Just as Trump’s wall is being built as a fence, it’s becoming pretty clear that he’s not the political genius access journalists are making him out to be. It pains me to say this, but we’ve elected Being There’s Chauncey Gardner president.
Here’s what I think happened. In Obama’s second term, the Republican Party’s base stopped believing in liberal democracy. The conditions were there for someone like Trump to rise. And, remember, all the front runners for the nomination before Trump secured the nomination were, in relative terms, extremely conservative. So, given how poorly Hillary Clinton acted as candidate, if Trump had decided to play president on Sharknado, we would now have a President Cruz or President Rubio. They would likely — especially with Fed court nominations — be appointing the same Federalist Society hack judges that Trump is. But, in a way, they would be far better in getting what they wanted because, well, they aren’t complete idiots like Trump.
Chauncey Gardner
So, really, because Trump was a conservative celebrity Twitter troll that the base knew from TV, Trump did not have to do any work. As others have noted, Trump was simply playing the role written for him on The Apprentice. Trump is demonstrably a barely functioning human being, much less an adult. He’s a grifter and a con artist. He’s far better at rhetoric than he is any form of political theory.
The reason why we’re told he’s a political genius is a lot of very intelligent, very well educated people are projecting on to Trump things that don’t exist because they have no other explanation for what’s going on. Making him a genius helps them feel good about the metrics that they, themselves are successfully measured by. They know they’re smart and well educated and would think the same way given the results Trump gets. But what they can’t admit — because it would threaten their self-identity — is Trump is just a malignant version of Chauncey Gardner. Trump became president not because he is smart or clever or worked hard like they did. He’s president because of macro social, political and economic problems in the United States that he has no control over.
So, if the people who are covering Trump have a vested interest in making him seem far more adept than he is, then he becomes invincible. Access journalists write in hushed tones that Trump’s latest clusterfuck is actually a subtle play for single women liberal voters just outside Phillie. They say that because how else do you explain such bizarre behavior? To say that Trump is pretty much a lucky moron is to suggest that you can be not only stupid and criminally incompetent, but not go to a good school and have more power than people who did to it “the right way.”
With that in mind, some things come to mind. One is, if you’re not only a political grifter but have poor impulse control, you’re likely to get in trouble. That Trump would actively collude again the day after being given a political pardon by the “poor optics” of Bob Mueller’s testimony to Congress is a sign that maybe you shouldn’t be president anymore. The surreal irony of all of this is Trump is getting into more trouble now because he is beginning to get the hang of how to abuse the levers of power. Again, if he was a political genius that access journalists want us to believe, this is not what he would do.
And so now, we’re in the situation we’re in. Trump will grow in power because he’s able to use his power more effectively. Trump’s likely to wiggle his way out of this TrumpUkraine scandal and, well, I guess if we’re such idiots to let him do it we deserve what we get.
I don’t often get this angry over Trump, but the idea that Trump’s going to use the Mueller playbook with the complaint against him is making me pop a gasket.
The House Trump media game plan:
The transcript of Trump’s call is a dud. The network talking heads say the “optics” of the transcript are bad for Democrats. Meanwhile, a heavily redacted complaint is also released. This, too, is seen by Chris Cillizza and his ilk that Nancy Pelosi made a strategic mistake. All the energy for impeachment fizzles. By Friday evening, Trump, realizing he’s escaped yet AGAIN calls up Putin and directly asks him to hack into our election. He’s learned how to cover his tracks better and that, as they say, is that.
I have every reason to believe this is going to work. Why else would they suddenly change strategies so abruptly? Impeachment is a game of retail politics on a massive scale. Once the talking heads of cable news believe the “poor optics” of the House Trump’s limited hangout is gaining traction, then we have Mueller’s testimony to Congress all over again.
All I can assume is House Trump is nervous about how quickly things are moving and they believe if they managed the release of information properly it’ll all go away. That Trump himself is a brazen, lawless moron is none of their concern. Their goal is to get him pardoned AGAIN in the court of public opinion. If they can stumble into about May 2020, Trump is free to do whatever the fuck he wants. He is completely immune politically do any criminal act. He will be totally above the law.
After that, Trump has sex with Ivanka on FOX News while eating a live baby. Senate Republicans will say we should wait until November for the “people to decide” what should happen to Trump.
