# Who Will Be The Next POTUS?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [July 26, 2017, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201 "2017-07-26T22:11:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2017, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/61 "2017-07-28T12:33:52Z")
OK, pardon the interruption, but one of my pet peeves is boiling to the surface. Loosing a nuke is something that the US has done twice in its history, once each over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although loosing a nuke is in fact something to worry about, what we’re worrying about here is losing a nuke.
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### Author:  [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2017, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/62 "2017-07-28T13:19:52Z")
What **Banquet Bear** said was really important and enlightening. Also, seriously, _everyone_ should read [that Vanity Fair article](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis).
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> It’s more likely than assuming there _won’t_ be a next President. If Nixon couldn’t ruin the institution of the presidency, Trump won’t. We’ve survived worse. We survived the resignation of a vice-president and a president in the same administration and the system worked to bring about a peaceful transition, and the election was held as usual in 1976. Trump is small potatoes compared to Nixon in terms of the damage he could bring to the White House. It won’t prevent elections in 2020 or 2024.
I was mostly snarking, but there were a lot of factors involved with Nixon that don’t really apply here. Nixon wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t seem insane, or evil in the same ways. He was reined in by a democratic congress, and a republican minority that was actually willing to say, “No, this is not okay.” We passed the point where Nixon got impeached for obstruction of justice _last month_, and the response from congressional republicans was a big fat “meh”.
And why wouldn’t it be? Think of their incentives. They can’t win without Trump’s base. Trump’s base would abandon them or primary them in a heartbeat if they impeached him. It’s not like they’re going to pick up a ton of democratic votes by doing the right thing. Meanwhile, if they keep pretending that everything is okay, nobody can _impeach_ them. Their woefully misinformed and lied-to base is unlikely to abandon them in any overly dramatic fashion unless something like a nuclear war happens. They can pass their agenda (in theory, anyways), and keep their jobs. It doesn’t matter what crimes Trump commits - the worst people can do to them is vote them out, and that would _definitely_ happen if they did the right thing.
In other words:
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> Me, neither. I’m glad that we can agree on that. Cooler heads and the Constitution would limit any permanent damage that Trump could do. And that’s my point. We faced a crisis in 1972-74 and recovered from it.
This seems woefully optimistic. It _probably_ won’t happen. It’s not unthinkable, and things are _already_ worse than the tail end of watergate.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/63 "2017-07-28T15:58:27Z")
Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/64 "2017-07-28T16:54:36Z")
I agree that Pence will be the _next_ president, and I’ll lean toward Al Franken as the next _elected_ president.
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### Author:  [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/65 "2017-07-28T17:05:52Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> What **Banquet Bear** said was really important and enlightening. Also, seriously, _everyone_ should read [that Vanity Fair article](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis).
>
> \
Slightly related tangent: it was briefly mentioned in the VF article that the Census Bureau is also understaffed which is hurting them because they need to be getting ready for the 2020 census right the hell now. If this clusterbomb continues much longer, the 2020 census is going to be caught in the blast radius. That means that redistricting is going to be nigh impossible and the gerrymandering is only going to get worse.
That scares me more than losing a nuke. I’m starting to lose hope we as a country will ever heal from this fiasco.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2017, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/66 "2017-07-28T17:28:57Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> What **Banquet Bear** said was really important and enlightening. Also, seriously, _everyone_ should read [that Vanity Fair article](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis).
>
> I was mostly snarking, but there were a lot of factors involved with Nixon that don’t really apply here. Nixon wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t seem insane, or evil in the same ways. He was reined in by a democratic congress, and a republican minority that was actually willing to say, “No, this is not okay.” We passed the point where Nixon got impeached for obstruction of justice _last month_, and the response from congressional republicans was a big fat “meh”.
>
> And why wouldn’t it be? Think of their incentives. They can’t win without Trump’s base. Trump’s base would abandon them or primary them in a heartbeat if they impeached him. It’s not like they’re going to pick up a ton of democratic votes by doing the right thing. Meanwhile, if they keep pretending that everything is okay, nobody can _impeach_ them. Their woefully misinformed and lied-to base is unlikely to abandon them in any overly dramatic fashion unless something like a nuclear war happens. They can pass their agenda (in theory, anyways), and keep their jobs. It doesn’t matter what crimes Trump commits - the worst people can do to them is vote them out, and that would _definitely_ happen if they did the right thing.
>
> In other words:
>
> This seems woefully optimistic. It _probably_ won’t happen. It’s not unthinkable, and things are _already_ worse than the tail end of watergate.
And your posts seem woefully pessimistic. It’s enough to boggle the mind.
ETA: Were you alive during Watergate?
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2017, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/67 "2017-07-28T20:35:03Z")
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> And your posts seem woefully pessimistic. It’s enough to boggle the mind.
>
> ETA: Were you alive during Watergate?
No, I wasn’t, but this is worse than Watergate, and Trump is worse than Nixon.
