I agree with much of what has already been said, but there are some additional factors that may mitigate the damage he will do when he makes his power grab – and I have no doubt he will make one.
He’s got a lizardy cunning when it comes to avoiding the law in his business, but he was also protected by lawyers who knew how to get things done in the mafioso business culture of New York real estate. He has longstanding relationships with those people and he trusts them. On top of that, he never ran a publicly held corporate empire. His holdings are private, so he could move about and do unethical things with comparative privacy.
He’s not in that world anymore. He’s in a world of which he has no understanding, no instincts, no experience – and perhaps most importantly, no connections.
His political cronies are/were the most batshit of the batshit: Bannon, Miller, Sessions and others at the very fringe. The Batshit Breitbart Brigade. It’s easy to pretend you’ve got big ideas when you’re just a bigot jeering from the sidelines. But their inadequacies quickly became apparent once Trump “won” the election and got down to presidentin’.
Comey’s firing was a perfect example of it. They (all but Bannon) actually believed Dems would cheer and be pleased about that.
The Breitbart crowd miscalculates a lot. They screwed up with the Muslim ban. They screwed up taking on health care with no understanding of its immensity and complexity. They’re going to screw up tax “reform” the same way. In short, they haven’t a clue. These guys know how to game an election, but it’s a bit harder to pull off Dirty Tricks Government. Not that they don’t try, almost constantly.
One of the places where they most severely miscalculated is how important it was to cultivate the favor of McConnell and Ryan. McConnell, reptilian in his own way, sacrificed a very great deal in his efforts to prop up Trump. He has received nothing but shit in return. Plus I’ll bet he gets an earful every night from wife and Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao. McConnell fired a pretty significant shot across Trump’s bow recently when he said he wasn’t sure Trump’s presidency would survive a single term. Reading between the lines, one might conclude that McConnell was telegraphing that he might not do much to prevent Trump’s impeachment should it come to that.
Ryan will blow whomever he finds convenient to further his breathless Ayn-Randian tax cut world, but he was never a Trump fan. Likely it won’t take much for Ryan to sniff the foul wind and decide that it would be a better bet to spend his remaining political capital to advance Pence going forward, assuming Pence doesn’t also get scooped up in Mueller’s probe. In which case, Ryan is next in line, and golly heck, what better way to advance your agenda than to be the president your own little self!
Further, the military brass are not fans. Can you imagine how John Kelly feels, having lost a son to combat in Afghanistan, every time Trump makes lighthearted comments about taking us into a war? The chucklehead who took 5 deferments from service because of a bone spur in his foot? How Mattis, McMaster and others must feel about top security clearances being granted to Ivanka and Jared? I mean, FFS.
With every misstep, Trump sheds important people who might intercede on his behalf. If the mood of the country becomes sour and angry enough over what they learn from Mueller, and there are indications that they will, Trump may not have any ace in the hole to fend off an impeachment at all.
As for Teh Base™, yes, they’ll scream like hell. But they really are a minority. Trust in Trump is dropping as trust in traditional media is growing. People are angry and getting angrier. If they strongly demand a particular outcome, it will be hard for moderate and so-called “establishment” Republicans to ignore.
One last point: If the rise of a third party becomes a distinct possibility, then I think those so-called “establishment” Republicans will have a come-to-jeezus moment. Ironically, they may find that the salvation of their own party lies in cooperation with Democrats to impeach Trump. Is there any other way to effectively marginalize the Batshit Breitbart Brigade?
All this to say, Trump can’t carry out his evil plot to take over America without a great deal of help. I don’t think he’ll have it. I hope he won’t – not even among Republicans. Frankly, I’m more worried about Russian help.
If I’m wrong about this – and I’ll certainly allow that I could be – then in my opinion, we’re too far gone as a society to bother over it.
If Manafort is indicted, I wonder what Trump will do?