First, let me say for the record that I’m almost always wrong. I speculate a lot, but that’s more a matter of me liking to daydream than any sort of special insight. So, in a sense, it’s likely I’m wrong again.
And, yet, because of the brazen nature of Trump’s criminal behavior with Ukraine, it seems to me that anyone who continues to talk about how we’re just going to beat Trump in 2020 like we beat him in 2018 is missing the forest for the trees.
So far, the only thing that makes this particular scandal different is the intensity of the outrage associated with it has lasted just a little bit longer than normal. And, in a sense, that might be more a function of the media needing to hype the DNI’s testimony on Thursday. I would suggest everyone hold off on 2020 horse race hot takes until at least the hearing takes place.
In all likelihood, the hearing’s going to be a dud, just like Mueller’s. Trump and MAGA get to crow about all the lies of the “lamestream media” and that will be that. In that case, I just don’t see how there’s going to be a free and fair election. I’ve gotten some pushback on my belief that autocratic populists always win. My reponse is the Electoral College is a uniquely American feature of our election process. Democrats could easily win the popular vote, only to lose the Electoral College because of any number of different skullduggery techniques by House Trump.
There’s a tiny chance that the entire march to the Iowa Caucuses could be thrown for a loop. There’s at least a greater-than-zero chance that some pretty speculator political events could take place between now and early 2020. I have my doubts because, well, Trump has a cult of personality. And, yet, for the time being, I have a nagging, lingering feeling that it’s a least possible all these people telling us that this or that person will benefit from not impeaching Trump…may….have…their plans scrambled.
But, in all likelihood, Trump is fine. This will all fizzle out like it always does and darkness will fall.
Trump has generated numerous sizable scandals over the run of his administration to date. To date, either they explode for about a 24 hour period, or they gradually fade from view as people process what happened. The most recent scandal, TrumpUkraine, is different for one important reason — it’s existential.
Any outcome will mark a watershed in modern American politics. It doesn’t matter what happens, we will have entered a new era. If it goes as expected and after the acting DNI testifies before Congress on Thursday all the energy for impeachment fizzles out, then Trump will be even more brazen in his corrupt, criminal behavior. If this is dismissed as just another scandal trumped up by liberals with Trump Derangement Disorder, then there will not be a free and fair election in 2020. Not even close. It’s going to be pretty perfunctory.
There really will be no stopping Trump at that point. He will be above the law. The Constitution won’t really even be in effect anymore. That’s the most likely outcome. I would give it about a 99% likelihood. Republicans have no shame and Democrats have no courage.
But, just for fun, let’s imagine things don’t quite go that way. If instead of all the momentum for impeachment abruptly vanishing like during the later part of the Muller Report situation, what if the pressure to somehow miraculously increases. If the issue of the complaint itself being released becomes the focal point, then I would imagine all those young hack MAGA judges on the Federal bench would slow walk it. That would be their way of effectively making impeachment a moot point. The impeachment investigation would dwindle over the months of the case bouncing around the court system and Trump uses the levers of power to win reelection. Sometime in the middle of his second term it goes to SCOTUS and he wins. Again, game over.
That scenario is also far more likely than the good guys winning. But let’s, just for fun again, imagine that somehow it doesn’t get slow walked. Imagine that it actually bounces around the Judiciary pretty quick. Then, again, any decision would be significant. If SCOTUS sides with Trump, then darkness falls.
But if somehow SCOTUS shocks us all and rules again Trump, then that would be the final endgame. As I’ve said before, this is not 1974 and Trump’s not Nixon. Trump would rather destroy the Constitution than turn over the complaint. So, he ignores the ruling and the Senate won’t convict him. Ta-da. Again, darkness falls.
If somehow the Senate did convict him — which it would not, never — then we have a 9/11 level crisis while we wait to evict Trump from the Oval Office. He will never leave if he was somehow convicted. We will have to physically remove him.
For someone so paranoid and willing to fight back, Trump often doesn’t take existential problems seriously at first. Several times over the last four or so years, starting with the Access Hollywood tape, Trump has initially laughed off or dismissed scandals threatened his political existence.
