Tom Rinaldo
Tom Rinaldo's JournalTrump is a transition figure. Pence will be cast as the next Gerry Ford.
At some point after they get enough out of him, and Trump's approval ratings sink low enough, Republicans will cut Trump loose for a President Pence. They already have enough to impeach him over any time they want. They will spin that they are true patriots, putting the interests of the nation over a president of their own party. They will saddle Trump with the blame for everything that goes wrong in and for America during his administration, and then throw hm overboard. They have to wait long enough before doing so that their own base won't punish them for turning against Trump, but they will pull the trigger then- probably within 6 months the way things are going. Most likely they will depose him on national security grounds. By then Trump will already have signed off on their conservative domestic agenda. Expect Pence to pose as a Gerry Ford after Nixon type figure temperamentally. He will be framed as a calming return to normality. The window dressing will suddenly improve dramatically and America will feel relieved when our VP is elevated to the presidency.
The daily scandal that Trump now throws out is the perfect set up to normalize the rule of a President Pence, by way of contrast, after he takes power. When asked what took them so long to deal with a rabid Trump presidency that they in fact enabled, Congressional Republicans will cite a respect for the will of an electorate that chose Donald Trump to be President. After the fact they will claim that they were always keeping a keen eye on Trump and were preparing to defend our Constitutional Republic from him if need be. I think they may be able to pull it off by claiming to still support whatever elements of Trumpism haven't by then been fully discredited (coupled with standard conservative "values"
with a new improved figure head President who we will be told was a crucial behind the scenes leader in successfully navigating us away from the Trump disaster.
But Republicans can't escape political blame for the pain they will inflict on millions of people whose fundamental survival may depend on how Republicans deal with health care. Their zeal to repeal Obamacare predates the rise of Trump, his downfall will not provide them with a convenient scapegoat after the fact IF we make sure that the blame stays pinned on them now. Whether or not Democrats can retake one or both houses of congress in 2018, I think, may rest on this after Republicans help clean the White House of Donald Trump and try to take credit for that.
Democrats must continue to show that Congressional Republicans are willingly and knowingly playing with our lives if they move to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and the protections (and affordability) it now provides to lower and true middle income Americans - many of whom provided the critical votes Republicans needed last November to win a narrow electoral college majority to install a President wiling to sign off on their legislative agenda. Our problem is that with all of the ongoing pyrotechnics of a Trump presidency, it is hard to not keep all eyes riveted on him while we respond to the latest explosion, and not on Congress where the more garden variety work of the plutocracy is steadily advancing. Can we both forcefully resist Trump and keep a spotlight on Republicans in Congress? Much rides on our ability to do so.
The Main Stream Media Reporters who Donald Trump Calls Disgusting
These are the same individuals who collectively withheld all reporting on the "dossier" of how the Russians allegedly compromised Trump in Moscow, simply because they were unable to independently confirm the allegations made in it. This despite the fact that the person who compiled that dosser was and remains a highly credible source; a former British head of Intelligence for their Moscow unit. The story was widely known by most if not all major media organizations dating back to the summer, and yet not a hint of it leaked out prior to quite recently after American Intelligence agencies felt a need to themselves brief our political leaders on it.
I am not criticizing our media for withholding coverage of a story that would potentially have dominated the news for weeks prior to the election. Actually I applaud them for acting responsibly in light of the power that media always has to strongly influence events, including Presidential Elections. They should be cautious about publicly reporting potentially explosive allegations while they are doing their best to confirm details about them. But I can't help but think about how Donald Trump did his very best to sleaze them all, often by name, during his campaign for President while they all were acting so responsibly and not breaking a story that they knew would garner massive attention during the most competitive six month long domestic news cycle this country ever routinely experiences.
For some of these reporters their literal physical safety was put in question by the viscous negative personal focus that Donald Trump placed them under to his most rabid followers. Throughout it all they remained true to the ethics of their calling and suppressed unproven reports that could have severely damaged Trump's chances to become President. And in return the now President of the United States calls these dedicated men and women “the most dishonest human beings on earth”.
I haven't seen any other reflections written about what Trump put those reporters through in his campaign while all along those members of the so called liberal elite media were refusing to run with a story damaging to Trump because they could not prove it to be true. It continues to boggle my mind what a crude asshole Donald Trump is.
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