Looking Forward: Prematurity, Misadventure, and the Wreck of a Presidency

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tiassa, Aug 1, 2017.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    #misadventure | #WhatTheyVotedFor

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    I am uncertain how I feel about Robert Reich's↱ mysterious source, allegedly "a former Republican member of Congress". To the one, the contrast between Reich's liberalism of recent times and the more centrist and even conservative policies of Bill Clinton's administration are their own fascination if we let it get to us, but in that point, no, this manner of friendship and even participation in blogging pretense is not impossible. To the other, it also reads like crafted dialogue, and the long-term for outright inventing these dialogues is somewhat poor, all things considered; making this up is the sort of thing that would eventually eat a writer of Reich's reputation and pretense.

    Which would be unfortunate, of course, since the beeblebrox is so believably obvious:

    Him: Remember what I told you at the start of this circus? They planned to use Trump’s antics for cover, to get done what they most wanted – big tax cuts, rollbacks of regulations, especially financial. They’d work with Pence behind the scenes and forget the crazy uncle in the attic.

    Me: Yeah.

    Him: Well, I’m hearing a different story now. Stuff with Sessions is pissing them off. And now Trump’s hired that horse’s ass Scaramucci – a communications director who talks dirty on CNN! Plus Trump’s numbers are in freefall. They think he’s gonna hurt them in ’18 and ’20.

    Me: So what’s the plan?

    Him: They want him outa there.

    Except the former member isn't going on about impeachment; the discussion is about something else:

    Me: So how do they get him out?

    Him: Put someone else up in ’20. Lots of maneuvering already. Pence, obviously. Cruz thinks he has a shot.

    Me: But that won’t help them in the midterms. What’s the plan before then?

    Him: Lots think he’s fritzing out.

    Me: Fritzing out?

    Him: Going totally bananas. Paranoia. You want to know why he fired Priebus, wants Sessions out, and is now gunning for Tillerson?

    Notice the setup, though. I contest: The former member of Congress would recognize the midterm danger up front. The setup is too roughly simplistic. We see where this is going, of course. It's an Amendment XXV argument on the basis of, "How long do you think it will be before everyone in Washington knows he's flipping out?" backed with, "They don't have to plot against him. It will be obvious that he's got to go."

    This is clearly a structured conversation, though that doesn't assert there is no former member of Congress. No, really—and these days it seems like there are many who wouldn't recognize this manner of fellowship 'twixt Democrats and Republicans—the idea of Robert Reich sitting around with a Republican friend who did time in Congress and wouldn't want to be named is, more than simply not impossible, actually rather easily imaginable.

    Because here's the conventional wisdom. President Trump, according to a necessary sympathetically accessible colloquialism, is "losing it fast". The discussion Reich presents concludes with his nameless Republican source explaining, "My betting is he's out of office before the midterms. And Pence is president."

    And, you know, it probably isn't controversial to suggest that, from the outset, those of us who believed a Trump presidency could only spell misfortune and danger have been eyeing the midterm question. It is the next fundamental question the Republican Party must answer for: If they lose a majority in one of the chambers come January, 2019, their agenda stalls.

    Even with the proverbial clue like a board game—Donny Jr., in the Tower, with the poison, the candlestick, the trophy, and the dumbbell (they should have replaced the wrench with an automated drill press, or something, and the lead pipe with, oh, I don't know, did you ever do that thing in GTA: San Andreas beating someone to death with a sex toy?)—how long will impeachment take? Even if Congressional Republicans decide they've had enough and kangaroo him with what we already have on the grounds that, come on, we all know, anyway, that needs to start when in order to not look like a GOP coup for happening so damnably fast in advance of the 2018 midterm?

    As I recall, though, we're still on a reasonable Watergate schedule to see Trump forced out of office by the threat of impeachment sometime around August, 2018; maybe Republicans will try to tiptoe that razor's edge.

    And I would further suggest that if Republicans intend to hold out until they have no other choice, well, if the evidence piling up isn't enough to drive House Republicans to draft or support Articles, would they be any more willing to set a precedent for removing a president under Amendment XXV according to assertions of psychiatric noncompetency?

    What would Donald Trump have to actually do in order to prove the point sufficiently that his core support wouldn't call for arms asserting their president was taken down by a coup? Driving him from office under threat of being impeached and seeing his family thrown in prison for their participation in crimes, and following his refusal to resign with a painstaking impeachment trial spilling such myriad damning details as to virtually oblige prosecutors to haul his children away in handcuffs and compelling Congress, in its official capacity, to at least utter that most unholy word, is about the only course.

    Cold, mechanical logic further suggest anyone in the GOP's position would rather have this settled before midterm voting begins.

    What an American adventure. That must be #WhatTheyVotedFor.
    ____________________

    Nots:

    Reich, Robert. "Hill Republicans: Trump is Fritzing Out". 31 July 2017. RobertReich.org. 1 August 2017. http://bit.ly/2ugPKGN
     
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  3. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    Just pray that we elect someone that isn't crazy next time around. I don't support Trump's idiocies, nor did I vote for him, but Hillary was the more terrifying monster. Perhaps we're better off in our current interregnum after all?
     
