2020 US Elections

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

I think its over. His relevance is melting away. The vast majority of his cronies in power are now fully engaged in covering their tracks, limiting liability, working on their exit and what they do in a post Trump world. We've seen a mass of evidence that there are no good people left working for Trump / Guliani its just the bottom of the barrel working in a barely functional set up. No one is going to take bullets for him now or even stick their head up to look. And he is not going to come out to face the music, he's just going to golf it out.

Not sure he has the guts to resign and take a Pence pardon. It's effectively an admission of guilt and even though he probably should do it and people will tell him to do it he will just do what he always does which is never admit guilt and brass everything out. I think he will just retire to Florida and wait for the prosecutors to call for him. I'm not sure Russia would offer him asylum - that is a bit like an admission of guilt for them and it would be a huge escalation in tension. Trump will be largely on his own post January.

I'd laugh my balls off if some of his appointees flee to Russia - it could happen. I suspect that many Trump enablers will find themselves in some very tricky situations - there are things that the Russians and GOP do not want discussed under threat of perjury. Bill Barr would be my favourite.

Pompeo would be mine. He did some pretty shifty moves over the Ukraine scandal, and has been up to his neck in dodgy deals since the election.

 

[Vic]

It’s over Seb. There’s not a chance Trump wrote that tweet nor that he would have ever though any of the sentiment in it.

That tells me two things:

1: There’s a grown up somewhere in his inner circle that has convinced him the game is up.

2: He’s finally decided to accept that he can’t turn over the result (along with insiders crying that Trump is moping around the West Wing and saying the campaign’s running of the legal challenges has made them look foolish).

I would not be the least bit surprised if he goes to Mar A Largo golfing in the coming weeks and simply doesn’t return. He has zero interest in governing and doing the job of President. I’d also joy be remotely surprised if he resigned to make Pence POTUS and received an immediate pardon.

Bill Barr will swear him in as rightful "president beyond the water" in Miami.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Pompeo would be mine. He did some pretty shifty moves over the Ukraine scandal, and has been up to his neck in dodgy deals since the election.

He is one of the relatively clever zealots (along with Barr and a few other higher cabinet secretaries and department heads that have been installed recently) I spoke about that still remain and is one of the main sources of the wildfires being set, including his efforts with Israel, Open Skies, and various staffing changes within the Department of State.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

It’s over Seb. There’s not a chance Trump wrote that tweet nor that he would have ever though any of the sentiment in it.

That tells me two things:

1: There’s a grown up somewhere in his inner circle that has convinced him the game is up.

2: He’s finally decided to accept that he can’t turn over the result (along with insiders crying that Trump is moping around the West Wing and saying the campaign’s running of the legal challenges has made them look foolish).

I would not be the least bit surprised if he goes to Mar A Largo golfing in the coming weeks and simply doesn’t return. He has zero interest in governing and doing the job of President. I’d also joy be remotely surprised if he resigned to make Pence POTUS and received an immediate pardon.

Biden will be sweating on this happening given he's had all those '46' t-shirts printed.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

I ended up adding a bit after my original post which speaks to more reasons why I disagree that he is going to sulk in to docility now, but I fully understand why you and @SWP's back believe that may happen.

I do agree that Trump is unlikely to resign for an early Pence pardon (explained in the bit I added, as well) and that Russia will probably not offer asylum (I think they are more likely to want to silence someone like him than protect him).

And I, too, am looking forward to seeing what happens with the various lower level zealots after Trump is gone, including Barr, Miller, DeVos, Wolf, and Mnunchin. Oh, and of course several prominent senators and his family.

I have a feeling a few are going to get off with much lesser punishments than we would like, but there will likely be consequences (in some case severe) for most of them.

Yep - there is a real risk of people being silenced. You wonder if some maybe reach out and seek protective custody. There is so much that is held by prosecutors that there is shit to come out and awkward questions to be faced. It would be a lot easier for the murky forces behind Trump if those central to the crimes were not around to go on trial. The Muller report has not been fully disclosed to the public and the Cohen evidence has barely been touched - who knows what else the FBI has sat on while waiting for a non partisan DoJ and a President who would not issue pardons and interfere with justice. You wonder what happens to the likes of Flynn and Stone where he did interfere.

