What Happens If ... (NYTimes)

[kentuck]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/opinion/trump-mueller-russia-investigation.html

<snip>
I no longer think that anyone in America, including Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters, can afford to put off the consideration of the central question of this administration: What if Donald Trump or those closest to him were compromised by the Russians or colluded with them?

There have always been those of us on the left who viewed his presidency as compromised, asterisk-worthy if not wholly illegitimate, because of the Russian interference.

A crime had been committed by Russia and Trump cheered the crime and used the loot thereof to advance his candidacy. That is clear.

The Russians made repeated attempts to contact people in Trump’s orbit and in some cases were able to meet with members of the team, as evidenced by the Trump Tower meeting. That is clear.

[Roland99]

1. "What if?" "What if?!?!" Wtf? It's a forgone conclusion!

The evidence has been publicly available for a year and a half!

[Girard442]

2. There will be no such moment.

No one who isn't convinced already will ever convinced by new revelations, no matter what they might be.

[malaise]

3. It's happening n/t

[Jarqui]

4. Going back to 1974, you could get impeachment

from Republicans which is why Nixon resigned.

Today, we probably can't because the corruption appears to be way beyond Trump into the GOP. Trump could not have pulled this off alone. There are multiple reports millions in Russian money made it into the coffers of the GOP and NRA.

The problem is that this is exactly what Trump has maintained it is not: collusion (conspiracy for the criminal term). But the collusion goes beyond merely Russia. A number of Americans seem to have gone along with it - including politicians. Saudi Arabia or other countries may be involved too.

I don't think there is a simple remedy for that because the founders couldn't contemplate such widespread betrayal/corruption.

[RKP5637]

5. The founders thought the president would be a friend of the people and the country, not

an enemy of the people and the country as Trump is. ... nor did they envision the massive propaganda tools available today to distort the truth and the extreme level of corruption. Frankly, they probably did not envision how stupid people are today, easily led, willfully ignorant and a presidential cult.

[unblock]

6. my fear is that the most significant consequence will be merely a slightly better chance

for democrats to win the next presidential election. which may carry with it some coattails.

plus a few more people will go to prison (some already have, of course. then again, they may get pardoned, if only on donnie's last day in office.

i can't imagine him not pardoning his family members. and i find it very unlikely that donnie himself will go to prison, between a pence pardon (donnie could resign on january 19, 2021, just to let pence be president for a day so he can pardon donnie), massive legal delays, and eventually a claim that he's in too poor health for prison. best hope is confinement to one of his palaces. and he'll probably set up a tv studio from there to speak to his bigot base....


our system simply is not as good as it really should be in terms of keeping people so rich and powerful like donnie fully accountable.

in truth, we might be better than a lot of other nations in this regard, but we're certainly not ideal.