'Dark and bleak' prospects for Trump's second term outlined by Duke political scientist

A Duke political scientist is warning that the true dangers of former President Donald Trump won't come if he succeeds in his goals, but in the more likely event that he fails.

As the New York Times' Thomas Edsall reports, Duke political scientist Herbert Kitschelt takes stock of the reasons for Americans' anger that propelled Trump back to the White House, and then gives what Edsall describes as a "dark and bleak" prediction that the policies that the former president is proposing for his second term will not deliver for these aggrieved voters.

"Trump’s current ideas are to soothe the ills of the knowledge society through tariffs and eviction of immigrants," Kitschelt explains. "But there is a strong probability that these policies will disappoint the president’s core constituencies. Few jobs will be created through re-industrialization and the absence of immigrants will hurt — instead of improve — the labor market payoffs of many natives. All the while the real incomes of the less well-off will be reduced by a surge of tariff-induced inflation that bond and gold markets are now already anticipating."

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If Trump looks like he's in trouble politically, Kitschelt continues, it is at this point that the true danger of authoritarian rule will come into play.

"The hour of political authoritarianism arrives, when the new wagers to create economic affluence among the less well-off and to resurrect the old kinship relations of industrial society turn sour and generate disenchantment among Trump’s own following," he warns. "Trump then may well want to make sure that his disenchanted supporters — as well as those who always opposed Trumpism — will not get another chance to express their opinions."