No one listens to me. And generally no one reads this blog. But for my own peace of mind, I will make some observations about how bad things could get in the next few weeks.
As I’ve said many times, we’ve elected a deranged version of Being There’s Chauncey Gardner. Trump is not a political genius. Access journalists have had a vested interest in making us thinking this because if Trump really is just a lucky doofus then that means maybe going to Harvard doesn’t make them as cool as they think it does. Trump is not only a moron, he’s wilfully ignorant. He’s unstable, racist and misogynistic. The case could be made that only his love for his daughter — and maybe a native political skill — prevents him from being an anti-semite. Even then, I’m grading doofus on a severe curve.
Stephen King’s “The Dead Zone” may be a little too on the nose.
The worst part of all of this, the thing that makes Trump himself the biggest mistake in American history besides Prohibition and the Dred Scott Decision is we wilfully elected someone who obviously never took his oath seriously. He never took it seriously and he was wilful when given the opportunity to bring as may people down with him when given the chance. That Trump would wait 24 hours to call up the president of Ukraine after being given a political pardon by Chris Wallace because of Mueller’s “poor optics” in his testimony before Congress is the single biggest self-own in American political history.
Nothing comes close. Nixon not burning the tapes comes close, but it’s my understanding he had some health issues with his legs at the time and he was bed ridden and not physically up to doing it.
And so, this is where you need to take a deep breath and have a stiff drink. It’s going to get dark pretty quick. Trump is never going to resign and it’s debatable if Republicans will ever buckle. Or, if they do, Trump’s mental deterioration will have reached a point where we all throw up a few times at the realization that we don’t know exactly who is in control of the nuclear codes.
You Know It.
That we had a similar problem with Nixon during Watergate does not make me feel any better. Nixon — I think — began to act erratically enough that there was talk of the nuclear chain of command debated not being too quick to follow his orders. And Nixon raised our threat level — If I recall correctly — at a politically advantageous moment.
All of this leads to a very specific issue — if somehow Trump self-owns enough that the Senate actually convicts him, what’s the exact sequence of events then? If Trump isn’t at Trump Tower by that point, how, exactly, would we get him out of the White House? He is likely to have snapped by that point and he will have his Twitter feed to make himself feel better. Having an ex-president rage-tweeting all day and squatting in the White House doesn’t make me feel great.
I have my doubts that things will get that bad, and, yet, my general predictions about Trump slowly cracking up once the impeachment process began are holding up quite well. No one can predict the future, least of all me. But I do think we should change the way we look at all of this.
Oh boy.
This is not going to be a political process, this is going to be the entire nation holding its breath to see if Trump goes Howard Beale on us and how the system reacts. No government official can follow an illegal order in the American system — though Trump has “joked” about pardons. Lulz? So, I guess it’s at least possible Trump might begin to go full Nazi on us and simply tell people in a “joking” fashion that he’ll pardon them. (Come to think of it, the president’s all-powerful pardoning ability is a definite weakness in the American system of based on law.)
I just want to make this clear — take this seriously. We may be careening towards a mixture of the OJ Trial and 9/11 with a little bit of Network and I, Claudius thrown in.
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It gives me no pleasure to observe that my scenario running on the topico what might happen to Trump’s mental stability is beginning to play out about the way I predicted. We aren’t where we may endup yet, but we’re getting there.
The pressure of a looming impeachment is beginning to way on Trump and his already weak mental constitution can’t cope. But he’s still well within the spectrum of his previous behavior on Twitter. He’s ranting like a trapped rat, yes, but an adept sycophant could probably defend it on a Sunday morning chat show. It’s when Trump takes it to the next logical step and does things that are demonstrably indefensible, then what is now a chronic DL crisis is, well, just a crisis.
Trump’s bonkers behavior is happening right now and the press isn’t really conveying to the public what it all means. I guess they don’t want to scare people. But there may come a point where things come to a boil and not even access journalists can explain it all away in soothing tones. Here’s what we may be able to expect in the coming days and weeks.
Trump directly tells MAGA supporters to pick up arms against the government, specifically Congress. He will suggest who to kill and why.He may dox Orange Crush on Twitter and tell MAGA to hunt him down and kill him.
He will tweet out a dick pick.
He will start tweeting out the n-word to any notable person of color who he has a past history of hostility towards.
