TRUMP’S LAST STAND- A CIVIL WAR?

John Dean prophetically warned Nixon that there was a cancer in his Presidency. With Trump one could argue that his Presidency was under a nuclear cloud in more ways than one.

The wheels are coming off fast. The end of the long road is in sight and The Donald has decided to speed on all cylinders as the methodical case being build against him and his inner circle relentlessly proceeds. He characterizes the threatening legal process, as any  totalitarian demagogue might, as a confrontation between him, the blue collared billionaire, and his deprived frenzied mob, against the corrupt world. It is he, he claims, the people’s candidate, that has been victimized by the forces of the establishment swamp including the Republicans. He has increasingly clung to his slowly diminishing loyal base as he has gone with his gut and decided that he will fight his legal battle politically. Jay H. Ell’s fear is that in this take no prisoners blitzkrieg, Trump’s frequent allusions to the “Second Amendment People” being the only answer to the “rigged system”, could invite violence as he ratchets up the rhetoric. 

HE RILES UP THE MOB  - “IT IS A SUBVERSIVE PLOT” 

So Trump will make more and more appearances in front of crowds in States that he won. For the moment he will gain solace from the giddy adulation he is subject to as he replays the campaign. He will rant that it is Hillary’s emails, her paid speeches and the aluminum she gave to Putin that are really the issues that the swamp should be investigating, not him. 

He will scoff at the supposed hypocrisy of the establishment as he did in West Virginia raving that it was them, the screaming mob, that got him elected, not the Russians.  The Mueller investigation is just a witch hunt and a hoax, he harangues. He ranted on, “The Russia story is a total fabrication. It is an excuse for the greatest loss in the history of American politics”. He then claimed that the Special Counsel, a life long Republican, is a Democratic operative who appoints Democrats to help bring him down. Trump’s summed up his assessment of a constitutionally mandated judicial probe as follows:

“They can’t beat us at the voting booths, so they’re trying to cheat you out of the future and the future that you want. They are trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want with a fake story that is demeaning to all of us, most impurely demeaning to our country and demeaning to our constitution.”

Thus he turns a Justice Department initiated probe arising out of the intelligence of seventeen government agencies and initiated by the FBI into a Democratic Party ploy to divert attention from their humiliating defeat and an attempt to reverse the will of the people. The scary part of this all is that Trump has decided to take on the rule of law and democracy by appealing to the horde. Even more scary is that he has already accepted that the “Second Amendment People can do something about the rigged system”. But before looking down at what might transpire with the ultimate demise of Trump it would be useful to look at what forces have aligned against him in the space of six months is he faces the greatest challenge of his life. 

WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN SIX HECTIC MONTHS

In the light of the fact that a damaging enquiry into Trump and his operatives is underway it is important to assess his support in the event that this might go “the wrong way”. It is, however, a fair comment that the Trump Presidency has been down hill from day one. He has alienated every possible constituency excepting his base. Who can forget how it all started - the raucous about the crowd size on the mall, the attack on the media for deliberately underestimating it and the credibility of his Press Secretary sacrificed, from the word go, to perpetuate the lie that the audience was greater than at Obama’s inauguration?

Trump and American Constituencies 

Any new President is the recipient of a large amount of goodwill as even those that opposed him make a virtue out of necessity and welcome him in. From time immemorial in a new POTUS’S inaugural address he does the right thing and embraces all Americans as he is now the President of all of America. Not a chance with The Donald, if you didn’t vote for him your’e a loser. In addition unlike the usual upbeat stuff about the good ole USA being God’s gift to the planet, he depicted America as wallowing in the pits and notwithstanding his dark oratory he would make America great again. In the following six months he has done nothing to woo all sections of American society. On the contrary he has socked it to the minorities and everyone else. He is even going against the law of Affirmative Action to protect his white base. 

