I am not saying that he is all talk. I am saying that he is a master of hyperbolic threats followed by a more nuanced reality.
I can't understand the level of aggressivity and panic (from some) over Trump's reelection. "Keep calm and carry on" as we say in the UK...
I don’t know if you’ve noticed the panic Trump has caused with xenophobia the past 20+ years but none of those voters believe in the phrase “Keep calm and carry on”.
Just because you were not directly affected by Trump’s first term does not mean you can wave away other people’s concerns as not problems.
The guy tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election by any means possible. Trump called up the Georgia Secretary of State and demanded that he just add 11,000 votes to Trump's total. It's on tape. Trump's team set up slates of fake electors from states that Trump lost. The Trump team drew up a detailed legal argument for how Mike Pence could reject the real electors and let the fake electors vote, throwing the election to Trump. When Pence refused to go along with that blatantly illegal scheme, Trump riled up a crowd and sicced them on the Capitol, in order to physically disrupt and prevent the certification of the presidential election.
Trump has shown that he fundamentally rejects the American political system, and is willing to trash the entire system of elected government if he loses. Many people rightly view that as a threat to the continuation of democracy in the US.
Just as American neocon think tanks had plans to invade Iraq and used 9/11 as justification to squander Trillions of dollars and millions of lives for no good reason.
Project 2025 talks about how Mexico doesn't actually have sovereignty because it's run by cartels supplying fentanyl. Is it coincidence that Trump announced the same reasons to impose 25% tariffs?
Hopefully calmer heads prevail, but again, Republicans did Iraq just a couple of decades ago. The Republican voters loved it. The corporate media loved it. Trump supported it. And now they all pretend they didn't.
Mass demonstrations and allies saying not to do that couldn't help, and it got Bush reelected.
Maybe if Robert F. Kennedy goes with his threat to ban cancerous chemicals from food in the US, then Europe won't need to block the imports of American food.
He's not even President yet and Europe is already offering concessions to avoid tariffs, for instance.
It works because people think he is fully willing to deliver on his threats.