Emboldened and unshackled: What a second Trump presidency means for America

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : Americans should have "every expectation" that Trump plans to accomplish those goals," he says.
56% : Trump will have a "more capable and craven apparatus" supporting his second term, compared to the administration he installed in his first four years in office, according to Sherman.
50% : "His history of dehumanization has primed his supporters to see political opponents as subhuman, language that gives his allies permission to degrade the "other" and prime their acceptance of the violence to come, while absolving them of responsibility for it, Ben-Ghiat told The Independent as Trump launched his campaign.
47% : Trump formally launched a third presidential campaign from Waco, Texas, on the 30th anniversary of the Branch Davidians' lethal standoff with federal law enforcement agents.
42% : His allies have promised to fill the government with loyalists, use the military as his domestic law enforcement, strip civil rights protections for LGBT+ Americans, abolish public education, and expand the number of crimes punishable by death, while speeding up executions for people on death row.
40% : In the days before polls closed, he sued a news network for $10 billion, his wealthiest donor promised "hardship" for Americans in Trump's economy, the highest-ranking congressional Republican outlined "massive" cuts to millions of healthcare plans, vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was touted to lead the nation's health agencies, and Trump himself suggested one of his most vocal critics from his own party -- a former congresswoman he endorsed facing televised military tribunals -- should see what it's like to have "guns trained on her face.
36% : Two conservative justices nearing potential retirement could step down and open the door for Trump to nominate more far-right members of the nation's highest court, affirming its conservative majority for more than a generation, long after his presidencty.
35% : Trump -- seeing himself unshackled by institutional guardrails, acquitted in the Senate after he was impeached twice by the House of Representatives, and defended by a Supreme Court and Republican Party that has been shaped in his image -- has viewed the office of the presidency as his own personal vehicle to inflict punishment against his enemies, benefit his allies, and bend the branches of government to his movement's demands.
34% : Trump has publicly, repeatedly told Americans what he plans to do, including prosecuting his perceived political enemies, restraining the press and eviscerating civil service protections, Sherman says.
34% : States would be allowed to eliminate abortion access, which is no longer a constitutional right after the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade, made possible by the three justices Trump appointed.
31% : "Trump has promised mass pardons for the hundreds of people convicted on charges connected to January 6 -- criminal defendants he calls "hostages" and "patriots."
30% : "Trump has broadly embraced reshaping or eliminating federal regulations and agencies while opening the door to staffing the government with a politicized federal workforce to do what he could not in his first administration.
26% : Three weeks from Election Day, Trump is set to be sentenced in a criminal courtroom in Manhattan, in the same city where he launched his presidential ambitions, and where a jury of his hometown peers found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and where a judge ordered him to pay more than $350 million for defrauding banks and investors.
25% : The special counsel prosecuting Trump for election interference and obstruction should be "thrown out of the country.
24% : "Trump has labeled his adversaries "vermin" and warned that immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of the country, rhetoric drawing direct comparisons to the pages of Mein Kampf and white supremacist manifestos.
19% : Trump and his allies have accused their rivals of fear mongering, or turn accusations of "fascism" against their opponents for criticizing their rhetoric -- what authoritarianism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls "authoritarian projectionsim.
18% : Trump returned to the promise of an anti-immigration regime as the chief pillar of his 2024 campaign against Kamala Harris, one fueled by his failure to overturn the results of the election he lost in 2020, as well as outrage and grievances with a justice system that seeks to hold him accountable.

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