The race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump can at times seem oddly lackluster, with Harris’s political goals broadly ignored and Trump is reduced to a fading Etch-A-Sketch fringe from the right fever dreams. The most readable proposal of the former president in the last days of the election may be fluoride removal from the public water, which captures speak incoherence of his great political ideas. Understanding how a future President Trump might exercise executive authority in a second term, then, requires a broader consideration of his words, his projections, his fancies—and, for lack of a better word, his vision. . Like Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times put it recentlythe 78-year-old candidate “makes no sense and is full of sense.” And without a doubt THE big issue, what presidential power actually means, Trump couldn’t be clearer: he believes the president is an elected authoritarian who can and indeed should concentrate all state power in himself and wield it to he achieves his own ambitions and personal revenges. There is no light between his own selfish interests and the needs of the state, because in his mind, he it is the state. And he is forever immune from punishment when he chooses to corruptly manipulate the tools of his office to punish his enemies and reward his friends. He is the state, but he is also the law.

This chilling view of the presidency aligns almost perfectly with the one espoused by the Supreme Court majority when it granted Trump sweeping criminal immunity last July. The opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts in Trump vs. the United States it reads like a MAGA treatise on executive power, the rough rhetorical edges sanded away and replaced with scathing statements about a theoretical president’s constitutional prerogative to escape the consequences of alleged crimes committed ostensibly as part of his official acts. Trump has embraced this dark conception of the presidency — after all, it was created just for him, despite the lofty language of separation of powers — while Vice President Harris has expressly disavowed it. Trump believes, always has believed, that as president he answers to no one; Harris believes, like almost every president since the founding, in checks and balances and in branches that divide power to ensure that tyrants never rule.

And so, in a sense, the many questions posed by this showdown boil down to just one: Will the next president embrace the traditional role of commander-in-chief with robust but limited powers, with a fundamental obligation to serve the citizenry over her parish? needs and with ultimate responsibility to the people and the law? Or will the next president fit the role, newly fashioned by John Roberts and his far-right colleagues, of a self-interested monarch who combines his own grudges with the public interest, stands far above the law, and relentlessly persecutes his perception. enemies?

Fortunately, this question has now been asked in dubious terms to the country itself. Even as we are repeatedly warned that voters don’t care or vote for democracy, the idea of ​​what a President Trump would do with a second term of executive powers has been in full air. Despite the healthy washing of the media of Trump’s wars and threats, the candidate unmistakably telegraphed his interpretation Trump vs. the United States as a green light to reshape the presidency as a dictatorship. From the moment the decision was made, he greeted her not only as a justification of it past papers but as permission to go much further in the future. He intends to shoot Jack Smith, the special counsel leading his prosecution, immediately after returning to office, then returns as well prosecution his own perceived enemies within the Department of Justice and the government soon after. List of figures he would like to investigate, arrest and incarcerate in a second Trump term include (but not limited to) former President Barack Obama, former Representative Liz Cheney, Mark Zuckerberg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Judge Arthur Engoron, members of the US Capitol Police, members of the United States. 6, election workers, protesters, anyone criticizing the Supreme Court and journalists. Trump also suggested that Gen. Mark Milley, his own chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed. (And Cheney.)

This list is really just the beginning, since former President provides for mass prosecutions of “enemies within”. These “enemies” seem to include all of his many opponents, detractors, critics and political rivals. And the justice system may not be enough to handle them — which is why Trump did it, too suggested those “crazy radical leftists” will have to “deal” with the military. He has he asked “military tribunals”, such as those used to try the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, for some of his most important “enemies”, including Obama and Cheney. Put simply: If you’ve spoken out against the former president at any time, whether you’re a public figure or a private citizen, you won’t be safe from a midnight knock on your door with armed agents waiting to carry out Trump’s wrath.

When John Roberts declared that the president must be able to act “boldly and fearlessly” without fear of breaking the law, was this what he envisioned? If so, then he is completely complicit in Trump’s plan to advance fascism for a vengeful and violent second term; if not, it’s painfully and humiliatingly naive. Because the Trump who makes all these promises of vengeance and retribution is, of course, the very same man who tried to overturn the 2020 election — a shocking crime against democracy that spawned the prosecution that Roberts sprinkled with his majority opinion in Trump vs. the United States. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, warned the chief justice of just that outcome: “Let the president break the law, exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, use his official power for evil purposes.” she wrote. . “Because if he knew that one day he might face accountability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we’d like him to be. That is the message of the majority today.”

Legal journalists have wondered if the John Roberts court will throw the 2024 election to Trump. This is the wrong question. The real question is whether that court would abandon the rule of law in favor of Trumpism. That happened in July.

Throughout his first term, Trump may have worried that launching targeted retaliatory prosecutions would land him in legal trouble. Not anymore; it’s not illegal anymore, at least when the president does and then calls it an “official act”. Trump accepted Roberts’ generous offer and has already pledged to use his office to protect himself. He is therefore open preparing for a tour of revenge that would be it makes a mockery of civil liberties and the formal structural limitations of his authority. While Trump’s appointees turned it off repeatedly from launching political prosecutions during his first term, he won’t let them stand in his way this time; indeed, none of those human braking systems are on his team. He’s braggadociously willing to fire anyone who says no, and it helps immensely that this time he’ll have the law on his side when he wields it for personal and political gain. It also helps that the Supreme Court has almost entirely immunized federal law enforcement officers in suit when they break the law in service of Trump’s fondest wishes.

Put all this together and it becomes alarmingly clear that Trump can direct law enforcement to engage in an unprecedented series of pursuits and persecutions against anyone he dislikes without fear that anyone involved will ever face with real consequences. We now know what a President Trump intends to do in broad daylight. The Supreme Court has given him the means and the opportunity to do so. Trump, too, has “learned” that his hellish notions of law and justice are immune to legal consequences. That everything is different this time is not about personnel or politics. The law met Trump where he wanted to be. This is the “bold and fearless” presidency that John Roberts made possible. This is the “bold and fearless” presidency that Donald Trump is waiting to accept as his own own.