The Trump: Endgame thread

New York State, at a minimum, is going to throw Trump into jail.

Trump isn’t gonna leave voluntarily. His only out of this is to break the government and become a dictator.

It’s possible that he’s too don’t to realize this, but i think he’s keenly aware of this particular aspect.

I think that’s the end result if and only if (IFF) a critical mass of GOP Senators decides to flip on him. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if we get there.

There’s also a part of me which thinks an “illness” or some such non-political manufactured thing will happen to stop him from running in 2020. It’s a small part of me, but I strongly suspect that’s the pipe dream those GOP Senators are hoping for so they don’t have to stand up and be counted.

Bing bing bing. Timex has it. There is no way that Trump voluntarily leaves office. The best case scenario is Secret Service agents drag Trump out and throw him on the street.

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, there are no Republicans only Trump.

I’m pretty sure this will remain true even if he loses in November 2020. Everyone in the GOP will tell him to resign then, to have Pence pardon him and sweep as much as can be under the carpet. But he’ll stubbornly refuse because his narcissism won’t allow it.

Then on January 19th, 2021 he’ll go to Twitter and call for a massive violent uprising to keep him in power. And he’ll misspell every other word.

I’d like to think that nobody will take him up on it, that the next morning the Secret Service will just put the blabbering old man into an Uber and tell the driver to take him to Union Station. But we still have two years to go, so who knows?

Dear God, we still have two years to go.

I side with @JonRowe and @Mark_Crump here. Fox will play into what happens pretty heavily.

When the Muller report does drop, there are two paths. Path one, Fox reports this as-is, with frequent throws to commentator from a chosen few they hang 2020 hopes on, preferably just one person. Said person, after a call or two with Murdoch, would emphasize the Republican party is, “better than Trump, we can truly bring prosperity to this nation once we move on from (Trump’s) criminality.” Said person will get heavy airplay, meaning free 2020 election jump start.

Or path two, Fox reports the news as it rolls in for Trump, while juxtaposing anti-Democrat sentiment stories and, “it’s time for a true Republican to stand up for what’s right.” Meaning they have no shoe in, and leave the table open while continuing the right leaning rhetoric.

Nobody pulls for a cheater. Nobody votes for a criminal. The report will have the ability for a lot of Trump voters to suddenly pretend they didnt vote for a loser, and fuck the Democrats anyway, Republican 2020.

Trump may take a resignation deal to save his family from heavy charges. It’s the one human element in this story. We all say he’s a narcissistic asshole who thinks only of himself. But my guess is he does love his kids enough to roll over for them.

And if he resigns, I would propose that there wont be a single state charge ever fully brought against him directly. Perhaps the Trump businesses, but not Trump. Politically, what prosecutor is going to be the asshole that charges a resigning president of the United States, after the fact?

The longer the Republicans latch onto Trump, the better. They need to go down with the ship. They’ve sacrificed their integrity as a political party and there should be no place for them in American politics. So I hope Trump serves the rest of his term, I hope the Republicans continue to cravenly support him, and I hope the Democrats hold their feet to the fire all the while, until we can vote them into obscurity.

-Tom

I don’t =/

Dude still hasn’t even played the war card…

Realistically though he probably will. Actually I don’t even know anymore. Events appear to be unfolding at warp speed. I abjure all prediction!

My hope is that the military has gotten really good at slow-walking whatever nonsense he flings their way.

And, really, I’d love to see him led in handcuffs across the South Lawn to a waiting police car. But since that’s not likely to happen with the current Senate, I’d much rather he served out his term and took the whole disgraceful lot of Republicans down with him when he goes.

-Tom

I learned from listening to Rachel Maddow’s podcast The Bag Man that this is how they got Spiro Agnew to resign. Prior to being VP and while in office in Maryland, Agnew took kickbacks from businesses awarded state contracts and continued that practice after he became Vice President. Even though the case against him was a slam dunk, the Attorney General at the time didn’t know how long Nixon was going to last and was afraid that Agnew would become President. Although the other DAs wanted to hold Agnew accountable for his crimes, the AG thought it better to offer Agnew a deal - resign and no charges would be filed; despite the bluster Agnew put up - including calling the charges a witch hunt believe it or not - Agnew took the deal (it’s eerie how much Agnew is a precursor to trump.)

