What's next? A Trump presidency prediction thread.

[sunmaster14]

Do you have a citation for that?

You just gave it. It's my prediction.

 

[Minoosh]

You just gave it. It's my prediction.

OK, I thought maybe you had evidence.

 

[Minoosh]

Isn't there some policy against appointing one's family members? Perhaps he has to start with an executive order changing that?

RFK was JFK's attorney general, so apparently there was no such policy in the '60s. Don't know about later times.

 

[Minoosh]

Yes. And nope, they won't kick newly insured people to the curb. The Obamacare subsidies will stay in place - mark my words. Republicans really aren't as hard-hearted as liberals believe. Nowhere near.

I hope you're right that they were just lying all along.

 

[sunmaster14]

I hope you're right that they were just lying all along.

They never promised to kick recently insured people to the curb. You've just been brainwashed by Democratic spin.

 

[sunmaster14]

RFK was JFK's attorney general, so apparently there was no such policy in the '60s. Don't know about later times.

A law was passed during LBJ's administration specifically to prevent an RFK/JFK situation from happening again.

 

[Minoosh]

Don't borrow trouble. Find your actionables. We obviously can't predict the future or this thread wouldn't exist.

I've heard that saying - Chinese? I agree that living in the present is healthier than carrying around free-floating dread.

I think it was you that talked about getting involved in local politics. What I may be in a position to do is help young people make evidence-based arguments.

 

[Minoosh]

They never promised to kick recently insured people to the curb. You've just been brainwashed by Democratic spin.

You don't know what's in my brain and please, if you can find it in you, refrain from pretending you can. But, since I now see that Trump was lying all along about repealing Obamacare, maybe Congress will fall into line.

 

[Stacko]

Kris Kobach, architect of the law allowing police to ask all brown people for papers, joins transition team.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been asked to join Donald Trump’s presidential transition team.

Kobach is a controversial figure because he was the architect of what many consider to be the most racist law in modern American history: SB 1070, passed in Arizona in 2010. The law allowed police officers to stop anyone that they suspected of not being a citizen in order to ask that person to prove proof of citizenship.

The law, nicknamed “Papers Please,” was championed by both Kobach and the right-wing ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), and two dozen other bills like it spread throughout conservative states

...

What’s more, Kobach was a featured speaker at a workshop for the white nationalist The Social Contract Press (TSCP). And before he was secretary of state, he was a lawyer for Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

 

[annnnoid]

1. Trump is convicted of fraud (Trump University)
2. Trump is impeached and thrown out of office. Both GOP and Dems rejoice.

...am thinking the Dems might be shaking their heads either way.

From what I can see…the Republicans have a majority in the Senate, the House, and a majority of Governorships. The only thing standing between ‘them’ and everything they want…is Donald Trump (and his loyalists).

Donald Trump goes…the (even scarier….???) Mike Pence arrives.

…so…maybe the question is simply: How long will it take to get rid of Donald Trump…by whatever means possible (legal or otherwise)? They’ve basically got two years of carte blanch where…absent Trump…they could do whatever they want. When asking what ‘means’ might be used…one only has to ask how valuable an opportunity this is (or is perceived to be) by whatever nut-job Republicans may be out there.

Is it inconceivable that ‘they’ could dig up some Democrat malcontent sociopath fall-guy somewhere (how hard would it be to find such an individual) and give him / her the opportunity to off the pres???

I don’t know…is it? Have I been watching too many movies?

…but why go to all that trouble (and risk)? Just how many skeletons do you suppose Donald has in his closet that would be grounds for impeachment??? Donald was the epitome of the moving target over the last 12-18 months…but now he’s a sitting duck with a very big target on him.

…how conceivable is it that discussions just like these are occurring somewhere in the Republican halls of power. The incentive is not just to get Pence in…Donald also seems to have made lots of enemies in Republican-land. If a plain brown envelope gets dropped on someone’s desk with impeachable-level evidence inside…how many of these ‘enemies’ (or even ‘friends’) wouldn’t use it?

I wonder if there are yet any odds in Vegas on how long before Trump is… ‘replaced’…?

Personally I think the ‘blue’ states should just face reality and create their own country (the united states of sanity). The west coast and northeast would immediately become the 5th or 6th biggest economy in the world…and the ‘red’ states would be left to squabble over the quickest route to third-world status.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Could Trump re-pick his VP now that he's won the election? If he has any foresight, he should know that Pence is the one that the Republicans really want as POTUS.

 

[annnnoid]

Could Trump re-pick his VP now that he's won the election? If he has any foresight, he should know that Pence is the one that the Republicans really want as POTUS.

…and he and his lackey’s probably are aware of that. So maybe Pence will get ‘offed’ (Trump could call up his buddy Putin and get a bit of that radioactive stuff that the KGB / FSB uses to ‘disappear’ unwanted expatriates).

What happens if the VP position becomes vacant?...apparently the pres gets to appoint a new one…subject to the approval of both houses…BUT…he doesn’t actually HAVE to appoint anyone. The position can be vacant. But then the next in line becomes the speaker of the house (Paul Ryan)…and who in the GOP upper echelons wouldn’t want him in the white house???

