Not at all, they were the first ones at the party.
I don’t think that you’ll get there before the midterms, and I expect the Trumpists to run a purge of the disloyal during the primaries.
The healthcare bill was unpopular, but the rest of it is drawing ecstatic support. Add some more overseas aggression to the domestic purges (begun by ICE with the Hispanic community, but expanding) and they’ll proclaim him as a god.
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Now hang on a minute, old chap. We don’t always capitulate to US demands immediately. Sometimes we wait a whole week.
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Mueller is wasting his efforts. Why try to charge him or whatever when he already implied he’ll going to use his pardoning powers for himself and his accomplices. Fix the pardoning problem first THEN try to charge him and his surroundings.
The real check on the power of the President isn’t criminal prosecution, it’s not even clear that the law provides a way to charge and convict a sitting President with a crime. No matter what Mueller’s team finds Trump isn’t walking out of the White House in handcuffs.
Instead the final check on the President’s power is political—Congress’ power to impeach. The process bears some similarities to a criminal prosecution but it ultimately comes down to congress deciding enough is enough. Throwing pardons around willy-nilly might keep team Trump out of prison but if anything it would hasten his impeachment.
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Leave it to Trump to Make Juries Grand Again*
*I’ve already seen a hat image and an Atlantic headline of this joke, and wanted to share…
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I think that is far from the truth. The majority of Republicans gritted their teeth, winced, and voted for whomever had the (R) next to their name in November. Many of those would welcome someone else (also Republican, of course) to take over, as long as they don’t have to admit that they screwed up when they voted for tRump. His true base are TGOP/KKK/alt-right types that represent less than a third of registered Republicans, and even they are getting impatient with him as he fails to follow through with his promises of a white-washed America.
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Has anyone on the BBS served on a grand jury before? What’s it like? What sort of things does the prosecutor ask of you? Do you approve warrant applications, or subpoenas, or is your power limited to issuing indictments? Do you advise the prosecutor, or is your role detached?
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Citation needed. jk 
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I mentioned several posts above that I did.
I wasn’t part of an investigative grand jury; those go one year for general investigations. That type of grand jury is probably what will hear evidence.
My service was once a week for six months and we listened to the evidence for anywhere from two to ten cases per session given by a US Asst. Attorney, and we either came back with indictments (meaning only that there was enough evidence for a trial) or we didn’t. Also, attorneys cannot ask us questions, but we can ask them and/or agent involved questions. We could subpoena a witness or ask to hear from others if we felt it was relevant. We don’t advise anyone; it’s a simple vote for indictment.
BTW, the panels were created by the computer, which spit out names in what appeared to be a random fashion. There was not a voir dire for any of the multiple panels created that day, including the investigative panels.
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Knowing how much work goes into it makes it even better.
I so need some sword fights today, and I didn’t even know it til I stumbled upon this thread. Thank you all.
There’s already a hell of a lot of cheeto dust on that guy. I doubt he makes it through any shakeup. Considering the recording of Kevin McCarthy talking about how the Russians pay tRump, with Ryan et al present, laughing, then Ryan swearing everyone to silence, I sincerely doubt the Speaker would make it through much longer than tRump. Anyone who participated, or knew and did nothing, will burn.
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Based on the McCarthy/Pence tape, that appears to be the entirety of the GOP legislature. Who are not going to fall on their swords voluntarily.
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It was just a a handfull of leadership. Not the whole party.
A handful on that tape, discussing it in such a way to imply that it was common knowledge. And a lot of them were being briefed by the FBI etc during the primary and campaign.
McCarthy couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it; once he knew, they all knew.
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You don’t just “fix the pardoning problem.” It’s defined in the Constitution (emphasis mine):
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
That’s literally all it says with regard to pardons so there’s plenty of wiggle room here. As one could imagine changing the Constitution isn’t exactly a walk in the park.
There’s a non zero chance of a constitutional crisis bring triggered here depending on what happens as a result of this investigation.
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I really doubt that as well. If the DNC doesn’t pick up too many seats in the midterms I doubt we’ll see it fully till we’re much closer to 2020. Or even after.
