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I KNOW HOW IT ENDS. If you’re reading this after Donald Trump has won the election, it no longer matters that I will lose my job for speaking out.
It is one thing to have some fuzzy understanding that “Trump is a fascist”. It is another to know what this means in real and practical terms.
Unfortunately for us both, I possess the gift of foresight. Not as a curse from the Gods, but as someone who has both studied fascism, and will be one of its first targets.
Consolidation of Power
Trump intends to consolidate power quickly. This will look far more like Hitler’s first hundred days than Vladimir Putin or Viktor Orban’s.
He will lead with perhaps a hundred or more pre-prepared executive orders written by the Heritage Foundation and the Alliance Defending Freedom, that include re-implementing Schedule F to fill the government with sycophantic true believers.
At the same time, he intends to remove any military officers suspected of being “woke”. In effect, he plans to make sure that no one within the government or military will say no to his follow-on orders.
Trump intends to use the military, DOJ, and FBI to eliminate opposition. This includes rounding up prominent Democrats, and using the military to put down the protests that will inevitably erupt after his draconian executive orders.
He will invoke the Insurrection Act to do both. The suppression of dissent is likely to be brutal: Trump has declared them evil enemies of the people, and he admires how China handled Tiananmen Square.
Those protesters who aren’t killed will be among the first sent to the military-run prison camps he intends to establish. Many of those taken prisoner will disappear into black holes run by DHS (like what happened with the Portland protests under Trump).
He will neutralise the power of the courts using the powers they gave him. The Roberts Court accepted the argument that Trump could have SEAL Team 6 execute his political enemies as long as it constitutes an “Official Act”.
Putting down an “insurrection” under the Insurrection Act is official, and any judge who sides with those opposing the government’s actions is clearly siding with the insurrectionists.
It also means that Trump will be free to intimidate courts, elected officials, billionaires, and anyone else as much as he wants.
His goal won’t be to lock everyone up, but to get compliance or silence. He comes from a New York mob background, so a lot of the intimidation will be of the “Nice family. It’d be a shame if something happened to them”, variety.
Given that protesters and Democratic leaders will be arrested (or shot), this will be a sufficient threat for the vast majority of people to quietly do as they’re told. Much like in Germany in 1933, I expect functional and effective opposition to Trump to collapse very quickly.
Very few people will be willing to risk everything to defy America’s first Mad King since George III. We now see organisations everywhere, run by the most powerful rich people in the world, already working to obey in advance.
However, these first hundred days are only the beginning of our descent into madness and death. Unlike the first Trump administration, there will be no sober adults left in the room to temper his worst instincts; only fanatics and ideologues who don’t care about the law, the constitution, or even crimes against humanity.
To them, all of it is right and necessary to make America great again. What extends in front of the US for the rest of its foreseeable existence is a tale of oppression, terror, misery, and genocide.
The Economy
Trump’s (and Project 2025’s) economic plans can be summarised as implementing tariffs, handing tax cuts to the rich, and slashing spending on everyone else.
But, because of his plans for deporting more than 20 million people, his other non-economic policies will have outsize effects that absolutely devastate the middle class and the poor.
First: the tariffs. The independent Tax Foundation found that Trump’s proposed tariffs would reduce US GDP by 0.8%, which is economically significant.
It would effectively raise costs the most for people who can least afford it: ie if poor people pay more for food and toilet paper, they pay a much larger portion of their income on such items.
Then there are the mass deportations, which would set off an economic recession on a par with the Great Recession of 2007-2008.
A recent study which looked at vari