In a March post on Truth Social, Donald Trump gave a glimpse of what his second term would look like. The title of the video is “Preventing World War III,” and it’s ostensibly about Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine. He calls for a “total cessation of hostilities.” He says, “All shooting has to stop.” He demands “peace without delay.” And he follows these bromides with—nothing. He doesn’t offer a scrap of information about how he’d stave off “nuclear Armageddon,” mediate between Ukraine and Russia, and so on.
This is because the post wasn’t actually about outlining how Trump will approach Ukraine or any other aspect of his foreign policy. As is so often the case with Trump, it was about destroying his political foes in the United States—a fixation that would dominate his presidency if voters return him to the Oval Office.
In a portion of the March address that sounded worse than Nixonian in its paranoia and vindictiveness, Trump explained he’d prevent the United States from becoming a “third-world dictatorship” by gutting the entire apparatus of U.S. foreign policymaking and installing loyalists who’ll do his bidding: “The State Department, the Defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services, and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted to fire the deep staters and put America first.”
Trump concluded: “Evicting this sick and corrupt establishment is the monumental task for the next president, and I’m the only one who can do it. I’m the only one that can get the job done. I know exactly what has to be done.” This echoes Trump’s notorious declaration in 2016—“I alone can fix it”—as well as his ominous words at this year’s CPAC: “I am your warrior, I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” This is the language of dictatorship, not democracy.
For Trump, the monumental task for the next president is a sweeping purge of government officials (many of whom are nonpartisan career civil servants who’d be caught up in the deep state dragnet) and their replacement with an army of lackeys. FDR had the New Deal, Kennedy had the moonshot, and Trump has his revenge purge.
There’s only one sense in which Trump puts America First: “The greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves.” America Firstism has always been another term for Trump Firstism, but as his agenda becomes slimmer and his list of enemies grows longer, it’s increasingly clear that a second Trump term would be a Saturday Night Massacre that lasts for four years.
The latest and clearest example of Trump Firstism is the former president’s record of collecting and mishandling classified documents, which earned him a 37-count indictment from the Department of Justice earlier this month. The entire indictment is a chronicle of hubris, scorn for the rule of law, and total indifference to the national security of the United States, but several lines stand out.
First, Trump acknowledged that a DoD “plan of attack” he shared with a writer, publisher, and two members of his staff was “highly confidential” and “secret”: “As president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.” Second, Trump asked his attorney two questions: “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” and “Isn’t it better if there are no documents?” One of Trump’s attorneys reported that he told an anecdote about Hillary Clinton’s lawyer, who did a “great job” when he “deleted all of her emails” so she “didn’t get in any trouble.” The indictment reports that “Trump related the story more than once that day.”
So Trump a) recognized he was committing a crime, b) wanted to make the evidence disappear, and c) wanted somebody else to take the fall. It’s everything you need to know about Trump’s culpability and character in a three-scene act.
The GOP remains beholden to Trump Firstism. When Trump announced he’d been indicted, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy mourned what he described as a “dark day for the United States of America.” Before McCarthy even knew what was in the indictment, he described it as “unconscionable,” a “grave injustice,” and a “brazen weaponization of power.” Gov. Ron DeSantis declared that the “weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society” and promised to “bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.” It’s already clear that the question of whether to pardon Trump will be a central issue in the GOP primary, as some candidates (such as Vivek Ramaswamy) have vowed to do so and others will be pressured to imitate him.
After the indictment was issued, Trump promised to “totally obliterate the deep state”—a reminder that his campaign is no longer about anything else (though he did find five seconds to say he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours). Just as Trump wants to hollow out the State Department, the intelligence services, etc., he plans to do the same to the Department of Justice, the FBI, and an ever-expanding list of American institutions.
Trump says he must do all of this to prevent the United States from becoming a dictatorship—a perfect inversion of the truth.