Can’t think of oodles of downside with the vaguely Will Arnett-y Gavin Newsome*, but I still think the “Do you believe in love at first sight? Guy” should be the next US president.
*Quite satisfyingly quick name for this hunt-and-pecker to type out.
Again I should point out that notwithstanding the frequency with which a “25th Amendment Solution” gets mentioned, the final version of that ending requires 2/3rds of both the House and Senate to concur, assuming Trump contested the simple rebellion of Pence plus half the Cabinet.
Ask yourself how realistic that is. Realistic, as in “real life probability of actual happening.”
The probability depends entirely on what the FBI turns up, or already has turned up. You seem to be banking a lot on the premise that Trump hasn’t spent the past five decades doing all manner of shady shit. And, judging from how incompetently these guys are handling everything, the odds that all of this is sufficiently covered up is pretty low.
You seem to be banking on the premise that someone who, for instance, brags about “grabbing pussy” couldn’t possibly be elected president.
Admittedly, I underestimated how terrible our electorate is. But, I think the odds that Mr. Trump engaged in money laundering and/or collusion with the Russians and/or a bunch of other shit is pretty high. And I think that the odds that the FBI finds evidence of it is also pretty high. Not 100%. But high.
Not to sound like a broken record, but so what? What will happen then?
The only way Trump will leave office before his term is up (besides in a mahogany, gold-trimmed, satin-lined box) is voluntarily. And the only way that will happen is if he can do it while looking like a winner. The “looking like” part is the most important. Truth, reality, facts–those have NO meaning to him. Everything is “how it looks.” I think if he could find a way today to leave office, look like the World’s Greatest Winner of Everything, plus make everyone who opposed him (especially if they’re poorer) look like the World’s Biggest Losers, he would be out of there in a New York minute.
Maybe getting the Nobel committee to award him a prize (any prize) would do it.
I disagree. No one wants to be the first rat off a sinking ship, but if there is concrete evidence offered by the FBI of serious wrong doing and the approval numbers stay where they are or decline, we will see GOP rodents hitting water.
We know that a lot of these guys were being monitored for a long time, by a lot of different countries. I find the possibility that there is a smoking gun somewhere to be impossible to discount.
Look, Trump very well may be involved in money laundering, etc. The thing is: he simply does not understand it’s wrong, and he is unwilling, nay, incapable of learning that it’s wrong.The other Republican toadies will jump before they eject Trump, regardless of the evidence. ThelmaLou is absolutely correct. Trump will not leave until it becomes painfully obvious, even to him, that the remaining Republicans will join with the Democrats, and thus he can blame Congress, leave office, saying, “I, and only I, am capable of making America great again, but those clowns obstructed me in every instance. I’m leaving it to them now.”
Then the son of a bitch will jet to Moscow.
I don’t think we’re disagreeing. I just think that the odds that the FBI turns something up that makes it “painfully obvious” is not low.
Keep telling yourself that, Secretary Clinton.
Well, as Bill Maher puts it, even Trump has told us the he does not know what he got into on many items, but Hillary did know:
[QUOTE] In the case of Donald Trump I will say this about a hundred days it does give us enough evidence to ask those liberals who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Hillary because she was the lesser of two evils quite a bit lesser, wouldn't you say now?And no, this isn’t about reliving the last election or about “my great love for Hillary” which never was. It’s about winning the next election. And that begins with learning the difference between an imperfect friend and a deadly enemy.
[Applause]
Jill Stein said of her electoral rivals [Heh] “Hillary and Trump to me one is death by gunshot wound and the other is death by strangulation” well I’m sure with Trump in charge and a racist attorney general there’ll be a lot more of both.
My dear friend Cornel West said during the campaign "I think Trump will be a neo-fascist catastrophe and Clinton will be a neoliberal disaster. I don’t even know what a neoliberal disaster even means but whatever it is isn’t it better than a fascist one?
Have you people lost your fucking minds?
[Applause]
Now, I can’t possibly list all of the lies fuck-ups reversals conflicts of interest and embarrassments Trump has committed in a hundred days, I’d have to stop halfway through to shave.
But honestly, under Hillary would we have Attorney General foghorn leghorn?
Or Montgomery burns in charge of the EPA?
Or Rick Perry guarding the nukes?
Would she have a cabinet made up almost entirely of rich straight white men? You know Hillary? She knows quite a few black people, Trump knows 2… I’m sorry, three [Image of Frederick Douglas insert]
When we also might have a Secretary of Education who was smarter than a fifth
grader…
[/QUOTE]
Saying something that is politically stupid didn’t make her wrong. Half of Trump’s voters are deplorable? Yeah, that sounds about right give or take.
Some people think that remark cost her the election. So in a practical sense, she was wrong to have said that.
I don’t disagree. She was wrong to say it. But, the statement itself was correct.
How much more motivated will that investigation be than the opposition research from the Democrats AND the Republicans pre-nomination/election?
Here’s what I perceive: you’re still (consciously or unconsciously) hanging on to a model that rates “shady shit” as things that would normally be politically damaging, like pussy-grabbing, telling a beauty contestant winner she’s fat, or calling a sitting US Senator “Pocahantas.” I have little doubt there’s more material in that vein out there; I question what kinds of effect it would have. Actually, I go further: I argue affirmatively that would have little effect.
Again, I don’t think we’re substantially disagreeing. I just think we have a differing opinion of the odds. I think the odds that the FBI will turn up, or already has turned up, something that the Republicans in Congress can not ignore without committing absolute political suicide is not low. I’d put it around 50/50 right now.
But, are you arguing that even if we have, say, absolute undeniable evidence of Russian collusion with Trump and his administration, that the GOP will be able to weather that storm for Trump?
Oh, that one made me spit Diet Coke all over my keyboard laughing. 
Good one!
No, I agree that with gold-standard proof of active collusion with Trump, he’s a dead man walking, politically. I don’t agree that this is true for “his administration,” though.
And I think the odds are dramatically lower than you do.
Note that the odds on Predict it are slim: If you buy a contract that pays a dollar if Trump is impeached, and nothing if he’s not. . . right now that contract costs sixteen cents. If you think that impeachment is of greater likelihood, make some money!
I’m now very suspicious of these betting sites (since our last discussion on them), because you can get very different odds at other sites. The link here shows 3/1 odds on Trump being impeached in 2017 alone, and 4/6 odds on impeachment in total. Seems like an arbitrage opportunity, or some of these sites are full of crap. I do like wagers, but I’m not brave enough for one of these sites to have my credit card!
You know, that raises an interesting question.
I figure this will come up in the next presidential election: hey, someone will ask, on live national television, remember how Hillary said half of Trump’s supporters were deplorable to the point of being irredeemable? Was she correct?
How should the Democrat answer?