We have not reached a tipping point yet. There has yet to be a sudden rush towards impeachment by the House Democratic caucus. If it happens at all, it appears it will happen later in the week, maybe in the Thursday – Friday time frame.
The desire to impeach is just about equal to the desire to “let the people decide” in 2020. Every day impeachment hasn’t officially begun is another day that Trump has won. If the articles of impeachment haven’t been sent to the Senate by around Jan. 15th, then all of this is a very moot point.
Mich McConnell is likely to invoke a rule that you can’t try a president in the Senate in the same year as presidential election. That will be the big shock of early 2020. Trump will see this as a gimme. There will not be a free and fair election if this happens.
At least on a Constitutional and strategic level, Nancy Pelosi is now complicit in not punishing Trump. If she doesn’t recognize this for the existential crisis it is and throw resources at the impeachment investigation immediately, history will not judge her kindly.
This is actually, at least superficially, a pretty jaw dropping scandal. Not just Trump, but Pence and Rudy are implicated in all of this. If we were a functioning democracy, they would all be at real risk of having significant legal jeopardy. As it is, lulz.
As mentioned, we’re long past the point where impeachment proceedings and the 2020 campaign don’t overlap. Both influence the other. So, really, the thing we would need to do for a proper impeachment proceedings — investigate every possible avenue of corruption, obstruction of justice, abuse of power and collusion / conspiracy, is simply not viable. Add to this that Pelosi has starved House Democrats of any budget and, really, things are rather bleak.
The only reason why impeachment suddenly came to the forefront in a big way was a massive unforced error on the part of Trump himself. And he is likely to slow walk and stonewall the whole thing as much as possible. Again, this makes the possibility of any sort of successful impeachment proceeding done in a timely manner (read, before mid-Jan. 2020) impossible.
Thus, the whole thing is likely be half-assed and half-hearted. And by the time the articles are voted on, the 2020 campaign will be in full swing. I honestly don’t know how all that would work out. As I said, I believe Leader McConnell is likely to make a big deal of “for the sake of the country” the Senate not try the president during an election year.
Two last things.
One, if I had limited funds and a short amount of time, I would have a day-long hearing with half-dozen psychologists to talk about the president’s state of mind.
House Democrats need to radicalize a little bit and be prepared to do things that might enrage the Right. Namely, I would suggest they use their ability to jail people for contempt in a gratuitous fashion. I saw someone on Twitter use some weird bullshit game theory reason why this would be a bad idea. Fuck that. Just do it. How else are you going to make the criminals running the government take things seriously?
In the age of Trump, you grow accustomed to getting excited that maybe, at last, political gravity will kick in and Trump will face some sort of consequence for his surreal, criminal and corrupt behavior. House Trump has two ways of combating scandals. One is the Roy Cohen inspired Stormy Daniels Playbook. The other is to slow walk any legal trouble so they can get into their second term so it won’t really matter anymore because we’ll be an authoritarian managed-democracy by that point.
So, right now, Trump is using the mindfuck that brings him such glee — teasing the idea that he’ll release the transcript of the conversation that’s getting him in trouble. This is a multi-layered mindfuck because it conflates what we need — the actual complaint — with the thing that causes people concern about releasing — the transcript.
Therefore, what House Trump believes will happen is they can slow walk releasing the transcript. The tease amps up the hype for the transcript’s political significance. We spend precious months fighting over it and when it comes out, it’s a dud. Trump wins re-election, fuck you.
Meanwhile, the far more damaging thing, the complaint — which legally has to be turned over, natch — goes down the memory hole with Trump’s taxes, fuck you.
For the moment, Trump has the upperhand. He’s too good at this and the press too eager to fall into the same trap over and over again. So, really, I have very low expectations. I see nothing but blue skies for House Trump’s Thousand Year Trump.
I’ve written about this before, but it’s ever more timely. There’s a greater than-zero sum chance that very soon a lot of people are going to The Pence Pivot. This is when at the very point you would otherwise agree with me that maybe Trump was mistake in the first place, you, without missing a beat, say, “It doesn’t matter. Trump’s gone. I support Pence. I didn’t even vote for Trump, really, I voted for Pence.”
This is an outrage on any number of different levels. The chief amongst them being, your previous support of Trump becomes little more than your similar support for the Iraq War based on the lie of WMD. You never have to “own” (as MAGA people are so fond of saying) the fact that you did, at one point, support Trump. And you would still support Trump but for the fact that he’s become so politically toxic that it’s difficult for you to do so. Since you now have a more traditional pol like Pence to support, you have a ready off-ramp for your original insane support of Trump. You don’t have to “own” the political hell you put us all through because you were in a MAGA cult.
