Month: September 2019

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I will give Democrats credit, they are about as bad at doing what should be done — impeaching Trump — as I am playing pool (which is very bad.)

So, it seems this is the “strategy” of the House Democratic leadership. They do just enough on the impeachment front that they can credibly tell the progressive base that they’re actually doing something on that front. But they’re moving so slow and in such a half-hearted fashion that they can also crediably assure the moderates that give them their majority that they’re actually going to let Trump “self impeach.” Which, of course, means they expect Trump not to win re-election.

The similarities between the political clusterfuck Americans find themselves in with that of the British are pretty startling. In both instances systemic, existential problems — largely based on lies and racism — and destroying what were otherwise previously pretty stable democracies.

In fact, I believe the 2020 election is going to be America’s Brexit. And, sad to say, it will be even more self-inflicted than Brexit itself. In other words, Trump isn’t going anywhere. So the thought that he will “self-impeach” is bullshit on the face of it.

While I struggle to figure out why House Democrats are so reluctant to impeach Trump, I think it boils down to two things. One, they know that no matter what they prove, Trump will never be convicted in the Senate. Second, they’re afraid that a sizable portion of their caucus will be put in jeopardy by impeaching Trump in the first place. These are the moderate members of the Democratic House caucus who in previous years would have been represented by Republicans. But that, of course, was before the Republicans were eaten by MAGA and given a huge amount of power through gerrymandering.

But back to the issue at hand — impeachment. I have come to believe there’s only one of two ways Trump ever gets impeached. Either the sheer magnitude of Trump’s impeachable offenses makes it impossible for the House not to do it sooner rather than later or we wait until well into Trump’s second term when he is so brazen that something, at last, has to be done.

Of course, a side possibility is Trump’s mental instability finally reaches such a critical mass that we have something along the lines of a political 9/11 on our hands and the investigation into Trump’s criminality can be counted in days, not weeks or months.

And, yet, really, as I keep saying, populist autocracy never loses. There’s really nothing to be done. Maybe the economy slows down in a few months to such an extent that Trump’s popularity reaches the teens. But by that point it will all be moot and Trump will win reelection through doxing individual Electors or whatever.

At this point, I think Trump could nuke us all to hell and there would be a subterranean MAGA death cult that would prosper long after all of us are vaporized.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The House Democratic leadership is an embarrassment. They are so busy thinking about saving their majority that they are failing the needs of the country. Of course the Senate will acquit Trump if the House impeaches him, but so what. It sure would be nice to see Trump’s many crimes articulated on the floor of the Senate by year’s end.

But, of course, this is not going to happen. By the time we get anywhere near impeaching Trump, it’ll be 2020. The 2020 political cycle will be in full force and that, as they say, will be that. Even though there is precedent for impeaching a president during an election year — see also Andrew Johnson — it’s not really all that realistic in the modern age.

Having said all that, there are two scenarios whereby Trump could still manage to be impeached.

The first possibility — and by far the least likely — is despite the best efforts of Democratic House leaders, events kind of get out of their control in the next few weeks. This could happen any number of different ways. I have long thought that the sheer magnitude of Trump’s crimes against the Constitution would make it extremely difficult for the House not to impeach him. There could come a point when the crimes are so extreme that the House impeaches Trump despite itself in a pretty spectacular fashion.

This could happen because of explosive testimony. This could happen because Trump’s mental state finally reaches a point where even the most jaded observer begins to worry.

If nothing like that happens, however, Trump’s safe. He’ll coast through the 2020 election cycle. And no matter what happens, he will win the general election in some fashion because, well, he’s a populist autocrat and they never, never, NEVER lose. It doesn’t matter how he wins, he will win.

Now, once Trump wins — however he does it — there will be a long lull while we process what has just happened. Trump will consolidate power in a broad, deep fashion. He’ll act like King Lear as Don Jr. and Ivanka fight for the inheritance. He’s likely to name them both to very important roles in the administration so they both have equal footing. There’s still a good chance he will name Ivanka his veep in 2020.