And, worst of all, he will finally suggest in an extremely passive-aggressive fashion that globalist cucks want him to kill himself. When that happens, we remember that he has the nuclear codes. We might find ourselves throwing up a few times, thinking of what might happen.
How likely is any of that? I honestly don’t know. I’m just running a scenario given datapoints that seem to fit future possibilities. Maybe none of that will happen, but they are things to keep in the back of your mind going forward.
What’s more, there’s one loony thing that is the wildcard — will Trump begin to use the levers of power in an attempt to escape his impeachment destiny? In shades of Caligula naming a horse Counsel, he might name Rudy a Special Prosecutor to look into Hillary’s emails. He might somehow talk to Putin or “Little Rocket Man” to stir up trouble for him so he’s a war president. He could finally do that Executive Order ending birthright citizenship.
But that’s a ways down the road. Or, it is until it’s not. That’s why this is beginning to make me nervous. He could simply abruptly lurch forward into bonkers territory in a pretty spectacular fashion and we won’t be prepared for it.
Or maybe not. He might just be chronically somewhat bonkers through the next few weeks and months and never finally crack. But I am nervous. I’m growing concerned.
It is growing apparent from the chatter in the extreme Right’s echo chamber that there is one reason and one reason only why they want to know the identity of “Orange Crush.” Once they know who the whistleblower is, they use the messaging tools they feel were used on Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings.
They don’t want to talk about anything the cold hard, collaborated facts that are an existential threat to Trump’s presidency — they want to talk about anything Orange Crush has ever done wrong in their entire life. Because a majority of Republican Senators agree with Kavanaugh’s actual judicial policies, the fact that the nomination was in trouble because of something that happens when Kavanaugh was a young man has led many Right wing commentators to wash their hands of liberal democracy altogether.
So, in the eyes of MAGA, the moment they know who Orange Crush is, they have a strategic messaging roadmap — you scream at the top of your lungs that Orange Crush smoked pot at a college party on Twitter instead of addressing what they proved to be correct about Trump. This is something similar to the “but her emails” line of argument.
This is where we are now politically.
There’s really only one major problem with this otherwise fool proof line of reasoning — the conventional wisdom is beginning to form that Orange Crush is a patriot. Every day the Republican Cult lacks a strategic response to what’s going on is another day closer to this actually, in fact, being an existential threat to not just the Trump Administration, but the Republican Party itself.
They could still very well pull it off. I know a decent amount about American presidential history and if the facts that we know hold up, what Orange Crush exposed would be, in fact, the biggest political scandal in American history. In fact, the only scandal I can compare it to is the circumstances surrounding the founding of the Anti-Masonic Party. As I understand it, that party was founded because the Masons used their power in New England to get a Mason off for murder.
The TrumpUkraine scandal takes that quantum leap forward in gravity. It’s not a problem of a secret society in New England overreaching, it’s that the leader of the country, a duly elected president of the United States would go to a foreign power to influence an election. What makes this even worse, is he did it 24 hours after the “bad optics” of Bob Mueller gave him a political pardon. And what’s even WORSE, is he is inching towards getting Orange Crush murdered because of a “joke.”
In the end, this may very well be The Stand of American History. The lines between Good and Evil will be clearly drawn. And, I hate to break it to you, the good guys don’t always win. Just ask he Jews of Europe in September 1939. Or the French Third Republic in 1940. Or the people of Eastern Europe after WWII. Or the people in the graves of Cambodia’s Killing Fields.
Either we’re careening towards darkness, or some sort of national absolution. If I knew which one, I would be working at the RAND Corporation, now giving a TED Talk and smelling my own farts.
Again, no one is going to save us but ourselves.
Shelton Bumgarner is writing his first novel. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com if you’re not insane.
Today has been unusual in the annals of Trump Era Republican messaging. It’s all been tactical. I’ve not seen any kind of cogent, strategic response to what Trump is accused of doing.
A lot of quibbling about this or that thing to suggest that either “everybody does it” or “it’s a sinister Deep State plot,” but no cohesive vision as to why Trump should stay in office other than he’s Der Fuhrer and that’s that. With the news that the Trump regime is now abusing power in a spectacular and brazen way by looking to of all things Hillary Clinton’s emails and we know this is, in fact, the existential battle royale I’ve said it is.
