Trumps plan for a more authoritarian second term

11/08/23
5 ways Trump and allies plan for a more authoritarian second term
© Hannah Beier/for The Washington Post
A single hour on Sunday morning might have delivered the most thoroughly depressing political news of 2023 for those dreading another Donald Trump presidency.

At 5 a.m. came President Biden’s worst 2024 numbers yet: a New York Times-Siena College poll showing Trump leading in five of six key swing states. At 6 a.m. came a reminder about what that could portend: a Washington Post expos; about how Trump and his allies plan to use a second term to wrest control of and politicize the Justice Department to target his political foes.


The Post’s big story was hardly the first evidence of the plans for a consolidation of power and a more authoritarian second term.

Below is a recap of what we know, based on reports like The Post’s — as well as the words of both Trump and his allies.
1. Use the Justice Department for political purposes
Trump has made no secret that his second term would be about revenge and “retribution” against his foes. And that apparently means breaking down guardrails intended to insulate the Justice Department from him and his politics.

The Post reported Sunday that Trump and his allies have mapped out specific plans to use the federal government to target his enemies. They have signaled a desire to pursue not only President Biden but also high-profile former allies who have turned critical of Trump.

Those former allies include ex-attorney general William P. Barr, ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, ex-White House chief of staff John F. Kelly and ex-Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb. Just to emphasize, that’s the incumbent president as well as the nation’s former top law enforcement officer, top military official and top White House staffer.


(It’s not clear what these figures would be investigated for. Trump has also suggestively referred to the death penalty for Milley in recent weeks.)

Trump’s associates have drafted plans, according to The Post’s report, to “dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations.” Political interference in Justice Department matters figured heavily in Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal. In the early 2000s, the George W. Bush administration’s removals of U.S. attorneys for allegedly political purposes resulted in a criminal investigation.

Where there is a true and total breakdown of law
The Washington Post
Trump pushes authoritarian agenda for second term
They are also drafting preemptive plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on Trump’s first day to quell any demonstrations. A key figure in that effort is indicted former Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who Trump’s indictment says floated using the same law to put down protests if Trump refused to leave office in 2021.

Some involved have distanced themselves from that last idea, but they’re talking openly about making the Justice Department less independent.

“I think that the supposedly independent DOJ is an illusion,” Clark told The Post.

“A president has every right to direct DOJ to look at items that are his policy priorities and other matters of national importance,” another Trump loyalist involved, Mark Paoletta, has told the New York Times.

Trump himself was asked in August about whether he would “lock” his foes “up” in a potential second term. He responded: “The answer is you have no choice, because they’re doing it to us.”

2. Purge the government and install loyalists
Related to the above is how Trump and his allies reportedly plan to rid the government of those perceived to not be on his side — again, despite such officials usually being insulated and protected.

Jonathan Swan reported for Axios last year that Trump allies were considering reclassifying as many as 50,000 federal employees so that they would lose employment protections and could more easily be replaced.

That’s a fraction of the federal workforce, but the effort could focus on career nonpartisan officials who have significant sway over policy. Presidents usually get to replace only about 4,000 political appointees.

Trump could theoretically use this to recast the ranks of those in charge of national security, intelligence, the State Department, law enforcement and the military. He has frequently singled out all of these areas as being rife with officials insufficiently aligned with him.

“This is the final battle,” Trump said at a speech in June. “With you at my side we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”

In the 1940s, Harry Truman responded to widespread concern about communists and other subversives in the government — the “red scare” — by signing an executive order creating a “loyalty program” for civil servants. Dwight Eisenhower later expanded it to all government jobs. But while the Truman order resulted in more than 4 million government employees being investigated, only about 400 were removed.

The question with Trump would be how many he removes and who replaces them. And a Times story last week provides clues.

The Times reported that there were plans to jettison conservative lawyers in the mold of the Federalist Society and instead install more aggressive and loyal ones committed to Trump’s agenda.

It reported that Trump’s allies are seeking those “willing to endure the personal and professional risks of association with Mr. Trump” and “willing to use theories that more establishment lawyers would reject.”

We’ve seen where this can lead, with many Trump-aligned lawyers adopting theories rejected by other lawyers, especially after the 2020 election. Those like Clark have been indicted for their alleged exploits, and several have pleaded guilty to involvement in efforts to overturn the election in Georgia.

3. Consolidate power in the presidency
The Times also reported in the summer on the various ways, beyond personnel, that Trump aimed to consolidate power in the presidency.

It reported that Trump and his allies planned to increase his authority over virtually every part of the federal government:

He could bring such independent agencies as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission under his direct control.
He could issue an executive order making agencies submit actions to the White House for review.
He could refuse to spend money on programs Congress funds but he doesn’t favor.
There is even a question about whether Trump would try to wrangle control of the Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates. Trump as president repeatedly applied pressure on the Fed, one of many norms he flouted. He also recently suggested he might apply pressure on it to lower interest rates in a second term.

Presidents have tried to assert more control of agencies. Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 endorsed bringing agencies more under his control but was largely unsuccessful. Ronald Reagan and others also sought more control of some agencies but rarely targeted independent agencies.

Another key figure in the second-term planning, former Trump budget director Russ Vought, put it bluntly in terms similar to those of Clark.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” Vought told the Times.

4. Pardon Jan. 6 insurrectionists
Trump has leaned in on the idea of pardoning many Jan. 6 defendants, whose conduct he has not only excused but lionized.

The unmistakable message — and one inextricably tied to his historically political first-term pardons — is that he will stand up for those who fought for him (often quite literally).

“I mean full pardons with an apology to many,” he said last year.

He added in a CNN town hall this year that he is inclined to pardon a “large portion” of the hundreds of defendants, while exempting “a couple of them” who perhaps “got out of control.”

He even recently left open the possibility of pardoning members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, who have been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

All the ways Trump, not his foes, sought to ‘weaponize’ the government
This is also tied to his reported plans to pursue investigations of his critics. All of it traces to a desire to supposedly right wrongs but in practice use his power to help his allies and target his foes — in apparently historic ways.

5. Crack down on immigrants harder, with extraordinary tools
Trump has long pursued a hard-line immigration policy. But he has recently threatened to wield his powers in even more drastic and extreme ways — while saying that some migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”:

He has promised to ramp up his controversial travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries.
He has said he would “halt all of the refugee settlements to the United States.”
He has proposed “ideological screening” to root out people who, among other things, “don’t like our religion.” (The United States has no official religion.)
He has promised the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history. This would involve expanding the powers of National Guard and state officials to arrest and deport people — despite long-standing limits on the military conducting law enforcement activities.
It has been more than seven years since Trump boasted at the 2016 Republican National Convention that “I alone can fix it.”

His message today seems to be much the same — but with the apparent caveat that he’ll need to take some liberties to get it done.