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I read a lot more about US politics in 2016 than I do now (sorry, now that Trump has been president once, I know what it's like when that happens and don't worry that much about it anymore). I can tell you that back then it already seemed very divided from my (non-US) point of view.
That sounds disturbingly like you aren't all that concerned about what a second Trump presidency would be like. It sounds like you think the first one wasn't as bad as people thought it would be and the second one will similarly be better than people think. Am I misreading your words?
They're probably not worried because they don't live in the US.
This isn't too far off. In 2016 many people I read thought a Trump presidency would literally be the end of US democracy, possibly the end of the world because he would start a nuclear war. Those are not things that ended up happening, so I do not predict that they will happen if Trump wins this year either.
And it almost was. Remember, he lost an election and tried to send fake electors in to declare him president. When that didn't work, he worked up his cultists into attacking the capitol in order to threaten pence into not certifying the election. It was so dangerously close to a constitutional crisis that Republicans and Democrats banded together to say that the VP does not have this power.
Also trump nominated three members of scotus, and it was that majority that just opened the door for the president to commit all kinds of crime with immunity.
The pain of his last presence is still playing out, and it doesn't look good.
I'm more concerned that if he wins again, he'll complete gut the government and even if he does step aside when his term is up, the damage will be done and we will have no ability to tackle some of the biggest issues facing us: namely climate change.
I see. So what has happened over the last 8 years as a direct result of his election isn't concerning to you?
There could have been better worlds, probably would have been if Clinton had won in 2016, but it isn't anywhere near as catastrophic as some people predicted.
So... because Trump didn't get unhinged to the point where he started a nuclear war, you aren't worried.
How did you feel about refusing to concede in the 2020 election and creating uncertainty and doubt about the electoral process among a not insignificant minority of voters?
How about inciting an angry mob to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power on January 6th?
How did you feel about hoarding and hiding classified documents so that he could show them off to impress his friends and guests? Maybe even sell them if times are tough?
How about strong-arming the Republican party and installing his family to run it?
How do you feel about how his SCOTUS has changed the fundamentals of the US government?
The Chevron deference?
Bribery?
Presidential "immunity" for official acts?
How do you feel about the loss of the right to have an abortion?
Do you think Trump, with the powers newly granted to the office he's again running for, will act in his second term? Where is your line?
About half of those (esp. those that involve the Supreme Court) would have happened under any generic Republican president too. They are not specific to Trump.
The first two, I agree with you, really are horrible; but they are also proofs that the American democratic system works because Trump didn't end up succeeding with them.
I think it will be mostly similar to his first term except there will not be another Capitol attack because Trump will not be able to run again in 2028.
There's a reason why Trump 2016, though it caused a lot of damage, wasn't nearly as bad as it was thought to be.
Trump was probably the laziest president in US history. He had no clue what to do at the start of the presidency, and many of his requests were met with resistance by employees in the executive branch because they were stupid or illegal. This is because the executive branch has a small chunk of president-appointed positions relative to the merit-based chunk.
Many of his successes came about later in his term, as he got plenty of help from well-funded right-wing organizations to find people to appoint to various positions, including the 3 Supreme Court justices who helped remove federal abortion protections.
If you look forward to now, the same right-wing organizations have prepared a document (Project 2025) serving as instructions for Trump's first 180 days. It calls for reclassifying every merit-based position in the executive branch into political ones, replacing the people who serve in those positions with Trump loyalists, then dismantling organizations like the FBI, EPA (environmental regulation), NOAA (meteorological organization; helps detect hurricanes), DOJ (sues entities for reasons like antitrust), and more. The only entities that could intervene in this case are the Supreme Court, which is very comfortably on Trump's side, and Congress, which is very unlikely to be controlled by Democrats in a way that will matter.
Tl;dr, Trump didn't know what to do during the first term. For his second term, he was handed a step-by-step tutorial on how to dismantle the FBI and everything else in the executive branch.