Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

What would really happen if Trump wins?

Mark Esper sitting next to Donald Trump

Defense Secretary Mark Esper (left) and other leaders stood up to Donald Trump when he was president. Trump would likely face similar resistance if he wins another term.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Cooper is the author of “ How America Works … and Why it Doesn’t.

If Donald Trump wins the presidential election, many worry that America will descend into dark times.


Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor, for example, detailed myriad ways he thinks Trump would subvert American democracy:

“As my colleagues have reported over the past year, Trump has made clear his stark, authoritarian vision for a potential second term. He would embark on a wholesale purge of the federal bureaucracy, weaponize the Justice Department to explicitly go after his political opponents (something he claims is being done to him), stack government agencies across the board with political appointees prescreened as ideological Trump loyalists, and dole out pardons to myriad officials and apparatchiks as incentives to do his bidding or stay loyal.”

These concerns don’t withstand scrutiny. If Trump wins, American democracy will undergo a severe stress test. Yet again. But it won’t plunge into dictatorship, authoritarianism or fascism. These are coherent governmental structures. Instead, if Trump wins, America will have an incoherent and volatile mix of some government institutions that function democratically and some that don’t.

The fundamental problem with predictions like Tharoor’s is that Trump can’t actually accomplish these things. The federal bureaucracy can’t be “purged” by the sitting president. Valid federal legislation authorizes and funds government agencies — so the courts won’t allow them to be gutted by executive order. Republican presidents have long tried to shrink the administrative state. They’ve failed every time. Even if the federal bureaucracy were halved it would still be huge.

The Justice Department, moreover, didn’t go after Trump’s enemies while he was president. To the contrary, DOJ lawyers rejected Trump’s demands to prosecute Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe and others. The DOJ did, however, prosecute many of Trump's friends, like Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort and Tom Barrack. And of course the Justice Department brought two major cases against Trump himself. To imprison his enemies, as Tharoor warns about, Trump would need grand juries to indict on his command, courts to illicitly rule in his favor and juries to render his chosen verdicts. There’s no reason to think any of those things could happen.

The Senate, furthermore, still has to confirm all executive-level presidential appointments. And pardons only apply to specific acts and offer no protection under state law or for future activity. Just look at Bannon, who was first pardoned by Trump for one thing and then later convicted of something else.

Moreover, Trump wouldn’t control most government activity — at the federal, state or local level. If the Democrats take the House in November, they will oppose Trump at every turn. We should expect Trump’s third impeachment — for something or other — to commence promptly. Democratic-run state and local governments likewise would fight back against Trump's initiatives, just like they did previously.

The most serious domestic risk America faces if Trump wins is that the military starts doing his bidding. But there’s no reason to expect this to happen. He has long had strained relations with military leaders, including secretaries of defense (John Mattis and Mark Esper) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. The military has steadfastly refused to obey Trump’s improper orders.

This isn’t to say a second Trump presidency wouldn’t be dangerous. It would be. But the biggest concerns would reside where the American electorate often doesn't bother to focus: international affairs. This is where American presidents have the fewest checks on their power and the most potential to do harm. The international community is desperate for sober and rational American leadership — the opposite of Trump-style diplomacy.

If Donald Trump wins the election there will be plenty to worry about, to be sure. But there will also be many doomful predictions that don’t come true.

Read More

U.S. Strikes Iran Nuclear Sites: Trump’s Pivot Amid Middle East Crisis

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine discusses the mission details of a strike on Iran during a news conference at the Pentagon on June 22, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia.

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

U.S. Strikes Iran Nuclear Sites: Trump’s Pivot Amid Middle East Crisis

In his televised address to the nation Saturday night regarding the U.S. strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump declared that the attacks targeted “the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.” He framed the operation as a necessary response to decades of Iranian aggression, citing past attacks on U.S. personnel and Tehran’s support for militant proxies.

While those justifications were likely key drivers, the decision to intervene was also shaped by a complex interplay of political strategy, alliance dynamics, and considerations of personal legacy.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Medical Community Tells Congress That Telehealth Needs Permanent Federal Support
person wearing lavatory gown with green stethoscope on neck using phone while standing

The Medical Community Tells Congress That Telehealth Needs Permanent Federal Support

WASHINGTON–In March 2020, Stephanie Hendrick, a retired teacher in Roanoke, Virginia, contracted COVID-19, a virus that over 110 million people in the U.S. would contract over the next couple of years.

She recovered from the initial illness, but like many, she soon began experiencing long COVID symptoms. In the early months of the pandemic, hospitals and medical centers prioritized care for individuals with active COVID-19 infections, and pandemic restrictions limited travel and in-person treatment for other medical conditions. Hendrick’s options for care for long COVID were limited.

Keep ReadingShow less
MAGA’s War on the Social Fabric
The urgency to defeat authoritarianism to save freedom and justice
rarrarorro/Getty Images

MAGA’s War on the Social Fabric

In the first article of this series, we explored how the collapse of civil society left Americans vulnerable to authoritarian appeals. Here, we look at why those same civic institutions—newsrooms, libraries, unions, school boards—are the first targets of authoritarian movements.

Voting, while important, doesn’t keep democracy alive. It needs places where people gather in person to solve problems, such as school board meetings, union halls, local newspapers, block clubs, libraries, and faith-based nonprofits. These institutions form what social scientists call civil society—a network of voluntary groups that connect people with government. They are where democratic habits are learned: negotiation, compromise, listening, and the capacity to see one’s neighbor not as an enemy, but as a fellow citizen.

Americans once had these civic skills in abundance. Alexis de Tocqueville noted that America’s genius for democracy came not from its laws or geography, but from its unrivaled ability to form associations. Today, these associations create what Robert Putnam called bridging social capital—relationships that connect people across lines of difference. This is the social fabric that democracy needs to breathe.

But that fabric is fraying. And when it frays, so do the habits that make pluralism possible.

Keep ReadingShow less
We Need Critical Transformational Leaders Now More Than Ever

U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) listens at a news conference following the weekly Senate Democratic policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on June 17, 2025, in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

We Need Critical Transformational Leaders Now More Than Ever

The image of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla—handcuffed and dragged away while advocating for immigrant rights—is more than symbolic. It’s a chilling reminder that in America today, even the highest-ranking Latino officials are not immune from the forces of erasure. This moment, along with ICE raids in Los Angeles, an assault on DEI in education, and the Tennessee Attorney General’s lawsuit seeking to dismantle funding for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), signals a coordinated assault on Latino dignity, equity, and belonging. These are not isolated events. They are part of a broader backlash against racial justice, driven by white supremacy and an entrenched fear of demographic and cultural change.

As a scholar of race, leadership, and equity in higher education, I know this moment calls for something deeper than mere outrage. It calls for action. We need what I call Critical Transformational Leaders—individuals who act with moral courage, who center justice over comfort, and who are unafraid to challenge systemic racism from positions both high and humble.

Keep ReadingShow less