The Resistance to a Second Trump Term is Already Being Planned

AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson

Former President Trump looks to be in pretty good shape to win the election in November. It's five months out from election day, though, and that is a lifetime in politics. 

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Democrats are wasting no time planning the resistance movement against Trump. The effort is underway. 

Potential lawsuits are being drafted just in case Trump wins and carries out his promise to do mass deportations. An auditor has been hired to stand up to a second Trump administration that may unleash the IRS on them. Blue states are stockpiling abortion medication. 

They are scared of Trump, or so they pretend to be to scare voters into going out to vote. 

A sprawling network of Democratic officials, progressive activists, watchdog groups, and ex-Republicans has been taking extraordinary steps to prepare for a potential second Trump presidency, drawn together by the fear that Trump’s return to power would pose a grave threat not just to their agenda but to American democracy itself.

“Trump has made clear that he’ll disregard the law and test the limits of our system,” said Joanna Lydgate, the CEO of States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan democracy watchdog organization that works with state officials in both parties. “What we’re staring down is extremely dark.”

When did Trump say he would "disregard the law?" That is Joe Biden who has done that. Biden boasts about defying the Supreme Court and bribing younger voters by spending trillions of taxpayer dollars with student load debt cancellation. Biden trashes the Supreme Court justices when they rule against his wishes. Biden is using programs in federal agencies to pay people to register voters. That is "extremely dark" if you ask me. 

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When I hear the word 'resistance', I think of the pink pussy hat people marching when Trump won the 2016 election. Those marches began immediately and continued for a long time. The Democrats prepared to impeach Trump before he was inaugurated. Then they managed to impeach him not once, but twice, during his term in office. 

It's all happening again. 

One big concern is how a second Trump administration might try to outlaw abortion pills, though the Supreme Court ruled that they can remain legal. 

Take, for instance, Democrat Governor Jay Insee. He said he has secured a large enough supply of mifepristone pills to last through a second Trump term. The supply is locked away in a state warehouse so there would not be any problems with transportation. 

“We have it physically in the state of Washington, which could stop him and his anti-choice forces from prohibiting its distribution,” Inslee said in an interview. “It has a life span of five or six years. If there was another Trump administration, it’ll get us through.”

Priorities, eh? 

The groups involved claim that Trump is not an ordinary candidate, that he promises to be an autocrat. 

Ian Bassin, the executive director of Protect Democracy, said the planning for how to resist such an agenda should not be seen as an ordinary policy dispute, but as an effort to defend fundamental aspects of American self-government “from an aspiring autocrat.”

“He is no normal candidate, this is no normal election, and these are no normal preparations for merely coming out on the wrong side of a national referendum on policy choices,” Bassin said.

The leaders of many of the centrist and left-leaning groups involved insist their energies are primarily devoted to preventing Trump from regaining power in the first place. Many are also wary about discussing their contingency plans publicly, for fear of signaling a lack of confidence in President Joe Biden’s campaign prospects. Their angst is intensified by Biden’s low approval numbers and by his persistent trailing of Trump in polls of the states that are likely to decide the election.

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Every time I read one of these articles about how Trump will destroy democracy and it is up to the sainted Democrats to protect America, I laugh at the level of projection they are willing to put out. They truly think voters are stupid.

The problem for them is that Trump has already been president. He has a record in office. No matter which candidate wins in November, he will be a lame-duck president. Democrats know that Trump was a very successful president, even though they didn't like his policies, and was on his way to winning re-election until the pandemic hit. Biden is in big trouble this time. Democrats thought they would cruise to re-election by using lawfare (saving democracy!) and keeping Trump out of the White House. It has backfired spectacularly so far.

Democrats are spending $50M on ads highlighting that Trump is a convicted felon. Voters already know that. You can feel their panic because the ads are beginning now, five months out, instead of closer to the election. 

All Trump has to do is remind voters how much better their lives were when he was in office. Is anyone better off today than they were when Trump was in office? Illegal aliens are but not regular Americans. 

Interviews with more than 30 officials and leaders of organizations about their plans revealed a combination of acute exhaustion and acute anxiety. Activist groups that spent the four years of Trump’s presidency organizing mass protests and pursuing legal challenges, ultimately helping channel that energy into persuading voters to oust him from power in 2020, are now realizing with great dread that they may have to resist him all over again.

The group leaders say they learned a lot from 2017 to 2021 about how to run an effective resistance campaign. At the same time, their understanding of what Trump is capable of expanded after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. They believe that the orbit around Trump has grown more sophisticated and that a second Trump White House would be both more radical and more effective, especially on core issues like immigration.

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The Trump campaign is more professional this time around. Trump is more disciplined in his messaging. This terrifies Democrats because they want to paint him as a madman. 

Biden is losing most voter demographics to Trump. Voters want a president who talks to them and knows how to build an economy, secure the southern border, keep the United States out of wars, and bring back law and order. Joe Biden has failed miserably in all of that. 


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John Stossel 8:30 AM | December 22, 2024
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