Trump Predicts a "Blood Bath" When He Loses; That’s Why He Should Lose

(Photo by Jonathan Simcoe on Unsplash)

Donald Trump disrespects democracy, threatens with violence, and calls immigrants "animals." 

Who cares?

We all should, but we have grown numb after years of unacceptable behavior and improper statements by the former President. He has become a particular category in politics where he and his supporters get away with declarations and actions that would have been unacceptable for any other politician in American history; in a speech this weekend in Ohio, Trump predicted a 'blood bath' if he loses the elections. 

I was born in the Netherlands twenty years after the end of the Second World War, so I grew up during the Cold War. I remember those days as stable and relatively easy to understand.

Nazism was permanently defeated, and the former allies had split into East and West. The Warsaw Pact countries were under the tight communist control of the Soviet Union, while the West knew freedom, democracy, and remarkable growth in welfare.

We saw the U.S. as our main liberator from fascism and guaranteeing our freedom. Although there was the fear of a nuclear armageddon, we expected that the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction would prevent a full-scale war between the East and West. The superpowers fought their proxy wars elsewhere.

Growing up in the '70s, "America" was a magical world of wealth, innovation, Disneyland, astronauts, and Hollywood actors.

The end of history, but we have forgotten about the climate

Communism fell in the early 1990s, and the West enjoyed a victorious feeling of having definitively beaten a wide range of non-democratic forms of government. The end of history was often used—and misused—to describe the success of liberal democracy after many alternatives had lost legitimacy. Monarchy, aristocracy, and oligarchy were lost in the first decades of the 20th century. Fascism was put on the waste dump after the Second World War, and 45 years later, the Soviet version of Communism collapsed.

The next battle to fight in the 1990s should have been climate change. This would have been affordable and timely, leading to massive technological investment. It would have cost far less than we had spent on defense in the previous decades. 

But we happily consumed during these good times. In the West, we had access to reliable information, free media, a functioning rule of law, and increasing mobility. Our economic well-being increased hand in hand with our support for liberalism, a free market, and democratic institutions.

Although there were many differences between the government systems in the West, we didn't give fascists, communists, or populist demagogues a serious chance for a role in government. 

History never ends, and in hindsight, the 1990s had more worrying seeds for future political challenges than climate change. The Balkan War refugee crisis looks relatively small compared to the numbers of internally displaced and international refugees of the 2020s, and terrorism would soon after the millennium trigger violent international conflicts. 

Rising anti-immigration feelings

In the second decade of this century, the Middle Eastern and North African region would be destabilized after the Arab Spring, leading to civil wars in several countries and a massive increase in refugees. Anti-immigration feelings rose in the U.S. and Europe, and so did gun violence in the U.S. The Tea Party moved the Republicans to the right.

And in the middle of that decade, Donald Trump, without any political or military experience, ran a successful campaign to become President of the United States. Chaos reigned, and I remember those years mainly as daily reading, discussing, and tweeting about Trump's scandal of the day; some infuriating, some laughable.

However, although his unpredictable policies lost the U.S. much of its international standing in international politics, Trump also became an icon for a noticeable worrying trend in many countries where right-wing populism was steeply on the rise. 

Blaming the minority

Call it fascism, right-wing nationalistic movements, or any other label you like; there are lots of parallels (and some evident differences) with Europe in the 1930s. A dominant majority blindly follows an autocratic leader who makes them feel like they are part of a movement that distrusts regular politics, elites, 'woke politics,' a 'deep state,' and one or more groups or ethnicities that are not like the majority and are to blame for anything wrong in society. 

Add a touch of national nostalgia to the U.S. or any of those other countries about an often imaginary and only vaguely defined past that was more pure and perfect than today's rotten society. The 'again' in MAGA is like Marine LePen in France, stating that the French are 'no longer' safe. It's another parallel with Europe in the 1930s. 

Trump lost

After losing (yes, he did) the 2020 election, many expected the U.S. to return to the world stage with a bruised image and would quickly return to normal. I remember the climate czar, John Kerry, speaking at the first climate COP for the Biden Administration, saying they returned with good intentions but humbly after the previous government had stepped out of the Paris Agreement.

The Biden government delivered more than expected in climate change and many other policy fields. The course set during the first two years laid the base for many successes, including spectacular job growth. I follow the U.S. mostly from abroad, and it is tough to understand why he has not been rewarded in the polls for what his administration has achieved throughout his presidency.

Nobody to restrain Trump this time

But Trump is back and leading in the polls. He is often supported by those you would expect to gain from the Biden policies. The risk for the world of a second Trump presidency is far greater than the first time. This time, he knows how the system works and how to prevent it from working correctly in the future. He will have a team without anyone to restrain him.

Fascist leaders have a trait I would generally admire in politics: they say what they will do and then stick to their promises once in power. Unfortunately, they sometimes deliver even more than promised; Hitler kept many of his evil promises while the rest of the world didn't take him seriously.

Trump, however, didn't deliver the wall or get Mexico to pay for it, and his policies were generally ineffective. But if Trump returns to power, you should fear for the workings of the rule of law and expect violence in the streets, revenge on anyone he perceives as enemies, mass deportations, and the end of free and fair elections in the U.S. Trump doesn't hide his inspiration when he repeatedly used the word 'vermin' when referring to his enemies, thus using the language of Nazi Germany to dehumanize Jews. 

I fear unprecedented challenges to global political stability if he returns to power in a far darker world. As an environmentalist, I fear for the worldwide impact when the historically most significant contributor to greenhouse gasses dismantles its climate legislation, steps again out of the Paris Agreement, and effectively promotes fossil fuel production under Trump's public encouragement of "drill, baby drill."

After following international politics since my high school days in the 1980s, I'm trying to understand how we arrived at this low point in history. The U.S. has many challenges, but it's nowhere near the unstable Weimar Republic, where fascism grabbed its chance to abolish democracy. 

Come on, America. You led and inspired the world and liberated Europe from fascism; you shouldn't implode into chaos. You all have a vote, and the majority should have many reasons to vote for a candidate other than Trump.

I write this newsletter because if we work together, we can do better on this beautiful but fragile planet.

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Notes:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/central-european-history/article/an-american-fuhrer-nazi-analogies-and-the-struggle-to-explain-donald-trump/25CBE639F23D2D80870EA4D3F1E6D566

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38317787

https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article/91/1/1/6329186

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/16/us/politics/trump-speech-ohio.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb