by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
It’s difficult to articulate how bad a Sunday Republicans had today, at least superficially, when it came to messaging a retail political defense of the president. The reason it was so bad is here it is Sunday afternoon and nothing really stands out. Both sides haven’t really rally around any discernible argument beyond the basics.
Yes, Democrats have cold hard facts. But we’re still in the gobsmacked stage of the scandal. Meanwhile, Republicans are not only attacking on just a tactical level, they are resorting to rhetorical bobbing and weaving not done in good faith. If Sen. Lindsey Graham is resorting to “let’s agree to disagree” on TV after spending the previous day golfing with the president, well, that’s a pretty powerful statement of how bad things are for Republicans right this second.
I’m extremely reluctant to suggest Trump is anywhere near facing a final existential threat. Hillary hasn’t done her gloating “victory tour” on TV this week. She could very well change the narrative from “oh my god the president is a traitor” to “Hillary Clinton is going to jail.” She is so bad at some very basic elements of being a public figure that it’s a tragedy. Yes, she’s a historic trailblazer for the status of women in politics, but she’s a problematic one. So, in that sense, I’m holding back any judgement of how serious things are for Trump.
And, yet, I have to go back to something very basic — Trump is an idiot. He is such an idiot that he literally found the only thing that could possibly force Nancy Pelosi’s hand in impeachment — allowing her to lean into her status as a Constitutional official. Trump is so very, very stupid. And I still don’t feel that he, himself, is taking this seriously. He’s not freaked out yet. When it happens, we’ll all know it.
One of the reasons I would be very worried if I was a Republican proxy for the president is how easy to box them in rhetorically. Even if you give them that Hunter Biden is some sort of criminal mastermind, that Trump would use the office of the presidency to find that dirt is a grave abuse of power. And that they would put that transcript in an eyes-only server is even worse. That House Trump would be so detached from any connection to the normal rules of government behavior that they would feel it was “totally cool and legal” to do this and then turn around and release the rough transcript and the complaint itself is rather embarrassing.
And we’re just at the beginning of this process. We have weeks for Trump to continue to self-own in various ways. One could make the case that at this point there’s a chance America might have its own “Glorious Revolution.” This was when the British ruling class politely invited William & Mary of Orange to take over the country in a peaceful coup / invasion. If as many people really are implicated in all of this as is feared, there’s at least a chance that a few powerful bolts are going to pop off the government before it’s all over with.
I’ve not forgotten that Pence apparently was bribing House Trump to keep his place on the ticket by going WAY out of his way to stay at Trump property in Ireland. If the American people finally get riled up boot Trump, there’s at least a chance that Pence will be bounced in short measure as well. But he’s likely to name Ivanka or Nikki Haley his replacement with lighting speed if that seemed a possibility. I wouldn’t suggest Nancy Pelosi start measuring the curtains in the Oval Office quite yet.
But for House Trump to implode so completely that even Pence could not escape its black hole would be the single most astonishing event in American political history. We are not prepared for that. It’s not an event that we should be looking forward to. I just want Trump out of office and politically ruined.
The rest we can deal with as necessary.
