No Safety Or Surprise, The End

It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die...
-- "The End," The Doors

This has been offered up on Twitter as a must-read article from Adam Davidson at the New Yorker:

(after a lengthy introduction of Adam's experiences with two recent political disasters, the Iraqi Invasion and the CDO Meltdown) In Iraq and with the financial crisis, it was helpful, as a reporter, to be able to divide the world into those who actually understand what was happening and those who said hopeful nonsense. The path of both crises turned out to be far worse than I had imagined...

I thought of those earlier experiences this week as I began to feel a familiar clarity about what will unfold next in the Trump Presidency. There are lots of details and surprises to come, but the endgame of this Presidency seems as clear now as those of Iraq and the financial crisis did months before they unfolded. Last week, federal investigators raided the offices of Michael Cohen, the man who has been closer than anybody to Trump’s most problematic business and personal relationships. This week, we learned that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months—his e-mails have been read, presumably his phones have been tapped, and his meetings have been monitored (this means if trump or his inner circle had any conversations with Cohen about anything shady (very likely) the Feds already have it)...

Trump has long declared a red line: Robert Mueller must not investigate his businesses, and must only look at any possible collusion with Russia. That red line is now crossed and, for Trump, in the most troubling of ways. Even if he were to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and then had Mueller and his investigation put on ice, and even if—as is disturbingly possible—Congress did nothing, the Cohen prosecution would continue...

This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophecy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth...

What Davidson is talking about here is, regardless of what trump can do to save himself - firing Rosenstein in order to fire or stop Mueller, forcing the Justice Department to counter-investigate Dems like Hillary and Obama for purely partisan reasons, shutting down Justice completely to stop the New York offices from indicting Cohen - trump's Presidency will become a wounded duck, lacking the prestige of office and respect by others through the Rule of Law trump himself no longer respects.

Granted, trump's fan base among the Far Right will become even more convinced of his wounded cries of "witch hunt!" and trump's haters will become even more convinced of his guilt, what will happen is the loss of political capital and goodwill any Presidency needs to survive in DC (and the world). What will happen with the Cohen investigation - not the Russian one - will be a public reveal of all the nasty secrets trump's been trying to hide for decades, as Davidson lists here:

...I am unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look at Trump’s business who doesn’t believe that there is a high likelihood of rampant criminality. In Azerbaijan, he did business with a likely money launderer for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. In the Republic of Georgia, he partnered with a group that was being investigated for a possible role in the largest known bank-fraud and money-laundering case in history. In Indonesia, his development partner is “knee-deep in dirty politics”; there are criminal investigations of his deals in Brazil; the F.B.I. is reportedly looking into his daughter Ivanka’s role in the Trump hotel in Vancouver, for which she worked with a Malaysian family that has admitted to financial fraud. Back home, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka were investigated for financial crimes associated with the Trump hotel in SoHo—an investigation that was halted suspiciously. His Taj Mahal casino received what was then the largest fine in history for money-laundering violations. (personal note: Notice how most of trump's crimes involve foreign businesses or persons with their own criminal pasts? It's like he seeks them out to do business with...)

...It has become commonplace to say that enough was known about Trump’s shady business before he was elected; his followers voted for him precisely because they liked that he was someone willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, and they also believe that all rich businesspeople have to do shady things from time to time. In this way of thinking, any new information about his corrupt past has no political salience. Those who hate Trump already think he’s a crook; those who love him don’t care.

I believe this assessment is wrong. Sure, many people have a vague sense of Trump’s shadiness, but once the full details are better known and digested, a fundamentally different narrative about Trump will become commonplace. Remember: we knew a lot about problems in Iraq in May, 2003. Americans saw TV footage of looting and heard reports of U.S. forces struggling to gain control of the entire country. We had plenty of reporting, throughout 2007, about various minor financial problems. Somehow, though, these specific details failed to impress upon most Americans the over-all picture. It took a long time for the nation to accept that these were not minor aberrations but, rather, signs of fundamental crisis...

It doesn't help trump or the Republicans that polling still shows a majority of Americans believe the investigations should continue (roughly 69 to 25 for-against on the Russian probe). A little over 40 percent of Republicans support the investigations, assuredly overlapping any trump supporters who may love him but recognize the need for legal investigations to continue. IF Mueller does come out with substantial evidence of Russian meddling WITH trump's help, how many of those voters will make the moral choice to drop trump like the plague?

Davidson doesn't refer to it, but a historical analogy would be to Nixon and Watergate. While the scandal broke during 1972, many voters did not know the details well enough to realize how bad it was, and even the ones who did know still did not realize how deep the rot was. Nixon won a ton votes in 1972 in a rout: People didn't realize the scope of the scandal until Nixon's Oval Office tapes went public in 1974 and most found out just how corrupt and nasty a lifeform Nixon was.

