Trump II: How bad could be?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

55% : He could instruct EPA attorneys not to follow environmental laws.
54% : So Trump 45 envisions a possible Trump 47 as a force unrestrained by rules or laws.
54% : But to comprehend the depth of this immense threat, voters need only do one thing: listen to Trump and take him seriously.
49% : Not only would Trump (in his mind) be above the law, so would his lieutenants and foot soldiers.
48% : Part of that process includes devising a questionnaire for thousands of appointees that is designed to assess how devoted they are to Trump.
47% : With such control, Trump could order agencies beyond the Justice Department to investigate his opponents or shut down probes that target his pals.
47% : With Trump, we have learned, the bottom has no bottom.
44% : He has vowed to pardon the January 6 rioters -- he now calls them "hostages" -- a move signaling his support for political violence.
42% : Putting aside the policies he says he intends to pursue -- more tax cuts for the well-off, removing health care insurance from tens of millions, ending climate change action, bombing Mexican cartels, restoring a Muslim travel ban, deporting millions -- Trump has made it clear he yearns to be a ruthless autocrat.
40% : Trump could order the Internal Revenue Service to pursue his critics, demanding that the agency audit his foes and challenge the tax-exempt status of organizations, such as think tanks, policy advocacy shops, and media outlets, that oppose or denigrate his actions.
40% : During the Fox News event, he agreed with host Bret Baier that political violence is not acceptable, but he insisted that when he was president there was "very little of it" -- obviously downplaying the seditious January 6 riot he incited.
38% : In fact, a group of conservative think tanks under the auspices of what they benignly call Project 2025, has been drawing up plans for how Trump could do this.
37% : Trump and his henchmen foresee a second term in which he would have ironclad control of the federal bureaucracy.
33% : Some of these actions might well be illegal -- not just for Trump, but for the government worker who follow his orders.
31% : That legal argument was absurd, but the fact that Trump would allow his attorneys to advance this contention ought to be a DEFCON-1 warning.
31% : Trump has already called for suspending the Constitution (so he could return to power) and declared that he would use the Insurrection Act to turn the military into a domestic police force at his command.
31% : Given what Trump has already told us, we can expect Tump II to be a demagogic president bent on revenge who believes that there are no constraints on his power and that he need not abide by the law.
27% : In recent weeks, I've had several people tell me they are not overly worried about Donald Trump possibly returning to power, noting the republic survived his four years in the White House.
27% : But in federal court this week, his lawyers, trying to dismiss special counsel Jack Smith's election interference case against Trump, sort of made this official.
26% : Trump has also half-jokingly said that he will only be a "dictator" on "day one," in order to implement key policy objectives.
25% : Under this plan, workers and officials at various agencies who are not Trump supporters -- perhaps those who do not contribute to his campaign -- could be summarily dismissed.
24% : It's clear they have not been paying attention, for Trump himself and others have been outlining the alarming abuses of power that could ensue if he gets another shot at this.
24% : Yet Trump, who in September suggested that the top US military commander should be executed, has repeatedly indicated that he's out for revenge against all his detractors (real and imagined) and that he will consider using the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies.
22% : Here's the kicker: Trump could pardon any offender.
7% : And Trump has repeatedly threatened to go after the broadcast licenses of media companies that he considers antagonistic to him -- a move Nixon allies tried with the Washington Post during Watergate.

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