The whole Trump Russian narrative has been conclusively negated by the explosive exposure that his son, his chief advisor and campaign manager colluded with Russia’s interference, in the Presidential election. That added to Trump’s surreal meeting with Putin, which underlined his “inexplicable” preference of Russia over America’s traditional NATO allies and Trump’s slavish obsequious behavior towards mother Russia in canvassing Congress to lessen sanctions has ratcheted the talk of impeachment up several notches. While the latter is unlikely at the moment the additive effect, on the already chaotic Presidency, with the ever growing disclosures of the Trump campaign involvement in the Russian perfidy, will ultimately seal his fate. All this has to have an impact on the Republican Party and the actions of the Vice President.
Historians have an annoying way of analyzing situations when the outcome is already in the books. They explain, paternalistically, that what had transpired was obvious to all but the blind, deaf and ignorant way before the denouement. They identify the “clear” signs that indicated the writing was on the wall. They then detail, with scholastic aplomb, the self evident sequelae of the issue. However, when asked to prognosticate, with the same degree of certainty, on a “current happening” they argue that as there is no precedent they are not able to do so - so let it be with Trump’s Presidency.
WILL TRUMP LAST?
As Jay H. Ell is not a historian he has nothing to lose by forecasting that The Donald’s reign will be dispatched to the dustbin of history before his term is up. In fact it is on track to being shelved by early 2019. This is brave stuff as there only has been one instance in history where a President didn't see out his term and didn’t leave the WhiteHouse in a casket. Also The Donald’s personality would not allow him to do the gentleman like thing and resign even if there was no hope that he would be able to continue. As he cannot be criminally charged or removed by the Party Caucus he would have to be impeached. To do so the Republicans would have to be convinced that hanging onto him is more disastrous than axing him. If they delay their decision then the Democrats should have a healthy majority in the House of Representatives post the November 2018 election and they could proceed.
THE CHAOS PRESIDENCY
Jed Bush’s prognostication, (he also isn’t an historian), that his would be a chaos Presidency has turned out to be a masterpiece of understatement. Trump has no credibility whatsoever. (Blog: Trump: The Post Truth President). Over six months into his Presidency only 47 of the 557 key positions of his Administration have been confirmed by the Senate. There are constant battles amongst his staff in his WhiteHouse which leaks like a sieve. The media run inside stories, that are systematically denied by the WhiteHouse spokespeople. Repeatedly it is affirmed that Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, is about to be axed. Lately there are reports that there is friction between Trump and his son in law Jared Kushner who it is rumored is responsible for revealing the Russian meeting. The latter, it is claimed, is only thinking of his own skin and not his father - in - laws. The communications team, where there is a struggle for ascendancy between Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is such a disaster that they now hold their press briefings off camera presumably not to preempt the spoofs of them on Saturday Night Live.
There is a disconnect between Trump and the Republican legislature. He changes position all the time making a commitment to a Trump policy a crap shoot. He is never on the same page for very long and has been AWOL while Senate elder McConnell plods on gamely to put Trumpcare in place. It is obvious that after he first applauded and then called the House of Representative’s version of Trumpcare “mean” that no one needs the President effecting the traditional role of being involved in getting legislation passed. The upshot is that, in spite of his campaign boasting rhetoric the only one meaningful piece of legislation that has crossed his desk involved speeding up the process whereby the Veteran Administration could fire inept employees. The other thirty nine signed pieces of law are all procedural and come nowhere near changing the world as he promised he would do.
Similarly, he can even leave his own cabinet high and dry. When he came back from the Putin meeting he was punting a combined project on cyber security with the former KGB operative. The initiative was greeted by derision by many in his own party. He quickly backed down but not soon enough to prevent Secretary Minuchin’s full court press on the virtues of Trump’s American/Russian collaboration. Trump is being criticized with monotonous regularity by influential Senators Graham and McCain and there are very few that are prepared to openly and vociferously support him.
In all this there are Congress Committees working feverishly to get to the bottom of Russiagate. There is bipartisan agreement that the Russian’s hacked the Presidential election to favor Trump and that the investigation by the FBI is not “the greatest political witch hunt ever conducted by the Democratic Party to avenge a loss”. Furthermore the Republican legislators are beginning to hedge their bets and are open to exploring such avenues such as Presidential criminality, obstruction of justice as well as establishing whether or not the Trump campaign colluded or not with Russia.
Trump in the midst of all this chaos has not changed his modus operandi. He tweets. For three days since returning from the G20 he was totally non communicado having no official engagements. A circumstance which former WhiteHouse staff employees claim to be unheard off. His claim that the first time he learned of his son’s meeting with the Russian operative was when it hit the fan in The New York Times is being laughed out of court. He inanely claimed that his son, Donald J. Trump Jnr., had been transparent in releasing the incriminating e mails omitting the fact that he did so when he learned that they were about to be released by the Times. This too after Junior had changed his story three times on the matter. He even defends Junior for holding the meeting. The absurd POTUS is now claiming that Putin would have preferred Hillary as President!
