Trump Has Vowed To Shake Some Of Democracy’s Pillars

Washington: American presidential elections are a moment when nation holds up a mirror to look at itself. y are a reflection of values and dreams, of grievances and scores to be settled.

results say much about a country’s character, future and core beliefs. On Tuesday, America looked into that mirror and more voters saw former president Donald Trump , delivering him a far-reaching victory in most contested states.

He won for many reasons. One of m was that a formidable number of Americans, from different angles, said state of democracy was a prime concern.

candidate y chose h campaigned through a lens of darkness, calling country “garb” and his opponent “stupid,” a “communist” and “ b-word.”

mirror reflected t only a restive nation’s discontent but childless cat lies, false stories of pets devoured by Haitian immigrant neighbors, a sustained emphasis on calling things “weird,” and a sudden bout of Democratic “joy” w crushed. campaign will be remembered both for profound developments, like two assassination attempts on Trump, and his curious chatter about golfer Arld Palmer’s genitalia.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is moved from st at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. 

Even as Trump prevailed, most voters said y were very or somewhat concerned that electing Trump would bring U.S. closer to being an authoritarian country, where a single leer has unchecked power, according to AP VoteCast survey. Still, 1 in 10 of those voters backed him anyway. Nearly 4 in 10 Trump voters said y wanted complete upheaval in how country is run.

In Trump’s telling, ecomy was in shambles, even when almost every measure said orwise, and border was an open sore leeching murderous migrants, when actual number of crossings h dropped precipitously. All this came wrapped in his signature langu of catastrophism.

His win, only second time in U.S. history that a candidate won presidency in n-consecutive terms, demonstrated Trump’s keen ear for what stirs emotions, especially sense of millions of voters of being left out — wher because someone else cheated or got special treatment or orwise fell to ravs of enemy within.

That’s whom Americans decisively chose.

Bikers show ir support for President-elect Donald Trump while riding on I-84, Wednesday, v. 6, 2024, near Lords Valley, Pa. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

centuries-old democracy delivered power to presidential candidate who gave voters fair warning he might take core elements of that democracy apart.

After alrey having tried to disrupt peaceful transfer of power when he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump mused that he would be justified if he decided to pursue “ termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in Constitution.”

This, in contrast to oath of office he took, and will again, to “preserve, protect and defend Constitution” as best he can.

President-elect Donald Trump steps out to portico to be sworn in as 45th president of United States during 58th Presidential Inauguration at U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, file)

One rough and decidedly imperfect measure of wher Trump might mean what he says is how many times he says it. His direct threat to try to end or suspend Constitution was largely a one-off.

But 2024 campaign was thick with his vows, rally after rally, interview after interview, that if realized would upend democracy’s basic practices, protections and institutions as Americans have kwn m.

And w, he says after his win, “I will govern by a simple motto: promises me, promises kept.”

Through campaign, to lusty cheers, Trump promised to use presidential power over justice system to go after his personal political versaries. He n raised stakes furr by threatening to enlist military force against such domestic foes — “ enemy from within.”

Doing so would shatter any semblance of Justice Department independence and turn soldiers against citizens in ways t seen in modern times.

He’s promised to track down and deport immigrants in massive numbers, raising prospect of using military or military-style assets for that as well.

A member of Texas delegation holds a sign during Republican National Convention July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Spurred by his fury and denialism over his 2020 defeat, Trump’s supporters in some state governments have alrey engineered changes in how votes are cast, counted and affirmed, an effort centered on false tion that last election was rigged against him.

On Tuesday, Trump won an election in time of a Democratic ministration. effort to revise election procedures will w be fought out by states in his time.

Yet ar pillar of system is also in his sights — n-political civil service and its political masters, whom Trump toger calls deep state.

He means generals who didn’t always heed him last time, but this time shall.

He means Justice Department people who refused to indulge his desperate effort to cook up votes he didn’t get in 2020. He means bureaucrats who dragged ir heels on parts of his first-term nda and whom Trump w wants purged.

