Donald Trump’s landslide victory has reignited fears that in his second term in the White House he will unleash his authoritarian instincts to the full.

When he returns to the White House in January, as one of the most powerful presidents in history, he will be able to take advantage of the safety nets he created in his first term.

Trump has enormous power and will seek to prevent constitutional checks, CNN reports in an analysis. One does not need to be able to predict the future to guess it. Based on his past behavior, business and political career, it is certain that he will seek to eliminate all restrictions and obstacles.

For example, he has crushed opposition in the Republican Party and ousted politicians who oppose his “Make America Great Again” motto.

No other president has taken office armed with a Supreme Court ruling granting him significant immunity.

The decision came from a conservative judicial majority, shaped by Trump in his first term and which many legal observers now see as a seal on future power grabs.

How Donald Trump completed a historic political comeback

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” the former and incoming president said at his Mar-a-Lago victory party early Wednesday.

He denied, however, that he wants authoritarian rule, saying that his claim to be a dictator on day one is a joke and that he is the savior of democracy.

However, millions of Americans chose Trump after his extreme closing arguments, including the largest deportation operation in US history.

Ignoring legal efforts to hold him accountable

Trump’s willingness to exercise unchecked executive power is also facilitated by the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity.

In Trump’s first term, some Republicans sometimes blocked his agenda. The late Arizona Sen. John McCain, for example, thwarted an attempt to overturn key provisions of the law.

A former Illinois lawmaker told CNN’s Dana Bash yesterday that the Republican Party will not be able to moderate Trump. “On paper, it’s a real thing, in practice it’s not,” he added characteristically: “There’s no chance that Donald Trump is going to say something and the Republicans in the House are going to stop him.”

Justice…

A few hours after the election victory, special counsel Jack Smith was already talking to the Department of Justice about ending two federal prosecutions against Trump. They relate to his efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election and classified documents found in his office. And there are also huge doubts about Trump’s pending sentencing in the porn star Stormy Daniels’ financing case.

The phrase of Corey Brettschneider, a professor of politics at Brown University and author, is typical: “What if a bad person or even a criminal president gets into the Oval Office? Because they assume that he is a virtuous person, they also think that he is quite weak.’ Now that America has a convicted felon as its president-elect—and one with huge ambitions—that’s no longer the case.

His… friends

He has frequently praised foreign authoritarian leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. He admires the dominance of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. “Some people don’t like him because he’s too strong. It’s good to have a strong man at the head of a country,” Trump said at a rally in New Hampshire in January.

Trump’s take on the presidency was summed up in his declaration in July 2019 that the Constitution gave him unbridled power. “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” he said. Article II defines the duties of the presidency, but does not suggest, at least in conventional interpretations, general executive power.

It will take time to rein in Trump

Restraint is a concept foreign to Trump. This is not just a personal trait. Such behavior is also favored by the millions of voters who have endorsed his promise to change a system of government they believe has failed.

The most effective clamp on Trump’s future power would be a Democratic House majority, which could challenge the new White House with oversight power.

Then there are the courts. Activist groups are sure to file lawsuits against Trump’s immigration moves, as they did with his first-term ban on travel from some Muslim nations. Such maneuvers can tie up a president for months — though the raft of Trump-appointed judges and the Supreme Court’s conservative majority may give the administration a free hand.

Meanwhile, efforts to prosecute Trump’s political enemies could theoretically bring mass resignations of Justice Department staff. This is one reason why the new government may develop plans to fire entire ranks of the civil service to ensure total loyalty to the new president.

And the former president is unlikely to make the first-term mistake of appointing officials who oppose him — such as former chief of staff John Kelly and former defense secretary Mark Esper.