All I can say is, if we want to keep America a liberal democracy, we’re going to have to act like it. We’re going to have to pressure the Nancy Pelosi even MORE. We’re going to have to demand that Trump follows the law as written and sends the entire, unredacted complaint to Congress. The complaint isn’t supposed to be released to the public, it’s supposed to be send to Congress.
Trump’s admitted an impeachable offense on TV! At a minimum, the House should begin using its “inherent contempt” powers immediately. Like, Wednesday afternoon. You start jailing and fining people in the Trump Administration until someone, somewhere begins to think maybe America is a rule of laws and that the Constitution means something to someone.
Trump thinks HE is at political war, so maybe we should too. Throw a Molotov Cocktail into the workings of Congress. Nothing happens, period, until the Trump Administration stops acting like it’s above the law. I would also suggest you enlist Jon Stewart to help the cause, but that’s just me.
This is serious.
But I guess it’s Chris Cillizza world, we just live in it.
Trump’s still not taking the impeachment drive against him seriously. I know this because we’re rushing through the Stormy Daniels playbook at lightning speed and he doesn’t seem all that concerned.
It’s when we come to the end of this playbook and he still faces impeachment that things are going to go haywire. One, Trump while criminally incompetent at his job, is in trouble in the first place in large part because he’s figured out how to use the levers of power to do his bidding. So, the moment he actually feels there’s an existential threat, he’s likely to do concrete, serious things in an attempt to end the march towards actually impeaching him.
Starting a war seems like the most obvious thing he would do. A war with Iran seems rather teed up for him, but for one thing — it’s my impression Iran is Russian client state. So, that would make things a little bit more complicate. Trump wants a major regional war for two reasons. One, it makes him a war president, which gives him more power. Two, he wants to wag the dog and the ability to use Lee Greenwood at any of his upcoming Nuremberg Rallies. Third, it gives the base a talking point — you can’t impeach the president, we’re at war! They get the own the moment at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
While Iran is still an option, there is a far more serious, far darker possibility –the DPRK. Trump barely believes anyone but Ivanka and himself really exist, so Trump could very well use an excuse of some sort to dramatically ratchet up tensions with the DPRK. Trump’s both stupid enough and completely devoid of empathy enough to actually start a jaw-dropping war with the DPRK in an effort to — in his mind — make it politically impossible for impeachment to proceed.
Now, the reason why this is even an issue is Trump and, by extension the Republican Party, is completely devoid of shame. They don’t believe in liberal democracy and they crave power for power’s sake like a vampire craves fresh blood. Add to this that Republicans are prepared to take the Trump Train to whatever destination it may go, and, well, you have a receipt for disaster.
In my view, at least, that means if Trump’s sole goal is to stay in power, he is going to “win.” In the highly unlikely event that his polls numbers crater into the teens, he isn’t going anywhere. His strategy remains the same — getting the base to turn out in Nov. 2020 and to use that as the Sword of Damocles over the heads of elected Republican politicians.
As such, from Trump’s point of view, as long as he can still appointed young hack judges and set policy, it honestly doesn’t matter how low his poll ratings are. That’s it, he wins. And, if need be, he can always depend on Russians hacking the election or simply bribing individual Electors to throw the election for him. That doesn’t even begin to address his pardon power.
So, really, the Republican Party and its cult will win the day because they have no shame and their goal is power for power’s sake. There honestly isn’t anything we can do. I’m glad we seem to be on the path to impeachment, but even if Trump’s crimes are extremely clear cut, Senate Republicans will never convict him. Sometime around Feb., Trump’s acquitted and even though his poll numbers are now about 20%, he will go about his merry way as if nothing happened.
When you have no shame and only care about power, that’s how things are going to shake out.
Having said all that, there’s kind of a dramatic and frightening ray of hope to all of this — Trump himself. Anyone who would call up the Ukrainian president the day after Bob Mueller’s “poor optics” testimony gave him a political pardon, is a pretty adept self-own artist.
So, while in theory Trump is likely to not only escape conviction but get a second term criminally, in practice he’s also likely to finally lose his mind. The pressure of impeachment is likely going to make him finally snap.
And, as such, in the end, it won’t be politics it will be Trump’s own mind that might end The Thousand Year Trump. While his Republican enablers will simply say Trump’s “joking” at first, even braindead Republicans might blanch at having to explain Trump tweeting out a dick pic. They’ll do it, of course, and it won’t really matter because they have no shame. But there’s a least a chance that after a few months of Trump acting in a fashion that is demonstrably and egregiously indefensible (far more so than anything he’s already done) the ground may shift under Trump and The Pence Pivot will take place.