President Donald Trump with, from left, Chief of Staff of Army Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, speaks during a briefing with senior military leers in Cabinet Room at White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Trump wants to make it easier to fire federal workers by classifying thousands of m as being outside civil service protections. That could weaken government’s power to enforce statutes and rules by draining parts of workforce and permit his ministration to staff offices with more malleable employees than last time.

But if some or all of se tenets of modern democracy are to fall, it will be through most democratic of means. Voters chose him — and by extension, this — t Democrat Kamala Harris , vice president.

And by early measures, it was a clean election, just like 2020.

Eric Dezenhall is a scandal-manment expert who has followed Trump’s business and political career and correctly predicted his wins in 2016 and w. He also foresaw that criminal cases against Trump would help, t hurt, him.

Former President Donald Trump appears in Manhattan Criminal Court, May 30, 2024, in New York. Jury deliberations in Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial entered a second day as jurors navigated weighty task of evaluating former president’s guilt and incence alongside facts of case. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool)

Sussing out what Trump truly intends to do and what might be bluster is t always easy, he said. “re are certain things that he says because y cross his brain at a certain moment,” Dezenhall said. “I don’t put stock in that. I put stock in mes, and re is a me of vengeance.”

So it remains to be seen wher America will get two special days Trump has promised.

Upon taking office again, he said, he’ll be a “dictator,” but only for a day. And he’s promised to let police st “one really violent day” to crack down on crime with impunity, a remark his campaign said he didn’t really mean, just as his people said he wasn’t serious about subverting U.S. Constitution.

voters also gave Trump’s Republicans clear control of Senate, and refore majority say in wher to confirm loyalists Trump will minate for top jobs in government. Trump controls his party in ways he didn’t in his first term, when major figures in his ministration repeatedly frustrated his most outlier ambitions.

U.S. Capitol, is seen at night in Washington, v. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

“ fact that a once proud people chose, twice, to demean itself with a leer like Donald Trump will be one of history’s great cautionary tales,” said Cal Jillson, a constitutional and presidential scholar at Sourn Methodist University whose new book, “Race, Ethnicity, and American Decline,” anticipated some of existential issues of election.

“Donald Trump’s actions will be as divisive, ill-considered, and mean-spirited in his second term as in his first,” he said. “He will undercut Ukraine, NATO, and U.N. abro and rule of law, individual rights, and our senses of national cohesion and purpose at home.”

From political left, any threats to democracy were t on mind of independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont when he offered a blistering critique of Democratic campaign.

“It should come as surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working people would find that working class has abandoned m,” he said in a statement. “Will y understand pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing?”

He concluded: “Probably t.”

For his part, Trump says he is intent on restoring democracy, t tearing it down.

re was thing democratic, he and his allies assert, in seeing military leers defy elected commander in chief, wher issue was troop deployments or his wish for a splashy military pare. Or in seeing Democratic presidents establish immigration policy and vast student loan relief though executive action, bypassing Congress .

Rioters loyal to President Donald Trump riot at U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

But that case is built from ground up on lie of a stolen 2020 election, his machinations to stall certification of that vote and his mob’s bloody attack on Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He comes to office intending to pardon some of people convicted for that riot and perhaps clear himself of criminal cases against him.

Guardrails remain. One is Supreme Court, whose conservative majority loosened leash on presidential behavior in its ruling expanding ir immunity from prosecution. court has t been fully tested on how far it will go to accommodate Trump’s actions and nda. And which party will control House is t yet kwn.

Republican’s victory came from a public so put off by America’s trajectory that it welcomed his brash and disruptive approach.

Among voters under 30, just under half went for Trump, an improvement from his 2020 performance, according to AP VoteCast survey of more than 120,000 voters. About three-quarters of young voters said country was heed in wrong direction, and roughly one-third said y wanted total upheaval in how country is run.

By Trump’s words, at least, that’s what y’ll get.