IMMIGRATION
What I feared: This was another area I was afraid could get really bad. I was afraid of ICE teaming up with local law enforcement and possibly informal militias, of Trump calling up the National Guard where the local authorities would not cooperate, of large-scale workplace raids, of makeshift outdoor facilities, of house-to-house searches in Aurora, Colorado. I did see a distinct countervailing pressure against all of this -- the fear of widespread labor shortages if it went to far.
What has happened: This is another case of just as bad but in a different way. Trump has largely halted illegal border crossings and made some use of the military at the border. So far he has not activated the National Guard for internal enforcement and local law enforcement has shown little interest in taking resources out of fighting street crime and putting them into arresting and holding border crossers who posed no threat to public safety. But horrific things have happened that I did not anticipate. ICE has been making arrests of people at routine check-ins at enforcement offices and even at a naturalization ceremony. It has been seeking deportation of legal residents for political activity or traffic tickets. And, of course, it has shipped over 200 men to indefinite imprisonment in El Salvador without and process. And we are starting to see arrests of people -- including a judge and a mayor. And now Steve Miller is threatening to suspend habeas corpus if courts continue to insist the immigrants are entitled to due process. (Not within the first 100 days, I admit). It is terrifying, though a different kind of terrifying than I feared.
What a smart authoritarian would do: I have no doubt that a smart authoritarian would close the border, as Trump has done. The overwhelming deluge on the border was a major reason for Trump's win. Ending the deluge is altogether in line with Rule Number One of Smart Authoritarians -- stick to popular stuff until you have consolidated complete power. A smart authoritarian would have a problem here. A deluge on the border is a story. The absence of such a deluge it not a story. But he could at least somewhat overcome that problem by taking a tour of the border, doing photo ops with people who were deluged with border crossers and are no longer having that problem, and getting rightwing influencers to do more stories on the subject.
No doubt a smart authoritarian would also expel foreign students for expressing political views that he disliked, and any other prominent and outspoken foreigner who opposed him, for that matter. But it makes no sense to pick a fight with ordinary apolitical types who keep their heads down and conduct valuable scientific research or do jobs Americans don't want. Especially if it caused labor shortages. To the extent people are upset about hearing people speak a language they don't understand and recordings that say, "Para espanol, oprima dos," strong pressure to assimilate makes more sense.
But if a smart authoritarian feels that he absolutely must engage in mass deportations to sate his base's bloodlust, a smart authoritarian would first seek to whip of bloodlust outside the base. Already these measures are beginning to spark a backlash -- and that is ever without serious labor shortages. Trump has been making a major priority of saying that non-citizens have no right to due process, and pointing to the worst of the worst to justify the point. But the opposite approach really makes more sense. Although Trump grossly exaggerates the numbers of fentanyl smugglers, human traffickers, serious criminals and the like among migrants, no one is seriously disputing that a few such individuals really do exist. Why not hold some highly publicized trials, with graphic details of real crimes? If you want to stir up real hatred against immigrants in general, graphic show trials of real crimes seem like an effective way to do it. It would unite that base and swing voters against immigrants and paralyze opponents, who can hardly defend such crimes, and reduce them to sputtering arguments that the defendants are not typical. Granted, it may take some time to put together such a trial, but so what? There is no need for hurry. And presumably different cases are in different stages of preparation. So much the better. A series of show trials, one after another, will be more effective in whipping up hate than doing them all at once.
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
What I feared: This one was not on my bingo card. I knew that Republican don't approve of college education. They prefer trade schools and believe that studying humanities and social sciences is a frivolous luxury at best, and a source of dangerously subversive ideas at worst. But I always assumed that Republican understood the value of STEM and favored things like, I don't know, cancer research. I did expect the Trump Administration to use federal funds as a form of coercion in education.
What a smart authoritarian would do: A smart authoritarian would make something like Trump's crackdown on the independence of universities. A smart authoritarian would also use federal funds as a means of coercion against schools to make them adopt his desired curriculum, or at least keep certain topics out. And a smart authoritarian would no doubt expel foreign students who expressed dangerous political views, and probably any other foreign resident who did something to offend him. But he would not attack cancer research or Alzheimer's research or generally come across as anti-healthcare.
ABORTION
What I feared: Trump has been studiously avoiding the issue of abortion, knowing how unpopular a ban is with the general public, even if the Party faithful favor it. I fully expected him to avoid this hot potato and leave it to the states.
What Trump has done: He has avoided this hot potato and left it to the states.
What a smart authoritarian would do: Avoid this hot potato. Vladimir Putin allows very lax abortion laws, knowing that a crackdown would be unpopular. What's good enough for Pooty should be good enough for Trump.
FOREIGN POLICY
What I feared: Democratic backsliding is taking place the world over. Europe, Latin America, Israel, South Korea are all experiencing an erosion in democracy. Countries that were never democratic, like China or Saudi Arabia, are becoming more autocratic. We are also well into a second Cold War between an alliance between Russia and China (with China very much the senior partner) and the embattled democracies of the West. I feared that Trump would switch sides and align us with the autocracies of the world against the democracies. This would include withdrawing from NATO, halting all aid to Ukraine, encouraging Russian propaganda, and who knows what else. I also assumed that democratic backsliding would rise or fall together -- if the US had overcome the anti-democratic forces, I expected other countries would follow our example. If democracy failed here, what chance would it have anywhere else?