So, in a sense, we’re still in the beginning stages of this particular situation. Trump’s playing with the press’ mind, tell them he’s “considering” releasing the complaint against them, when, in fact, he has no intention of doing it. This causes confusion and initial relief among people who are growing ever-more worried about what’s going on. Soon enough, of course, we’re going to find out this is total bullshit. If past is any indication, if Trump “releases” the complaint it will be at first a summary and then once momentum to impeach dies down, he’ll get Bill Barr to release a heavily redacted version of the complaint. At least, that would follow the well-worn path hone by the Stormy Daniels and Muller Report situations. Trump appears to be using a variety of different oft-used techniques at this point. And they appear to be working. So, really, there’s no need for him to really be all that concerned.
Having said that, while I still believe in practical terms the current Washington convention wisdom is while Trump should be impeached, he won’t be impeached, I do feel a level of tension on Twitter I’ve not seen since the worst days of the lead up to The Muller Report. And some of the usual suspects when it comes to opposition to Trump have clearly been subtly radicalized by what we know so far about what Trump is accused of doing.
And so, really, Trump would have every reason to believe that while things might get a little bumpy between now and Thursday when the acting DNI is set to testify, in real terms this is just another scandal that will blow over. There will be all this excitement about an explosive testimony and it’ll be a big old dud. Within 24 hours, Trump will do God-only-knows what in his never-ending quest to secure re-election using any available lever of power at his disposal. Take into consideration that either Trump will instruct the guy not to testify in the first place or make it clear he can only talk about such a limited number of topics that it’s nearly moot for him to speak at all What’s more, he is likely to do that old stonewalling routine TrumpWorld is so fond of where he never actually invokes Executive Privilege but uses it anyway not to have to answer any questions. And House Democrats are completely incompetent when it comes to questioning.
As such, as of Sunday afternoon, I would predict that by Friday morning MAGA will be crowing that yet again the lamestream media got it wrong and Trump should be able to simply stay in office for the rest of his life because that would be the only fair thing to do.
For this not to be the case, something dramatically different would have to happen. Something that diverged from the Stormy Daniels-Mueller Report playbook. I’m at a loss as to what that might be. Populist autocrats always win. They never lose once they’re in power. So, in that sense, it’s too late. The worst case scenarios of 2016 are about to happen. It’s just a matter of the specifics.
Now, simply to make myself feel better, I’m going to walk you through the most insane, bonkers scenarios I can possibly thing of what might happen if the impossible happens — political gravity actually begins to work again with Trump.
Trump Start A War This is a gimmy. We’re already on the verge of a war with Iran. Within days of it becoming apparent that he faced an existential threat, Trump attacks Iran. Poof! Problem solved. By the time things get back to normal, Trump’s comfortably in this second term. Far less likely is somehow Trump starts a war with the DPRK. I always thought if there was Korean unification it would probably happen in some really weird way. Trump force-starting such a war in an effort to wag the dog would definitely fit the bill.
MAGA Murders The Whistleblower After A Trump “Joke” While this one might seem somewhat hysterical, it would be appropriate for Trump to finally — in effect — kill someone on Fifth Ave and not lose a vote. As sinks in to our doofus president that he faces an existential political threat, Trump doxes the whistleblower on Twitter. He rants that the guy is a member of the Deep State and “jokes” that someone ought to teach him a lesson. Some rando MAGA jackass with an AR-15 shoots up the guys house and kills him and maybe a few family members. Lulz! Fox News sends “thoughts and prayers” and Brit Hume ever-so-seriously says we simply can’t hold the president responsible for a “joke” that caused an obviously mentally-ill person to commit such a tragedy.
The Roy Cohen Option If Trump escapes political consequences AGAIN, then he orders Bill Barr to establish a Special Prosecutor to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. Not only is everything muddled — like always — but Trump can always do the drip-drip-drip of 2016, only this time he’s in control of it. At strategic moments in 2020, Trump attacks the Bidens for this or that bullshit thing.