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  5. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    The idea that Clinton was a "terrifying monster" (or a criminal, or a c*nt, or a bitch, etc etc) was brought to you by some expert spin doctors, who knew that in today's reality-TV world, volume and outrage were more important than any kind of facts. Sad to see how many people fell for it.
     
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  7. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    Those such as yourself, who seem to have fallen for the same trick, but in the other glove? Have it your way.
     
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  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    You'd have to have had your head up Limbaugh's ass for thirty years to believe that.

    OK, twenty.
    That spin launched in 1992, on talk radio - it predates reality TV. It predates Fox itself, as we know it.

    And that is critical - it tells you what would have to happen for a Republican white man to re-acquire a basis in reality for their political views. They would have to consciously recognize who and what is monstrous in American politics, and has been for thirty years and more.

    They aren't going to do that.
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2017
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  9. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    No wonder I have you on "ignore". You can't read, don't listen, and have nothing constructive to say. Yet you continue.

    I can't stand Lush Rimjob. I am not, nor have I ever been a Republican or a fool, as if that's any of your damned business.
     
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  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    You posted from the perspective of Limbaugh's ass. I didn't ask whether you liked the guy.

    And the large population of people who are of course not Republicans (we're Independents!) while pushing reams of Republican agitprop and Republican Party media wing swill is a completely familiar crowd, has been since W's Folly if not decades earlier.

    The arglebarge notion that Hillary Clinton

    - a policy wonk middle-road rightwing authoritarian with impeccable Eisenhower Party credentials and a long history of concordant political endeavor (the Democratic Party left Reagan, and under his influence the Republican Party left Clinton) -

    is some kind of monster, was successfully launched into Wingnut Creek by Rush Limbaugh in 1992 - its resplendent new fittings and modern accoutrements (emails! crazy on Youtube! Benghazi!) notwithstanding, it's the same little barge with the same sewage in it. Still no paddles.

    When you've allowed yourself to be made a fool of, the way - the path - to not being a fool any more starts with acknowledgement and remorse. The evidence of having taken that path is correction.
     
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Dude, you're the one who changed the subject to Hillary Clinton.

    Effin' guffaw to you and your self-righteous excrement. You so badly want to pretend↗ you don't support Donald Trump, but you're no better at that lip service than any of the other worse than useless halfwit Trumplickers out there trying to tongue the same filthy groove.
     
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Hmm. I don't think Trump is a terrifying monster, or a c*nt, or a bitch. He is merely incompetent. (Whether or not he is a criminal has yet to be determined, since he is currently under investigation by the FBI for potential collusion in an attack against the US.)

    Why do you assume everyone is like yourself? That's generally not a good approach if you are interested in the truth.
     
  13. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Imagine if we elected a pig boar as president, all it does is squeal loudly, shit on everything and hump random people, nothing productive would happen, the white house would be a literal pigsty, and we would all feel cringy shame that we live in the same universe that such a thing could happen... never mind we don't need to imagine.
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I do. I would much prefer an actual pig to this man in the white house. We could make all our decisions by whether it goes for the left or right turnip. At least it would make the correct decision about 50% of the time. This pig of a bitch cunt thinks discrimination against white people is an important problem.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    #twobitwannabes | #WhatTheyVotedFor

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    What makes President Trump terrifying to some people is such incompetence in such a station of power. Still, though, part of the problem is that—okay, you want a Clinton line, try this on—in a similar way that certain of Bill Clinton's infamous behavior describes the predatory edge of what society found in some ways acceptable enough to not actually call it sex predation and sex crime, so has Donald Trump operated at the edge of what society found in many ways acceptable enough to not actually come out and call fraud or racketeering, and some days his business behavior was considered praiseworthy in the business community—and to that I'm not saying he was behaving differently, it's just that other factors affect the way Americans perceive and describe such behavior in the business community, and now that the Way of the Trump is trying to play White House, the disaster that it actually is seems kind of shocking. It's hard to imagine how Trump avoided prison with people like Kasowitz on his team.

    But I'm old enough to remember the Milken-Slackmeyer excuse° that since there was no specific law enumerating that specific behavior explicitly illegal, they had no way of knowing the fraud they were committing in order to evade the law was actually against the law. Donald Trump's business ethics come from a period we might describe as one of the nation's more naked grotesqueries. In truth, I find it strange how astonished we've been expected to be at Donald Trump's breathtaking business corruption.

    Okay, it's true, some of it I wouldn't have imagined because I'm apparently not creative enough: Trump Tower Baku, for instance, and the bit with Bruno Mars' house—part of the same scandal, I think—or the magnitude of the Bayrock debacle. I mean, accounting tricks and tax dodges, maybe some strongarming a local court over this or that rule or regulation, and maybe some two-bit bribery. But international money-laundering schemes? I admit, I would not have imagined Mr. Trump so stupid. Meanwhile, do you remember the mysterious server at Alfa Bank? Just a random, flitting whiff of a story that blew by last year? Have you seen the bit about President Trump's pick to run the Criminal Division at DoJ↱?

