Our Constitution doesn’t have provisions to deal with a situation like this. There are no redos - there’s no Constitutional mechanism in place for them. Assuming Pence is clean (and we don’t know that), and the GOP doesn’t want to take him down, he’d be next in line if Trump’s impeached. The public would view the election as even more illegitimate than it’s seen now, but there’s no reason to think that’d change anything, except perhaps outcomes in 2018 and 2020 (and maybe not).
Nixon was involved in the Chennault affair where he secretly worked with North Vietnam to prevent a treaty that he thought would have helped McGovern. LBJ knew (but couldn’t admit it since he was illegally spying on Nixon), and others had enough to make a really compelling case. Now we have his papers to prove it.
Reagan was by all appearances negotiating with Iran before his election - his known campaign contacts with Iranian leadership were where the Iran-Contra contacts originated, and the hostage release on his inauguration day looks much too perfect. Sadly, Oliver North managed to destroy all the evidence needed to know.
This kind of thing happens. And when it does, we just have to make sure it’s remembered, since there’s nothing you can do if an election’s discovered to be illegitimate after the EC votes.
That presumes he understands what the truth is. The line between Trump bullshitting and simply not understanding what people are saying is fuzzy. (Though perhaps ultimately the distinction is meaningless - Trump’s understanding of the very idea of “truth” seems fuzzy. Words and ideas are to be taken and shaped to fit whatever narrative feels good/right for purposes, not because they represent independently existing realities.)
Selfish, arrogant, privileged, but probably not stupid.
While the news is all about microwaves and Russia, there is almost a continual current of social programs being gutted. Those are the real stories, about how our money is being taken away from us and instead diverted to billionaires in the defense and energy industry.
Its all a smoke screen folks. Trump isnt stupid, we are the stupid ones.
The thing is I keep hearing that about EVERY fresh scandal from this administration. The attacks on civil rights were a smokescreen to distract us from the ongoing Russia scandal. The Russia stuff is just to distract us from the horrible changes to social programs. The cuts to social programs are just a ploy to appease his base and distract them from the administration’s general incompetence, and so on. I happen to think ALL these things are highly consequential and worthy of our attention and outrage.
There’s the rub. I don’t have an answer for it, but we are being used. The liberals shout bloody murder, the emboldened conservatives laugh, a new bill comes out, rinse and repeat.
I wanted a presidential debate about elite tax havens, and instead we talked about pussy and emails.
I want our president to speak about why he is taking away our money and throwing it away on unaccountable defense spending, but instead he talks about wire tapping.
While we stand around laughing at how dumb trump is, he is literally stacking the deck right in front of our faces.
But I see those things being reported on. Maybe US television news is broken. I tend to read though BBC, CBC and watch some of the US and U.K. “Comedy” news sources. If Comedy Central (and progeny that have moved elsewhere) is still doing a better job of presenting in depth, accurate news coverage than mainstream news that may be a part of the problem.
From the BBC analysis:
Trump Russia claims: FBI’s Comey confirms investigation of election ‘interference’
Yes, it all gets covered, you can hear it quickly mentioned in between wire tapping scandals.
The point is that the wrong issues are being discussed to death and nothing will come of them. Meanwhile issues that will impact us directly blow right through the news cycle. This is by design, and we are all playing along.
The system is rigged, but perhaps it is easier and more comfortable to justify it all away by saying “meh, the president is stupid”.
In general I see a lot more attention paid to the slashing of social programs attacks on science funding and other demolition of social safety nets on social media and in the news sources I hit than Russia, though there is also a lot of mocking his stupidity. YMMV.
If you’re saying “don’t forget that there are other major issues in Trump’s attacks on the fabric of society, and these are things we need to act on,” then yeah, definitely. But don’t dismiss how incredibly serious the Trump campaign’s likely collusion with a foreign adversary engaging their military intelligence to attack US targets to manipulate an election is. That issue presses the need for impeachment in a way that’s far harder to avoid than any other for the Congressional GOP, and the ongoing FBI investigations into many of his staff aren’t making their jobs easier.
Also, there are solid reasons to believe Trump is stupid, and that should scare the crap out of us all. His current behavior hasn’t changed from his past behavior. The outrageous stupidity of Trump’s public statements is fully in character with how he’s behaved his whole life. It is in part a manipulative attempt to grab media attention, but it’s not because Trump’s a genius. Every biographer and person who knows him think’s he’s infantile, not remarkably intelligent, and can’t cope with ever not being the center of attention at all times so he acts out constantly. A number of the stupid things he’s publicly stated have directly harmed his own agenda. That’s way, way scarier. It means an emotionally stunted nitwit holds one of the positions of greatest responsibility in the United States, will continue attempting things that are obviously stupid, impractical, and damaging, will have no hope of understanding basic economics, and will be a hapless fool manipulated by his incredibly poorly chosen staff and other foreign leaders - that’s absolutely terrifying, but also fits with how he’s always been.
The system is designed by the powerful for the powerful. You are kidding yourself if you think the russia scandal is going to amount to very much at all, its just another opportunity for the divided country to fight amongst ourselves while the powerful get away with whatever they want.
Sure, donald isn’t the brightest bulb, but he is surrounded poweful people that know the dictators handbook, they know manipulation, and here comes the kick to the gut… They are indeed winning.
My fear is that 8 years from now we will still be typing away about how stupid donald is, as he sits on top of his golden tower with all of the Peoples money.