Trump Breaks The Constitution In this scenario, Trump leans into all those young hack MAGA judges on the Federal bench. The release of the complaint bounces around for months — maybe even years. (But let’s say months.) It’s August 2020. This, in a sense, is a worst-case-scenario. Most likely Trump destroys faith in SCOTUS when he wins the case against him to release the complaint 5-4. Really, it would boil down to one person — Chief Justice Roberts. If he has a modicum of integrity, he will vote with the more liberal members of the court, giving us a 5-4 vote against Trump. This is not 1974 and Trump’s not Nixon. If Trump somehow miraculously lost the SCOTUS case, he would simply ignore it. That would be that. The entire Constitutional system collapses. Trump might actually get impeached, but Emmet Flood pops up when the case is briefly heard in the Senate. Trump easily escapes conviction. We never see the complaint or Trump’s taxes. House Trump enjoys The Thousand Year Trump. History looks back upon The United States as simply a longer-lived version of the Weimar Republic. Trump doesn’t even attempt to pretend the election is free and fair. Might even just make good on his “joke” and stay in office for the rest of his life.
If we get anywhere past this, well, we’re entering 9/11 levels of crisis.
Trump Resigns, With Conditions So, if a bunch of Republicans Senators should happen to go to the White House a la 1974 and tell Trump he doesn’t have the votes, there is a chance that he would resign, but only with some pretty stiff conditions. One would be he would get a full pardon. The other one would be he would get to pick Pence’s replacement as Veep. Trump has a chat with his kids and somehow decides between the one he wants to fuck (Ivanka) and the one who has his name (Don Jr.) This would, in a sense, secure House Trump. In 2024, there’s a battle between House Trump and Pence. Guess who wins!
The Impossible Happens This is so impossible, it’s almost a waste of time to even write these words — Trump is convicted in the Senate after he scoffs at the idea the doesn’t have the votes in the Senate. The only thing I can imagine in this situation would be, well, something pretty tragic. Trump holds up in the White House, refusing to acknowledge the decision. He rage-tweets all day long. He snaps because of the pressure losing the presidency. We have a few days of figuring out how to change the nuclear codes. Trump tweets out a dick pick. He calls Obama the N-word on Twitter. He threats to kill himself. He says anything and everything in an attempt to get the MAGA faithful to rush to the White House to protect him. For a surreal few days — maybe even weeks — Trump holds the entire county captive. Even I can’t predict how that particular situation might wrap up.
But, really, I think Trump has nothing to worry about. He’s going to cruise into a second term, weaponize the ICE camp infrastructure and I get a free bed in one of the camps.
In fact, I would say the only thing that makes this Ukraine scandal different is the severity of the crimes alledged makes it difficult for us to muddle through. There’s going to be a decision one way or another and whatever it is, there’s no turning back.
I recently found myself talking to MAGA people on Periscope. What was interesting about it was every MAGA rhetorical device used to “own the moment” was used.
You can’t get angry. If Trump destroying the country makes you angry, then you suffer from “Trump Derangement Disorder.” This is meant to own the moment in the sense that you end up talking about that, not the issue at hand.
Attack you personally. This is another way to own the moment. They think of the worst possible thing to say about you so you’re distracted. You struggle to come up with a response and, again, you’re not talking about the issue at hand.
‘Fake news’ If you do bring receipts, they say it’s fake news. Again, they want to own the moment. If you can’t agree on facts, then what’s the point of having a discussion at all.
Distraction. Bobbing and weaving is a classic MAGA discussion technique. The whole point is to not address the issue that they’re obviously losing ground on. This is a prime example of how MAGA is a cult of personality not debating Trump in good faith.
“I’ll get back to you.” This is a way for them to, again, not address the issue at hand. They tell you to give them your facts and they will decide for themselves if it’s true or not. This a way to wrap the conversation up without any resolution that involves proving that Trump may, in fact, have been in error.
“Democrats scare me” If you’ve gotten this far in the discussion, then you should give up. This is their pivot into reverse polarization. And, remember, every moment your talking about something else, you’re not talking about whatever it is that you’ve proven Trump’s done.