We are facing the same situation with trump. For all of those out there - myself included - who hate trump exactly for the crimes he's already committed, there are still a lot of fellow Americans who just can't see it yet. Public exposure of trump's sins - the likely possibility of fraudulent business deals, the rampant misogyny, the crass ignorance he barely conceals already - would go a long way towards waking up more Americans - especially those Republicans who can't yet accept the facts - to the dangers of trump's misrule.

The thing that Davidson can't address, what most of us don't have an answer for, are the exact details we're going to be getting during this period of the trumpian Downfall. Just how bad is this all going to get?

As guessed at earlier, trump will try to come up with some excuse to fire Rosenstein, except the departmental bureaucracy may merely shift the oversight of Mueller's investigation towards other careerists in Justice instead of an appointed trump lackey. trump may try a straight-up coup, ordering the military or National Guard in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area to shut down the nation's capital "for security purposes"... but that may lead to a mutiny among the guards. Either way, trump loses any respect (and most likely any control) of the Intel Community from the FBI to the CIA through the NSA and all the rest. Those are the ones who really know just how bad trump and Russia are tied together, they just can't tell us because it could compromise their intelligence gathering methods.

We can't consider the Republicans in Congress to do anything except huddle on the sideline and quietly whisper for everyone "just settle down and don't look at what's happening, everything is fine, all is well." At every point of this nightmare, the Republicans avoided the hard decisions they needed to make: they never stopped trump from entering the primaries even when it was clear he was a racist loose cannon; they never cut off the SuperPACs who were funding trump; they never tried to rally around one candidate who could inspire the not-crazy factions in their own party to show up and vote; they never got onto Fox Not-News and bitch-slapped the taste out of Hannity or O'Reilly's mouths to get them to shut up and stop riling their base into madness.

Even if Mueller presents to Congress a detailed list of federal crimes, of trump and his people - his own family - actively working with a foreign power to subvert our elections, we've already seen the House Intel committee close their own investigation (without ever really investigating) and give trump a "clean bill of health" that nobody else even in the Beltway media takes seriously. In the chaos of the GOP-held House as Speaker Ryan shuts down his part of the government with intent to retire, will any Republican take the leadership reins in opposition to a corrupt President? (short answer, no: long answer, are you fucking kidding?)

This is one very big reason the 2018 midterms has far too much Democratic enthusiasm: every anti-trump American knows nothing will happen until Democrats regain control of either part of Congress...

And don't forget those polling numbers. If the 69 percent in favor of Mueller's probe accurately reflects the American population, then any action by trump to stop Mueller should cause 224 million (out of 313 mill or so) or more Americans to rise up in protest. Granted, not all will because this would be a risky and potentially harmful move for anyone to make. But if even half that number rise up, that's still 112 million angry Americans in the streets. There aren't enough pro-trump army units willing to crush a revolt of that size.

The only rational conclusion - if trump's fraud and criminal acts come to light - would be to resign, and there are enough trump observers who think trump would cut and run when the going gets tough. Thing is, trump only cuts and runs when he knows his current con game is over but that he's got another con game to jump to in order to keep his scam going.

This is it for trump. The biggest grandest con game he can get. It's fueling his property empire as the expense of the Emoluments Clause he openly violates. It's getting him fealty and payoffs from foreign businesses trying to use trump to get into the U.S. to make more money. This is it for him. trump HAS NOWHERE ELSE TO GO WHEN THIS CON ENDS.

trump will not resign, no matter how much he hates the prison that the Presidency is known to be.

Problem is, for all that Mueller can uncover, for all the other investigations into Cohen and more, there is a rule in place with the Justice Dept. to not indict a sitting President. While the DoJ could overrule that if the situation got dire, that would be so partisan a move it would cripple their reputation - which isn't all that clean in the first place - for decades at the least. They would be compelled to pass their findings onto the one branch that could do something... that just happens to be Congress, which again are led by a bunch of Republican cowards.

That means trump has to leave either through Impeachment - hard to achieve even if the Blue Wave gives Dems control of House AND Senate - or 25th Amendment - unlikely as there are few Cabinet members willing to remove trump for his unstable behavior - or worst of all waiting until 2020 for him to either lose in a Primary challenge or lose the General election to Kamala Harris (one hopes).

The last scenario is the most likely. We are, GODS help us, stuck with trump for two more years causing damage from his broken and half-staffed West Wing.

Davidson may think we're seeing the beginning of the end for trump's rule.

Problem is, this is an end that can take a long time to reach. And GODS forbid, too much damage will get done as we try to get there...

We are so very very VERY EXTREMELY ROYALLY FUCKED.

Unless we get the damn vote out and flip both the House and Senate far enough to ensure an early exit by trump. It's the only way right now.

GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT. Get everyone you know to vote. Get everyone aware of what's at stake and how they need to vote. VOTE DEMOCRAT EVERYWHERE AND ANYWHERE.

We gotta fight for our own survival now. This is it.