Rich Lowry: A Second Trump Administration Would Be Bonkers

I’m currently leaning toward Trump.

If the choice is between Joe Biden or Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump’s Revenge Tour, then a Trump victory is likely to produce maximum chaos and polarization. He drove me mad during his first term due to my expectations, but he ultimately did deliver on widening our national divisions.

National Review:

“If Donald Trump’s Truth Social post about his impending arrest made it feel like our politics was about to reach another level of insanity, just wait.

The impending Alvin Bragg prosecution offers a taste of what our national politics will be like post–November 2024 if Donald Trump wins the presidency again.

The Left freaked out in 2017, and that was before the Trump attempt to overturn an election, before January 6, and, we can presume, before he was indicted, perhaps more than once.

If Trump wins again via the Electoral College while losing the popular vote, it will be considered a damning indictment of our constitutional system, and there will be some new reason — some equivalent of Russian election interference in 2017 — for progressives to deny the legitimacy of his victory.

There will be large-scale street protests, making good on the threat that had cities around the country boarding up prior to the 2020 election.

The atmosphere will be fevered, and however much people lost perspective in 2017, the reflex will be to lose it even more.

The notion of national divorce will gain more traction on the left.

Trump will probably be in personal danger, and so will nearly anyone associated with him.

Security around cabinet officials will have to be beefed up, and the question won’t be if White House staff members will be harassed in restaurants and other public places, but how threatening it will be.

For his part, Trump would certainly be running an ALL CAPS presidency.

He promised as much at CPAC earlier this month: “In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice.’ Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. …”

BTW, this is great.

“When Hugh Hewitt pushed Trump on this point in an interview, asking if he would “use the powers of the presidency to punish people who punished you,” he denied it.

“I would be entitled to a revenge tour, if you want to know the truth,” Trump replied, “but I wouldn’t do that.”

Why? Because he is so beholden to propriety and institutional constraints?

The revenge tour isn’t a new thing, by the way. During his first term, Trump demanded the arrest of his enemies. Why would a second term be any different, especially given that he is angrier and more aggrieved than a few years ago? …”?

I doubt that I would vote for Trump.

I definitely wouldn’t go out to any street protests.

I certainly wouldn’t have any expectations that he will accomplish anything but settling scores.

What’s the alternative though? Ron DeSantis? We would have the same broken, deeply polarized Congress that accomplishes nothing, but the president would be a boring cornball.

Note: I don’t care for Trump or DeSantis. I don’t have any confidence in Trump. I don’t trust DeSantis. I think either one would be an improvement over Joe Biden though. Trump would cause the most disruption though. Russiagate, for example, undermined and discredited the media.