So someone Periscope made the following argument about what’s going on with Trump and Ukraine. He said that because there was no legal proof of collusion in the redacted Mueller Report (“It was all a lie.”) that we just have to wait for the “truth” to come out about this situation.
Now, while this is severe manipulation of what happened, it does give me insight into what’s going on with MAGA right now. They’re being told that since the mainstream media “lied” to them about Russian collusion, that it’s just a matter of time that this, too, will be debunked. I can see this being an effective argument for a number of reasons. One, people — especially MAGA — assume that because there have been no political consequences for Trump that he’s in the clear in general.
Or, put another away, even if you accept that the “lamestream” media “lied” about collusion (which they didn’t — speculation isn’t lying) you still have a few other major scandals to deal with. I mean, that Trump hasn’t been impeached over the Stormy Daniels situation is a travesty of justice. And what’s more, the only reason why we have to argue about things like collusion is MAGA *likes* all the inhumane policies that Trump does. They like the racism and misogyny. Lulz! So in the MAGA mind, all the speculation in the media about collusion is translated into a “lie.” They didn’t lie, they just got wrapped up in a narrative that turned out not to have the legal basis they believed. (That and Mueller fell on his sword, likely at the behest of Bill Barr. ) What’s more, there were 11 instances of obstruction of justice found in the Mueller Report. So the argument MAGA makes is once you not find collusion (conspiracy) then Trump’s off the hook for everything else. That says more about the realities of American politics than it does Trump’s actual legal jeopardy.
The whole point of this is this gives you some insight into perpetual bullshit machine that is MAGA. As such, things are going to get a lot worst pretty quick because the Ukraine scandal is about to wrap up. It will wrap up once the Sunday talk shows finish today. The political consensus is going to be that Trump should be impeached, but he won’t be. And that will be that. Once that becomes the conventional wisdom, this scandal will go the way of Stormy Daniels. And once Trump no longer feels any sense of an existential threat, he will take things to the next level.
Trump’s likely to appoint a Special Prosecutor to look into the bullshit allegations against Joe and Hunter Biden. Expect Trump to lean into how the Judiciary is an arm of the GOP. By the middle of his second term, ICE and its infrastructure will be weaponized against his opposition.
As I’ve said before, once you realize that America is little more than the Weimar Republic at this point the necessity to impeach Trump grows. It’s no longer a matter of worried moderate members of the House caucus. Now, it’s how history will remember us.
We, as a nation, ladies and gentlemen, are in a historic clusterfuck. This clusterfuck is such a thicket, that’s difficult to grasp what’s going on. Well, here’s my attempt to at least explain it, if not figure out a solution
The reason why this is unlike any scandal in American history is the cold hard fact that one of the two major political parties in America no longer believes in democracy. The Republican Party is pretty much a screaming white person at this point. This is important because Republicans are so unmoored on an ideological level from over 200 years of American democratic traditions as to be little more than a grunt.
We have to be honest with ourselves. Trump at this point could murder someone on Fox News and not lose a vote. He could whip out his cock and masterbate on Fox News and not lose a vote. As long as he doesn’t say “God damn” as he did it, Trump could tweet “I am the state” and within 24 hours Republicans would claim he was “joking.”
So, if you’re Nancy Pelosi, you have zero reason to what to impeach Trump. The Democrat Party is 2/3rds of the body politic and such there are a lot of moderates who would otherwise be Republicans if, well, we weren’t in a Trumpian hellscape. Her goals are simple: keep the majority in the House.
That’s it. From her point of view, there’s no upside to impeaching Trump knowing that he’ll never be convicted. What’s more, from her point of view, not only will Democrats be blamed if they impeach Trump and he loses, Trump will use his inevitable acquittal by the Senate as vindication that he can run on.
Now, if that was all that was going on, we wouldn’t be in the massive clusterfuck that we’re in. Trump would just be a chronic political problem that festered until (hopefully) he left office in 2025. (He will never lose re-election. Never. Populist autocrats never lose.)