Who gets possession of the MAGA cult should the House Trump implode and The Thousand Year Trump doesn’t last…quite…as long is up for debate. A lot it depends on how, exactly, Trump might leave office (By the way, this is impossible. Trump will never resign and he will never be convicted in the Senate.) Really, the only way I could see Trump maybe leaving office is if he could get a full pardon and the right to choose Pence’s successor as veep. If he got that, then either Don Jr. or Ivanka might become veep and be in an ideal position to run for president in their own right to protect Trump’s “legacy.” Ivanka would be a strange one to do that, but you do you daddy’s little girl.
But as of right now, I just don’t see anything coming of TrumpUkraine in the first place. This is probably just another Trump scandal that gets people like me excited, only to fizzle out as the Stormy Daniels Playbook is used ever so effectively.
I predicted this would be among the Right’s talking points a few days ago and it’s come true. First, they say it’s simply “inappropriate” for Trump to extort a foreign power to get dirt on his likely 2020 rival. So, they introduce the idea that Trump’s simply being “naughty.” He didn’t really do anything wrong, you know. He was just “inappropriate.”
Then, once they’ve established a modicum of displeasure with The Dear Leader, they turn around and say, well, you know, Obama did the same thing when it got caught on a hot mic saying he would have “more flexibility” with the Russians after the 2012 elections.
For stupid people let me point out something.
Using your power as president to pressure a foreign power to trump up false charges about your opponent is not just “inappropriate.” That’s a big boy crime.
Simply suggesting that after the election you might have more diplomatic wiggle room on a political level, that’s this thing called diplomacy. I know MAGA hates black people and especially Obama, but if you’re a talking head on FOX News, I thought you were supposed to be “fair and balanced.”
It’s impressive that otherwise well educated and intelligent people would attempt to pull off such a brazen false narrative. As it always the case, MAGA wants to own the moment, damn the consequences. Even when they’re proven wrong by Trump himself’s statements, they’ve moved on to some other way of sucking the little orange weener.
As of Monday, Sept. 23, 2019, TrumpUkraine is following the usual Trump scandal playbook. It might be happening a little faster because of the severity and brazenness of the alleged crime, but we’re definitely cruising towards this wrapping up as a net plus for House Trump.
The press will willfully give House Trump the cover to appoint a Special Prosecutor to “look into” the Bidens “just to be sure” as a matter of “transparency.” While high information voters will be angry, the average person who doesn’t follow politics will not know who to believe. Besides, the economy is doing well. Lulz.
No one is showing any political courage at this point. There will come a point very soon when we’re so close to the beginning of the 2020 election cycle that Nancy Pelosi will put out a statement saying while Trump should be impeached, for the good of the nation, it’s best if we just “let the people decide” in November 2020.
It’s definitely not looking like absolutely nothing is going to happen to House Trump because of TrumpUkraine. Or, to put it in political terms, while the general consensus will be Trump should be impeached, he won’t be because the 2020 campaign will have begun. Surely he won’t be re-elected, will he?
Without any sense of there being consequences, Trump will grow more brazen. Lulz.
We all know that you’re enjoying the quiet life petting rescue goats, but your nation needs you. You are uniquely qualified to slice the boil of political paralysis the country is currently suffering as a result of the TrumpUkraine scandal.
When you get angry, things happen, things change. You are passionate and articulate and if you were to step forward to lead the Resistance in a final push to impeach Trump, then maybe it might happen. The only reason for this plea is right now we’re a would-be revolution without a leader. All the elements are there. We just need someone to strike the match.
You would have to step forward as a political figure, however. You would have to maybe even join Twitter. As it stands, no one is prepared to actually act against Trump in any meaningful way. Maybe if you spoke up clearly and forcefully, the now locked gears of the House might finally begin to move.
This is probably the most severe political crisis in the United States since the latter stages of Watergate. Unfortunately, this is not 1974 and Trump’s not Nixon. You definitely would have to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Only you, I believe, would be able to coordinate the type of attack needed on House Trump. For the time being, Democrats running for president would need to unite in one common call — Trump has got to go. The political energy is now there for that to happen, but there’s no one to direct it.
Anyway, maybe you’re not interested. But I would like to note that Will Rodgers was active in Depression Era Democratic politics before his untimely death. But whatever decision you made, you’d have to make it soon, like now. We have a limited amount of time before this becomes just another Trump scandal in the eyes of the public and the 2020 presidential silly season kicks in in full force.
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.
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