Timex
3935
Honestly, I suspect all that stuff is gonna be secondary at best.
If the economy tanks in the next year, that’s what’s gonna sink Trump. If the economy is strong going into 2020’s election, then I feel it’ll be hard to unseat him.
Highly theoreitcal/fun question. Would democrats be more likely to win or lose an election if Trump was impeached and it was Pence vs Democratic candidate?
Many of the objections people have about Trump would disappear with Pence. The evangelicals could go back to pretending they aren’t hypocrites.
OTOH I don’t think Pence can energize the racist base the way Trump can.
Well, he is pretty much the Avatar of Whitness.
rowe33
3939
The Avatar of Shitty Whiteness. He certainly doesn’t speak for me or most white folks I know.
Trump is in a bad situation right now. Poor economic news hits directly at one of the main beliefs propping up his base, that he’s somehow an economic genius who is rebuilding America’s “failing” economy (versus the reality that he’s had a nice couple of years riding the coattails of the successful Obama economy).
Then you have the mass shootings. Not only are they perpetrated by mainly while nationalist scumbags claiming to be inspired by Trump’s rhetoric and policies, but they’ve also reignited the debate on gun control. Trump has mentioned supporting background checks and tighter controls since being pressed to do/say something about the shootings, and that goes directly against what the NRA wants, and will put him at odds with a decent sized portion of his base as well.
If things keep up, he’ll be down to his core racist base alongside his core Pro-Life base (and I suspect there is A LOT of overlap there) come 2020, and that’s not enough to win an election against even an average Democratic challenger.
Unless you manage to suppress votes and possibly rig the system. I don’t put anything past the far right. They no longer care about the rule of law or democracy.
Enidigm
3942
Yea, McConnell directly vetoed any attempt to secure the elections. That’s pretty much a wink and nudge approval of electoral fraud. We have Russian companies literally buying companies that make and maintain voting machines.
True. Although I still think, and perhaps it’s naive, that fucking with American’s votes to the extent that it blatantly propels a losing candidate to a win would be enough to cause massive protests and violence in the streets. Fudging a few thousand votes to nudge one candidate over another in a tight race is one thing, but if exit polls show Donnie losing by double percentage points, and somehow he turns up the winner…
JoshL
3944
Well, plus the DOJ publicly investigating the Dem candidate, facebook and twitter in the tank for Donnie, deepfakes, Russian interference aided by the Republicans, etc, etc, etc.
Menzo
3945
Don’t forget voter suppression efforts at all levels. You can count on Trump warning that ICE will be watching polling stations. A couple stories about parents taken directly from primary voting stations, leaving crying kids on the street, should do the trick. Who cares if they’re released a couple days later because they’re actually citizens?
JoshL
3947
That’s too complicated. Just remove all but one of the voting stations from minority precincts, and then put that one a mile from the nearest bus stop.
Oh wait they already do that.
Enidigm
3948
Yea, that’s what i’ve been saying. Republican are playing a sort of game of chicken with how far they can push the bounds of outright corruption by hiding behind dissembling partisan news and the pre-existing presumption of normalcy, and if they push things too far though the center will just outright collapse in a catastrophic failure.
Liberals in liberal states are not just going to shrug and allow systemic and evident voting fraud on a Federal level. We might rattle our virtual sabres at outright voter suppression in red states, but there’s not much anyone can do but point it out. But when it’s basically breaking the Federal system to leave isolated pockets of Democratic governments harassed and sued by a hostile Republican minority eager to spit in the eye of liberals i don’t see that as exactly a new equilibrium that’s going to last.
Now we see if he’s got the superhuman kneeling strength of Epstein, right?
rowe33
3951
Sanders and Byrne in the Morning. A daily deep dive into the deep state.
must be all that Neanderthal DNA
I’ve been listening to “The Report” podcast from Lawfare. They’re doing a nice job of putting the whole Mueller report in context, reading parts of it verbatim and adding commentary to expand on the meaning. I kinda-sorta knew about all the stuff in there, just from generally following the news, but having it all put together like this is nice.