So it is not unreasonable to argue that at kindest this President is incompetent and has no credibility. He has no natural support or loyalty from the Republicans in Congress who will dump him if it is politically advantageous to do so. Some like Graham will put country first and axe him regardless of the political implications if Muller presents the evidence.
THE REPUBLICANS AND THEIR PARTY.
The differing Republican Party’s factions have become more obvious with the failure to advance the components of the Trump agenda that are in sync with the old conservative party line. It is important to point out that Trump is not a Republican in the traditional sense and his advent and takeover of the Party has added to the woes of those who make up the various wings of the GOP. To complicate matters some of the Establishment like the former Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, have thrown in their lot with him as have several of the GOP hopefuls in the Primary. Even Mitt Romney, his most articulate detractor, after conducting a last ditch effort to derail his nomination sold his soul in the hope of being nominated as Secretary of State. All these opportunists are in big big trouble in a showdown and will have exiled themselves to political oblivion in a future GOP shake up.
Other than the Trump faction there are the purists or centrists like Ryan and McConnell who still occupy the key leadership positions in Congress. Then there are the left leaning group lead by Susan Collins and the right wing Tea Party crowd such as Cruz in the Senate and The Freedom Party in the House. At present these three factions are battling to pass their versions of Trumpcare and getting nowhere. More significantly their voters are protesting dramatically at their efforts. Most vociferous are those Republicans and their Governors who don’t want Obamacare removed. Ostensibly there is a big Republican constituency out there that want it “repealed” but they are nowhere in sight. Trump is no help as he is all over the show as usual. He desperately wants a victory but policy wise he really wants an improvement on Obamacare - that is what he promised.
At the moment all the non Trump factions are under nomination threat or voter threat for their continued existence. The big money Koch’s want a conservative agenda and have allocated four hundred million dollars for the midterms and a pose a threat to non delivering conservative Republicans. The liberal and more middle of the road Republicans are worried that if the current eight percent swing to the Democrats is maintained they, too, are history.
WHAT HAPPENS IF SPECIAL COUNSEL MUELLER FINDS PRESIDENTIAL CULPABILITY?
Now throw into the mix a report from Special Counsel Mueller that shows abuse of power and or obstruction of justice by the President with or without collusion by him and his campaign with the Russians in their attack on American democracy. In addition the Mueller investigation is said to be heavily into the finances surrounding Trump and his entourage. What do the legislators do? Jay H. Ell believes if it happened tomorrow they would stick with Trump. The Republican base have not caught up with Russia yet and they are still waiting, like Godot, for Trump to deliver.
Certain factors could change the equation. The longer this drags on and paralyzes all progress the more likely Trump will continue to shed support of the electorate and their legislators. In addition as this scandal evolves and the more the electorate realize that their own representatives have bought into the narrative of the Intelligence Agencies the more likely they will withdraw their support of Trump. Likewise Trump will appear less credible because he would have failed them on reopening the coal mines, increasing wages, producing millions of infrastructure jobs and the like. Specifically, the outcome of the healthcare legislation will impact markedly on the Republican electorate. If the result is not what Trump promised his base he will lose followers regardless of how the other factions of the Party view the legislation.
So a disastrous report from Mueller, even issued before the midterms, on top of the fact that the non delivering Trump is way off line from the Congress consensus on Russiagate, could spell disaster for the POTUS. As each day passes things can only get worse. If a negative report comes after the November 2018 elections Trump would be toast.
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE
You don’t hear too much if anything from the VP. Apparently he is running around the Party caucuses trying to get stuff done. The fact that Trump schlepps him nowhere and he keeps his distance can only mean one thing - he is trying as far as possible to disassociate himself from the POTUS. He has thus earlier than most staked out his position. In the event that Trump survives he will be looking for another running mate in 2020. Pence, as demonstrated by his lukewarm support of Trump, apparently is prepared to take the risk. That should tell the pundits something. As an aside Pence is so compromised with his early denials that any meetings took place between Trump operatives and Russia that if and when he is fully exposed to the glare of publicity he will not survive.
OTHER OUTCOMES
* As intimated earlier on The Donald is not simply going to go away. He will try and rally support from the faithful and say it is all rigged yada yada yada - he is all but saying it already. So the future whichever way it is viewed will be a rocky ride. He won’t be phased by the Republicans turning on him. He will claim that they are all sell outs anyway and part of the swamp. Only he alone stands for the little people.
* Watch out for the big fake news dump on “Crooked” Hillary and “Kenyan” Obama
* This is the day in history that the Trump Presidency irreversibly went on the skids.
* Then there is always a possibility that the Donald survives and the electorate support his dysfunctional post truth Presidency in perpetuity. If that happens the USA will need two walls, one on each of its borders so as to keep the majority of its citizens from fleeing to Mexico and Canada.
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