20190321T1647-1869-CNS-USA-TRUMP.jpg President Donald Trump speaks at the White House March 21, 2019, during a signing ceremony for an executive order to "improve transparency and promote free speech in higher education." (CNS photo/Joshua Roberts, Reuters)

There are a few things we know about President Trump that are pretty incontrovertible. He is narcissistic. He attacks the media as the enemy of the people. He attacks the Department of Justice when it suits his needs. He fails to accept the findings of his own intelligence community. He seems to like dictators more than leaders of Western democracies. He insults dead war heroes like John McCain. When he is challenged in any way, he lashes out at that individual in the most vigorous way possible. He has difficulty with the truth. He has grave doubts about the reality of climate change. He evinces hostility to immigrants, Muslims and people of color.

A victory in 2020 will almost certainly exacerbate all these tendencies. Without doubt we can expect a reelected Donald Trump to proclaim his greatness and his victories far and wide. It will for sure be the greatest election victory in history. Can we also expect journalists to go to jail for criticizing this president? Will he assume greater sway over the DOJ and the FBI — and will anyone prevent this? Will we begin to see political prosecutions of some of Trump’s enemies? We are already hearing calls for prosecution of such frequent targets as Hillary Clinton, James Comey and others from the Justice department. What will happen to our foreign policy? Consider the press conference he just held with the newly elected president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. He did not sound like any president of the United State I have ever known. Everything Trump said was antithetical to what have been considered American values. Trump welcomed the far-right leader and indicated he would become a major non-NATO ally of the U.S. The two leaders vented on their feelings about fake news. Trump accused American companies of discriminating and silencing conservative views on social platforms and said something must be done about it.

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