“I believe that there are people in the White House who couldn’t care less about what happens in November,” Tillis told Politico. “And that goes to show you how stupid they are, because if they don’t get Republicans reelected, they’re going to create the most miserable two years of this president’s life.”
But, would it be “the most miserable two years of (his) life”?
Trump as president with a Republican Congress is actually expected to do things. Things that clearly are not getting done, and things that are getting done very poorly. And Trump hates that. He hates doing things, and being judged on the outcome. He’s still blaming Biden for every problem that rears its head.
But losing Congress gives him the perfect out. "That failed because the Dumocrat “Con"gress refused to pass my bill/budget.” “That failed because the Dumocrats are wating time investigating me!” "That failed because loser Dumocrats voted for a loser “con"gress!”
He gets to live his life passing executive orders, and no one actually expects him to succeed at anything, so he can just go golfing in between flying to Russia and China to hobnob with dictators, and just blame Congress for everything falling apart.
No. Whatever the outcome, winning is better than losing, and Trump knows that. Now, does he have ways to hedge a loss? Obviously, because he loses more than he wins, and he’s still a free man who holds high office. The man is well practiced in losing (or a better term might be “alternative winning”). The question is, has he already pivoted to hedging?
I don’t think his mind works like that. There’ll just be gradually more hedging behaviors until the actual defeat comes, and when it does, he and his advisers will posture as if that’s what he intended all along, or at least pretend it never mattered. And he’ll find ways to make it seemed like this was always the plan.
Trump is highly practiced in turning a reversal of fortune in what seemingly appears to be an advantage. It’s worked so much that people pre-emptively do it for him (this is what you’re doing right now). It’s good to game these things out, but don’t confuse reactive habit with proactive strategy.
Trump is lazy. He doesn’t want to do things. He wants to tell other people to do things. He wants to be surrounded by people who will do whatever he tells them without argument.
Trump likes the current Congress with a Republican majority that lets him do whatever he wants without argument. Trump would not like a Congress where the Democrats could tell him no.
But helping the Republicans in Congress get re-elected would require effort on Trump’s part. And, as noted above, Trump is lazy.
And worse yet, a Democratic Congress might not just refuse to support Trump. They might actually oppose Trump. Trump would have to appear before investigators, would have to have his financial records reviewed, would have to answer to criminal charges, and would have to defend himself against impeachment efforts. All of these would require work.
I feel “the most miserable two years of this president’s life” is accurate.
Except they’ve perfected the “But what if I don’t?” methodology. If a Democratic Congress summoned Trump to testify, do you really think he’d show up? Do you really think his compliant SCOTUS would rule that he must show up?
It’s the same problem we’ve seen all along: This administration doesn’t want to cooperate with the Democrats in Congress, so they either refuse to show up, or show up and refuse to answer any questions, and actually attack the people asking the questions. And the courts are just letting them do that.
Trump has only got away with breaking the law because he’s had a Congress that’s refused to enforce the law.
Even if the Democrats had no moral interest in investigating Trump, they will have a strong partisan political reason for doing so.
The Republicans have been in control of Congress. Blaming the Democrats for what Congress has been doing is silly. You might as well blame the Libertarians for not doing anything to stop Trump.
A few presidents have voluntarily appeared to testify before Congress, but it’s very rare. No sitting president has ever been subpoenaed or forced to testify. Clinton’s forced appearance to talk about Epstein seems to be the first of a former president doing so. The Republicans might be hypocritically critical of a Congress doing that to former president Trump. That will be fun faux outrage.
Nevertheless, a Democratic Congress is extremely unlikely to call upon a Trump still in office. All those who were close to him will be righteously and rightfully hounded in a left-wing revenge tour, but not Trump.
And as I constantly maintain, a former president Trump won’t be forced to testify because his health means he will be dead or incapacitated before the end of his term.
Clinton submitted written answers to Congress, the House Judiciary Committee I’m pretty sure it was, while he was President. Of course, I’m not sure Trump to write coherent answers.
I think you’re giving him and his administration WAY more credit for thinking ahead than they likely do.
And I think @HMS_Irruncible is right- his career is marked by failure and unintended consequences and then spinning those into some sort of “win”, at least in the eyes of his base
My suspicion is that the war was some sort of distraction or something he intended to make himself look good by being tough on Iran, but he didn’t expect the economic consequences. Or maybe he did, and now he’s going to try to “fix it” and look like the good guy (even though he started the damn thing).
His base are just stupid enough to believe that Iran forced his hand into warfare, and that the economic consequences are their fault, and Trump’s just fixing it all. It’s moronic, but that’s probably how they’ll try to spin it.
So the questions as I see them are 1. How many people will believe that line of BS? 2. Is he going to be able to do much about it by November?
Congress has no way of enforcing the law (except for impeachment) and depends on the Justice Dept to do so. But they are completely under Trump’s control. I wonder whether McTurtle now wishes had worked to convict Trump in the second impeachment.
It would be a mistake to think that Trump’s base are easy to fool. It’s true that they’re not very bright, but they’re not engaged in a search for truth. They’re engaged in a war for narrative supremacy, and they know it. They crave lies so that they may spread them. They love to be told that, actually, Iran has been in a war with the US for 50 years, and only Trump was brave enough to intervene.
And honestly, in this way, Trumpers are somewhat more savvy than liberals doddering about with their facts and evidence and whatnot under the misguided assumption that if we just get the truth out there, people will certainly see reason. All I can guess is these people were literally born yesterday and slept through the past 200 years of American history. The majority of Americans have never been interested in the truth.
If you’re curious what’s going on, Trump is a very stupid man who thought he’d bomb Iran and they’d roll over and he’d get a boost out of it, but smart enough to calculate that it’s worth a shot since he’s never faced anything like a real consequence. Smart enough to realize that the longer he bombs and pretends to negotiate, the longer people forget that there used to be a different, better status quo. Smart enough to realize MAGA will eat higher gasoline prices if he tells them to, at least for a while, and when that stops working, he can blame Joe Biden.
Calling this a calculation is probably overstating it. It’s more of a habit whose only reinforcement is being elected President twice, which is pretty strong reinforcement. I’m not saying this calculation will work forever, because it can’t. Someday Trump will face a consequence he can’t unwind. This is directionally correct, but after the past 10 years, only a sucker would think they can also call the timing and magnitude on such a movement.
Trump is outright pathological about “winning” and being a “winner”. I don’t think he’d even consider wanting to lose something; it’s not how he’s wired.
There might very well be the unnamed not-Trump “people in the White House who couldn’t care less about what happens in November”, however.
Not for one second do I believe Trump wants the Republicans to lose the mid-term elections. A big loss for the Republicans reflects negatively on MAGA, and more importantly, on Trump himself. It represents a wider refutation of MAGA ideology. I imagine the fear of impeachment rests somewhere in that tiny lizard brain of his. And let’s not forget that losing the mid-terms makes it more difficult for Trump to do whatever it is he wants to do. He’s able to get away with so much because he controls three branches of government. Losing control of one of them will make his life more difficult.
It would be a big blow to Trump’s ego to lose. That said, he seems to expect everyone to bow down and kiss his ass, especially his cult even though he doesn’t care much about them.
The big question is what kind of “tricks” might they pull to steal the election?
An obvious one is to declare any losing election the result of fraud and demand a recount, which will of course be controlled by them and “discover” the Republican “won”.
Trump would absolutely love it if a Democratic Congress subpoenaed him. He would tell them to go to hell and his popularity would soar at least 10 points.