But the reason why this is a massive clusterfuck is the longer Trump doesn’t face any political consequences for his actions, the bolder, more brazen and more surreally criminal he becomes. So, it’s not that he’s daring the House to impeach him. It’s that he knows Republicans will slob his knob no matter what he does. He will never be convicted in the Senate. If he was a normal human being, he would see this as an opportunity to grift and abuse power but in such a way that it would just be a mild nuisance.
Trump is not normal. In a sense, he sees the American government much like Hitler saw Europe in 1939. Not to have too much of an extended metaphor, but Trump believes he can invade Russia (true dictatorship) and in the end it the American system will collapse like a rotting door. At this point, he honestly believes he can “joke” his way into a life term. To date, he’s been given no indication that this is not the case.
Republicans won’t say anything and Democrats won’t do anything. But there’s a fatal flaw to Trump’s megalomaniacal dreams: himself. Trump is the quintessential self-own artist. He may be a natural when it comes to telling the disenfranchised volk what they want to hear, but he’s also a very big dumb ass.
Once this current Ukrainian scandal blows over (ETA, Sunday afternoon) he’s going to feel even more emboldened. It may not happen all at once, but in fits and starts, Trump is going to go so far beyond what any American president has ever done that we’re simply not prepared for it. Nothing is off the table. All that has to happen is a major terrorist attack or a war. In real terms, would anything happen if Trump ran for a third term? Who would stop him? Nancy Pelosi? Pod Save America?
With that in mind, impeachment grows a lot more important. But once you agree that impeachment is necessary, it’s kind of too late. If Democrats don’t impeach Trump like…NOW…the first 2020 primaries will begin and the average person’s attention will be pointed toward Nov. 2020. Our political system simply isn’t prepared for both a presidental campaign and serious impeachment proceedings.
I mean, the way things are going, Democrats won’t actually send the articles of impeachment to the Senate until August 2020. In the meantime, the average person will think Joe Biden is going to be indicted at any moment for bogus corruption charges involving Ukraine. And, really, there’s a good chance that the Democrat base won’t come out in 2020 out of a sense of disenchantment with House Democrats.
So, really, the whole thing is so muddled that it’s a lot like Brexit. Brexit it such a clusterfuck because it barely passed and was sold to the public on lies. In America, meanwhile, impeaching Trump really boils down to how strong you are on doing things on principle. If you look at the situation using strictly political metrics, then, yes, impeaching Trump isn’t a good idea. You wait for Trump to “self-impeach” one way or another.
To be honest, it’s kind of sad that the fate of the United States in a sense now rests on waiting for Trump to either lose his mind or be found to have conspired with best friend Kim Jung Un to nuke Blue State cities. Those are the only things I can think of that might cause Senate Republicans to at least mull the notion of a Pence presidency.
That’s really hanging a lot on the unknown. So, really, this current crisis with Ukraine is, in a sense, the beginning of bigger and worse abuses on the part of Trump. When it becomes obvious that the House isn’t going to do anything about it, Trump will AGAIN feel emboldened. You’re going to have to convince me that Trump wouldn’t promise Peter Thiel a pardon if he bribed the individual members of the Electoral College to vote for Trump, damn the popular vote.
What would Nancy Pelosi do about that? If she doesn’t have the backbone to impeach Trump for what he did with Ukraine, I find it difficult that she would do it for Trump buying the election. I mean, Senate Republicans aren’t going to vote to convict, are they? Nope. Trump doing that would be the final death knell of not only American democracy, but the American Republic as well. Once you can simply buy the presidency by buying off electors, either the Blue States revolt and you abolish their state governments or you break the back of the Democratic Party altogether.
Is there an answer to the impeachment imbriglio we find ourselves in? Not really. Either you’re willing to stand on principle, or you’re not. Because Trump doesn’t feel any political gravity at all, no matter what he does, impeaching him on principle is all you got. I will note how history remembers the rise of Hitler.
Would we have a better opinion of Germans if they had attempted to impeach Hitler in the early days of his rule? I’d like to think so. That in the end America was little better than the Weimar Republic is something that would give me pause for thought. It might at least make Nancy Pelosi think a little bit, too.