Trump and the media

Any love affair between the Presidency and the media never lasts very long. However most don’t reach the intensity of hatred that is evident with the current regime. Trump attacks the gentlepeople of the Press with vigor. Understandably, they are cutting him no slack - just the opposite. For whatever reason the New York Times and The Washington Post have increased their profitability and readership dramatically within six months. Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame bought the Washington Post and with his acumen and the employment of over a one hundred and forty additional journalists he has turned a company around, with the help of Trump of course, that was about to fade into oblivion.. Interestingly the network MSNBC which has languished in the number three political position forever has sprinted to the top of the pops. Fox has been demoted, on occasion, in the Nielsen ratings to the third position behind MSNBC and CNN after dominating the viewership for years. Rachelle Maddow the MSNBC commentator has soared to the top rating regularly. Perhaps the most salutary evidence of the negative impact the media has had on The Donald is the metric is that he has had not attempted a press conference for virtually six months.

Trump is now totally reliant on Fox and Friends, Hannity, social media and the internet for the unconditional  support and loyalty he demands.

Trump, the Republican Congress and the Republican Party

 Trump has drifted further and further away from the Party that he ostensibly leads. The Republican Congress were only to ready to overlook his obscenities in the hope that a Republican agenda could be effected. Where matters stand at the moment is that both the House and the Senate have almost unanimously voted to place sanctions on Russia in defiance of Trump’s wishes. The Senate has refused to continue with Trumpcare legislation. There is a standoff between Trump and the Republican legislature on the debt ceiling - Trump reneging on campaign promises on GOP holy grail stuff by wanting to increase American debt. In addition the Senate has unanimously stopped him from firing Sessions and putting in a dummy to terminate Special Prosecutor Mueller. The Republican Congress virtually neutered him when they publicly warned him of the consequences if he axed his Attorney General Sessions. To insult to injury Congress refuses to finance Trump’s beautiful wall that he promised Mexico would pay for. He is even involved in a twitter war with McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate.

However, nothing was more devastating to his leadership of the Republican controlled Congress then McCain putting the kibosh to Trumpcare. McCain with his definitive vote opened the floodgates worsening the dysfunctional Presidency in many dimensions. This turn of events has freed Republicans to do their own thing. There are a string of GOP Senators that are ready to ditch their leader. First man out of the blocks was conservative Senator Jeff Flake who has unleashed a scathing attack on Trump. A book is to follow. 

To add insult to injury there is unopposed bipartisan Congress support to prevent Trump firing Special Prosecutor Mueller “without cause”. Trump’s options are receding far faster than anyone might have imagined.

In the wake of the crisis of the McCain coup Trump cut loose any ties he had with the good old GOP.  Reince Priebus, his Chief of Staff, and the former Chairman of the National Republican Party was rewarded for his sell out of his Republican principles by being shown the door. He became one of the shortest serving Chief’s of Staff in history. Accompanying Priebus in his exit was the national joke Sean Spicer who was the other GOP operative in the Trump administration. There are now no longer Republican Establishment figures in the POTUS’S inner circle.

As matters stand Trump is on his own in the face of threatening legal jeopardy. Trump will have his work cut out to get on the same page as the Republican Congress.

Trump and the 2018 midterm elections.

At the moment the Republicans, whoever they may be, are staring at massive loss in the face in 2018. The best they can hope for is that they retain the Senate as the electoral calendar favors them in that arena and barely hang onto the House. Whatever happens in these elections it is not going to help Trump or the GOP. In the unlikely event that they do do well they will be more split than they are now. Trump will now have a defined faction thereby increasing the split in the Party to at least three divisions - the traditional conservatives, the traditional moderates and the new Trumpites. 

Without too much discussion there is nothing in the horoscope that portends that in the future 2018 election there is help for the Trump cause.

