Comment Writer Jimmy Simpson identifies the areas where Trump could change the US and the world with a victory in 2024
The race to select the Republican nominee for the U.S. presidential election later this year is well under way. Donald Trump, the former president and favourite to clinch the nomination, prevailed in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries last month. In Iowa, Trump won 51% of the votes cast, achieving a landslide victory over his competitors. On 24 January in New Hampshire, the presidential hopeful racked up 54% percent of the vote, eleven percent more than former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.
With Haley now the only other major candidate in the Republican primary contest, little stands in the way between Trump and another shot at the presidency in November. Incumbent president Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election as the likely Democratic nominee, has suffered poor polling for much of his tenure. Biden’s perceived senility and weakness on certain issues like the economy could hand Trump the keys to the White House for a second time. With another Trump presidency potentially on the political horizon, let us consider the ramifications this could have for the United States and the rest of the world.
Social Factors
Domestically, a second Trump presidency could pose a considerable threat to marginalised groups, in particular women, LGBTQ+ people and immigrants, all of whom Trump has vilified in both his public and private lives. Since Trump first emerged in the mid 2010s the rights of members of these groups have steadily deteriorated. Hate crimes targeted at queer people are reported to have increased dramatically in recent years, in conjunction with the tide of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that has swept Republican-controlled states.
The rights of immigrants, in particular those seeking illegal pathways into the U.S., also hang in the balance. Anti-immigrant invective (demonstrated at a recent event in which Trump claimed that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”) has featured heavily in the presidential hopeful’s speeches and rallies, and if translated into policy could endanger the lives of millions of not just immigrants and asylum seekers, but also non-white American citizens and anyone else perceived to be foreign.
And then, of course, there is the issue of reproductive rights, which suffered a fatal blow two years ago with the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe V. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that enshrined the constitutional right to an abortion. The overturning of Roe V. Wade was an epochal event, destabilising womens’ rights and auguring terribly for the future of gender equality in the U.S. The Biden campaign has mobilised around reproductive rights as one of the key issues at stake in this year’s election, given that Trump could seek to further dismantle routes to abortion access.
Democracy
A second Trump term could also put a tear in the fragile fabric of American democracy, with Trump and his aides having revealed plans to shake-up the U.S. political system that, if fully realised, could set the country on a path to autocracy. These plans, collectively dubbed “Project 2025”, include defunding the Department of Justice, dismantling the FBI, and bolstering the powers of the executive. “Project 2025” is the brainchild of an association of conservative groups bound by a common animus for what they perceive to be the “deep state” in U.S. politics. An administration headed by Trump could offer a vehicle for these groups to wage war on “big government” and permanently disempower their political opponents. Democratic backsliding is already a well-established problem in the U.S., and the prospect of Trump re-entering office with an emboldened disdain for democratic institutions could certainly accelerate this trend.
Trump’s return could…hasten the decline of democracy
Foreign policy
With regards to geopolitics, Trump 2.0 could be ruinous to global stability. This particularly applies to Europe, where a newly resurgent far-right continues to make inroads in local and national elections. Populist European leaders such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni take their cue from Trump and belong to a transnational far-right movement whose core tenets include xenophobia and ultranationalism. Trump’s return to the international stage could further consolidate this fascist insurgency and hasten the decline of democracy throughout the Western world.
Other fraught issues like Taiwan’s relationship with China and Israel’s ongoing atrocities in Gaza could be influenced profoundly by a second Trump presidency. While Trump and Biden are alike in that both have expressed support for Israel, the former’s stance on Taiwan is notoriously vague. The current president has vowed to lend military support to the island nation in the event that it were invaded by China, a promise to which Trump has repeatedly refused to commit.
Conclusion
With the former president’s nomination now a foregone conclusion, 2024 holds every possibility of being the year that Americans choose to re-elect Trump. What, exactly, this outcome could entail is uncertain, but what is certain is that it will be felt for generations to come.
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