Note: I’m writing this on phone somewhere between junction and Fort Stockton on I 10. There will be errors. Also, there’s lot of Donald Trump. You are warned.
It may look as though I haven’t written anything in a while but that isn’t true. I’ve written three long posts, totalling close to six thousand words, about the increasingly likely end of the Trump administration. I haven’t posted and of them because events are moving so quickly toward that end that I can’t keep up, and damned if I can write about anything else until I get this out of my head.
So here it is, in greatly shortened form and minus the Hunter Thompson-influenced but from the second draft: I think it’s almost certain that the Trump administration won’t last the full four years. Even without the mounting evidence of coordination between his campaign and Russian meddlers, there’s more than enough out there for Congress to remove him when they choose to do so.
My best guess is that the plan was to do so prior to the 2018 elections. Trump is so deeply unpopular that his removal by a Congress headed by his own party would be a huge boon for the Republicans running for re-election. The timeline may be pushed forward as the party will want him out of office before the Russia investigation bears any fruit and threatens to expand beyond the White House.
Honestly, there isn’t much left of the Trump presidency in any meaningful sense. He failed to assert leadership in his first hundred days, leaving the Capitol with his tail between his legs and no legislative achievements. He’s abandoned leadership in trade to China in the Pacific rim and ceded leadership to Germany and France in Europe. We’ve reached the point where the White House had to release statements saying that the president’s tweets do not reflect his positions or policies. He is, by a wide margin, the weakest and most interesting president in my memory (and I remember the Ford adminstration.)
Believe it or not, that’s the short version. It felt good to get that out and finally been done with it. Now I can enjoy my vacation in Marfa. I won’t even be able to watch Comey’s testimony on Thursday, and man, I can’t tell you good that feels.
-RK