Don’t hold your breath, though. Sometimes you have to articulate things just to make yourself feel better.
I hate to break it to you, folks, but if impeachment really does reach a tipping point we’ve entered the darkest timeline. It won’t be impeachment, it will be Trump’s reaction to it that we’ll be talking about.
Trump has long had some sort of chronic mental problem. The stress of simply an impeachment investigation — which would likely take months — would, in it self, potentially cause him to decompensate. It’s would make a lot of sense if Trump found himself in something of a logic trap. He would absolutely feel as though he would survive an Senate vote. But he would also absolutely feel paranoid that he might not.
So he goes bonkers.
I therefore propose that in the end, it won’t even be impeachment that is Trump’s downfall — it will be his reaction to it. If Trump finally goes off the deep end, some astonishing surreal thing will happen. The first will be MAGA Stalwarts will find themselves defending ever-more demonstrably indefensible things on Trump’s part. First they will simply say he was “joking.” But there will come a point when they take the final plunge into their own destruction. Trump will tweet out a dick pic. Trump will begin to tweet out the N-word to Obama. And they will defend it, thinking that Trump, like always, will stay in control of the narrative.
And so, in the end, Trump’s tendency to self-own will get so absolutely bad that there might be an intervention, of sorts. They might propose to Trump that he gets to choose Pence’s replacement as veep. And maybe a promise of a full pardon after Pence wins re-election in 2020. Trump accepting such an offer would be the best case scenario for Republicans.
The worse case scenario is he won’t accept it. And in the end, Trump so far gone mentally that the Senate finally does, in fact, convict him not so much because of any particular crime, but for the complete failure of the 25th Amendment to work.
And then, I’m afraid, we have a once-in-generation event. Young people won’t reference 9/11, they’ll reference Trump’s downfall. It will probably play out a lot like the OJ’s slow motion police chase in a white Bronco. It will last days, even weeks. The entire country will grind to a halt as we attempt to lure Trump out of The White House.
It will be a dark day in our history.
Here is how it may play out. I wrote this some time ago, but the premise is the same.
9/10ths a story fragment of a possible near future by Shelton Bumgarner
April, 2019
The eyes of the world were on the White House.
Just moments before, President Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, had been convicted by 67 members of the Senate for a whole list of high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump had for weeks now been ranting on Gab about his case in the Senate, bouncing back and forth between threats to start a war with Iran or the DPRK and not-so-subtle hints that he might take his own life should he be convicted by the Senate.
And, now, at last, the moment of truth had arrived.
Trump legally, at least, was no longer president, but he had been oddly silent since the verdict had been announced with great fanfare from the well of the Senate. Trump’s conviction had come after months of investigations on the part of the now Democratic Congress. The length and breath of Trump’s malfeasance discovered by these hearings had rocked the nation to its very core. On more than one occasion, MAGA talking heads on cable news had been interrupted by astonishing breaking news that left them, for once, unable or unwilling to defend the president.
The hearings had ground on for months to such an extent that Trump’s approval had slowly drifted to the 20s and stayed there consistently. Trump’s support was now made up of the very rich and the very poor. Oddly, despite Trump’s near constant demands on Twitter for violence on the part of his supporters, little, if any was reported. Trump had grown so frustrated that he had all but abandoned Twitter at one point for the more receptive Gab social media platform. Though on more than one occasion Rudy Giuliani had made it very clear it was within the rights of the president to declare martial law if he deemed it in the best interests of the nation. More than one delegation of Senate Republicans had gone to the White House to explain to Trump that he was going to be convicted, no avail. Trump made it clear to them, in not so many words that his simply living in the White House made him president, a sentiment best expressed by the legal saw that, “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”
Finally, a post to Gab came out: “My so-called ‘conviction’ is the work of the Deep State and as such illegitimate. I remain president.”
This set off a chain of events, the likes of which Americans had never seen. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter became a Constitutional scholar as everyone studied the exact wording of the Constitution as to what happens if the president is removed from office by the Senate. The wording is quite clear: he or she is no longer president and that’s it.