Just kicking the can down the road. All absurdly hypothetical of course...but we have just entered the twilight zone where reality TV has intersected the white house. Is there anything that is too-crazy?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I see Trump go the way of least resistance everywhere, once he realizes who much effort it is to change anything.
With Priebus and Bannon at the center, the most important job of the Trump administration will be to purge and remake the GOP in the Alt-right image. Everything else will be postponed until "conformity" has been achieved.

 

[The Don]

With Priebus and Bannon at the center, the most important job of the Trump administration will be to purge and remake the GOP in the Alt-right image. Everything else will be postponed until "conformity" has been achieved.

If that is the case, isn't it a rather frightening prospect given that GOP voters seem either to support the alt-right message and/or are so anti Democratic Party that they would rather vote for someone whose political views are more different than their own just because they cannot bring themselves to vote for someone with a blue rosette ?

 

[alfaniner]

Another vision that started only as a soft echo but is now getting more prominent:

"...I am therefore resigning the Office of the President of the United States."

 

[thaiboxerken]

Another vision that started only as a soft echo but is now getting more prominent:

"...I am therefore resigning the Office of the President of the United States."

I wish! Then Pence would start his presidency with the actual title of President instead of VP. Make no mistake, Pence will really be the one in charge on Jan 20th.

 

[The Don]

I wish! Then Pence would start his presidency with the actual title of President instead of VP. Make no mistake, Pence will really be the one in charge on Jan 20th.

...which is very worrying for people for whom a Christian Fundamentalist U.S. is undesirable.

• Abortion ban
• Doubling down on abstinence only sex-ed
• Prejuduce allowed on (Christian) religious grounds
• Crack-down on LBGTQ rights
• Creationism taught as science

 

[Delphic Oracle]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/magazine/how-donald-trump-picked-his-running-mate.html

Donald, Jr. was tasked with the vetting process for VP selection.

A Kasich adviser purports the following exchange:

Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply.

ETA: Yes, it was disputed (only after publication, of course). It is not outside of the realm of possibility, however (that it was considered a workable arrangement). I think he's changing his expectations, however. I really do think that Donald considered it plausible that he could keep working from his office in Trump Tower, jetting around on his own private jet rather than Air Force One, and basically still just being Donald while everyone else actually ran the country (per his guidance via phone conference, perhaps). Now that he's encountering the real powers of the 'deep state' that pin a President down to behave a certain way, he's getting a rude awakening.

It reminds me of what some monarchies had morphed into by the time of the Enlightenment. Kings were no longer despots that could rule by unilateral fiat. They were still legally identified as the sovereign, but the 'court' ran things, merely needing the monarch to sign this document, deliver this speech on the day of the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, make an appearance at the Spring Equinox Gala/Ball/Pageant, attend the first performance of the theatre season, gavel in the meeting of the committee of nobles, receive the official request of the ambassador of wherever-it-is, etc, etc. They were a vestigial organ.

If he thinks he's a high-powered, wheeling-and-dealing, moving-and-shaking power broker, his expectations are about to re-align. Entrenched factions and alliances of power that exist within the system are going to play him like a fiddle.

 

[SOdhner]

Trump's main focus will be on creating synergy between his business interests and the presidency. He will hopelessly entangle the two in any way that makes him money. By the time he leaves office (through whatever means) there will be no line at all.

Corporations will win big, the little guy and the environment will lose. No big surprise there.

Pence will be running the show in many ways, but not as many as he would like. Trump's inability and unwillingness to actually run the country will lead to him letting multiple people take over things in a way that causes a lot of internal strife. It won't always be clear who outranks who, because for the most part it will be "who talked to Trump most recently?".

Even for areas where someone competent is in charge, they will occasionally be blindsided by Trump. At least a few times, plans that have been in the works for nine months or more will be abruptly torpedoed as Trump declares something out of nowhere that contradicts the party message or makes a promise that (insert planned GOP thing) will never happen.

Trump will continue to have randomly left-leaning opinions mixed in with his right wing platform. Sometimes this will muddy the waters, sometimes not. It will keep certain other politicians annoyed at him and in theory should anger some of his supporters as he drops things he doesn't really care about and was just saying to get votes.

As the establishment Republicans push back against Trump and even more often some of his buddies, Trump will not be able to resist his nature and will strike out against them. This, along with some of the scandals that will continue to come up, will mean that at some point there is serious talk of impeachment even among the Republicans. I don't think he will actually be thrown out of office though.

Despite all this, for the most part Republicans will get what they want and for the most part Trump supporters will rationalize whatever he says and does. He'll serve his four years, and if he runs again he'll still get about half the vote though I strongly believe he wouldn't win a second time.

I can't make any really specific predictions though, because he's a wildcard. So I don't know how to go down the list of policies and give a yes/no vote. Essentially I think almost none of them will be an unqualified yes, other than appointing a conservative judge to the supreme court.

 

[Tero]

Pence calls in exterminators. All rats, except Trump family, to be removed from team:
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/201...ition-team-controversial-names-remain-n684836

New lobbyists will hide behind stuffed suits, 70 year old Republicans.