Bill Cosby gets a full Presidential pardon.
Are the Feds going after Bill?
Best-case scenario: The 48 Democratic senators are joined by a few sensible Republicans and succeed in blocking some of his wackier appointments, particularly to State and Defense. We manage not to get into any military disasters because everyone thinks he’s crazy and doesn’t want to test him, and / or because he realizes he doesn’t actually know anything about geopolitical affairs and the people in a position to give him advice are sane. Trump’s desire to be universally liked causes him to back off on most of his campaign promises and rhetoric, and instead govern like a centrist Republican with a populist streak. Obamacare gets a few much-needed tweaks and gets rebranded as “Trumpcare.” An infrastructure spending bill passes with bipartisan support, and Trump gets lots of roads and bridges named after him. The downside of this scenario is that he probably wins a second term in 2020 in a landslide. The upside is that being a centrist Republican comes back into fashion.
Worst-case scenario: There is a major terrorist attack on US soil, and Trump retaliates rashly and disproportionately, triggering World War III. Nobody becomes president in 2020.
What probably actually happens: Trump gets bored and frustrated as soon as he realizes being the president is different from being God, does very little actual governing, leaving the country in the hands of his VP and the handful of people in his cabinet who have some idea what they are doing. The resulting tug-of-war between theocrats like Mike Pence and purely ego-driven politicians like Giuliani and Christie ensures that they accomplish very little either. Economic and environmental problems pile up; Trump’s base gets disillusioned and wanders off. A Democrat becomes president in 2020.
Likely scenario: Mike Pence is the actual president, Trump is just the face. We probably get some sort of wall on the southern border, a lot of the key parts of Obamacare get gutted and it gets left to die, a lot financial and environmental regulations are gone.
Best care scenario: Trump goes back to being the New York Liberal he’s been most of his life. The wall is tied to immigration reform including amnesty. Obamacare is patched so it limps along a while longer because the GOP does not want to face the backlash of tens of millions of people losing their insurance. Almost everything he promised during the campaign was pure bullshit to rile up the rubes.
Worst case scenario: Trump actually meant everything he said, he uses the power of the presidency to go after his enemy list, the GOP is too scared of him because he did prove he can shoot a guy in the middle of 5th avenue and not lose a vote so they let him run rampant.
Donald and Melania move out of the White House after a brief stay. They can’t deal with the cramped quarters and antiques they don’t own … and Melania’s limited closet space.
Meanwhile, Pence runs the country, on his quest to overturn rights of minorities, women and gays.
Liberals donate millions to the ongoing medical care of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Pence runs the country, Donald runs around giving speeches.
I’m not sure what happens when all the white working class realize they’ve been conned. Will Donald actually try to support their views when they turn on him or will he just blow them off. I’m not sure.
I predict a lot of scandals. A whole bunch.
I don’t have any particular predictions - my last one being, " I’m fully expecting to hear that Clinton has been pronounced the winner on the radio …" - however, I’ve already claimed the following on my Twitter feed (with a hashtag and everything), so if this takes off, I want credit:
Trump: The Peter Principle President.
Motto changed from E Pluribus Unum to You’re Fired!
Environmental regulations gutted.
Enhanced global warming.
(Maybe): 1960s civil rights laws repealed. Trump and father were victims of these laws.
No–or almost no–women in high positions.
Christie will be eased out, but Gingrich and Giuliani given high posts.
This will basically be a right wing Republican administration devoted to the rich getting richer–and tough luck to everyone else. So we will see tax cuts for the rich, gutting the safety net, gutting safety, environmental, consumer protection regulations. I see expanded immigration enforcement including more building of a wall–but no huge mass expulsion of illegals. I don’t see foreign policy extremism–this interferes with the rich getting richer. Obamacare (except for a few popular parts) will go away; it will up to the states to deal with the resulting problems–some will, some won’t.
Republicans will support and normalize him, brush his wrongs under the carpet, and eat up his jingoism. He will be re-elected in 2020.
He’ll manage like a figurehead CEO. The board(cabinet) will run everything. I mean every single decision will be made by a team.
Instead of a rubber-stamp congress like North Korea has, he’ll serve as a rubber stamp President.
Pathetic.
The United States will not devolve into a totalitarian dictatorship. Probably agree with PastTense about immigration and rich getting richer goal. I will not be happy with his supreme court pick. There will be a significant amount of rubber-stamping Republican congress efforts that are socially conservative, but don’t interfere with businesses. No investigation in to the timing of Comey’s letter or the possible leaks that got to Giuliani will happen.
Many a bold statement will be made. Very little will get done. Business as usual.
He will sign the repeal of Dodd-Frank, allowing Wall Street off its leash to fuck us all again.
ACA will be altered, but probably not to anybody’s benefit other than the insurance companies.
Trump will call Trump Tower the White House North and charge the taxpayer for its upkeep, spending most of his time there. Upkeep will include leasing large numbers of apartments to the government for his staff and security people to live in. Profit!
There will be a concerted attack on Roe v. Wade, which I believe will fail in the Supreme Court if it gets that far.
After seeing the list of candidates for the cabinet (Joe Arpaio as head of Homeland Security? Really?), I can see the senate balking at some of their confirmations.
He’ll sign off on whatever tax cuts the Pubs send to him, thereby sending the nation into another $6 trillion of debt without creating any significant jobs. The rich will get richer.
He will hamstring the EPA and other watchdogs, allowing corporations to once again reap enormous profits while endangering us all.
This all assumes that he can maintain his interest in governance past the first 90 days.
Funding for Teh Wall will be bogged down in Congress. Meanwhile, millions of Americans will have escaped to Mexico.
Trump will attempt to use an executive order to do something unconstitutional, and then when the supreme court tells him he can’t do that, he’ll stamp his little feet for a while and then sulk. Repeat at least twice a year until the end of his term.
America becomes Great Again!!
There aren’t enough :rolleyes:s in the world for this.
He will find a way to personally profit from every decision taken. His kids will be de facto doing his bidding, I believe, out on the very ragged fringes of legal. The land he’s in his element in!
He’ll turn on a few people harshly, fire several, outright ruin others, probably try to control the press too. But somewhere he’ll piss off someone with actual, hard core, undeniable evidence of him doing something illegal or affecting the election outcome. True chaos will descend when that evidence drops!
I can’t help but wonder how these people will fare in Washington. From a huge gold penthouse atop New York, where they are accepted and feted. To a much humbler place in a less than welcoming city. The young son had an entire floor of trump tower as his personal living room! How unimpressed will he be with the White House, you have to wonder.