    Seriously, part of the problem wrapping my head around it all is that while I never liked Donald Trump, and generally thought him corrupt, I actually managed to underestimate his capacity for the sort of sinister stupidity we once upon a time ridiculed as not something people really did.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    ° Miliken-Slackmeyer excuse — It might take a while to find the particular strip, but in an episode of Doonesbury, the elder Slackmeyer tried explaining to his hippie son that it was wrong to prosecute crimes the business class, including Slackmeyer père, had committed because, in a clear allusion to Michael Milken, the line goes something like, "Hell! We had no way of knowing what we were doing was illegal!" That is to say, they had no way of knowing that their complicated schemes to defraud investors and evade taxes would be illegal.​

    Savage, Charlie. "Justice Dept. Nominee Says He Worked on Russian Bank's Trump-Related Inquiry". The New York Times. 26 July 2017. NYTimes.com. 1 August 2017. http://nyti.ms/2vm2D6P
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, agreed. However, as always, Hanlon's Razor applies - his stupidity far exceeds his malice, and his evil is limited to run-of-the-mill (and largely inept) fraud, collusion, nepotism and deceit. Were he still a reality TV star he would merely be amusing in a glad-I'm-not-that-guy sense.

    The risk he poses, as you mention, is that he's incompetent while in command of the world's largest military. Even now military experts are debating whether a tweet or an offhand comment is a joke, or a military order, or just more of Trump's usual nonsense. The thought that we could be at war due to an angry tweet brought about by a bit of Fox and Friends propaganda is scary, but not because Trump is an evil actor driving us to war - just because he's inept. I feel the same way watching our 3 year old carrying a glass pitcher of water.
     
  17. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    What is even more terrifying is that the USA has a democratic system that allows someone as inept as Trump to hold a position that requires, nah...demands a certain skill set.
    The fact that a man with such poor level of competency and fitness for the job even managed to gain nomination is bewildering and really scary.
    I think the world has been very lucky this time round but the next time may be something else again...
    "Certainly, as a role model for those with more nefarious desires and wishes Trumps ascendancy to the presidency is like a gold nugget found in a septic tank"
     
  18. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

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    yeah, but it wouldn't be kosher...

    perhaps to the fanatical political advocate this looks like a change of subject ... i saw it as a position of poor choices and the proverbial rock versus the hard place
    but then again, i'm not biased with a political and or other agenda
    projection
    i can guarantee he doesn't support trump, and that he never has supported him, in private or public

    but never mind those pesky things like facts when you're a believer in something specific, eh?

    did ya have anyone in mind?

    i would like to see Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson, myself... maybe that would put a shot of juice back into NASA and advocacy for science and facts?

    EDIT: for the record, i voted for Bill the Cat

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  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    There is an innocence in his bullying, in his betrayals, in his petty need for dominance - but petty does not mean stupid, exactly. It remains to be seen how inept he will prove to be at getting what he wants.

    We've seen quite a bit of underestimation of Trump based on his failure to achieve what other people assigned to him for goals, on the basis of such basically irrelevant considerations as what he said he wanted or what he claimed to be trying to bring about or what custom and tradition assumes are the tasks and goals of a candidacy first, and now a Presidency.

    Look at it this way - so far he's got everything he actually seems to have wanted.

    Can you name a single woman with a better chance of becoming US President some day than Ivanka Trump?
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2017
  20. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Does he? I don't believe he thinks in matters of problems, my theory on trump's psyche is that is in order of priorities there is trump, then there is trump's fingernails, there is trump's bowl movements, and then there is the rest of the universe.

    "Mr president we should ban the trans from there military" -> " Yes we should I'm glad I thought of it, I have tweeted it, I am so great!"
    "Daddy daddy in Syria they gassed some babies!" -> "Get on daddy's lap, yeaaah, good girl, daddy is going to bomb syria now, generals bomb syria, do it, because I am great! "
    "We should not repeal obamacare" -> "No no I'm going to make it better, I am so great!"
    " We should repeal and replace" -> "Dam straight, repeal and replace, that is what we will do, it will be great, I am great!"
    "We should just repeal and wait for a replacement" -> "Yep that what I said, I said to do that, end of story, I am so great"
    "We need to just move on to tax reform" -> "That going to be great, everything I do is great, I am so so so geetf"

    In short if you tell him "do this because your great" he will do it, does not matter what it is.
     
  21. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Unfit for president

    with his retort on Fox...
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2017
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Well, keep in mind that from a purely democratic point of view, Clinton won by millions of votes. Our unusual electoral voting system gave the victory to Trump.
     
  23. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    true, however the point is the system that allowed him to even compete in the first place...
    It's like nominating/employing a person who is effectively illiterate to be a librarian....
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2017

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