Trump's policies prove a 2nd term 'won't just be bad' — it'll be 'much worse': columnist

Former President Donald Trump may not speak clearly when questioned on policy — but the policies he has already outlined are a damning enough indictment of his fitness for office, columnist Eugene Robinson argued for The Washington Post.

In particular, Trump's three major policies will considerably damage the country, undermine the economy, and rip communities apart, he argued.

The first is his promise to use brutal measures to crack down on the threat from migrants. After citing a hoax about Venezuelan gangs taking over a Colorado apartment complex, Trump vowed "bloody" retaliation.

"Imagine how bloody it would be to rip millions of men, women and children out of communities across the nation. Stephen Miller, the adviser most responsible for immigration policy during Trump’s presidency, has envisioned using the National Guard to 'go around the country arresting illegal immigrants in large-scale raids.'"

Aside from ripping families apart, it would shatter local economies by removing vital workers.

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Also alarming are Trump's repeated vows to punish political enemies, often for imagined or unsubstantiated wrongs like his repeated claims of rigging the 2020 election.

"Trump’s anger might be unjustified, but it is real. He will surely take the Supreme Court’s recent decision on presidential immunity as a green light to use the Justice Department as a weapon of vengeance," wrote Robinson.

And then there is his plan to replace the federal tax code with new tariffs on all goods and services — which would be a disaster for the entire economy, wrote Robinson.

"He seems sincerely, and incredibly, unable to understand how tariffs work," wrote Robinson, as Trump repeatedly claims he is going to tax foreign countries, when tariffs are actually just taxes on Americans who buy anything imported. At a recent economic forum, Robinson noted, Trump "defended this bad idea by praising the McKinley Tariff, an 1890 measure that raised import duties to nearly 50 percent and caused prices to soar. The tariff ... ended up making Americans poorer and producing less revenue for the government, not more."

The upshot, Robinson concluded bluntly, is that voters should assume Trump will do everything he says he wants to do — because compared to Trump's already-chaotic last term, "it won’t just be bad. It will be much, much worse."