Inspired by this thread, obviously.
Perhaps I’m coloured by the bias of the SDMB, but looking back, it’s been the Democrats, not the Republicans, who have been sore losers in Presidential elections. The most obvious example being Gore vs Bush and Florida. So imagine that Trump narrowly wins. What then? Apart from complete apoplexy on the SDMB, that is.
I think, in such a case, a few recounts would be demanded. If his victory withstands that scrutiny, well, I suppose everyone will have to hold their breath and see.
What choice does the left have but to suck it up?
Impossible to say for sure.
The Bush-Gore thing involved a legal wrangle and electoral strangeness. If it had merely been just a close election, then nothing really would have happened; Bush’s administration was quite dull until 9/11, and then performed competently until they went bananas and invaded Iraq.
So really it would be about how Trump performed as President. It’s 99.99% likely he’ll be absolutely terrible at it, but precisely how that will play out remains to be seen. It is quite plausible he could be completely stonewalled by Congress and quit six months in.
Do you think the only aftermath of a Trump victory will be bad feelings from the Democrats? Do try to recall why a lot of Republicans opposed his nomination-do you think it was they were all secretly Democrats?
I will fall back on my earlier position that at least it’s not Cruz or Walker, and take solace in the fact Trump doesn’t care about anything.
What will bother me quite a bit is that 50% of our fellow citizens have simply stopped caring about the future of our nation and are wiling to risk it all because someone has told them to be “angry” at “something.”
Not much solace. He may have short fingers, but as Grover Norquist would point out, they’re long enough to sign whatever legislation a Republican Congress sends his way, and what further qualifications (from Norquist’s POV) does a Republican President need?
Trump is going to be an erratic president, who will have bad advisers and a divided party and congress. The likely outcome of a Trump presidency is chaos. We will be so busy fighting among ourselves that we will likely lose global power status, and I suspect that would happen fairly quickly. Granted, even a stable president like Barack Obama is finding it hard to project American influence, but under a President Trump, the post-WWII global alliances – critical to America’s global political and economic influence – probably collapses outright. China pushes the United States out of Asia. Russia pushes the United States out of Eastern and perhaps out of Western Europe. We’re back to where we were pre-1940. Our rapidly deteriorating clout could mean weakening influence in the Middle East.
I don’t picture Trump signing whatever Congress sends his way.
Now now, to be fair, they are "angry’ at several things,
AND
They are “afraid” of a bunch of different things.
So they have all that going for them.
Because Personnel is Policy, I have to say that that is wishful thinking.
I don’t quite understand your reply, but what I meant was that I think Trump would continue to march to his own drummer and not feel beholden to the Republicans. IOW, he would continue to be a loose cannon and do what he damn well pleases. Like he does now.
The man thrives on personal profit and seeing his name in the press, so I suspect that he will do what he can to further those two goals…to the detriment of this country of both fronts.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see some bipartisan challenges of a narrow Trump victory. Of course for both sides it depends on something of substance being in dispute for an concentrated effort to reverse the election. However, if some challenges of the counts or legitimacy of the counting were viable then there could be Republicans who would rather continue obstruction against Hillary than have Trump in the White House. They don’t trust him to be a true Republican president, and some of them might do it out of spite. Still, without some outright fraud or standard correctable error we’re not going to see any challenges succeed.
Right, and he doesn’t care about repealing the ACA, lowering taxes, or–frankly–making America great again.
How many times in a row do you have to be burned before you give up on that pipe dream of “responsible Republicans” breaking ranks to do the right thing? Even on this board, the best you can get out of most of the Republicans that say they won’t vote for Trump is the statement that they won’t vote for Clinton, either. I guess that, like “good” cops, they figure that if they don’t do the dirty deed themselves their hands are clean if something bad happens.
I’d wouldn’t be surprised if some Republicans “just asked questions”. I don’t expect them to do that out of responsibility though. Just abstaining would be milestone. Would I put money on it? Not very much.
What it pleases him is to care for himself, he will only worry to keep his business running with as much help that can be legally done.
It is however on the policy and government front that Trump will not bother much and will let his VP and others* continue to dismantle abortion rights, health care plans, environmental regulations, and getting a hold of the biggest bully pulpit will allow him to undermine the CDC efforts regarding vaccines.
I think this is wishful thinking. Even if they don’t entirely trust Trump – which I’m sure they don’t, as you say – they still probably have some hope that they can work with people like Mike Pence and his surrogates like Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie, Rick Scott, and others who still have at least some shred of cred within the GOP ranks. They also know that Trump’s survival depends on them so they’re hoping to use whatever leverage they have to their advantage. They’ll support a Trump presidency for what they hope they can get out of it, knowing they’ll get much less with president Clinton.
Trump represents the potential death of the GOP even more as a president than a defeated candidate, but I don’t expect the republicans to see that yet.
I think Trump will find out rather quickly that he had better pick sides, either the republican side or the democratic side, because nobody gives a flying fuck about his businesses or his title. If the republicans can’t rely on him, if he burns them, they may not impeach him, but they might start sending winks and nods to democrats to do the dirty deeds themselves and they won’t lift a finger to stop it. The way they figure it, they’d much rather work with Pence anyway. That’s why I think that when it gets down to it, Trump is beholden to at least some among the GOP. The question is, what exactly is the GOP after the election? The party is divided into two camps that seem to have an increasing loathing of one another almost as much as they loathe non-republicans. It’s like the American Shiites and Sunnis. Trump would bring that civil war out into the open if he becomes the president. Of course the damage that could be done in the interim before Americans themselves finally correct the situation at the polls could be enormous to say the least.
On that I agree, I do think that as California goes, the USA will.
It has to be remembered that Pete Wilson **won **the governorship with a hate agenda. A few cycles later almost the whole state and the legislature have big Democratic majorities.
Of course, it should be better if we do not have to risk a Trump presidency.