by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
It seems to me that we’ve crossed into a new phase of the pitched political war between Trump and his growing numbers of foes. Trump’s growing more noticeable in his mental instability. Not a lot, but some of his diction in his tweeting is growing a little more panicky.
I stand my prediction that this is a better-than-zero chance that Trump’s finally going to lose his shit in a rather spectator fashion before this is over with. So much so that when the history books of this shit show are written, they will note that but for Trump’s insane reaction to impeachment, he likely would have survived.
That is, of course, in a sense a little bit of my own liberal wishful thinking. It’s very possible that Trump will manage to hold it together just long enough to be acquitted, replace Pence with Kris Kobach, win the general — by any means necessary — then finally collapse into a puddle at some point in his second term so Kobach can establish The Thousand Year Trump.
Or, put another way, I wouldn’t start jotting Trump’s political obit just yet. But Trump’s already fragile mental state is going to be pushed to the limit as the existential nature of the threat he now faces grows large in his mind. If his usual mindfuckery doesn’t work and he gets impeached, he may be so far gone by that point that he isn’t even able to be acquitted by his Republican lackeys in the Senate because he’ll just be totally fucking bonkers.
I would note in passing that we are now at a crossroads. We may be in the pre-pre-pre-pre-pre stages of fabled, mystical Pence Pivot. If Trump’s too discombobulated to fuck with the election in 2020, the Republican Party may think long and hard about how Pence is a rather traditional — if insanely conservative — pol and in comparison he’s likely to do a lot better than Trump.
But, again, nobody knows nuthin about what’s going to happen with impeachment, least of all me. I have a few educated guesses, but I just can’t pace out any sort of endgame right now.
We’ll see.
