- the ongoing investigation into Russia's hacking of our 2016 elections;
- the lawsuit(s) against trump's business dealings violating the Emoluments Clause being allowed to proceed;
- the growing revelations about trump's payoffs to various mistresses before the election - that can well violate campaign finance laws among other state-level criminal malfeasance - now bringing up trump's personal financial handler Allen Weisselberg, meaning trump's hidden business dealings with Russian mobsters may well get exposed any day now;
- trump's idiotic tariff wars threatening to trigger an economic implosion, even with the vain attempts to buy off the Agribusiness industry;
the likelihood trump will pull off a rubber mask to expose his identity as a secret Richard Nixon clone all along
It's not a question "if" trump's administration ends in 2020 it's a question "how bad is the destruction going to be when the damn corrupt edifice collapses into the ocean".
Just what are the outcomes of all these crazy situations?
1) Republicans in control of Congress/the Cabinet just say "fuck it" and remove trump either through Impeachment or the 25th Amendment.
They'd have good reason to. While trump *is* popular still with the Republican base, that base has shrunk and there's evidence that a lot of Independent voters who went GOP in 2016 are avoiding the party now like the plague. Meanwhile, trump's unjustified tariff wars are causing economic chaos and his bailout offer to Agribusiness to offset the damage done to that industry goes against the conservative mindset of the more traditional-minded Republicans. The general chaos that revolves around trump makes it hard to get anything done (even for a lazy Congress, Republicans do want to get a few things on their agenda done): The scandals surrounding trump make it hard to focus on doing anything other than damage control. For all the issues that can affect an election, people still vote by emotion and there's a LOT of unhappy people angry at trump (and by extension the Congresscritters enabling him). In short, trump may not be helpful in the November midterm elections.
Sad thing is, the sanest response to trump's insanity is one that will not happen. For all the damage trump is doing to their own brand, these Republican leaders are cowards and self-serving fools yearning to hold onto power of controlling the three branches of Federal government (and a lot of state governments as well). They're terrified of losing their base AND their deep-pocket SuperPACs (some of which are corrupted by Russian affiliation anyway) to where they'll just ignore the warning signs and just hope this storm blows over. Even after the Primaries are done, don't expect the surviving GOP incumbents to do ANYTHING in Congress to make trump answer for the things he's doing wrong.
2) Democrats win the Midterms either by winning control of the House (likely) and/or winning control of the Senate (less likely) along with winning enough Governorships and State Legislatures (toss-up) to reduce the influence of Red State politics.
In this situation driven by 65 million angry American voters (or more), one of the Congressional houses switches to a political opposition willing and able to investigate/hound trump for every sin he's doing. Especially on matters involving Emoluments, and on trump's horrific anti-immigrant policies.
Even if it's a divided Congress (Dem House, GOP Senate) there is enough likelihood that they would pass legislation compelling trump and his White House to play by the rules. For example: Taking away the President's authority to create tariffs; allowing asylum seekers easier entry along with their families; cutting funds for ICE as punishment for mistreatment of immigrant kids; public investigations into trump's use of hotels to encourage foreign agents to give him money; public revelations of trump's federal income tax returns; creating legal protections for the FBI and Justice Department to prevent trump's meddling/threats to fire anyone investigating him.
There's a lot of things a Democratic branch of government could do to make life harder for trump to run his con games. In the right circumstance, trump may come to believe he won't be able to continue his con games and quit (he does have a tendency to cut and run).
Problem with this scenario: there is every likelihood the remaining Republicans in a Democratic-controlled Congress will run interference for trump just to spite the Democrats. They may get hammered in the 2018 Midterms but the GOP is obsessed with winning at all costs... and they've got the 2020 Presidential cycle to think about. In every previous time in the post-Reagan Era they got embarrassed for their extremist positions - 1992, 1998, 2006 and 2008, 2012 - instead of moderating themselves they doubled down on the crazy, and were rewarded every time - 1994, 2000, 2010, 2016 - with more political control. Outside of major loss of seats - say, losing 50-100 seats in the House and losing every Senate race in 2018 - the Republicans will likely remain defensive of trump and the Far Right factions, meaning trump can survive into 2020 and we risk the likelihood he'll campaign for re-election (with no guarantees he'll get the curb-stomping he deserves).
Another problem: if the Democrats win even one part of Congress, there is every likelihood the fear-mongers of the Far Right will scream "illegal" or "conspiracy" or "stolen votes". trump is already trying to set up the insane narrative that Russia will hack the Midterms in favor of the Democrats. The mood of the Far Right - even with them in control of the government - is still paranoid and on edge. The possibility of a violent response to a Democratic victory this November isn't a fantastic improbability.
3) For any old crazy reason, trump orders a halt to the Midterm elections.
One of the major steps in an Autocrat-Wannabe's efforts to achieve Full Dictator status is to suspend scheduled elections. trump could come up with any crazy and unproven excuse - such as his claim of Russians hacking into the 2018 elections to favor the Dems - and just before the November vote issue an Executive Order to the states to stop the vote because of "illegality."
This would have the effect of preserving - at the moment - Republican control of everything. It would also go against every democratic norm our nation's lived by since the American Revolution. We've NEVER suspended federal elections before, especially on this scale. Even in the middle of the Civil War - when 11 states were fighting to not even BE in the United States - the Union states still held Midterm elections in 1862 - which saw pro-Southern Democrats win gains in the House - and a Presidential election in 1864. Major wars like World War II, Korea, and Vietnam saw elections happening during them as well (with major party changes happening between Korea and Nam).
If trump tries to shut down the vote, there'd be a flurry of legal action, and then a possibility that only the Blue (Dem) States will hold them while the Red (GOP) States (especially the ones threatening to flip Blue) refuse to hold theirs. And then things would get messier from there. If trump succeeds in an effort to suspend elections, that may well be the trigger to start mass protests on a scale we haven't seen since the 1960s... with all the accompanying violence and tears we had those years coming back with a terrible vengeance.
None of these situations are appealing, all of these situations have a possibility of happening.
There is no calm, sane solution awaiting us here.
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| I would love to get a citation on the person who made this, I pulled it off Google Images |
I'm starting to think the Mayans were off on their Apocalypse calendar by 4-5 years...
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