The New York Times last year plastered a rather prophetic warning across the front page of its Sunday Opinion section, cautioning that the Republican Party’s then-presidential nominee, Donald Trump, would follow through with some of his most troubling promises from the 2024 campaign trail.
“DONALD TRUMP SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS ABANDON ALLIES,” the cover warned in all-capital letters. “BELIEVE HIM.”
The headline was published last October, but went truly viral Wednesday after Victor Shi, a spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, shared a photo of the cover on X.
As of Friday, his post had garnered 87,000 likes and 1.5 million views.
“And we are only 10 months into this administration,” Shi wrote in a separate post. “They move fast. They break things. They have no regard for history or norms or laws. They want us to feel overwhelmed and weak, but we can’t submit. We can’t give up.”
The Times warned only about threats Trump had publicly made himself, and they’ve all come true since he took office for a second time.
Trump has certainly politicized disasters, using the wildfires that devastated parts of California in January as an opportunity to attack Democrats.
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The Times had further alluded to potential political arrests during Trump’s second term. In September, former FBI Director James Comey, who investigated possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016, was indicted on one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice.
Shi pleaded Wednesday, “We’ve gotta stay together and sound the alarm constantly.”