That’s not correct. I have seen Republicans here say they will indeed vote for Hillary.
This is happening. Trump has brought them legitimacy, attention, new blood. It will take years to unwind the damage Trump has already done to the country, even if he loses in November.
In the immediate aftermath of Nov 8, it depends whether ‘narrow’ means narrow but clear (say Bush 2004) or so narrow it’s contestable (Bush 2000, contestable to the present perhaps, but a waste of time IMO at this point). I assume the former.
And I assume the GOP holds onto at least 50 Senate seats (with Pence as tiebreaker) which is more likely than not if Trump can win, and he would be virtually certain to have a GOP House if he wins. He could go two basic ways I think, to start.
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Trump, who is not really a Republican, could try to govern via the Republicans. That would mean concentrating initially on issues where he agrees with them, like tax reform, and de-emphasizing non-defense spending increases he’s mentioned (new childcare entitlement, infrastructure, etc). He also wouldn’t on that path put the GOP under pressure trying to push through ludicrous stuff like ‘wall and Mexico pays’ or ‘deportation force’ or causing immediate trade wars. He and the GOP could even take that, a GOP oriented admin, up a notch by threatening or actually doing the ‘nuclear option’ on the Merritt Garland replacement to get somebody Republicans really like rather than settling for what can break a Democratic filibuster (if anyone could, it’s possible IMO Supreme Court seats just stop getting filled under either party until one has 60 Senate votes again, if neither goes nuclear on SC nominations).
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Trump, who is not really a Republican, could govern more like the way he’s often talked, an independent populist/nationalist who happens to have taken over the GOP. That could result in chaos, but it could also be done more shrewdly to exploit cases where the Democrats agree more with Trump than the Republicans do (eg. protectionism and expanded spending on entitlements and infrastructure), in more bipartisan wheeling/dealing. The Democrats would have to decide whether they want to get anything done in that case or just cry ‘racist’ continuously, and wait for the next election. Maybe they’d chose the latter, and again it could just be chaos, or gridlock like now, or that would drive Trump back to option 1.
Either way IMO it’s likely Trump flip-flops on the stuff he’s said which lacks broad support among elected (actual) Republicans like ‘wall Mexico pays’ and ‘deportation force’, and any support among Democrats. It should be clear enough now Trump has no real attachment personally to stuff like that. The guy was a liberal Democrat until not that long ago. He has no ideology. I’d rate as extremely low likelihood Trump starts out immediately trying to undermine democracy because he truly believes in the stuff he’s said that neither party would be likely to go along with.
Note, this doesn’t mean he’s fit for office. Once you throw in all the variables and complications of world and national events for 4 yrs then there’s too much chance he handles something (particularly intl) dangerously wrongly IMO, because he knows almost nothing of the world and isn’t a stable personality. But here we’re speaking of how he starts out.
Perhaps someone will let the genie of “politics by assassination” out of the bottle. :eek:
Please. Trump can get away with recommending “2nd Amendment Remedies.” We common peasants can’t…
[QUOTE=GulfTiger]
I wouldn’t get so gloom and doom.
We’ve managed to survive Obama and his BS. I’m sure we can survive Trump.
[/QUOTE]
“We” meaning the alt-right…
Where do you people get this crap?
If Trump wins, I’d place the blame squarely on liberals, who should be smart enough to institute positive change in society without the broad-brush vilification of half the populace and anyone with traditional values.
I hope he loses, even if he might appoint SCOTUS judges who don’t hate America!
Is correct-I used the word “most”, not “all”.
Trump voters make up the entirety of our populace? I guess it doesn’t matter how many times you get told that she only referred to half of Trump’s supporters, not half of the populace itself, does it? Where do you get your crap?
Corry El, good analysis. I think you are slightly too sanguine, but you make very solid points and back them up effectively.
Hillary would be known as “She couldn’t even beat Trump.”
Bernie supporters: “Bernie would have won.”
That’s a joke, right?
Suppose it were the latter?
I never thought a coup d’etat could be possible in the US, at least not in my lifetime or whatever. But while I still think it’s unlikely, I think it becomes a nonzero possibility if Trump is elected–especially if it’s very narrow/contested.
It might somehow happen before Inauguration Day and involve putting a sane/competent Republican in the office to avoid the accusation that it’s about making the Democrats a one party system or whatever. Or maybe it would happen after Trump takes office and does something crazy. There is of course the option of impeachment, but what if there were felt to be no time for that process to play out?
An impeachment motion comes less than a month after a Trump victory, and after the Senate has refused to affirm a blatant crony of his to the Supreme Court- one who would have almost certainly exonerated him. The 'Pubs scream that the case was without merit and that the Dems stacked the deck against him. Donald & Co. refuse to accept the verdict and dare anyone to do anything about it. Hilarity ensues.
Legal question: Can a president-elect be impeached and disqualified from office *prior *to taking office? Suppose a president-elect murders someone after Election Day, or something of that sort.
If Trump wins, it will be interesting to see if the Democratic and Republican parties make any attempt to reform themselves to become more “Trump-ish.” They may draw the unwarranted conclusion that Trumpism is a thing in America and that in order to win, you have to be Trumpish.
How about if he steps up to the Chief Justice, reaches his hand out to place on the Bible and it bursts into flames? And every Republican there does the gurgling face melt?
Then the Democrats will have enough of a majority to impeach him. Problem solved.
I think all policy will be divided into two classes. Those things Trump cares about, and those things he doesn’t.
The things he will be interested in are those things that either a) directly affect him and his businesses b) are splashy and exciting enough that they trend on social media, and so dealing with them can be used to feed his ego, immigration and building the Mexico wall fall into this category c) Involve negotiation or re-negotiation of agreements and treaties, because I suspect he actually believes his propaganda that he is a whiz at negotiations, and if we could just let him loose and give him a military to use as leverage, he will be put America on top and take the rest of the world to the cleaners. Everything else including the majority of the day to day stuff involved in being president and keeping the government running falling into the category of things he doesn’t care about.
For those things, he will let Congress, and his subordinates do what it wants without making use of the Bully Pulpit, and sign or veto the legislation based on whatever the majority of the Republicans want. for these things it isn’t worth the effort to come up with his own policy. If things go sour he will find someone to blame in his administration and fire that person. I expect at least 50% turnover in the cabinet and upper executive staff by the end of the term.
For the things he cares about he will attempt to rule through fiat, declaring what needs to be done and expecting everyone else to fall in line. If they don’t he will call them bad names, and do whatever he can to damage them, and in the meantime carry on ignoring congress and issuing executive orders to get what he wants done until the supreme court gets together and tells him to knock it off.
Sounds about right.