 

[somapop]

THAT GOSE WITHOUT SEYING.

Hey - cut down on that COVFEFE man!

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I think its over. His relevance is melting away. The vast majority of his cronies in power are now fully engaged in covering their tracks, limiting liability, working on their exit and what they do in a post Trump world. We've seen a mass of evidence that there are no good people left working for Trump / Guliani its just the bottom of the barrel working in a barely functional set up. No one is going to take bullets for him now or even stick their head up to look. And he is not going to come out to face the music, he's just going to golf it out.

Not sure he has the guts to resign and take a Pence pardon. It's effectively an admission of guilt and even though he probably should do it and people will tell him to do it he will just do what he always does which is never admit guilt and brass everything out. I think he will just retire to Florida and wait for the prosecutors to call for him. I'm not sure Russia would offer him asylum - that is a bit like an admission of guilt for them and it would be a huge escalation in tension. Trump will be largely on his own post January.

I'd laugh my balls off if some of his appointees flee to Russia - it could happen. I suspect that many Trump enablers will find themselves in some very tricky situations - there are things that the Russians and GOP do not want discussed under threat of perjury. Bill Barr would be my favourite.

He's going to continue to have an audience in the Republican party and those in it (Senators esp.) are still going to be ducking his unshackled, distributed fire with every word they say and every action they take. I actually think whether Twitter decides to zip him or not is the most important determining factor in his relevancy post-Presidency.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

But not giving a pardon makes Pence another traitor to the cult.

Is he fully paid up member? If Pence were to run he would, my take is he were to take a more strategic stance, with the intention to roll back "big government" and liberal social reforms, not just focus on what gets him the most attention.

Trump is a useful front to discredit the democratic process and disenfranchise and a wide section of the population, if he is protected from liability for wrongdoing, then the Republican party could take more of the blame.

It is it likely that for some of the more rational but ideological Republicans backing trump was a long term project? A resurgent Republican party with a leader as extreme as Trump but more political nous, is more likely to succeed in an environment hostile environment, where voters trust democracy less and unlikely to vote for the party that actually believes in governing and using government for social good.

The Republicans continue to serve their true constituency of big corporations and fossil fuel and their base remain oblivious to this.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Yep - there is a real risk of people being silenced. You wonder if some maybe reach out and seek protective custody. There is so much that is held by prosecutors that there is shit to come out and awkward questions to be faced. It would be a lot easier for the murky forces behind Trump if those central to the crimes were not around to go on trial. The Muller report has not been fully disclosed to the public and the Cohen evidence has barely been touched - who knows what else the FBI has sat on while waiting for a non partisan DoJ and a President who would not issue pardons and interfere with justice. You wonder what happens to the likes of Flynn and Stone where he did interfere.

And that’s not even including the already moving SDNY cases (and additional investigations), the various other investigations related Trump’s tax evasion and dealings with Deutsche Bank, and the civil/criminal proceedings related to his sexual assaults (I would say alleged but we all know most, if not all, happened and he should be put away for the rest of his life for those alone). Oh, and international investigations, as well.

As many of us have pointed out, the sheer cost (time, effort, money, energy) of defending against the avalanche of litigation is going to bankrupt him (for the 7th time) — his followers don’t have enough money left for him to steal in order to support those efforts (and his present debt). And he’ll lose many, if not most, of the cases, anyway. With those losses comes massive financial penalties and prison time, most of which he can’t receive pardons for.

Althought he is monumentally stupid, he absolutely knows all of that is coming when he leaves office.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Hey - cut down on that COVFEFE man!

 

[Vic]

Hey - cut down on that COVFEFE man!

Woman, camera, man .... No, I've forgotten.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

He's going to continue to have an audience in the Republican party and those in it (Senators esp.) are still going to be ducking his unshackled, distributed fire with every word they say and every action they take. I actually think whether Twitter decides to zip him or not is the most important determining factor in his relevancy post-Presidency.

