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I agree that all of those things are bad, and I suspect some of them will be worse 4 years from now even in my "ideal" scenario.
What I don't see is Trump effectively pushing back against them. His election will cause a refocusing of the progressive movement, who will make effective state-level efforts and sabotage his leadership of the federal government. But they'll barely need to do anything to sabotage Trump, since he's pretty much self-sabotaging: he's lazy and erratic, and although he has all the right enemies, he has all the wrong enemies too.
I don't know. Look at the number of people who came into the country from 2016-2020 vs 2021-2024.
Trump isn't going to fix problems, but he's not going destroy the country with open borders and amnesties.
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Why not? Look at the four years we already had with him. Yes, the generals rolled Trump and lied to him or sabotaged pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan. But they weren't able to talk him into new wars. Try as they might to stop it, Trump successfully fixed the border. Even without a full wall, the remain in Mexico policy was an enormous success getting numbers down and discouraging the attempt. There was relative peace in the Middle East, and Trump's executive actions kept Iran boxed in and without funds to create proxy wars all around Israel.
No, we didn't get the CIA shattered into a thousand pieces and scattered in the wind. I think we can largely blame Pompeo for that, and Trump will have better people around him this time. Yeah, we still got massive deep state censorship in violation of the 1st amendment. But that was before Elon bought Twitter.
We may not get mass deportations in another Trump admin. But I'd expect him to fix the border same as he did before. I'd expect Iran will be boxed in again as best as can be done, denying them assets to fund proxy wars. I'd expect no new wars, and maybe even having one or two buttoned up. Might look similar to Biden's pullout from Afghanistan, but I'll take what I can get. That's on the generals IMHO.
I think this is a weird expectation because, frankly, whether or not there is a new war isn't entirely up to US decisions. A foreign actor may, potentially, act in such a way such that the correct response is (unfortunately) military action back against them. You can't expect, necessarily, that any President won't be sitting in the Oval Office when that happens.
That's not to say that the President doesn't have a lot of agency here.
What I'd expect in the best light from any Presidency is not to instigate or embroil us in conflicts without very good reason but, if necessary, to respond in the way most likely to advance our interests.
In some cases that will be ending a war. In some (rare) cases that will be starting or joining or escalating a war.
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Compare where we were in 2017 to where we were in 2021. Was the state more or less intrusive into our lives?
Now, you might say that's unfair, and there were new circumstances that gave the state more opportunities to seize control that Trump was unable to effectively push against. And yes: that's exactly my point. Even his greatest success during the pandemic (getting the vaccine developed ASAP) was seized from him by bureaucrats who delayed its release until after the election for the sake of "political neutrality."
Inevitably, there will be new circumstances that arise from now until 2028. The state will maneuver around him, and he'll just flail around at best. War with China? We need copious controls to make sure no one is misled by misinformation. New pandemic? Now we know better how to do a real shutdown for public health. Etc.
That trend is inevitable, regardless of who's in office. My belief is that Trump's flailing will likelier hurt the market and my 401k worse than Kamala's empty suit.
Somehow I don’t see Trump taxing unrealized gains. So that’s one mark against your 401k
Trump undoing this terrible, actually destructive tax on theoretical non-real numbers would be worth the entire 4 years. And I'm not just talking about proposed future taxes. I mean the CAMT that was baked into the IRA of 2022. It's brain-dead tax policy and will make America a worse place to live.
I said the same thing about the Trump tax cuts the first time around: it was worth it all.
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