I think there’s a chance that if Mueller uncovers even more criminal activity (highly probably IMO) and trump is offered the same deal and that extends to his kids, he might just take it. He’ll spin it as becoming a martyr and he’s resigning for the good of the country and Republicans will play that for all it’s worth (the evil Democrats ousted your President!) While I dearly want trump and his spawn to go to jail, part of me thinks he’s too dangerous to stay in office. At the same time I also agree with Tom that the Republican party needs to be destroyed.

Luckily it’s not up to me to decide the outcome.

Trump is a narcissist, but also lazy, and a coward. He doesn’t have the guts to lead a coup. He’s also proven that he’s totally fine with walking away from something when it’s clear it no longer benefits him (see: Trump Steaks, Casino, bankruptcies, etc).

He’ll do what he always does: fail, call it success, and blame somebody else.

He’ll run for re-election, get beaten by a Democrat, step down in January 2021, and then the new Democratic President will mumble some nonsense about ‘look forward, not backward’, and he’ll skate.

I didn’t say he’s going to lead a coup. I said he’s going to send a Tweet. That’s as far as Donnie’s low energy goes.

Speaking of which, Trump’s abiding laziness is surely why the war card hasn’t been seen yet. I’m pretty sure the following scene has already played out more than once at the White House:

Trump: They’re still talking about Mueller, we have to stop it. So what we’re going to do, we’re going to invade Iraq.
Mattis: But …
Trump: Iran. That’s the other one, right? Get on that.
Mattis: Uh, yes. You are the president, sir. So, ahhhhh … I’ll set up a wake-up call for you tomorrow at 5:30 then.
Trump: What are you talking about?
Mattis: Planning meetings for the war, sir. Lots of planning meetings. Days and days of planning meetings.
Trump: Screw that. Do it without me.
Mattis: Not possible, sir. We’d, ummm, be lost without you. Besides it’s, errr, in the Constitution.
Trump: We can’t just skip to the bombing part?
Mattis: Afraid not, sir. And of course, once the action starts we’ll have to keep you here in the White House 24/7, for security reasons. Of course, you wouldn’t be out of the public eye completely. We’ll have to put you on television…
Trump: Yeah!
Mattis: … when you console the families of the fallen …
Trump: Oh.
Mattis: And after a few weeks we’ll be able to send you on a trip …
Trump: To Mar-A-Lago?
Mattis: … to the front lines, to …
Trump: Forget this. I’m going golfing.

Yeah, Trump is lazy above all else.

Oh my god yes, unbelievably so.

Laurence Tribe lays out why a sitting President isn’t constitutionally protected from indictment (despite DoJ “policy.”)

Those who say this set-up presupposes delaying any indictment of a president for crimes committed in winning the presidency are wrong. Worse than that, they’ve gotten things upside-down.

Just think about it: The president and vice president run as a ticket. No president selects a vice president who wouldn’t strongly consider doing for him exactly what Vice President Gerald Ford did for President Richard Nixon: namely, give the president a full pardon shortly after he becomes the former president — whether that sudden reversal of fortune occurs upon the president’s being turned out by the voters, or upon his being impeached and removed, or upon his resigning under the threat of such ignominious removal.

It’s crazy to assume that the framers of the impeachment power would have created a system in which even the most criminally corrupt president could permanently escape full accountability. Immunized from criminal trial while serving in office (as the ostensible Justice Department policy would require), such a president could count on receiving a get-out-of-jail-free card upon his exit. For he would leave behind him a newly minted (albeit unelected) president wielding the power to pardon any and all “offenses against the United States.”

Do we all remember how seeing Nixon booted from the White house, disgraced as he was, effected the future of the GOP so much that within 6 years they were able to own the White House for 12 years?

I like the idea of Trump being forced to resign, even if that means no charges are ever filed against him. I don’t think Trump or the GOP would want to see him charged with crimes by the state of New York after he leaves office. And the charges would only end up highlighting the criminal activities of Trump, and not the GOP.

Although I would love seeing Trump in jail.

I would too, but will take what consequences we can get at this point. Maybe even a rare just use of civil asset forfeiture? After all his self-dealing and enrichment at taxpayer expense, it sure would be apropos if the government wound up seizing his companies, lock, smock, and barrel.

Maybe Mar A Lago could be a national gator preserve

Gotta drain all that swampwater to somewhere, don’t we?

My money for the most likely future. Powerful men just don’t have to face consequences for their actions, no matter how heinous. That’s just not the way the world works.