The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Shown: Humphrey Bogart
Because of the gimme of the Mueller Investigation being not only long but a bust, Trump’s been given the time needed to figure out how to use — and abuse — the levers of power. If Trump’s messaging plan is literally use “but her emails” as a reason why he should in power, he and his corrupt cronies are in serious, serious, serious trouble.
In a sense, all of Trump’s insane attacks on the press have been a lead up to this moment. He believes he’s so discredited the press in the eyes of the MAGA base, if no one else, that they “won’t know who to believe” when push comes to shove. But as of this moment, things aren’t going according to the usual plan.
It’s becoming more and apparent which members of the power structure have a vested interest in absolute devotion to sucking the MAGA teet and who don’t. Some people are simply embarrassing themselves to such an extent that it doesn’t matter what happens next — they’re career as nothing more than a partisan hack is assured. If Trump survives, they become a spokesperson for a corrupt authoritarian regime, if he loses, then their career is destroyed. Brit Hume, specifically, is playing with fire. A very big career-ending bonfire, in fact.
At this point, Trump has leverage over the situation because he’s president and he has no shame. He knows the MAGA base doesn’t believe in liberal democracy, so lulz. The only problem for him is things are moving so fast and he got caught red handed in an easy to understand fashion. Trump is a moron, so he thinks as long as he keeps the base he can survive in the Senate. He thinks Republicans Senators would rather vote to acquit and in the hopes of surviving their primary then brace for the general than vote to convict and lose to a MAGA primary challenger. But if every other political polling group grows to hate Trump with a historical white hot rage, a few Republican Senators might realize that their hopes in the general might not be all that great. They have no shame, so they’re likely to stick with Trump. But as it obvious, Trump’s kind of deranged already as it is, so things are likely to get worse going forward.
This is on the face of it pretty basic modern American politics. Especially if you have to accept that Trump has shown a propensity to meddle in elections when he feels he can, so lulz. Trump is pretty much willing to destroy everything around him simply so he doesn’t get his fee-fees hurt. The Republican Cult will survive if Trump is convicted, but there’s a chance they will be seen by independents for what they are — a dangerous anti-democratic organization that should be voted against at all costs.
What’s more, we haven’t even gotten to the biggest problem facing Republicans going forward — Trump himself. They have no shame, crave power for power’s sake and they have absolute devotion to Trump. So should Trump’s cognitive decline accelerate as the pressure of impeachment gets to him, they have only themselves to blame for what happens. They are going to ride the Trump Train down to the bottom of the raven. What happens then is anyone’s guess.
The macro social, economic and political that produced Trump will linger for decades to come. They’re not going anywhere, even if we somehow miraculously get the Senate to convict him. If it’s not Trump, it’s Kris Kobach. If it’s not Kris Kobach, it’s Tom Cotton. If it’s not Tom Cotton, it’s Tucker Carlson. There’s a never ending supply of people with the exact same base and exact same goals as Trump. The only reason we MIGHT get spared this time is Trump is criminally incompetent at his job. He has always been a Right wing Twitter troll. That’s it. That’s all he is and that’s all he will ever be.
One of my dad’s favorite movies is Mr. Roberts. The movie is about honor, leadership and the uses of power. As I reflect on this political clusterfuck we find ourselves in, I suggest you watch it if you’ve not done so already.
With that in mind, let’s look at the state of play in America politics on a macroscale with an eye to how history might judge us.
On a macro level, two issues stick out about what’s going on with TrumpUkraine.
Trump Is A Galactic Brain Self-Own Artist None of this would have happened if Trump was, in fact, the political genius that all those access journalists who whisper in hushed tones that Trump is subtlety influencing middle aged white women ages 39-45 with his political messaging.
In fact, Trump is a deranged version of Being There’s Chauncey Gardner. That’s it, that’s what’s going on. Trump is demonstrably a moron. Not only is he a barely functioning man child, he’s a wilful one at that. Would a very stable genius barely wait 24 hours after Chris Wallace cooed that the “bad optics” of Mueller’s testimony had politically pardoned him to call up the president of Ukraine to do the very same thing again ? I mean, come on people.
