Imagine Handing This F****d-Up World Back to Donald Trump

It’s a conflict in which Trump would likely give us the worst of all possible worlds. There’s little doubt that Biden has angered many Palestinian Americans and others who see him, not inaccurately, as having stood too shoulder to shoulder with this particular Israeli government. But given Trump’s proclivity toward strongmen, it’s not hard to imagine what he would be doing. For one thing, he told us last week he’d bar Gazan refugees from the United States and commence “ideological screening” of all immigrants to see if they’re Hamas sympathizers (by the way, people are already asked these questions). I doubt very much that he’d be urging any restraint on Israel. There’s a much greater chance that his rhetoric would be hugely inflammatory, urging Israel to crush Hamas without regard for innocent Palestinian lives, as well as egging Hezbollah into the conflict.

We live in a world where democracy is so close to the knife’s edge that these enmities could threaten to push things in a terrifying direction. The world recently experienced two elections where the hard right was defeated, at least provisionally. In Poland, the Law and Justice party lost its bid for a third term. In Argentina, there will be a run-off, but hard-right candidate Javier Milei finished second. These are some near misses—geopolitical indicators that demonstrate that this is an era that calls for influential leaders to hew to some temperance, humility, and restraint.

Those qualities are, well, not exactly the former president’s calling card. If Trump had been president, it seems more likely than not that he would have put a thumb, or perhaps several of his vulgar, short fingers, on the scale for Milei and Poland’s far right. He might not have flipped these results. But that isn’t the point. The point is that he would have put the United States on the side of authoritarianism.