Whoa Buddy. As I keep saying, this weekend is make or break. If Trump can make it through this weekend without the Ukraine story getting any unusual traction, then he’s in the clear for his second term. And, honestly, I don’t see him having any reason to be concerned. This scandal not only is playing out like all his other scandals, the attention the press is giving to the Joe Biden – Hunter Biden big lie is actually a net gain for him.
So, as of right now, Trump is probably feeling pretty content. He was all smiles at last night’s state dinner. Rudy went on CNN this week, did his usual schick of putting the facts out there in a way that makes people shrug when it’s all confirmed.
So far, so good.
But just for fun, let’s imagine something about this scandal is different. Let’s suppose it shifts gears and it become existential. Let me be clear — this is never going to happen. Trump is now America’s Caligula. So this is more a matter of venting on my part that any belief that any of this might happen.
The first sign we might get that Trump is taking this seriously is he will shift gears on Iran pretty dramatically. He will pull out the stops to start a war with Iran. He has to time it just right so people are humming Lee Greenwood when they go to the polls in 2020. Another tacit he might use is begin an aggressive investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden. He’s established that he believes they did something. And such an investigation in itself is news and The New York Times will cover it extensively, even if the whole thing is politically motivated bullshit. Doesn’t matter. It’s all about the big lie and branding.
That’s just Trump clearing his throat. His more diabolical move would be to dox the whistleblower and “joke” that someone should do something about it. Shades of, “Won’t anyone rid me of this meddlesome priest.”
So the guy gets murdered by an angry mob of MAGA people. Sure, Twitter is upset for a day, but Nancy Pelosi won’t impeach Trump because it makes the moderate members of her caucus nervous. At this point, she is the only obstacle to impeachment.
But should impeachment take on a life of its own, Trump’s already deranged behavior will take a turn for the worst in a very dark way. Remember, he does often rage tweet. So, if he’s in actual risk of being impeached — even if the Senate will never convict him — he’s likely to say and do some pretty astonishing things.
And should he be convicted, he will never leave the Oval Office. It will be a 9/11-sized event. But that will never, never, never, NEVER happen.
This is what’s going to happen unless something I can’t predict happens.
Nancy Pelosi, concerned about the moderate members of her caucus, refuses to budge on impeaching Trump.
Trump sees this as the final confirmation that he can do whatever he wants. He kicks off his re-election campaign on Twitter by talking about Joe and Hunter Biden non-stop. The New York Times begins to write story after story about this situation, leaving the lingering suspicion that Biden or his son — or both — are about to be indicted.
Trump’s reckless and illegal extortion of Ukraine will fade. But the Joe Biden “scandal” will only grow. Trump will direct Bill Barr to look into the situation at some point in early 2020. Probably just about the time Biden successfully secures the nomination. Or no later than when he makes his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention.
In the lead up to November’s election, there are a series of leaks from the Justice Department about the investigation into Joe Biden. The October surprise is Hunter Biden is indicted. (If Trump’s feeling really bold, he’ll indict Biden himself.)
We have a replay of 2016, with Biden winning the popular vote and Trump winning the Electoral College. If Trump doesn’t win the Electoral College, he doxxes them all on Twitter or a plutocrat bribes them. They throw the election to Trump. Given that nothing is impeachable, we spend a few months fighting over how American democracy is dead. Maybe there are riots in a few Blue States.
But nothing’s impeachable, so he weaponizes the existing ICE camp infrastructure. He “disappears” thousands of people. Trump pardons a few dozen people. The battle between Don Jr. and Ivanka to succeed Trump reaches a boiling point.
House Trump now begins The Thousand Year Trump. Taxes are cut to such an extent that we have to gut social programs to prevent bankruptcy. Gradually because of all the young, hack MAGA judges on the Federal bench freedom of assembly and speech are gradually worn away.
After the mass murder at Sandy Hook there was a lot of outrage. For a day or so, it appeared as though there might be some sort of common sense gun control enacted in the United States. As we know, of course, the NRA stepped in and it was over.