Like Trump, Nixon had authoritarian impulses, a hell of a mean streak, and a disregard for the rule of law. But other institutions fenced Nixon in. Those institutions are much weaker now.
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### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2017, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/68 "2017-07-28T21:41:57Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#):
>
> But it won’t take a lot to start a chain of events that will spiral out of control. It could be a terrorist attack. Or a biodiversity incident. Or a financial collapse of some sort. In a controlled chaotic system, with adequate over-site that is properly staffed and that is looking out for the good of the American people these things can be handled
> .
For those who think the Trump administration hasn’t been too bad, keep in mind that all of the chaos and incompetence that has been displayed in the last 6 months was all self inflicted by the Trump administration. At no point in his administration has he been challenged by outside events. There has been no natural disaster, or economic trouble or foreign policy crisis that demanded attention. The crises that do exist, Syrian war, North Korea tests, rise of dictatorships in Venezuela and the Philippines haven’t affected the US directly and so could be ignored without consequence (so far). So basically this is as good as it gets. At some point a crisis will hit, and we will all come to the realization that reality doesn’t care whether or not you call it fake news.
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2017, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/69 "2017-07-29T03:21:14Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#):
>
> For those who think the Trump administration hasn’t been too bad, keep in mind that all of the chaos and incompetence that has been displayed in the last 6 months was all self inflicted by the Trump administration. At no point in his administration has he been challenged by outside events. There has been no natural disaster, or economic trouble or foreign policy crisis that demanded attention. The crises that do exist, Syrian war, North Korea tests, rise of dictatorships in Venezuela and the Philippines haven’t affected the US directly and so could be ignored without consequence (so far). So basically this is as good as it gets. At some point a crisis will hit, and we will all come to the realization that reality doesn’t care whether or not you call it fake news.
We might be getting closer to that moment: North Korea is now officially part of the nuclear weapons club. Yes I realize they’ve had tests since 2005/6 but today marked the moment at which the US can no longer shrug and say "Meh, maybe they’ve got a nuke that falls on the Marshall Islands. It’ll probably take another 2-5 years before NK can develop a weapons threat that could prove to be a real retaliatory deterrent against the United States, but we’re already at the point where the Pentagon has to consider not just the costs of mismanaging / misreading Kim Jung Un in terms of our Pacific theater and our Asian allies but now also our homeland. Trump’s pattern of ridding himself of smart people because they make him uncomfortable is extremely fucking dangerous in a situation like this. And yet, here we are.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/70 "2017-07-31T16:39:09Z")
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> If that’s possible, Trump could also be dead. I’m not wishing him any harm, but he’s in their age group.
He’s not a Doper, is he?
Then I am.
My preference is a visit from the heart attack fairy.
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/71 "2017-07-31T16:49:55Z")
> [@asahi](#):
>
> We might be getting closer to that moment: North Korea is now officially part of the nuclear weapons club.
Not really. They tested a missile that can fairly be called an ICBM but we have no idea of it’s true payload capacity and NK undoubtedly requires further ability in nuke miniaturization to make it a nuclear threat.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/72 "2017-07-31T18:09:24Z")
> [@asahi](#):
>
> No, I wasn’t, but this is worse than Watergate, and Trump is worse than Nixon.
>
> Like Trump, Nixon had authoritarian impulses, a hell of a mean streak, and a disregard for the rule of law. But other institutions fenced Nixon in. Those institutions are much weaker now.
Right. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2017, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/73 "2017-07-31T19:18:36Z")
My favorite next president is Kamala Harris. But realistically, she needs to be reelected Senator before she runs for the presidency. Or be elected vice president first. I think she’s nearly ideal VP material.
If I had to make a crazy guess for next president, I’d look for an obscure Democratic governor from a western or southern state. So someone like: Steve Bullock (Montana), Roy Cooper (North Carolina), John Hickenlooper (Colorado), Jim Justice (West Virginia). I know nothing about these people; I simply pulled them off the list of current governors.
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### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/74 "2017-07-31T19:31:12Z")
Jim Justice is extremely un-telegenic and also endorsed Trump in the general election 2016.
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### Author:  [@epolo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epolo)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2017, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-the-next-potus/792201/75 "2017-07-31T21:15:49Z")
> [@asahi](#):
>
> We might be getting closer to that moment: North Korea is now officially part of the nuclear weapons club. Yes I realize they’ve had tests since 2005/6 but today marked the moment at which the US can no longer shrug and say "Meh, maybe they’ve got a nuke that falls on the Marshall Islands. It’ll probably take another 2-5 years before NK can develop a weapons threat that could prove to be a real retaliatory deterrent against the United States, but we’re already at the point where the Pentagon has to consider not just the costs of mismanaging / misreading Kim Jung Un in terms of our Pacific theater and our Asian allies but now also our homeland. Trump’s pattern of ridding himself of smart people because they make him uncomfortable is extremely fucking dangerous in a situation like this. And yet, here we are.
We are at a point where we might accidentally start a nuclear war with North Korea through a bad autocorrect.
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