As I’ve said before — the only reason why Trump’s considered some sort of political genius is it validates the career choices of some very powerful people who can’t accept that if history is just right any old doofus can become president. If you accept that Trump is not smart, is not educated and doesn’t know what he’s doing and he still managed to become president, that might evoke a little bit of existential angst for a New York Times reporter.
That Trump would be criminally incompetent in broad daylight for years and it not be taken seriously shows some serious problems with modern America. If it happened once, it could happen again. If support for Trump among the establishment goes the way of the issue of Iraqi WMD, we are in for a serious fucking political problem going forward.
I say the following in all seriousness: the United States may have dodged a bullet not because all the ranting of people on Twitter pointing out the obvious, but because Trump is such a complete and abject failure at everything but being a criminal that people finally noticed — because of Trump’s own actions! If Trump actually a political genius, Trump would lay low until after his second term and THEN strike. But he’s a willful idiot and he couldn’t control himself.
The Crisis Is, At Last, Existential
This brings us to the other macro issue. This is where I grow a little sad about the nation I love so much. Trump is in trouble because we were so busy pinning all our liberal fever dream hopes of Bob Mueller — a lifelong Republican and Bill Barr’s best bud — that we gave Trump time to finally figure out how to use the levers of power. So, we were content with tearing brown families apart. A smash and grab tax cult for plutocrats. Dozens of young, hack MAGA judges on the Federal bench for decades to come. The list goes on. Nothing, but nothing stuck because we gave 35% of the electorate a veto over our political process. We were so wrapped up in intercine battles within the the so-called Resistance, that nothing happened.
And here were are.
We face an existential crisis at last. The lines are clear. Are we a nation of laws or not ?What’s more important to us, “owning the moment” or respecting the lives of those who have fought and died to protect the Union. I mean, hell, guys, Trump has openly proposed eliminating birth right citizenship — something a few hundred thousand people died fighting over — and it got barely more than a lulz.
I don’t know what happens next. I do know it’s up to us.
No one is going to save us. We have to save ourselves. If it’s not too late.
I’m reluctant to say we’re in any type of late-stage Watergate situation just yet. Watergate’s conclusion came about because of a very specific set of circumstances that, because of a lack of precedent, we’ve come to believe is a forgone conclusion.
As I’ve written before, this is not 1974 and Trump is not Nixon. Republicans have no shame and crave power for power’s sake. As such, even though every other metric could be against Trump, Republicans could simply deny it all and stand firm. It’s hard for a liberal democracy to have a functioning Constitution when one of its major parties believes you can only impeach a president if they gain from it politically.
I guess what I’m saying is — the entire fate of the United States rests on Trump, well, being Trump. I would go so far as to say at this point it would actually be out of character for Trump not to do something so completely indefensible, so completely and demonstrably beyond the pale of any type of normal human behavior, that Republicans will find themselves at last defending the absolutely indefensible. If we’ve gotten this far into this situation and we’re not thinking that maybe the Deep State might be the good guys, well,oh boy.
In fact, I will go so far as to say we’re looking for the wrong signs. We’re looking for a major Republican to be Barry Goldwater. Nope. The best we can maybe hope for is a surreal version of The Pence Pivot. If Trump gets the whistleblower murdered, or tweets out a dick pic or tweets the n-word to Obama, Republican leaders will simply say they REALLY voted for Pence and why are you asking the question.
Even then, they won’t even hold an impeachment trial in the Senate.
Having said all that, I would like to tell AOC and a few other people floating around that there’s a chance that things are going to get so bad, so surreal that they are going to be given a masterclass on leadership in real time. I watched on 9/11 as then President Bush simply deflated. He ran away. The nation, for a moment, was leaderless. For a few crucial hours, Rudy was our president.
All I’m saying is, if things get as absolutely surreal as they look like they may, history is watching. They say one’s character comes out best in extreme situations. A few of our elected leaders may be given the opportunity to tell us who they really are, for better or worse.
But we’re not quite there yet. Maybe Bill Barr has proof TrumpUkraine is all an evil plot on the part of the Deep State. Again, at this point, Chris Wallace might suggest the “optics” on that one might not be so great for House Trump.
Maybe the Deep State is like the Second Foundation? Maybe they’re protecting the Constitution? We’ll see.
