Oct.09

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Trump's Enemies List Is Long, and Growing

We've already deployed our favorite Sherlock Holmes quote. Why don't we add our favorite Maya Angelou quote? To wit: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." Last week, we had an item talking broadly about Trump's plans to punish his perceived enemies, should he regain the White House. Trump has shown us who he is, and we have no reason to doubt that he'll try to make good on his threats.

We are not the only ones to think so. Our item last week linked to a Politico article that sounded the alarm. That same day, The New York Times published their own article on the subject, based on their interviews with 50 former federal government employees, most of them having worked for the Department of Justice or the Office of White House counsel. And 42 of them said that Trump would be a threat to keeping criminal enforcement separate from politics, while 39 said he'd likely order the DoJ to investigate a political adversary. They were almost evenly divided on whether the DoJ would play along; 27 leaned in the direction of "yes," 23 leaned in the direction of "no."

It seems pretty clear that the question is not "will he try it?", it's "will he succeed?" That being the case, we thought a rundown of the threats reported in just the last week or so was worth noting:

• Trump has promised to get rid of Temporary Protected Status and to deport all the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
  
  
• Trump said he would hit tractor maker John Deere with a 200% tariff. Apparently, he believes the company is un-American because it has moved some operations to Mexico. Note that their stock took a 2% hit the day Trump said that, so he's doing harm whether or not he is able to make good on his threats.
  
  
• Trump also wants to prosecute Google, because he is persuaded the search engine only shows negative items about him, and positive items about Kamala Harris. "This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections. If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the Election, and become President of the United States!" he Truthed.
  
  
• A former Trump advisor said that, if the former president is reelected, "Disney is fu**ed." Trump is still angry about the ABC debate, and wants the network's parent company to pay the price.
  
  
• In an interview, Mitt Romney conceded that he's probably a target, and that he's particularly worried that his family will be targeted.
  
  
• Of course, Trump wants to prosecute any election officials he deems to have "cheated" in the 2024 election.
  
  
• And finally, Trump is also threatening to imprison journalists he deems unfriendly.

We don't have anything insightful or pithy to add. He's a scary, scary man, and if he's reelected, he'll be surrounded by hordes of additional scary, scary men. (Z)