How Would the Left Respond to a Second Trump Administration?

How would America’s left-wing respond to a second Trump Administration? A recent article in the National Review (Right bias) predicted potential leftist violence should Trump win again, sparking rebuke from left-rated voices.

“Life Under Siege”: Michael Brendan Dougherty (Lean Right bias) outlined a hypothetical second Trump term, describing “a feeling of American life under siege” as a result of a left-wing “whose legal, moral, and political brinkmanship presents as many threats to American institutions as, or even more than, Trump himself.” Reflecting on the summer of 2020, Dougherty argued Trump “found himself totally overwhelmed” as a result of being “blamed for riots across America that blue-state governors and mayors either failed to stop or openly encouraged.” His actions during these months, Dougherty concluded, “has already given his opponents a playbook to undermine him again.”

Response from the Left: A writer in the New Republic (Left bias) argued Dougherty’s prediction “tells you a lot about the diminished state these days of conservative thought.” The writer dismisses Dougherty’s fear of left-wing violence, stating, “it’s well documented—going back decades—that political violence has always been much more prevalent on the right.” The writer concluded, “If only Dougherty could predict Trump Republicans will show comparable restraint if their man loses,” adding, “The respectable right’s principal emotion about Trump, after all, has always been abject fear of the man. He took away their party, and he won’t give it back. The last thing they want to do is to make Trump, or his MAGA followers, mad.”