Watergate was a national tragedy. “A long national nightmare,” as Jerry Ford called it. It was a tragedy in that it was the beginning of our modern political era. The Republican Party of 2019 is essentially made up of the the people who supported Nixon after the tapes were released. And so, TrumpUkraine is shaping up to be another one of those politically redefining moments.
A prime example of this is Kris Kobach’s recent ernest declaration that Senate Republicans should en masse commit jury nullification by pledging not to even hear the case against Trump. Such a statement is a savvy political move on Kobach’s part because it’s a win-win. If Trump survives, he’s a suck up. If Trump somehow manages to actually get convicted, he could very well be the core of the Republican Party going forward. Kobach has proven himself to be a lazy doofus when it comes to the hard work of politics, but, then, Donald Trump is a also a lazy doofus. Kobach really, really REALLY hates brown people coming into the United States. Given that the systemic problems that caused Trump in the first place are going to linger even if Trump is removed, he’s probably going to court the MAGA base pretty hard.
Rather, Call Your Agent.
One of the things that has served Americans well is the stability of our government. There’s a little problem with this, however, we don’t deal with government instability well. We don’t have any traditions to lean on. There’s no precedent as to what to do when we have an existential crisis like the one we’re in now.
I honestly don’t know what is going to happen to Trump at this point. The United States is not a functioning democracy right now. In fact, the only reason why the system is fighting back at all is Trump uses his galactic mind when it comes to self-owning. I’m reluctant to say we’re in that weird period of time before a president unexpectedly leaves office because it’s only happened once, in 1974. That’s the only historical guide we have as to how the system would work.
But, let’s sketch out some sort of scenario. Trump is never going to resign. In fact, he’s more likely to start a war than resign. Yet, suppose he is convicted. The first problem is getting him physically out of the White House. I’ve written about this scenario before some time ago and it’s not pretty. It would be a 9/11-level crisis for the United States. In fact, it would be if the OJ trial had a baby with 9/11. The reason is, it wouldn’t happen in hours, it could happen for weeks. I mean, Trump is demonstrably bonkers and has a twitter feed, what’s to stop him from telling the MAGA base to gather up their AR-15s and surround the White House? Then what?
At this point, we have to bring up House Trump. However Trump might finally leave office, he’s not going to go willingly. He’s going to demand a pound of political flesh. The most obvious expression of this is who would replace Pence as veep. Don Jr. is simply too much like his dad to fill the position, even though he’s got a serious clam to it. The base loves him and the Senate Republicans would approve him in a heartbeat. It just seems more politically likely, from a macro political standpoint that it would be Ivanka Trump who would play the role of Nelson Rockefeller. Jerry Ford was seen as a partisan hack when got the job of president. Really, at this point, that Republicans haven’t done The Pence Pivot is beginning to seem a bit surreal. Under all conventional political metrics you might use, Trump’s goose is cooked. Pence is a traditional politicians who is willing to at least play lip service to traditional democratic norms. That The Pence Pivot hasn’t begun to be formulated this far into the game is a very bad sign. That means Republicans are willing to ride the MAGA pony all the way to the bottom.
But anyway, back to Ivanka. Nikki Haley may think she has a claim to be Pence’s VP, but…no. It’s going to be a member of House Trump. Ivanka is so much like Nelson Rockefeller that it’s almost as if we’re going simply use the Watergate final days as the basis for a reboot. The only problem with using her to maintain House Trump’s connection to the White House is there’s a good chance not only would the MAGA base sour on her immediately, but everyone else would hate her for being complicit.
We’re still not really into this crisis yet. There aren’t enough datapoints to make any kind of serious scenario about Trump’s fate. But I will say tentatively things aren’t looking good for The Thousand Year Trump.
Shelton Bumgarner is a writer working on his first novel. It’s meant to be an allegory for the Trump Era. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com. He welcomes your comments as long as they’re not insane.
The reason why removing Trump immediately is so absolutely important — existential, even — is one very troubling fact; Trump called the president of Ukraine the day after he was given a political pardon by the “poor optics” of Bob Mueller’s testimony to Congress.
That act, in itself, requires we remove Trump from office within days, not months. In fact, if I was in charge of messaging for Congressional Democrats that’s the one point I would never shut up about. If you talked to a Democrat in Congress, you would here that mentioned at some point during the interview.
