The Danger Ahead
By David Frum
If Donald Trump returns to the White House, he’d bring a better understanding of the system’s vulnerabilities, more willing enablers, and a more focused agenda of retaliation against his adversaries.
For The Atlantic’s January/February 2024 issue, 24 contributors consider what Donald Trump could do if he were to return to the White House.
America survived the first Trump term, though not without sustaining serious damage. A second term, if there is one, will be much worse.
If Donald Trump returns to the White House, he’d bring a better understanding of the system’s vulnerabilities, more willing enablers, and a more focused agenda of retaliation against his adversaries.
If reelected, he would end our commitment to the European alliance, reshaping the international order and hobbling American influence in the world.
In a second Trump term, there would be no adults in the room.
A second Trump presidency will be worse. Subscribe to get The Atlantic’s special issue, featuring two dozen writers on what could happen if Donald Trump is reelected. The digital issue will be available to download on December 19, and print editions will arrive by January 1.
Donald Trump and his allies have promised to restore their draconian zero-tolerance immigration policy.
If reelected, he could use the powers of the presidency to evade justice and punish his enemies.
In a second Trump term, women would once again be targets.
His approach to the environment: ignore it.
The press has repeatedly fallen into Donald Trump’s traps. A second term could render it irrelevant.
A reelected Donald Trump would continue to attack studies that stand in the way of his agenda—and to make support for scientific inquiry a tribal belief.
Donald Trump and his cronies left his first administration with a playbook for self-enrichment in a second term.
A second Trump term would allow China to cement its grip on the developing world.
In a second term, Donald Trump would appoint more judges who don’t care about the law.
A second Trump term would validate the violent ideologies of far-right extremists—and allow them to escape legal jeopardy.
Activists hope a Trump Justice Department would criminalize the procedure, with or without a federal ban.
If reelected, Donald Trump will once again churn out absurdity and outrage with factory efficiency.
He has promised to impose his harmful, erroneous claims on school curricula in a second term.
In a second term, Trump would punish the cities and states that don’t support him.
We’ve become inured to his rhetoric, but his message has grown darker.
His campaign is promising a more repressive and dangerous America.
In 2020, the armed forces were a bulwark against Donald Trump’s antidemocratic designs. Changing that would be a high priority in a second term.
A second Trump term would require an opposition that focuses on his abuses of power—and seeks converts rather than hunting heretics.
Our bodies are not designed to handle chronic stress.
If he wins a second term, perhaps we’ll finally dispense with the myth that “this is not who we are.”