The Week Ahead

December 8, 2024

Trump’s Sunday morning interview with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” was something of an agenda-setter for what we can expect to be talking about this week. Never mind that Joe Biden is still the president and that the economy is booming, the crazy is already underway.

What’s uppermost on Trump’s mind as he contemplates taking on the presidency? Issues like:

• Putting Liz Cheney in prison.

• Pardoning January 6 defendants on day one.

• Prioritizing deportations of migrants with a criminal record—they are already deported following sentencing. Trump said at one point that he believes everyone who is here illegally must ultimately be deported.

• Talk of permitting Dreamers—people brought to this country as children—to remain, while simultaneously talking about stripping people born in this country of birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship is provided for in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. That didn’t seem to concern Trump. Pressed by Welker, he said he’d try to end it through “executive action” if he can.

Trump’s executive orders are ready to go on day one. “Some of the basics,” Trump told Welker when she asked what they would cover. The conversation turned to tariffs, in an exchange that should catch the attention of grocery- and gasoline-prices voters. Welker asked if American families would pay higher prices as a result of his plan, and Trump was forced to concede that he “can’t guarantee anything.”

Trump closed out by saying he would “have to bring back civilization.” He said that people have to be able to walk across the street and buy a loaf of bread without being shot. The reality is, violent crime and property crime are down in the U.S. According to the most recent FBI crime statistics: “The most serious crimes went down significantly: murder and non-negligent manslaughter were down an estimated 11.6% — the largest single year decline in two decades — while rape decreased by an estimated 9.4%.”

Nor is Trump trustworthy when he speaks out on behalf of Dreamers. Project 2025 calls for ending protections for them as well (as for Ukrainians who fled the war) indirectly by planning for Congress to repeal temporary protected status designations, like the one that protects the Dreamers. During his first year in office, Trump tried to end the Dreamer program. So, before people breathe a sigh of relief for the Dreamers, they need to consider whether Trump’s reflect his true plans. When people show you who they are, believe them.

The entire interview was full of lies and half-truths, with Welker trying to push back without derailing her ability to cover key points about Trump’s top level plans. For instance, when Trump used incorrect statistics about release of migrants with serious criminal records inside the U.S., claiming that under Biden, 14,000 murderers had been released, Welker pointed out those numbers reflected 40 years of data. Trump insisted he was right and kept going. In fact, Welker was correct. The 14,000 number even includes people released during the four years Trump was in office, but the issue is nuanced. These are people released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, and some of them are in state or federal custody, including those who have committed the most serious crimes. They show up as having been released in the 14,000 number because they are no longer in temporary ICE custody, but many of them are in longer and more permanent types of custodial settings, like terrorists who are in federal prison, sometimes for life. At every twist and turn, Trump said something that was wrong, but always with the conviction of a man who thinks he knows the facts. That’s probably enough for many of his followers.

Trump persists. So we must be even more persistent. If we believe in democracy, then it’s incumbent upon us to work together to save the Republic. We are the cavalry. No one else is coming. The stark contrast between the banalities issued by the elderly man, who at one point told Welker he’d treat people who voted against him as “good” as he treated MAGA, and the policies he campaigned on is withering. “Courage is not the absence of fear,” President Franklin Roosevelt said, “but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” Nelson Mandela’s gloss on FDR’s thought was, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” Some people fear Trump. Others are exhausted, stripped of their idealism, and feeling betrayed by the loss of the last election. But the policies Trump is going to implement, including his attack on democracy itself, are going to affect us all. If we want to keep the Republic, it’s time to move forward.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise told CNBC last Thursday that House Republicans are preparing to hit the ground running in January. He promised that House Republicans (who have accomplished precious little since taking control at the midterms) “will deliver on [issues] for the American people, like lowering energy costs, lowering food costs, securing America's border,” although he acknowledged that given Republicans’ slim majority, “if three people think they've got a better idea and they're just going to vote their own way, then it won't happen.”

But Scalise did confirm that “President Trump has a very clear plan. He ran on very specific things. And frankly, most of us ran on those exact same things in our districts. So all across the country, I think you're going to see, you know the mandate that was carried out by voters on November 5th is going to be carried out by this new Congress starting in January, we're going to hit the ground running.”

People who support democracy need to be every bit as prepared. Where should we start? We need to create a culture of participation, where everyone has to be involved in the fight to protect democracy from Donald Trump. It can’t be optional or up to someone else. No one can sit on the sidelines, whether that’s because they believe they are in a position of privilege where Trump won’t be able to harm them or because they are tired of it all.

That’s our first step. Create the right political culture. It’s not acceptable for people to refuse to engage. We cannot just give up, or rather we can, but then we know what the ultimate outcome will be. Start there. Working towards getting yourself back in the game if you still need to and bring those around you on board too. The next four years are going to be a marathon, not a sprint, but the result will matter as much as anything we’ve ever done.

We’re in this together,

Joyce