Some people — especially liberals on Twitter — seem to think impeaching and convicting Trump would be some sort of panacea for the nation’s divisions. While I wholeheartedly support the Senate convicting Trump, the surreal defenses of Trump I’m seeing are beginning to unnerve me.
The crazy-ass part of all of this is Trump won’t even take the L on impeachment and wait for his acquittal by the Senate. While a lot of observers far, far smarter than Trump think his impeachment but not conviction is a net win for him, he, himself, obviously does not see things this way. Remember, two big things are happening at the same time. Trump himself is growing hysterical about the idea of simply being impeached. At the same time, smarter people like Moscow Mitch are more concerned with simply having Trump stay in power.
Put these two things together and you have a situation where Republicans don’t care if the trial in the Senate is not seen as valid. They would rather have the entire nation sour on the Republicans in the short term with the idea that by the time the election in 2020 rolls around passions will have cooled and they can go about their business. Throw in Trump going full autocrat by that point and their decision to acquit is an easy one.
And yet.
I keep saying there is a very real chance that it won’t even be the politics of impeachment that gets Trump — it will be Trump’s reaction to the process. So, let me say yet again — in the end it may be Trump snapping in a very, very public manner that is his downfall, not the actual politics of impeachment. We’re reaching the point where Republicans are so detached from reality in their defense of Trump that they are giving him a political pardon for anything he does from here on out. There is simply nothing he could possibly do that they would not dismiss.
Things get weird when Trump starts doing things at some point where are so absolutely indefensible on moral grounds and his grasp of reality is so tenuous as to be alarming that Republicans may find themselves in a pickle. Their natural instinct will be to absolutely defend the absolutely indefensible. It’s just when Trump’s Twitter offenses become transactional, well, I don’t know.
It’s at least possible the idea of absolutely losing the general even if they absolutely win their primary becomes something that keeps them up at night. But, lulz, who am I kidding.
Trump’s probably going to nuke us all into a hellscape and MAGA people will be happy because they think it will get us closure to the Rapture. I wish I was joking.
I’m reluctant to give too much weight to anecdotal evidence that supports my personal political agenda. Confirmation bias is a real problem in The Age Of Trump. But no one really reads this blog in real terms, so I’ll indulge myself a minor flight of fancy.
Let me set the scene — I was getting wasted at this “secret” bar near my current abode when I found myself talking to a Judge Jeanine Pirro devotee. She was hard core. She was a little older than me but she was definitely the type of person Maggie Haberman would fall over herself to talk to– a middle-aged female Trump supporter. In fact, I said that to her. I made it very clear that there were people at The New York Times who would just love, love, love to talk to her about why she continued to support Trump.
Anyway, things went well — for a while. Once we established that NO ONE was above the law, things quickly went haywire. She wanted to talk about “Crooked Hillary.” Once I agreed with her that I thought that in 2016 the case could be made that Clinton could have been indicted things quickly went haywire. She would not admit that if I agreed to Clinton falling under the rule of law that Trump, too, had to fall under the same rules.
She just could not process the truth bombs I began to drop on her. The moment I mentioned “Individual #1” she started to shut down. Once it dawned on her that I had a rhetorical counter attack for each of her talking points she just locked up.
Soon enough, she bounced. She just left the bar.
And, so, I would say THAT is the source of the current Republican panic we see in Washington. While I generally believe the Republican Party is a criminal and fascistic organization at its core, when the common folk who support Trump don’t have a ready answer to criticism of Trump that’s a pretty big problem.
I have no doubt that Republicans are willing to ultimately defend the absolutely indefensible. They are completely unmoored from the norms of liberal democracy. “Democracy” exists only as a means to an end — that being more power for them. They are ready to ride the MAGA pony down to a Singularity of corruption, abuse of power and tyranny. In the end it won’t be politics that fells Trump, it will be Trump himself.
I still think Trump’s going to mentally explode. We’re going to have an actual mad man president for a few weeks, maybe more as we sort the situation out.
In other words, whatever your worst case scenario is at this point, that’s pretty much what’s going to happen. Buckle up.
I love running informal scenarios in my mind. All the scenarios I have come up with in regards to impeachment lead to one thing — the America we once knew is over.