On the other hand, I absolutely was not afraid that he would start WWIII or a nuclear war. In fact, when my anxiety about Donald Trump was at its height, I would look back to my fears of global thermonuclear was when Russia first invaded Ukraine and remind myself -- no matter how bad it gets, at least it won't be that bad.
On the other hand, after showing a decidedly pro-Putin tilt in Europe, Trump is now showing signs of disillusionment and may end up adopted a more conventional pro-Ukrainian policy (or he might not. You never know with the Donald). And he may be preparing for a nuclear deal with Iran, probably not all that different from the one that he rejected -- Nixon to China and all that. So Trump's foreign policy might not turn out so badly.
I also knew about the thermostatic effect in domestic politics, i.e., whatever policy is in effect provokes a backlash. It did not occur to me that the thermostatic effect might go international, and that Trump's deliberate attempts to insult and demean democratic allies would lead to an international backlash against Trumpish parties. The effect has not been universal. Alternatives fur Deutschland continues to poll better and better. The UK Independence Party made major gains in local elections. But Trumpish parties suffered major reversals in Canada, Australia, and now the Papacy.
What a smart authoritarian would do: A smart authoritarian bases foreign policy on one simple premise -- never lose a war. Many an authoritarian has been brought down by losing a war. Of course, the surest way to avoid losing a war is not to get into one in the first place. Donald Trump came to power on a wave of war-weariness and seems to understand this rule and intend to avoid getting into any wars. So long as he does that, I doubt that anyone but hardcore news junkies like me will care what he does in terms of foreign policy.
THE BUDGET
What I feared: I never expected much to happen in this regard. I expected the usual Republican shuffle -- freak out about deficits as long as the Democrats hold the White House and lose all interest once a Republican is elected. Also, tax cuts and military spending don't count toward the deficit. To that you can now add deportation spending. Also, I though Trump had learned his lesson from the attempt to repeal Obamacare and would avoid diving headfirst into a wood chipper by making serious cuts to mandatory spending.
First, we have been running large deficits since 2001. So long as interest rates have been low, these have been sustainable, but now that interest rates have gone up, these deficits are no longer sustainable. That does not mean a catastrophic fiscal crisis, but it does mean that debt service will eat up a larger and larger portion of the budget, crowding everything else out. Second, any meaningful cuts will be wildly unpopular. And third, tax increases are against Republican orthodoxy, although it must be noted that that last has changed at least with respect to import taxes, and just might change in other regards as well.
What a smart authoritarian would do: I would expect a smart authoritarian to kick the can down the road and refrain from any unpopular fiscal consolidation until after he had consolidated complete power.
TARIFFS AND THE ECONOMY
What I feared: I was not afraid of tariffs. To the contrary, I hoped Trump would bring on stagflation with ruinous tariffs. My fantasy on this score ran to Trump combining the worst of his and Kamala Harris's policies -- slap heavy taxes on imports and respond to the resulting price increases with price controls and prosecutions for "price gouging." It seemed like the most effective way for Trump to completely ruin is presidency, including splitting his base. If I had any fears, it was of the grownups in the room prevailing and preventing such foolishness.
What happened: Well, The Donald certainly hasn't disappointed in this regard. After promising a 10% general tariff, with 60% on China and possibly 100% on car imports on the campaign trail, Trump has adopted and then dropped his insane "reciprocal" tariffs and moved to a 10% general tariff with 25% on cars and145% (!) on China. Wall Street understandably freaked out over the "reciprocal" tariffs so Trump, whose whole career has been based on bilking gullible rubes, has discovered that there are no rubes so gullible as the ones on Wall Street and has quieted the stock market by stringing them on with endless promises of a trade deal. But I don't think painful realities can be denied forever. West coast ports have seen a dramatic drop in cargo arriving. Job losses are close at hand. And these will not be confined to a single sector. Companies have stocked up on inventory, but it will necessarily run out. Over the next few months, we will see increased prices, or even empty shelves. And once Main Street starts feeling the pain, Wall Street can no longer be fooled.
I think it is also clear that Trump realizes his mistake and is looking for a face-saving way to retreat. My guess is he will start his retreat once obvious pain appears on Main Street, probably in the form of carving out more and more exceptions to tariffs until nothing is left. It has already started. I don't know how long it will take for the pain to reverse. Estimates I have seen are that it takes two weeks for ships to load up cargo and 2-3 weeks for them to cross the Pacific, and depleted inventory will not be restored overnight, so at least a few months.
What a smart authoritarian would do: A smart authoritarian would take credit for a good economy and leave well enough alone. Probably a smart authoritarian would do something about bird flu like vaccinating hens and importing more eggs. I think that people would forgive high egg prices if they knew something was being done and relief was in sight. Or, put differently, Trump has given us a circus, but forgotten the bread.
In short, Trump has been as bad as I feared on immigration, but in a different way. He has been much worse on science, remains unknown on the budget, and is threatening to make complete hash out of the economy with his tariffs. And all that in the first 100 days. Hold onto your hats, who knows what comes next.
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