The reason why that particular point is so absolutely important is it’s a simple way to explain, in political terms, the gravity of what’s going on. If Trump was some sort of political genius, the last thing he would do it wait about 24 hours to actively commit the very crime that consumed the first two years of his presidency. It’s a very relatable insight into the dark recesses of who Trump is as a person. It’s this specific datapoint that elevates a partisan political issue into a human existential one.
Trump, the bonkers self-own artist
I mean, if you had a buddy who pull such a stunt, you would likely able him as toxic and lowly ease him out of your life. To have someone with such a mentality as the leader of the free world is absolutely, existentially unacceptable.
It proves that if you don’t remove Trump, then, well, there is pretty much no opportunity to have a free and fair election in 2020. Within 24 hours of being acquitted in the Senate, Trump is likely be even more brazen and emboldened. As such, it’s a lot like the Losers in IT and the silver bullets they hand-made. They believed they would work and then they missed.
In fact, another avenue of messaging for Democrats is to never shut up about the existential nature of what’s going on. Impeachment is a painfully slow process in the era of social media and as such messaging is absolutely, deathly critical. You have to keep reminding the populist hoards on Twitter what the stakes are. You throw everything you have at this particular aspect of the situation.
The reason is, House Trump wants this to be strictly political issue. If it’s a political issue, they win. No question. If it’s framed as a matter of politics, there’s no question Trump is acquitted so he can continue to running the Executive just like TrumpOrg — like a criminal enterprise.
Framing what’s happening as existential to the average American also keeps people entertained. If you manged to convince them this is The Stand of American history, then you keep interest and momentum. If it’s seen as a political matter, given how long it will take, then Mich McConnell won’t even actually hold the impeachment proceedings in the Senate.
Now, there’s one element to all of this that absolutely has to be at the forefront of your mind going forward. Trump is nothing more than malevolent version of Being There’s Chauncey Gardner. What’s more, he’s not only the master of the self-own, he’s likely to grow more and more erratic as the pressure of the House impeachment inquiry moves forward. So, really, that’s a part of this that simply can’t be predicted.
It’s very possible that just as McConnell is about to dismiss the whole thing in a wave of his partisan hand, Trump will tweet out a dick pic. I’m not kidding it really is possible at this point. The man is not well and the entire journalist ecosystem is complicit in hiding it.
Anyway, I am very ambivalent about Trump’s fate right now. It’s just going to take too long. Trump will be able to control the narrative and that will be that. But, like I said, he’s not only got some sort of degenerative mental issues going on, he’s the master of the self-own.
I hate to break it to you, folks, but if impeachment really does reach a tipping point we’ve entered the darkest timeline. It won’t be impeachment, it will be Trump’s reaction to it that we’ll be talking about.
Trump has long had some sort of chronic mental problem. The stress of simply an impeachment investigation — which would likely take months — would, in it self, potentially cause him to decompensate. It’s would make a lot of sense if Trump found himself in something of a logic trap. He would absolutely feel as though he would survive an Senate vote. But he would also absolutely feel paranoid that he might not.
So he goes bonkers.
I therefore propose that in the end, it won’t even be impeachment that is Trump’s downfall — it will be his reaction to it. If Trump finally goes off the deep end, some astonishing surreal thing will happen. The first will be MAGA Stalwarts will find themselves defending ever-more demonstrably indefensible things on Trump’s part. First they will simply say he was “joking.” But there will come a point when they take the final plunge into their own destruction. Trump will tweet out a dick pic. Trump will begin to tweet out the N-word to Obama. And they will defend it, thinking that Trump, like always, will stay in control of the narrative.
And so, in the end, Trump’s tendency to self-own will get so absolutely bad that there might be an intervention, of sorts. They might propose to Trump that he gets to choose Pence’s replacement as veep. And maybe a promise of a full pardon after Pence wins re-election in 2020. Trump accepting such an offer would be the best case scenario for Republicans.
The worse case scenario is he won’t accept it. And in the end, Trump so far gone mentally that the Senate finally does, in fact, convict him not so much because of any particular crime, but for the complete failure of the 25th Amendment to work.
And then, I’m afraid, we have a once-in-generation event. Young people won’t reference 9/11, they’ll reference Trump’s downfall. It will probably play out a lot like the OJ’s slow motion police chase in a white Bronco. It will last days, even weeks. The entire country will grind to a halt as we attempt to lure Trump out of The White House.