I honestly think he has dirt on them. Especially the ones who've partaken in the 'hospitality' at Mar-a-lago.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

To be fair, I am not sure 2000 is a particularly good example of judicial checks and balances working given the candidate that lost the election remained President (largely down to the gaming of election law, mob tactics, and judicial deficiencies).

And I think it is likely reasonable to say that had a similar razor thin EC majority and vote count scenario played out this cycle there is a very high chance it would not have properly checked or balanced the outcome (and the democratic republic may not have survived).

All of that said, although the Trump camp’s path to more direct subversion has now all but evaporated, I do think many are putting up the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner a tad early.

As I have said many times, I will pop the bubbly when Biden is sworn in on 20 January after Trump has been dragged out. How much bubbly is consumed will depend on how much of the White House (and the US) is left standing after the final few months of Trump’s scorched America campaign.

But the fact that we didn't have a razor-thin EC margin this time should tell you something about the system working. And my point was 2000 should tell you something about the willingness of one side to peacefully accept an adverse decision because the courts said so (system worked) also doesn't smack of system breakdown (the decision is different than the reaction to the decision).

The mission, is, was and always has been vote the fuck out of office. All the other goals -- prosecute him after, smash his enablers, win the Senate, etc. -- were secondary. The ELECTION part is over. There was always going to be a lot of concern about the period between the election and inauguration.

But I agree re the amount of bubbly. I just think his focus has to now be on his own future -- meaning his own legal defense and his own bank account -- so he has to calculate what tack he can take to fleece the rubes to pay off his campaign bills and set up his legal defense fund. That tells me scorching the earth -- as much as he'd want to -- takes too much work and isn't necessarily his priority now that his temper fit hasn't gotten him anywhere.

 

[SebastianBlue]

But the fact that we didn't have a razor-thin EC margin this time should tell you something about the system working. And my point was 2000 should tell you something about the willingness of one side to peacefully accept an adverse decision because the courts said so (system worked) also doesn't smack of system breakdown (the decision is different than the reaction to the decision).

The mission, is, was and always has been vote the fuck out of office. All the other goals -- prosecute him after, smash his enablers, win the Senate, etc. -- were secondary. The ELECTION part is over. There was always going to be a lot of concern about the period between the election and inauguration.

But I agree re the amount of bubbly. I just think his focus has to now be on his own future -- meaning his own legal defense and his own bank account -- so he has to calculate what tack he can take to fleece the rubes to pay off his campaign bills and set up his legal defense fund. That tells me scorching the earth -- as much as he'd want to -- takes too much work and isn't necessarily his priority now that his temper fit hasn't gotten him anywhere.

Apologies, your point in the exchange with @gordondaviesmoustache seemed to be about the judicial checks and balances working in 2000, so I was responding to point out that it couldn’t have worked in 2000 if the candidate who won the election didn’t become president, partly down to judicial feet-dragging and wrangling; the general acceptance of the system not working does not constitute the system working, and so forth. But I guess I misunderstood and you were actually referring to the greater political system’s acceptance of the technically unconstitutional outcome being an indication that the system didn’t breakdown.

To your point about the election part being over — I have said this a couple of times awhile ago after it was clear Biden had won and again verbatim in posts from earlier today, so we are in agreement there. I have been discussing what I refer to as ‘phase 3’: Trump’s revenge. :-)

I suppose there’s no point in arguing about what is going to happen over the next few months, though, seeing as we are going to find out very soon and there is only so much we can do to mitigate it, unlike discussions prior to the election. And I seem to be in the minority in thinking he’ll continue to act as he always has rather than change tack now, so I’ll stop pontificating. I do think I have a fairly good track record when it comes to predicting Trump regime behaviour thus far (even being in the minority at various times well before the election, especially when it came to how far Trump would go to try to subvert the results), but I may of course be wrong in this case.

Let’s just hope whatever he decides to do amounts to yet another failure added to the heap of them he calls his life and whatever damage his camp manages to do over the next few months can be repaired without too great a cost to America and the world-at-large.