I don’t know how successful that would be. Thus far the Trump camp only really controls the white house, the executive can’t purge congress. They’ve made it pretty clear they plan to mount primary challenges against anyone who’s mildly cheesed them off. But I really don’t know how well that would work. Most of the people they’ve been challenging are in areas where Trump did notably worse than factions he’d be challenging during the primaries. Or under-preformed in the actual election. Tracked either by his performance vs Romeny or the actual vote with Clinton.
Remember his true hardcore base is just a subset of the republicans own base. So less than their slightly less than half the population. And while he’s getting (or was getting) raves from that base. What he’s getting from the rest of the right is more along the lines of weak willed protest/criticism. Combined with rote party line votes. And a truely shameful attempt to ignore or occasionally deny the problem.
Remember he lost the popular vote. By a lot. Winning mostly down to a quirk of voter turnout (or maybe voter suppression) and the fickleness of a very small group of people. Less than 100,000 votes in just 5 states. From a group of Americans who probably don’t number much more than a few hundred thousand people.
Even if its shocking how many will go along for partisan reasons. We’re already seeing his numbers go down by a thousand metrics. At some point, that breaking point we talked about, he’ll be damn close to only his base. I just don’t think his true base is large enough to do these things on its own.
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The Trumpeters are working to consolidate and lock down control as fast as they can. There is very little chance of voters changing things with the midterms; there is no chance after that. The longer the Trumpists are in power, the less possible resistance becomes.
Majority of the GOP base “strongly support”, about 90% total support. Less than 10% of the GOP are willing to do so much as express mild disapproval to a pollster. Expect the blue line to skyrocket as soon as he starts bombing brown people somewhere.
I accept that my view is incomplete and fallible, and I understand that others have legitimate reasons for disagreeing with my conclusions. I could be wrong; I’d celebrate as much as anyone else if I am.
But I feel like a 1990’s climate scientist. There is an obvious catastrophe approaching, and there is a way to avoid it. However, that way is difficult, costly and risky; nobody wants to do it. They’d rather wait and see if the situation is really as bad as it looks.
And every day that they wait, the solution becomes more difficult, more costly and less likely to succeed. Once the Reichstag is burning, it’s too late.
The delay/danger curve is exponential, and its increasingly in the vertical part of the graph.
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Your own chart shows “strongly approve” on a down trend. And sitting just below 60 percent as of a week ago. Combined with “somewhat approve”, which is on an up trend, and far from a ringing endorsement. Glowing reviews situation. You hit your claimed 90.
And that chart is on Trump voters. Fewer people voted for Trump then Clinton. Not every typical GOp voter voted at all, or voted for Trump. And turn out for 2016 was something like 58%. Like I said a subset of a subset with clear evidence of support eroding. His general approval ratings are among the lowest ever recorded. And like wise on a down trend. And his own party is beginning to vocally push back on his most recent policy proposals. And some of those policy proposals risk losing this key,
small demographics that helped him eek out a win on a technicality. Like his healthcare bill alienating rust belt workers who need medicare/caid, And his immigration proposals that are causing panic among farmers. This is not a politician with a large, durable, base capable of unilaterally wresting control from anything. If it came to it, more people would want to hit Trump with sticks than defend him from sticks.
A faction within a faction.
As for trumpist “locking it down” I’m not exactly sure what your referring to. If it’s the shake ups in the executive. Yeah there is some what of trend of ditching GOP functionaries for insane people. But these have been scandal driven, or the result of continual infighting within Trumps camp. But it’s not as if a Trump true believer group has just won out over a faction willing to push back. Preibus is out. But there are still a couple different groups of Trump backers that are pulling in different directions. Bannon and the fascists, The family/kirschner, hardline far right GOP functionaries, increasingly military leaders. He’s ditched as many of his own supported for supporters from a different group. And then reversed to ditch those supporters for supporters from other groups.
This is not a concerted effort. It’s still a shit show. Staffers are still leaking left and right to one up each other, or out of concern for what’s going on. Your doing the four dimensional chess thing.
If your referring to efforts to sand bag the elections or cripple Congress. The executive doesn’t really have that power. Our elections are controlled largely by the states. GOP voter suppression efforts have been quietish. And the courts, even GOP packed ones have been actively pushing back on voter suppression. Are starting to come around on gerrymandering. And have generally enforced the rule of law on Trumps nonsense.
