by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
Watergate was a national tragedy. “A long national nightmare,” as Jerry Ford called it. It was a tragedy in that it was the beginning of our modern political era. The Republican Party of 2019 is essentially made up of the the people who supported Nixon after the tapes were released. And so, TrumpUkraine is shaping up to be another one of those politically redefining moments.
A prime example of this is Kris Kobach’s recent ernest declaration that Senate Republicans should en masse commit jury nullification by pledging not to even hear the case against Trump. Such a statement is a savvy political move on Kobach’s part because it’s a win-win. If Trump survives, he’s a suck up. If Trump somehow manages to actually get convicted, he could very well be the core of the Republican Party going forward. Kobach has proven himself to be a lazy doofus when it comes to the hard work of politics, but, then, Donald Trump is a also a lazy doofus. Kobach really, really REALLY hates brown people coming into the United States. Given that the systemic problems that caused Trump in the first place are going to linger even if Trump is removed, he’s probably going to court the MAGA base pretty hard.
One of the things that has served Americans well is the stability of our government. There’s a little problem with this, however, we don’t deal with government instability well. We don’t have any traditions to lean on. There’s no precedent as to what to do when we have an existential crisis like the one we’re in now.
I honestly don’t know what is going to happen to Trump at this point. The United States is not a functioning democracy right now. In fact, the only reason why the system is fighting back at all is Trump uses his galactic mind when it comes to self-owning. I’m reluctant to say we’re in that weird period of time before a president unexpectedly leaves office because it’s only happened once, in 1974. That’s the only historical guide we have as to how the system would work.
But, let’s sketch out some sort of scenario. Trump is never going to resign. In fact, he’s more likely to start a war than resign. Yet, suppose he is convicted. The first problem is getting him physically out of the White House. I’ve written about this scenario before some time ago and it’s not pretty. It would be a 9/11-level crisis for the United States. In fact, it would be if the OJ trial had a baby with 9/11. The reason is, it wouldn’t happen in hours, it could happen for weeks. I mean, Trump is demonstrably bonkers and has a twitter feed, what’s to stop him from telling the MAGA base to gather up their AR-15s and surround the White House? Then what?
At this point, we have to bring up House Trump. However Trump might finally leave office, he’s not going to go willingly. He’s going to demand a pound of political flesh. The most obvious expression of this is who would replace Pence as veep. Don Jr. is simply too much like his dad to fill the position, even though he’s got a serious clam to it. The base loves him and the Senate Republicans would approve him in a heartbeat. It just seems more politically likely, from a macro political standpoint that it would be Ivanka Trump who would play the role of Nelson Rockefeller. Jerry Ford was seen as a partisan hack when got the job of president. Really, at this point, that Republicans haven’t done The Pence Pivot is beginning to seem a bit surreal. Under all conventional political metrics you might use, Trump’s goose is cooked. Pence is a traditional politicians who is willing to at least play lip service to traditional democratic norms. That The Pence Pivot hasn’t begun to be formulated this far into the game is a very bad sign. That means Republicans are willing to ride the MAGA pony all the way to the bottom.
But anyway, back to Ivanka. Nikki Haley may think she has a claim to be Pence’s VP, but…no. It’s going to be a member of House Trump. Ivanka is so much like Nelson Rockefeller that it’s almost as if we’re going simply use the Watergate final days as the basis for a reboot. The only problem with using her to maintain House Trump’s connection to the White House is there’s a good chance not only would the MAGA base sour on her immediately, but everyone else would hate her for being complicit.
We’re still not really into this crisis yet. There aren’t enough datapoints to make any kind of serious scenario about Trump’s fate. But I will say tentatively things aren’t looking good for The Thousand Year Trump.
Shelton Bumgarner is a writer working on his first novel. It’s meant to be an allegory for the Trump Era. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com. He welcomes your comments as long as they’re not insane.
