by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
On a strictly political level, I feel confident in saying Trump is safe. He will be impeached by the House, acquitted by the Senate and be given yet ANOTHER political pardon for him to instantly abuse. He’ll grow far more brazen. He’ll pardon everyone he needs to, get Barr to indict an array of his political opponents, get Russians to directly hack into our election systems or get some MAGA plutocrat to bribe Electors as need be.
Lulz!
But there are some known unknowns I can’t possibly case out.
Trump’s Mental State
He’s already hysterical and he hasn’t even been formally impeached yet. So, there’s at least a reasonable chance his mental state could explode, not implode. He’ll grow transactional with his Twitter feed, especially in regards to the Whistleblower. Things may get so bad that it’s not the politics of impeachment that is Trump’s downfall, it’s that he’s completely bonkers and the 25th Amendment is a currently a dead letter.
The Fate Of The Whistleblower
While it might be an immediate goal of Congressional Republicans to out the Whistlebower so they can make impeachment about him and his motives, it’s reasonable to believe that will only work with the 35% MAGA base. Everyone else will be able to process that even though the Whistleblower has some professional connection to both Biden and Susan Rice, Trump still, in fact, did crimes against the Constitution that warrant his removal from office. This is really tricky, given that on an institutional level The New York Times continues to carry water for House Trump. (See, also, Maggie Haberman.) So, maybe it’ll work. But maybe it won’t. Who knows. The fate of the Republic hinges on the answer to this question, but lulz. Optics! The Whistleblower is murdered in cold blood by a MAGA fuckwit because of a throwaway line by Trump, then the criminal fascist Republican Party will in the position to finally have to defend Trump directly leading to someone’s murder. They’ll do it, too. They will win the news cycle, but there’s a good chance that their argument — that we have to end impeachment because people are dying — may not actually be as effective as they believe.
General Rat-Fucking By Republicans
Republicans are criminal fascists. They don’t believe in either liberal democracy or civil society. They only believe in power and making as much money as possible to the detriment to the nation as a whole. Barr could hand down bogus criminal referrals at any moment. All they want is to maintain power. They are willing to destroy everything to further that goal. Nothing is off limits. This will grow ever more so as there fucking moron of a leader grows more and more hysterical.
It’s because of these factors that I simply can’t case out the impeachment endgame. If this was any other person as president, I would resign myself to darkness finally falling across the land. I would assume I’d die at some point in Trump’s second term at an ICE Camp with a bullet to the back of the head. While that still may happen, we’re still at the beginning of the process.
Buckle up.