That’s the only comparison I can make to the most recent scandal involving Trump and Ukraine. Really, if you can’t impeach Trump over this, then impeachment is a dead letter. It’s over. Not only will we never impeach Trump, he’s made it clear that he will grow ever more embolden if he doesn’t sense there are any consequences.
That’s the real existential threat of all of this. That Trump would have initiated a call with the president of Ukraine took exort him into investigating Joe Biden the day after Bob Mueller testified to Congress is all the proof you need that need that Trump is not only a lawless tyrant but that he’s going to get worse.
I honestly don’t know what to tell you. The forces aligned that keep impeachment from happening don’t appear to be weakening. Nancy Pelosi continues to play six dimensional chess in a strange obsession with protecting the more modern members of her caucus. That the entire country itself faces an existential threat does not appear to concern her.
So, really, we will know in a few days if this scandal is Trump’s Sandy Hook or if it’s something different for once. He definitely seems to be using the Stormy Daniels playbook. He has no reason to think this is any different than the last six mind blowing scandals he’s been involved in.
While I generally think Trump’s won and will consolidate his power in the coming days, I would note that if he does feel this is an existential threat that he will provoke a crisis in the United States not seen since 9/11. It will be an American Brexit.
Everyday we don’t impeach Trump is a day he gains power.
I’m not suggesting I have any type of panacea when to Trump’s skullduggery, but I do have some observations about how he’s going to handle the Ukraine whistleblower situation.
Ok, first off, this weekend is critical. If nothing new happens between now and, say, Sunday afternoon, then Trump’s in the clear as best I can tell. He then does the following things:
Wrap the entire complain against him in Executive Privilege. At the same time he sends Rudy out every once in a while to babble manically about what’s going on. Rudy will occasionally “slip up” and tell the truth. Everyone laughs at this, but the facts of what happen will be out there. We spend months and months in the courts trying to get the complaint. In the meantime, Trump attacks the credibility of the whistleblower on Twitter day after day.
By the time the case gets to the Supreme Court, even if the complaint is released and we know what happend, the average person will have moved on. They won’t quite know what happened. And, besides, the case has lost its sexiness. We all know what happened, so what.
And given that the 2020 campaign will be in full swing, people will just assume Trump will “self-impeach.” When he doesn’t we all realize maybe we should have done something about Trump before. But by that point it will be too late.
We will have moved on to something else. Trump “jokes” about never leaving office. And then he never does. Lulz!
And, let me note, this is if things go the traditional route. If this particular case gets any existential momentum, Trump’s probably going to get the whistleblower murdered through one of his “jokes.”
How do you combat that? It’s pretty tough. In fact, really, the conditions are there for Trump to use the whole thing to his advantage because everytime it comes up, he’ll rant about Joe Biden’s son. So, ultimately, from a branding point of view, most people will be more concerned about THAT and not what Trump did. Trump gets what he wants:
Biden, like Hillary Clinton in 2016, will have an air of corruption about him. Trump can start a war if need be to wag the dog. He can work actively with the Russians to hack the election. (I mean, he’s faced no consequences to date, what’s to stop him?) And, really, he always has the ability to attack individual Electors post-election if he loses in any way.
If I was a Democratic strategist, I would suggest Radical Resistance. If you want to save America, you’re going to have to, on an ideological level, radicalize. Trump plays dirty, you play dirty. Shut the government down until you get the complaint. Throw money and resources at impeachment.
But the clock is ticking. Speed is of an essence. If the impeachment hearings don’t start by the end of September, what’s the point. Once October rolls around, people are thinking about the holidays. You won’t really be able to start up again until just about the same time the first 2020 primaries start. And by that point the Stormy Daniels Playbook will have worked.
The shock of the initial story will have long faded. People won’t care. “Everyone does it, right?” they’ll say. “And, besides, Joe Biden colluded with the Ukrainians for the benefit of his son, right? Or something like that. I can’t remember. “
If we’re honest with ourselves Radical Resistance’s moment is long past. There’s just not the political will on the part of House Democrats to play dirty. They’re pretty much complicit in Trump’s tyranny. I wish I had more answers, but I don’t.
You must be logged in to post a comment.