone who opposes Donald Trump — are worse than external enemies suggests a wholesale collapse of American maintenance of its basic defenses in the world. A U.S. in which Americans are encouraged to see each other as enemies doesn’t seem like a country that would be able to defend itself well against a foreign threat should one arise. To take one hypothetical: if the United States were to be attacked by a Russian-funded terrorist plot, would a second Trump administration defend the United States — or use American fear to double down on a war against “parasites” and “enemies within,” whom he might allege were the cause of American weakness that invited Russia’s attack? And his references to immigration across the southern border as an invasion aren’t just a reinforcement of the white supremacist Great Replacement theory — he also betrays the public by wildly distorting what actually constitutes an invasion or a war, particularly when we also hear him denying that Russia is responsible for its attack on Ukraine.
And then there’s the threat that a second Trump presidency would pose to our efforts to combat climate change — an existential threat to modern civilization that Trump and nearly all GOP elected officials insanely claim does not actually exist. While Democrats have responded to the pressures of their base and others by enacting pro-climate policy in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act, and do acknowledge the reality of human-caused global warming, we are still seeing a profound lack of leadership in terms of speaking bluntly to the American people about the need for even more serious measures and spending to deal with this unprecedented crisis. Meanwhile, it seems like much of the U.S. population is split between denial and dread, which only speaks to the need for leadership and open discussion at all levels of our society and political system. Climate change is something that should unite Americans against a common threat; this tantalizing possibility makes Trump’s efforts to divide and conquer the American people, and the GOP’s lies against climate change, even more grotesque.
With our national security and planetary survival on the line, the stakes of this election couldn’t really be any higher; the rapidity with which life could rapidly unravel under an insane and fascistic President Trump, particularly in the realm of war and peace, are nauseating to contemplate.