I’ll go back to shouting at the birds now. ;-)

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

 

[DrBlueBob]

Apologies, your point in the exchange with @gordondaviesmoustache seemed to be about the judicial checks and balances working in 2000, so I was responding to point out that it couldn’t have worked in 2000 if the candidate who won the election didn’t become president, partly down to judicial feet-dragging and wrangling; the general acceptance of the system not working does not constitute the system working, and so forth. But I guess I misunderstood and you were actually referring to the greater political system’s acceptance of the technically unconstitutional outcome being an indication that the system didn’t breakdown.

To your point about the election part being over — I have said this a couple of times awhile ago after it was clear Biden had won and again verbatim in posts from earlier today, so we are in agreement there. I have been discussing what I refer to as ‘phase 3’: Trump’s revenge. :-)

I suppose there’s no point in arguing about what is going to happen over the next few months, though, seeing as we are going to find out very soon and there is only so much we can do to mitigate it, unlike discussions prior to the election. And I seem to be in the minority in thinking he’ll continue to act as he always has rather than change tack now, so I’ll stop pontificating. I do think I have a fairly good track record when it comes to predicting Trump regime behaviour thus far (even being in the minority at various times well before the election, especially when it came to how far Trump would go to try to subvert the results), but I may of course be wrong in this case.

Let’s just hope whatever he decides to do amounts to yet another failure added to the heap of them he calls his life and whatever damage his camp manages to do over the next few months can be repaired without too great a cost to America and the world-at-large.

I’ll go back to shouting at the birds now. ;-)

Oy Oy!! Dahlin!

 

[SebastianBlue]

 

[kaz7]

I had read about one prisoner executed the other day , i didnt realise they were on a mission

Scott Peterson please

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Apologies, your point in the exchange with @gordondaviesmoustache seemed to be about the judicial checks and balances working in 2000, so I was responding to point out that it couldn’t have worked in 2000 if the candidate who won the election didn’t become president, partly down to judicial feet-dragging and wrangling; the general acceptance of the system not working does not constitute the system working, and so forth. But I guess I misunderstood and you were actually referring to the greater political system’s acceptance of the technically unconstitutional outcome being an indication that the system didn’t breakdown.

To your point about the election part being over — I have said this a couple of times awhile ago after it was clear Biden had won and again verbatim in posts from earlier today, so we are in agreement there. I have been discussing what I refer to as ‘phase 3’: Trump’s revenge. :-)

I suppose there’s no point in arguing about what is going to happen over the next few months, though, seeing as we are going to find out very soon and there is only so much we can do to mitigate it, unlike discussions prior to the election. And I seem to be in the minority in thinking he’ll continue to act as he always has rather than change tack now, so I’ll stop pontificating. I do think I have a fairly good track record when it comes to predicting Trump regime behaviour thus far (even being in the minority at various times well before the election, especially when it came to how far Trump would go to try to subvert the results), but I may of course be wrong in this case.

Let’s just hope whatever he decides to do amounts to yet another failure added to the heap of them he calls his life and whatever damage his camp manages to do over the next few months can be repaired without too great a cost to America and the world-at-large.

I’ll go back to shouting at the birds now. ;-)

There is always the risk of the unhinged anal pustule going into a rage and defecating everywhere and anywhere in the White House. But is doing so going to get him any more money? That's what it's all about now -- how much money can I scrabble together to protect myself when this is over? That's the reason to continue to perpetuate the "I won" myth, to retweet Randy Quaid, and to --inevitably -- claim his PAC will focus solely on fighting election fraud while supporting ballot security, voter ID, etc. etc. It's a great money-raising issue for him; it will become his cause celebre. It's awesome because he can claim he actually won, claim those against him are doing so because they want to perpetuate fraud, go down as a "hero" as a supporter of free an fair elections, claim when the legal aspects come to roost that he's being railroaded for "speaking out" (a better rationale than "no one likes me " which makes him look like the bitch he is) . . . and who won't give money for the cause of supporting free and fair elections, right?

 

[kaz7]

How much money have his deluded supporters given him to fight the election result , even a dollar each makes 70m , he must be funneling it into his private accounts ?