But if there’s one concrete rule about Trump, is he’s criminally incompetent in the role of president. So while in effect winning re-election will pardon him for everything he’s done up til then, he’s bound to screw up in some major, existential fashion during the early part of his second term. He’ll screw up so bad that there will again be talk of impeaching him. (Note, of course, that if Republicans regain the House in 2020 that there will be little difference between the United States and Russia at that point.)

And remember, Nixon won a huge landslide in 1972. Historic. Epic. And he was still out of office by August 1974.

A different political calculus will exist in a second term as well. Trump will have topped off the Federal bench with young MAGA hacks more interested in owning the libs than doing their jobs. And it sure would be nice for Republicans to have an incumbent in place who could run in 2024 and 2028. As such, the case could be made that Trump might name Ivanka (or Don Jr. ) his veep during the 2020 campaign. What Trump might initially do simply because he’s trying to name a family successor for 2024 might actually lead to the likelihood of him being convicted in the Senate at some point during his second term.

While I wish the whole Thousand Year Trump idea was bullshit, sadly, it’s not. America is no longer a democracy. House Trump is an avatar for the existential failings of our republic. They are probably rule the country for at least 20 years until the youngest of the Baby Boomers die off and the browning of America beings to kick in.

If the United States hasn’t had a civil war with WMD involved by that point, we’ll be a mixture of Apartheid South Africa and modern day Venezuela. We’ll be a failed state with a-bombs.

There is no hope. It’s over. The end.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It’s such a struggle for me to imagine a post-Trump America because, well, I don’t see there end to any of this. If it’s not Trump, it’s Don Jr. or Ivanka or some other dipshit in that malignant family. America as we knew it is over.

But, just for fun, let’s mull what America after Trump might look like.

I think the key thing we have to understand is that House Trump isn’t going anywhere. As long as Trump is alive, he’s going to dominate the news and do everything in his power to ruin everything. So, in a sense, he’s now just a modern problem we have to deal with.

Also, whenever Trump should finally leave office, he’s probably going to pardon 50 people as soon as it’s obvious he might actually obey the law for once. Another thing — the dregs of Republican politics who have been running the country the last few years aren’t going anywhere. Trump has made a lot of careers and the connections they’ve made because of their connection to him aren’t going anywhere. They will continue to leech off the American people one way or another as long as their alive.

And the moment Trump somehow is magically not in office, Don Jr or Ivanka will start to run for president. They’re like herpes. The whole clan is going to be a chronic medical issue in American politics that simply will never, ever go away. In fact, the only way they will ever leave is if there’s a civil war and the Blue States successfully leave the Union. Then they’ll feast off the rotting carcass of the rump United States, whatever it may look like.

I’m feeling kind of sad for my country right now. But this is a macro issue. Usually the only way to solve a problem this bad in a nation’s politics is for there to be a war. But hopefully that won’t happen. I do see the bad guys winning for the next few decades until the browning of America finally reaching a tipping point.

Of course, much like Apartheid South Africa, MAGA and House Trump are likely to simply govern as minority for decades after they should leave.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

For me, the issue that MAGA completely misses about Trump is his ability to self-own on a staggering level. The source of all this self-owning is that he is not only criminally incompetent at his job, but he’s slowly losing his mind.

So, yes, buying Greenland kinda, sorta makes sense. But to go about it in the erratic manner Trump did is shameful in the extreme. If you’re going to do something like buy Greenland, you need to prep the public first. You need to lay the groundwork for it.

The same thing with meeting with the Taliban. There was a way for him to do it and get honest praise for it. But it would have taken as much as a year’s worth of prep work to get to that point. But Trump’s criminally lazy, too, and no one worth anything will work for him. So we get him blurting out having them come to Camp David the week of the annual 9/11 memorial services.

At the core of this, of course, is Trump has degenerative brain rot. We’re not in a crisis — yet. I’m feeling a bit pessimistic about the Trump endgame, too. There is no bottom.