Attacks on Congress? Yeah as craven as they are I don’t see the GOP just going along with that. They are craven precisely because they want to maintain their own power. Attempts by Trump to truly remove, usurp or limit that. Trump has curiously few true, hardline backers in Congress and most of them are in the house. Major moves in this direction would likely break whatever half assed alliance they have.
Attempts to side step any of these protections. Or to ignore the courts. That there is a constitutional crisis. That there is impeachable abuse of power. And while we should be worried that Trump might slip past that, ignore it, people might be complacent enough to allow it. We should have those same concerns if he’s impeached tomorrow. Because it’s the same circumstance. And That generally hasn’t been the way things have gone so far. The courts are still willing to do their fucking job, his nonsense has not become law as often as he’d like. And his people can’t get their shit together long enough to be effectively evil.
The midterms I’m unsure. Which is why I went with ifs and qualifications. There are very slightly more dnc voters in the country. The flip side of Trumps win is that it was probably more about bad turnout among key dnc demographics. Overall and in key states. Than it was about those tiny groups that flipped. The handful of special elections we’ve had so far, while dnc losses, we’re far closer than those districts have ever been before. Those races would not have been competitive without Trump.
But the DNC are being idiots. As are the left generally. And without a concerted, sensible effort. Something not just about Trump. More focus on down ballot races. And fixes to badly fucked up data and turnout Operations. None of that gets us too far.
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Not so much.
About ten percent swapped from “strongly approve” to “approve” shortly after the election, but it’s been fairly steady at about 55/35 since then. You expect to see a little fade after the post-election honeymoon wears off. Nothing surprising there.
That ten percent may be old-school Republicans who are disappointed by Trump’s chaos, but they could also be fascists annoyed that he hasn’t already eliminated all the mudbloods.
Yes.
I don’t think that national opinion polls are relevant. Even pre-Trump, the Confederate states were wildly undemocratic. With the current acceleration of voter suppression and disenfranchisement, I do not think that there is any chance that the midterms will be a real election in the GOP-controlled states.
It doesn’t matter how many Californians and New Yorkers come out to vote. So long as the GOP holds the red states, they hold the country. They don’t need to rig every vote to succeed; just enough to maintain the balance of power.
The cold war within the GOP continues. The Trumpeters have the base and the executive, the establishment GOP have the party infrastructure, the VP and most of the legislature.
The Pence faction would love to topple Trump, but they know that they can’t do it without the base. They are attempting to turn the base by white-anting Trump (hence all the leaks and the partial legislative resistance), but they won’t move overtly unless Trump’s intra-GOP disapproval exceeds 50%.
Even if they do move, that still leaves you with a shamelessly corrupt fascist government. They aren’t ever going to turn back into old-school Republicans. They’ve seen what you can get away with if you’re sufficiently shameless, and that genie is never going back into the bottle.
On the other side: the Trumpeters are stupid, but they aren’t blind. They know what the Pence faction are doing.
So, they’re purging the disloyal from the West Wing and Cabinet, and preparing to revise the legislature at the midterms. Any GOP Congress member who has shown disloyalty to Trump is going to face aggressive Trumpist challengers (fresh from 4Chan and Stormfront), with the West Wing actively and loudly supporting the new blood.
The point that electoral administration in the USA is devolved to the states makes it more vulnerable to subversion, not less. You only need to mess with the outcome in a couple of states to flip the balance of the country, and you have fifty targets to choose from. Hit the weakest link.
The GOP doesn’t control just a few states, though; they control most of them. The degree of disenfranchisement and structural bias in the red states pre-Trump was already bad enough to make their status as democratically governed regions highly questionable. Turning up the volume on that throws them completely over the edge.
From what I’ve seen, the last few years of gerrymander related court decisions have mostly consisted of the courts saying “hey, that’s a bit too far even for us; but if you’d kept it to this still-effective but slightly less blatant level, that would’ve been okay”. They’re just defining the boundaries of minimally-plausible deniability, and the states are responding by tuning their procedures right to the edge of that marker.
Ultimately, questions of electoral bias are going to end up with the USSC. For Gorsuch et al to deal with.
On that, I completely agree.
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