I say this because even if we somehow magically rid ourselves of Trump politically — likely because he goes bonkers — we will earn ourselves only a brief respite from an inevitable descent into autocracy. The MAGA base will remain and half a dozen would-be younger, more passionate and organized successors to Trump will be waiting in the wings. And that doesn’t even begin to address all those young hack MAGA judges who will do everything in their power to make sure Trump’s vision of American Carnage is finally a reality.
What’s more, I coming to believe that the Republican Party will embrace impeachment-related violence. Hell, they may even do it themselves. Their partisan devotion to Trump is now absolute that the decision for 20 Republican Senators to vote for acquittal is now a very simple political equation. They feel the MAGA will support them as long as they vote to acquit. Republican Senators will believe time is on their side and independances will have forgotten their vote for acquittal whenever they have to run in a general again.
And, really, the only reason I think Trump has any chance of possibly losing in the Senate is his mental state will explode. He will have a very, very public meltdown as impeachment proceeds and there may come a point where his behavior grows so fucking alarming that Republicans will feel absolutely forced at last to The Pence Pivot. Even then, Moscow Mitch might feel as though he’s finally gotten as many young hack MAGA judges on the Federal bench so, lulz.
In other words, we can delay the inevitable by a few months or years, but when half the electorate is MAGA friendly to such an extent that they don’t really care about facts then, well, I don’t know what to tell you. There’s going to come a point far sooner than any of us realize when leaving the country might be one’s best course of action if you’re center-left.
I love running scenarios in my mind. In fact, I’m kind of obsessed with it. When it comes to impeachment, however, as of right now it’s impossible for me to come up with an endgame. Both possible outcomes have such factual reasons for one to believe they will happen that I’m not going to try to pin down one. Here are both scenarios. You can figure out for yourself which one is more likely at this point.
The Thousand Year Trump
Jan. 20, 2025
Though it was an unusually warm January day, Donald Trump was, as usual, grumpy. Kim Jung Un had walked with him down Pennsylvania Ave in a spirit of world peace. Press Secretary Hugh Hewitt gushed on Fox News that Trump’s friendship with Kim assured “a thousand years” of peace and prosperity across the globe. Trump had finally bested all his opponents — even the Constitution — and was now about to begin his third term. Much of his the mid-part of this second administration had been consumed with a snap Constitutional Convention he had managed to force the convening of under the pretext of a Balanced Budget Amendment.
Of course that was a ruse. The Convention went rouge and radically transformed the Constitution into a Federalist Society wet dream. Among the many “improvements” was his personal ability to run for as many terms as he liked. Trump had weighed not running for a third term because of his age, but his ego, as always, won out. He did decide to name Ivanka his Veep and Don Jr., Sec. of State.
Trump allowed himself a moment of rare introspection. DHS Sec. Stephen Miller was now “disappearing” vocal critics of the House Trump on a regular basis. Miller was building ICE camps so fast it was growing difficult to hide the pictures from the People’s Assembly. The residents of some of the more populous military districts were unhappy, but they were always unhappy. He smirked at the notion of “blue states” and how quaint it seemed now.
Trump had finally crushed The New York Times when Peter Thiel offered Pinch an sum so enormous that he felt forced to sell. Though a lot of the more liberal reporters had left The Times, its new executive editor Maggie Haberman assured that he would get the coverage from the paper that he had so long craved.
The United States was now great. About half the wall had been built to the tune of a $1 trillian. The massive public works had helped ease the nation’s pain during the Second Great Recession. Trump was also pleased that the new Internet PIN was being rolled out. The Kurdish terrorist attacks in LA had helped push that measure through quite nicely.
Trump was at last a man in full. He had absolute power in the United States. He had founded a political dynasty that would last a thousand years. Occasionally Trump would, just to troll FOX News, shoot out a dick pic or tweet the n-word. He needed to do something big soon, Obama’s treason trial was about to be broadcast and he hated the idea of Obama being the center of attention, even it was entertaining to see him in the dock.
Trump was alone at last in the Oval when the door opened. He smiled broadly — Putin would finally get to sit at the Resolute Desk. Trump loved it when a plan came together.
