Five Tangible Ways Your Life Could Get Worse in a Second Trump Term

A major mistake the Democrats are making is misconstruing why more voters are supporting Trump over Biden in recent polls. They keep thinking that if the voters only heard about one more immoral thing Trump did, then no one would possibly vote for him. But the voters, literally every single one of them, are well aware of exactly who and what Trump is. And despite that, they’re choosing him over Biden because they believe that their lives were better under Trump before and that they would be again. 

Now, on the face of it, comparing the two is absurd. Biden, all in all, has been an effective president. Trump was a disaster. But we live in a world where people continually feel worse than ever (thank you social media) and where incumbents across the world keep losing — from Argentina to Italy, Australia to Poland, Sweden to South Korea and so many more – so the perception is real even if the facts are wrong.

That’s why the Democrats need to take a different approach. Rather than endless hysteria about how evil Trump is (we all get it), they need to show how people’s day-to-day lives will be materially worse under a second Trump term, based on the plans team Trump has already promised to implement. 

Given Trump’s plan to dismantle the federal government, it means deep cuts/ mass departures at agencies like the FAA, at the FDA, at the TSA, at DOL and OSHA. It means meaningful life changes, far for the worse, for hundreds of millions of Americans. Politically, if the Democrats can get the point across that “you will have to wait in the airport for twice as long” or “there will be food shortages at supermarkets like there was during covid” or “your boss is going to have to bump you down to a worse health care plan,” then that becomes something real and tangible that voters can factor in. The argument has to be framed in terms that matter to people, not to pundits and policy experts and ideologues. The following list are some ideas the Democrats could use, based on Trump’s own policy platform, to show voters why their lives would be so much worse under a new Trump term.

(1). Flying is really going to suck. Drastically cutting the federal workforce means real life implications. The TSA isn’t going to stop making people go through airport security, but if there are only half as many TSA workers, then the time you spend standing in line, bored, staring at your phone, anxious about missing your flight, just doubled. That likely means having to get to the airport 2.5 hours before a domestic flight and 3-4 hours before an international flight. It also means that because we won’t have nearly enough air traffic controllers (we don’t have enough now), the number of flights offered per day will fall dramatically. That likely means higher prices, fewer options, more waiting and more delays. And with fewer air traffic controllers, we’re also looking at higher risks of planes colliding mid-air, an accident virtually no one survives.

(2). If you liked the shortages at supermarkets during Covid, you’ll love Trump II. Remember hoarding toilet paper? Having to get one box of cereal instead of three? Getting stuck with apple juice because apples and grapes sold out hours ago? That’s what we’re looking at again in a second Trump term. Food products cannot be sold at supermarkets, grocery stores, Walmart or anywhere else absent the facility that makes the product being inspected and cleared by the FDA. If Trump guts the number of FDA employees who inspect factories that produce food products, then they’ll have to inspect factories with half the staff they have now. That ultimately means everything will take twice as long, leading to significant product shortages, long lines and empty shelves. Does Biden’s age really bother you enough to not be able to get what you want at Target whenever you want it? Biden needing a nap versus my not being able to get chicken breasts is not really a hard decision. By the way, we’re just talking about food inspections here. What happens when the massive delay means your kid can’t get life saving medicine? Will that actually happen to you and your kids? Probably not. Emphasis on probably. 

(3). Good luck seeing your same doctors and paying the same co-pay. Repealing the Affordable Care Act has long been a Trump priority. That requires Congress, but restricting access to the ACA does not. That could be eliminating Medicaid waivers, conditioning waivers on work requirements, or shutting down the ACA enrollment website, to name a few. But the most impactful by far would be cutting government subsidies to the program. That would meaningfully increase costs for insurers, who will promptly pass it onto their customers. Then each business that provides health care will have to decide whether to pay more for their current insurance or switch to a worse plan with higher co-pays and deductibles. That means the in-network dermatologist you love is now out of network and twice as expensive. The same for your kids’ pediatrician. And your mom’s orthopedist. 

(4). Good luck getting a loan to pay for college. Trump has promised a purity test for schools and the ability of their students to receive loans from Fannie Mae could depend on those schools passing Trump’s ideological purity test. Getting student loans would become a lot more difficult and that could apply to any school that provokes Trump’s ire (even if just one faculty member with tenure says something critical). This would result in chaos for college students and their families, for high school students and their families, and for each school. It would also mean fewer people going to college and getting a good job. By the way, the same problem would exist for small businesses who rely on SBA loans to start or fund their companies. If the number of SBA loan officers is cut in half, each loan will take twice as long and far fewer will be made. So much for small businesses being the lifeblood of our economy. 

(5). You better hope your factory takes safety really seriously. Factories are inspected by OSHA and are subject to a variety of workplace safety requirements. These may sound bureaucratic and sometimes they probably are, but most of the time, they mean factories have to meet basic standards like providing protective equipment. It’s why working in factories is far less dangerous than it used to be. If OSHA rules are gutted, it’s the wild west – anything goes. Businesses will reduce costs, because that’s what businesses do, and those cuts will result in more workplace accidents and deaths. So if you’re a blue collar worker, Trump is actually the last person you should want in charge of your safety.  

These are just five examples of many. We could have pointed to the chilling of IPOs once there are far fewer securities regulators. Tighter labor markets and reduced agricultural output if immigration is cracked down even further. More crime because the Justice Department and FBI is dramatically smaller and their agenda is completely politicized. The list goes on and on.

Of course cutting waste and bureaucracy is both worth doing and is highly popular. Unnecessary permits, regulations, divisions and employees should always be under review. But there’s a major difference between trimming fat and gutting basic safety functions like air travel security or food inspection. Trump isn’t promising to trim the fat. He’s promising to use a sledgehammer, which sounds great on tv until you realize what it means for your actual life – longer waits, less products to choose from, higher costs, higher inflation, more crime, dangerous workplaces, fewer small businesses, less access to good doctors, lower chances of going to college and so much more. 

These are the types of issues that can resonate with actual voters, not more cries about Trump’s immorality or high minded conceptual arguments about rule of law or the first amendment. Trump does well with voters because he speaks plain English in ways that may sound uneducated to us cultural elites but clearly works for a lot of voters. Democrats need to ditch the morality police and the McKinsey-speak — and start doing the same.