It will be a dark day in our history.
Here is how it may play out. I wrote this some time ago, but the premise is the same.
9/10ths a story fragment of a possible near future by Shelton Bumgarner
April, 2019
The eyes of the world were on the White House.
Just moments before, President Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, had been convicted by 67 members of the Senate for a whole list of high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump had for weeks now been ranting on Gab about his case in the Senate, bouncing back and forth between threats to start a war with Iran or the DPRK and not-so-subtle hints that he might take his own life should he be convicted by the Senate.
And, now, at last, the moment of truth had arrived.
Trump legally, at least, was no longer president, but he had been oddly silent since the verdict had been announced with great fanfare from the well of the Senate. Trump’s conviction had come after months of investigations on the part of the now Democratic Congress. The length and breath of Trump’s malfeasance discovered by these hearings had rocked the nation to its very core. On more than one occasion, MAGA talking heads on cable news had been interrupted by astonishing breaking news that left them, for once, unable or unwilling to defend the president.
The hearings had ground on for months to such an extent that Trump’s approval had slowly drifted to the 20s and stayed there consistently. Trump’s support was now made up of the very rich and the very poor. Oddly, despite Trump’s near constant demands on Twitter for violence on the part of his supporters, little, if any was reported. Trump had grown so frustrated that he had all but abandoned Twitter at one point for the more receptive Gab social media platform. Though on more than one occasion Rudy Giuliani had made it very clear it was within the rights of the president to declare martial law if he deemed it in the best interests of the nation. More than one delegation of Senate Republicans had gone to the White House to explain to Trump that he was going to be convicted, no avail. Trump made it clear to them, in not so many words that his simply living in the White House made him president, a sentiment best expressed by the legal saw that, “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”
Finally, a post to Gab came out: “My so-called ‘conviction’ is the work of the Deep State and as such illegitimate. I remain president.”
This set off a chain of events, the likes of which Americans had never seen. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter became a Constitutional scholar as everyone studied the exact wording of the Constitution as to what happens if the president is removed from office by the Senate. The wording is quite clear: he or she is no longer president and that’s it.
Nowhere in the Constitution did it explain what to do if the president simply decided to ignore the Senate. What’s more, nowhere in the Constitution did it state what to do with the nuclear launch codes should a president be removed from office and he refuse to accept the decision of the Senate.
The next few hours were chilling as they were surreal for millions of people not just in the United States but around the globe. The issue of Trump’s physical access to America’s nuclear launch codes was suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Though it was finally announced that while the nuclear football remained in Trump’s possession, Sec. of Defense Mattis had ordered the American armed forces to stand down for the duration of the crisis.
Trump, on Twitter, was as defiant and unhinged as usual.He threatened to kill himself. He threatened to start a nuclear war. He vowed to declare martial law.
The usual suspects on cable news did their best to spin all of this for Trump. As an anxious nation waited for the now former president to leave the White House, a cavalcade of former Republican Senators and Trump White House staffers attempted to make the former president’s case. Their final argument was that for the good of the country, Trump should be allowed to remain president, despite his lawful conviction by the Senate.
Things began to move rapidly at this point.
Vice President Pence was sworn in but Chief Justice Roberts in a dark, somber event in the Old Executive Building. Meanwhile, it was learned Trump had quietly replaced his Secret Service detail with a private security force that made it clear it was prepared to defend Trump until the bloody end.
At this point, two things happened. A final bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders came to the White House grounds under the flag of truce. During the course of an hour-long meeting, Trump screamed at them that they had never supported him and the world would be better off if it just ended instead of allowed the forces of the Deep State to ruin America. He made it absolutely clear that he would never leave the Oval Office willingly.
With that, they left.
Next, a surreal, bizarre event, the FBI slowly began to surround the White House. There was much debate online and on TV about how long the nation should wait for Trump to leave the White House. CNN went so far as to do a deep dive into the exact amount of food the White House grounds might have available at any one moment.
Finally, shots rang out from the White House as the battle was joined. It took several hours but in the end, the FBI was finally able to secure the facility. Nearly a dozen personnel on both sides died during the course of the Battle of The White House.
