When it comes to President Donald Trump, the "worst is yet to come," according to an independent political strategist who worked on former President George W. Bush's campaign.
Political strategist Steve Schmidt on Friday published an article called "Let us remember who we are" on Substack, in which he argues that "Trump’s cause is the antithesis of the American cause."
"During the last 80 years there have been four epic and transformative pieces of legislation that changed the United States in deep and profound ways. They were the GI Bill, the Interstate Highway Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act," he wrote. "Trump’s despised 'Big Beautiful Bill' can be appropriately added to the list."
He then made a "massive" claim about what the bill will establish.
"While the other pieces of legislation spread opportunity, established justice, connected the nation and built the American middle class, Trump’s bill will build a massive police and surveillance state," Schmidt wrote.
He continues:
"The complexion of the country will be forever changed by the impact of this bill. It will be remembered above all things for the establishment of an unaccountable secret police in the United States, and the building of a concentration camp system where human rights abuses will accrue — until the whole rotten edifice of this monstrosity collapses under the weight of the American people’s shame and renewed thirst for decency and justice."
The political strategist adds, "Donald Trump’s inaugural address was a repudiation of the American Revolution and the fulfillment of the founders’ deepest fears."
Going further, he calls Trump "the demagogue foreseen by Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, Washington, and all the others who rose up to create the United States."
"Trump has eviscerated the checks and balances, and declared himself as not only above the law, but as the law itself," he then claimed. "Faithless to the Constitution, the American people and American values, Trump is lawless, incoherent, aggrieved, spiteful, raging and determined to crush dissent, eradicate competence and abuse his office for self-enrichment that is as vulgar as it is staggering."