A Dream….Not Delayed
Election Night, 2020
President Nancy Pelosi sighed deeply. She felt she had finally fulfilled her Constitutional duty. She had just finished a brief congratulatory phone call with President-Elect Warren. The two women giggle like school girls as the magnitude of the event sank in.
But the cost had been incredible.
In the end, had not been politics that fell Trump, but Trump himself. Though his mental condition had shown signs of decline before his official impeachment, his problems accelerated after the House passed the measure. Trump, in short, snapped. His tweeting went from objectionable to transational. He began to rant about the size of his genitals. He repeatedly told MAGA to hunt down and murder The Squad.
Republicans had, at first, simply either ignored the situation or said Trump was “joking.” This grew more difficult when members of the Freedom Caucus staged a putsch of sorts by rioting on the House floor and picking off Democrats they did not like with hand guns they had smuggled into the Capitol. The death toll was too large for her to bear to remember.
Though Republicans had attempted to message this tragedy as a sign that the cost of impeachment was too great and it must be stopped immediately, this is not how the nation viewed it.After the National Memorial service for the fallen House Democrats, the pace of impeachment accelerated rapidly.
In the end, it wasn’t even close. Trump was convicted by the Senate. He then held up in the Oval Office for close to three weeks. He was finally physically dragged from the White House under cover of night. Trump’s mental condition had deteratied by that point that he was hospitalized to an effort to stabilize him. Pence was president briefly until the outrage over the attempted Republican putsch in the House grew to powerful even for him.
But that was almost a year ago. President Pelosi had done her best to heal the nation. Her caretaker administration was a who’s who of people who had found themselves in opposition to House Trump. American politics was in total chaos for much of the presidential cycle with both sides struggling with how to deal with the sudden return of liberal democratic norms.
She sighed again.
The Union was again strong. The Republic safe, for now.
I continue to struggle as to what the endgame for this catastrophic clusterfuck is going to be. All things being equal, it would appear that Trump will be impeached and acquitted in the Senate. He will grow even more brazen in his tyranny afterwards with election meddling and Republicans will finally get the Russian-style managed democracy they so desperately crave.
And yet.
Something surreal is going on with Republicans. I can only suspect it has something to do with Trump freaking out at the prospect of getting impeached at all. This is yet another indication that Trump is not, in fact, the political genius that New York Times Trump Whisperer Maggie Haberman would have haysee rubes in flyover states like me believe. That he would grow so completely rabid at the idea of even being impeached does not bode well for anyone involved.
So I might suggest that you pause to consider that what may bring down House Trump — and Pence for that matter — may not be impeachment but Trump’s reaction to it. Or, more specifically, it won’t even be Trump’s reaction to it, it will be the violence associated with it. To put it another way, we are racing at an alarming rate towards people dying in a Republican Gotterdammerung strategy. Their thinking is that if they can inflict enough pain on the opposition in guise of people dying that that will cause the whole impeachment process to come to an end. They will make the case that we can’t even impeach Trump because people are dying. This is, of course, a completely fucked up, bonkers line of reasoning that comes more from House Trump believing its own FOX News coverage than anything else.
I find it dubious that if there was some sort of co-ordinated, violent and bloody attack on the part of MAGA truebelivers that average Americans would throw up their hands and give up on impeachment. What’s more likely to happen is the 60% of the population that isn’t MAGA would flip the fuck out. The political ground under the entire House Trump would buckle.
It would not happen right away. Republicans would for about 24 hours tell us all that they can’t be blamed for the actions of “mentally ill” people. The moment, however, that they started to say, “Of course we can’t impeach Trump if people are dying” is the moment they may, for once, face serious political consquences.
Remember there may come a point where the absolute fear of Republican Senators of being primaried from someone on the MAGA Right will equal their absolute fear that they won’t win a general election. It’s that type of high stakes conundrum that leaves me scratching my head. They have no shame and only care about power for power’s sake. So there’s a least a small chance that their high stakes gotterdammerung strategy might not QUITE work out the way they hope.
Who knows. I know I don’t.