Nowhere in the Constitution did it explain what to do if the president simply decided to ignore the Senate. What’s more, nowhere in the Constitution did it state what to do with the nuclear launch codes should a president be removed from office and he refuse to accept the decision of the Senate.
The next few hours were chilling as they were surreal for millions of people not just in the United States but around the globe. The issue of Trump’s physical access to America’s nuclear launch codes was suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Though it was finally announced that while the nuclear football remained in Trump’s possession, Sec. of Defense Mattis had ordered the American armed forces to stand down for the duration of the crisis.
Trump, on Twitter, was as defiant and unhinged as usual.He threatened to kill himself. He threatened to start a nuclear war. He vowed to declare martial law.
The usual suspects on cable news did their best to spin all of this for Trump. As an anxious nation waited for the now former president to leave the White House, a cavalcade of former Republican Senators and Trump White House staffers attempted to make the former president’s case. Their final argument was that for the good of the country, Trump should be allowed to remain president, despite his lawful conviction by the Senate.
Things began to move rapidly at this point.
Vice President Pence was sworn in but Chief Justice Roberts in a dark, somber event in the Old Executive Building. Meanwhile, it was learned Trump had quietly replaced his Secret Service detail with a private security force that made it clear it was prepared to defend Trump until the bloody end.
At this point, two things happened. A final bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders came to the White House grounds under the flag of truce. During the course of an hour-long meeting, Trump screamed at them that they had never supported him and the world would be better off if it just ended instead of allowed the forces of the Deep State to ruin America. He made it absolutely clear that he would never leave the Oval Office willingly.
With that, they left.
Next, a surreal, bizarre event, the FBI slowly began to surround the White House. There was much debate online and on TV about how long the nation should wait for Trump to leave the White House. CNN went so far as to do a deep dive into the exact amount of food the White House grounds might have available at any one moment.
Finally, shots rang out from the White House as the battle was joined. It took several hours but in the end, the FBI was finally able to secure the facility. Nearly a dozen personnel on both sides died during the course of the Battle of The White House.
In what would become ionic footage, Trump was quietly escorted from the White House grounds. He spent the remainder of his days ranting on Twitter and Gab that he was the rightful president.
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?
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.
Despite what the esteemed access journalists of The New York Times and The Washington Post may have you believe, Trump is not a diabolical political theorist. He’s not calculating the subtle messaging necessary to convince a housewife just outside of Phillie in a sexless marriage that she should vote for him despite her reservations.
In fact, Trump is simply a very lucky doofus. He’s nothing more than Being There’s Chauncey Gardner if he was on the cusp of losing his mind. There’s no grand strategy other than some basic mindfucks he learned at the feet of Roy Cohen.
A prime example of this is the origins of the TrumpUkraine clusterfuck. If Trump was REALLY such a fucking modern day Machiavelli don’t you think he would have weighed the political pardon the “poor optics” of Bob Mueller’s testimony to Congress gave him? He might have used his SuperMind to lay low and simply coast to an easy re-election. Then, in his second term, he could turn the switch on his sinister second phase.
Is that what he did? Nope. Smarty pants saw his pardon not as an opportunity to lay the groundwork for the much heralded Thousand Year Trump, but as permission to actively pressure a foreign power to collude with him to hurt his likely political rival in 2020. What’s more, doofus did it on a veritable party line. If that’s not insight into numbnut’s true political savvy, I don’t know what is.
And, as such, that’s why he has to be impeached now, damn the political consequences. He’s proven that he’s not only a barely functioning man-child, he’s a willful one at that.
The only reason why Trump’s been so successful to date is a combination of a strong economy, the idiotic disorganization of his opponents and abject lack of shame on the part of Republicans. He owes everything to outside forces beyond his control. Yes, in a sense, one could say he has a native ability to vocalize the rage of the white disenfranchised volk. But even that is grading on a curve. Why else are people hyping Tucker Carlson in 2024? He’s just another hapless racist doofus who’s been on TV.
The Trump threat is existential. If we don’t go down fighting, then Trump is only going to see this as a sign of weakness and up the ante. Trump is so stupid in real terms, that if he felt like he might actually be not only impeached, but convicted, he might be willing to call up Little Rocket Man and ask him to start a war in an effort to wag the dog.
I wish I was joking, but I’m Not.
That such a suggestion isn’t on the face of it too outrageous to even consider is enough to demand impeachment immediately.
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.
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.
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