Trump and the comedians

If the unprecedented merciless onslaught that Trump is undergoing from comedians could translate into political action he would be toast already. He is the nightly fodder for six shows on the conventional networks, CBC, NBC and ABC. These popular channels are joined by HBO, TBS, Comedy Central and on the new medium, Netflix, where he is mocked in show after show while ratings increase in a direct relationship to the lampooning that he is the recipient off. To look at just one example. Stephen Colbert was struggling till he laisered in on Trump and resuscitated his show. Saturday Night Live the progenitor of the comedy genre gave Hillary a bit of a run in the election but now it is pure unadulterated Trump satire. While this is entertainment it has to mean something that ratings and advertising are up across the board with the non stop roasting of the POTUS.  To put it at it’s kindest Trump can hardly expect any empathy from this crowd when it all hits the fan.

Trump and the polls

Like everything else the polls on his approval rating have gone South in the six months since he assumed office. Trump’s initial positive support was forty eight percent. Confidence in him has steadily eroded and now his approval ratings are lingering at thirty three percent. This is pretty close to rock bottom.  Using the Nixon impeachment story as an indicator tells how precarious his position is. Nixon at the time of his resignation had twenty nine percent approval, only four percent less than Trump. 

So Trump’s ignoring of the polls in favor of his rah rah rah base meetings in States that he won maybe a denial of reality to say the least. In fact he states that his base is firm and the polls are fake news.

The Trump Whitehouse

His administration is in a total shambles. Trump has put the dys into dysfunctional. One is beginning to understand why he went bankrupt so many times. As far as his personnel are concerned anyone who gets appointed signs up to play Russian Roulette in a circular firing squad. Time and again Trump contradicts a spokesperson as the WhiteHouse struggles to get the story straight. As time marches on the large number of positions still remain unfilled.

Any hold he might have had on his own administration was shattered by Jeff Sessions who simply refused to do the decent thing and resign when Trump told him that he made a mistake in appointing him. Everyday the insiders take it in turn to leak embarrassing stuff. The WhiteHouse is a house of intrigue with varying factions openly vying against each other. The most recent scrap is between Bannon and McMaster. The former’s internet mouthpiece Breitbart News is openly campaigning against Trump’s National Security Advisor, General McMaster. The Donald apparently thrives in this type of adversarial environment as his people fight for his imprimatur. He has, for the moment on Kelly’s say so, backed the General. Meanwhile Trump, in spite of hopes to the contrary in the light of his new Chief of Staff, is tweeting up a storm.

The hope that General Kelly will some how magically change this all is obviously misplaced.  

THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION

All this would not be so serious if there weren’t counter intelligence, criminal and congressional investigations proceeding apace. Republican Congress members are less and less inclined to defend their de facto leader in the light of all that has emerged in relation to Russiagate. And remember they are getting closed door briefings as well. Particularly ominous are the reports of the progress of the FBI counter intelligence and criminal investigations of the Mueller probe which include the establishment of Grand Juries, the acknowledgment that financial matters under purview and document requests from the WhiteHouse. The latest news is the investigation hots up is a raid on former campaign manager Paul Manafort's home. 

 The very fact that there is a determined bipartisan initiative to defy the President and protect the Special Counsel’s enquiry is indicative of the legal jeopardy that Trump and his entourage are exposed to. 

 AT THE END OF THE DAY

This piece began with Trump’s political counter attacks to his legal problems. While his legal team respond conventionally Trump marches to his own drummer. In so doing all bets are off as to the consequences of his actions. The best scenario is that this process is slow, deliberate and transparent. If it is Trump will bleed support as he has done up till now. This outcome will be exacerbated when coal mines do not reopen, wages don’t increase, Obamacare continues and the trillion dollar infrastructure program does not get under way. On the other hand if there are riots in the street at the initiation of impeachment proceedings America will be entering a new phase of anarchy precipitated by a megalomaniac. The Republican Party are beginning to wake up to the monster they have spawned - one can only hope that it is not to late. 

There is a new fear that his gauche handling of the North Korean crisis will result in a nuclear crisis.