The key point is the nation can’t sustain this state of crisis for any long duration of time. The fever is going to break one way or another. Either with people getting hurt or Trump finally be forced out of off, or maybe both. All I know is I hope no one gets hurt. But I’m not going to let insane Republicans cower me into submission either.
Republicans are just about at the tipping point where they see what’s going on with Trump as an existential threat. Almost. They haven’t quite gotten to the point where they are willing to cane people on the Senate floor, but they’re getting there.
So, in a sense, the flop sweat is about to kick in with Republicans who realize they have a very weak hand at this point. They are going to do everything in their power to gummy up the work of the impeachment process. They will lie. They will cheat. They will intimidate. I would be prepared to suggest that these tactics will work in the end but for one thing — Donald Trump.
Though Trump is finally beginning to realize the existential nature of what’s going on, he’s still reasonable cogent. And he hasn’t gone transactional with his abuses on Twitter. I used to think Trump would implode on a cognitive level and some sort of Regency might be established in private. Now, I think he will EXPLODE in a very public manner and Republicans will continue to kowtow to Trump’s every whim.
Trump will suggest MAGA take up arms against “the enemy of the people” Press or House Democrats, or whomever. He might even dangle pardons to people willing to use their precious AR-15s to make it clear they don’t want Trump to go anywhere. We’ve gotten to the point where there’s a real chance that while the MAGA base of about 35% will feel quite content with all of this the rest of the electorate — and I mean EVERYONE ELSE — will be so full of rage over actual physical harm being inflicted because of a defense of Trump that we may see some rather surreal things begin to happen. More so than we already have.
There may come a point where Republican talking heads defend murder in the name of Trump. They won’t say that, of course. What they’ll say is obviously the “optics” of hundreds of people being slain by a crazed MAGA person with a AR-15 are so bad that we should stop impeachment and “let the people decide” in 2020. Meanwhile, Trump will have finally snapped to such an extent that a lot of people will begin thinking about his continued possession of the nuclear codes.
This is a different type of crisis from the 2000 post-election debacle. This is a hot crisis. You can feel the tension in the country building to something. Something big. What that might be, I don’t know. But I do believe something spectacular is going to happen in the guise of MAGA’s final attempt to save Trump’s presidency. Something jaw-dropping that it will equal 9/11 in its historical significance. I hope what I fear will happen won’t happen.
It pains me to no end to have to talk about this. But we have to prepare ourselves for impeachment-related violence. This is a classic desperate move of extremists — they think that if they raise the stakes high enough that the general public will cower in fear and stop the impeachment process altogether.
The only problem with this strategy is it’s a high risk – high reward one. And violence of the sort Trump supporters want is almost totally alien to the American political experience. While substantial impeachment-related violence might dominate a news cycle or two, there would come a point when a lot of people who have previously tuned out would suddenly sit up and take notice. And not in a way that Trump would like.
This is yet ANOTHER example of how Trump is NOT a political genius as The New York Times‘ Trump Whisperer Maggie Haberman would have us believe. Trump is so stupid — and rapidly cracking under the strain of impeachment — that he sees violence in his defence as a quick fix that will make all his troubles go away. He is so stupid that he doesn’t realize that his firebreak is the average person’s general political indifference. As long as the economy is going well they generally don’t care. If people start dying as part of some crazed gotterdammerung strategy on the part of House Trump, there’s a real chance of radicalizing — at least momentarily — a huge swath of the moderates who otherwise would give Mad King Trump a pass at least until election day 2020.
In other words — when politics involves death and destruction, Americans generally don’t appreciate it. Violence that can be directly pinned on the overheated rhetoric of the Right will initially give us as nation pause for thought, yes, but the moment the Right goes from, “Can’t blame us, it’s just crazy people!” to “Well, guess we can’t have stop the impeachment process now…” they’re likely to get considerable pushback.
But the key issue is — it’s only going to get worse as we grow closer and closer to Trump actually being impeached. In fact, that’s pretty much Trump’s last trick — to go transactional in his crazypants tweets. While I’m reluctant to count Trump out, when he is directing MAGA to kill people in his defense via his Twitter feed that would, well, take things to the next level.
Who knows what happens next. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
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