In what would become ionic footage, Trump was quietly escorted from the White House grounds. He spent the remainder of his days ranting on Twitter and Gab that he was the rightful president.
9/10ths
a story fragment of a possible near future
by Shelton Bumgarner
April, 2019
The eyes of the world were on the White House.
Just moments before, President Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, had been convicted by 67 members of the Senate for a whole list of high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump had for weeks now been ranting on Gab about his case in the Senate, bouncing back and forth between threats to start a war with Iran or the DPRK and not-so-subtle hints that he might take his own life should he be convicted by the Senate.
And, now, at last, the moment of truth had arrived.
Trump legally, at least, was no longer president, but he had been oddly silent since the verdict had been announced with great fanfare from the well of the Senate. Trump’s conviction had come after months of investigations on the part of the now Democratic Congress. The length and breath of Trump’s malfeasance discovered by these hearings had rocked the nation to its very core. On more than one occasion, MAGA talking heads on cable news had been interrupted by astonishing breaking news that left them, for once, unable or unwilling to defend the president.
The hearings had ground on for months to such an extent that Trump’s approval had slowly drifted to the 20s and stayed there consistently. Trump’s support was now made up of the very rich and the very poor. Oddly, despite Trump’s near constant demands on Twitter for violence on the part of his supporters, little, if any was reported. Trump had grown so frustrated that he had all but abandoned Twitter at one point for the more receptive Gab social media platform. Though on more than one occasion Rudy Giuliani had made it very clear it was within the rights of the president to declare martial law if he deemed it in the best interests of the nation. More than one delegation of Senate Republicans had gone to the White House to explain to Trump that he was going to be convicted, no avail. Trump made it clear to them, in not so many words that his simply living in the White House made him president, a sentiment best expressed by the legal saw that, “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”
Finally, a post to Gab came out: “My so-called ‘conviction’ is the work of the Deep State and as such illegitimate. I remain president.”
This set off a chain of events, the likes of which Americans had never seen. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter became a Constitutional scholar as everyone studied the exact wording of the Constitution as to what happens if the president is removed from office by the Senate. The wording is quite clear: he or she is no longer president and that’s it.
Nowhere in the Constitution did it explain what to do if the president simply decided to ignore the Senate. What’s more, nowhere in the Constitution did it state what to do with the nuclear launch codes should a president be removed from office and he refuse to accept the decision of the Senate.
The next few hours were chilling as they were surreal for millions of people not just in the United States but around the globe. The issue of Trump’s physical access to America’s nuclear launch codes was suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Though it was finally announced that while the nuclear football remained in Trump’s possession, Sec. of Defense Mattis had ordered the American armed forces to stand down for the duration of the crisis.
Trump, on Twitter, was as defiant and unhinged as usual.He threatened to kill himself. He threatened to start a nuclear war. He vowed to declare martial law.
The usual suspects on cable news did their best to spin all of this for Trump. As an anxious nation waited for the now former president to leave the White House, a cavalcade of former Republican Senators and Trump White House staffers attempted to make the former president’s case. Their final argument was that for the good of the country, Trump should be allowed to remain president, despite his lawful conviction by the Senate.
Things began to move rapidly at this point.
Vice President Pence was sworn in but Chief Justice Roberts in a dark, somber event in the Old Executive Building. Meanwhile, it was learned Trump had quietly replaced his Secret Service detail with a private security force that made it clear it was prepared to defend Trump until the bloody end.
At this point, two things happened. A final bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders came to the White House grounds under the flag of truce. During the course of an hour-long meeting, Trump screamed at them that they had never supported him and the world would be better off if it just ended instead of allowed the forces of the Deep State to ruin America. He made it absolutely clear that he would never leave the Oval Office willingly.
With that, they left.
Next, a surreal, bizarre event, the FBI slowly began to surround the White House. There was much debate online and on TV about how long the nation should wait for Trump to leave the White House. CNN went so far as to do a deep dive into the exact amount of food the White House grounds might have available at any one moment.
Finally, shots rang out from the White House as the battle was joined. It took several hours but in the end, the FBI was finally able to secure the facility. Nearly a dozen personnel on both sides died during the course of the Battle of The White House.
In what would become ionic footage, Trump was quietly escorted from the White House grounds. He spent the remainder of his days ranting on Twitter and Gab that he was the rightful president.
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