How will Trump help the USA?

Some assumptions about the direction the USA will take with Donald Trump at the helm have people concerned over several civil matters. In a briefing with several experts, they each explain the current state of the country.
There’s a similar public misconception around political violence: “We seem to assume that either we can predict it or else it’s not going to happen at all, which is why we’re constantly surprised when it does happen,” said Dr. Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and founder and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST).
As soon as it was official that Trump was the next president, the Justice Department exposed that Iran leaders had a plot for an assassination attempt on Trump before the election.
“We need to be watchful against this. It wouldn’t come as a surprise to me if there are more assassination attempts between now and Jan. 20 and in the first 100 days after that, especially if he proceeds with aggressive deportation plans, which include sending ICE agents into blue sanctuary cities like Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Portland, where immigration protests turned violent in 2020,” said Pape.
Pape continued by stating that the extent of political violence is unpredictable and likening it to a wildfire, “We can measure the material that can combust, but we can’t predict the triggering lightning strikes, thrown cigarette butts, the unattended campfires.”
Two of the bigger talking points for both candidates was women’s reproductive rights and immigration. Women’s participation in the polls and societal views of women were also main concerns. 2024 exit polls show that 54 percent of women and 44 percent of men voted for Harris, while 44 percent of women and 54 percent of men voted for Trump. Over the last few decades, White women have equally voted between Republican and Democratic at 52 percent since the 1980s, Black women have mostly voted Democratic, averaging 90 percent over the last few decades.
“We talk about the gender of the voters, but we also have to recognize the ways gender plays a role in who we’re willing to vote for,” said Kelly Dittmar, research director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “It’s less about Harris’ identity and more about why a man tapping into grievances about threatened masculinity did not disqualify him from winning.”
Now, 73 percent of Republicans say that society is too “soft and feminine,” compared with 42 percent of independents and 16 percent of Democrats.
Immigration concerns also factored in how people voted. A September 2024 Pew Research Center poll found that 81 percent of registered voters said, “The economy will be important to their vote.” Voters believed that Trump would be better equipped to handle the border problems as he has strong anti-immigration laws.
“It’s no surprise that immigration was another major motivating factor because Republicans ran the most vicious anti-immigrant campaign of any major party in modern history,” said Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of America’s Voice. “Immigration itself is being redefined,” explained Cardenas. “As conversations around ending birthright citizenship, TPS and DACA are becoming mainstreamed, the lines between ‘legal’ and ‘undocumented’ are being blurred.”