For the last few weeks, Americans have been voting on whether to keep Donald Trump as our president for another four years, or to kick him out and replace him with Joe Biden. If in the end, we vote Trump out, we will be unleashing an agent of chaos and destruction on the world. Would it be better to keep Trump in the White House where his office imposes some constraints on him, or allow him loose in the world where he would feel no constraints — only grievances?
If President Trump loses the election and is turned out on January 20, he will be vengeful, embarrassed, resentful, and vindictive. As a man whose default emotion is anger, and who only cares about two things in the world — himself and money — his will be a dangerous and disruptive post-presidency unlike anything this country has ever experienced. Trump thrives on public attention and disruption, and he will aggressively pursue both — plus money.
It will start at 12:01 pm on January 20 when Trump uses his Twitter account to belittle President Biden’s inaugural address and his crowd size.
Donald Trump is the leader of a movement. He has 87 million Twitters followers and a huge list of campaign supporters and donors. He will set himself up with his followers as a president-for-life inside their bubble of support. He’ll be a wrongly-removed leader in exile. He’ll run something of an opposition government — maybe from as close as the Trump Hotel four blocks east of the White House. He’ll constantly remind his supporters that the election was rigged, he was cheated out of a second term, and they should listen to and follow him as if he were still president. As he rails against the unfairness of it all, he’ll be urging his supporters to take to the streets, to resist, and to obstruct the Biden government. He’ll destabilize the country further by undermining whatever trust remains in our institutions.
He’ll use his campaign e-mail list to raise money for himself, and to sell Trump merchandise. He’ll be a constant presence on Fox News and OAN, where he will insist that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected. We’ll see much more of him than of Republican leaders still in office, and continue to see him as the party’s leader. And with each television appearance, he’ll boost ratings while stirring discontent and spreading conspiracy theories.
After a Trump defeat, the Republican Party will be in a shambles. Any Republican who attempts to lead the party will be slapped down by Trump. The party has no other leader. It also lacks a coherent ideology other than the worship of Trump. For the first time ever, the Republican Party had no election platform this year other than “Whatever Trump wants to do”. Trump will remain the party’s most reliable megaphone and kingmaker. In a perverse way, the 2022 midterm elections may be a more MAGA-friendly election with Trump out of office promoting his chosen candidates than with Trump in office and stumbling through his second term. He’ll still have his Twitter following and fund raising list to magnify his reach.
Trump might take up residence at the Trump Hotel in Washington where he would hold press conferences, and meet with GOP congressional leaders and visiting governors to plot Republican Party strategy — and his return to the White House in 2024. He’ll hold boat parades and large rallies across the country. The next four years will be a non-stop Trump re-election campaign.
Poor Joe Biden. At the start of his presidency in January, he’ll be struggling to bring the covid-19 pandemic under control and restart the economy. But as he does so, Trump will be constantly interrupting and distracting him — like he did during the first presidential debate. Trump will launch a low-grade political insurgency, promoting the dark and chaotic political environment he created, while deliberately attempting to undermine Biden’s domestic and international policies and initiatives. Trump will do whatever he has to do to stay in the political conversation.
An ex-president Trump could pose a serious challenge domestically if he becomes a nexus of disaffected, hawkish military and intelligence officers who want an outlet to criticize the Biden administration’s return to the passive Obama foreign and military policy. Trump could become his own version of the deep state — spewing disinformation and disruption from within the national security apparatus.
Former President Trump is likely to make it impossible for President Biden to return to the foreign policy objectives of the Obama administration. Because of the people he’s met and relationships he’s established over the last four years, he’ll be able to disrupt any negotiations between the Biden administration and Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and China. He will object to any Biden effort to resurrect the Iran nuclear deal, and with his friend Bibi Netanyahu will prevent any progress the Biden administration attempts to make toward Middle East peace. Trump will be out in the world visiting Russia, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea, and acting as a chaos agent undermining U.S. foreign policy.
But Trump’s travels won’t be just about preserving his version of the world order. They will also be about the pursuit of money. (Yes, there will be all the obvious petty efforts by Trump and his family to enrich themselves domestically. Trump will require his Secret Service detail to stay at Trump properties where he will overcharge them for rooms, meals, bottled water, and golf carts. He’ll set up a nonprofit corporation to build the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library. Then he’ll have the library built on land he already owns and have the nonprofit overpay him for the property. Then just like they stole money from the Trump Foundation, his overfunded inaugural committee, and his 2020 re-election campaign, the Trump family will steal most of the funds raised by the nonprofit to build the presidential library.)
But the real money Trump will make after he leaves the White House will come from foreign governments. Trump will sell himself to world leaders, particularly authoritarians seeking recognition and respect. He’ll want to remain relevant by standing on the world stage — even with the likes of Erdogan and Orbán. And he’ll want to sell what he now knows. It’s easy to imagine Trump as a paid lobbyist on behalf of arming Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons.
Trump will sell America’s geopolitical, surveillance, and intelligence secrets to foreign leaders. We have secret military and intelligence capabilities of which Trump is aware, and which, as a former president, he is free to share with foreign governments. No law prohibits it. Whether it be our nuclear and war plans, our espionage capabilities, or our intelligence assets in other countries and in space, Trump has this knowledge and will sell it. This will be his largest source of post-presidency income. This is how he will become, in fact, a billionaire.
On the other hand, if we re-elect Donald Trump for a second term, he will leave office in 2025 graciously and without anger or resentment. He’ll be the world’s elder statesman, retired, content, and playing golf each day, with no interest in or inclination to pursue any of the things listed above — all things we should know by now to expect if the American people vote him out of office this week.
