Donald Trump is in quite a pickle, and this means that the American people are in trouble, too.
You see, the majority of the minority of the American people gave the keys to the White House to Donald Trump. This made the Orange one quite happy after his 5 years of being sad from the Illegitmate One making fun of him at the White House Correspondents dinner. Now, Trump ruled the world, or at least became the President, which gave him great power to dissassemble all of the mean and terrible things that Obama did to him and his close, white, rich fellow oligarchs.
This also made establishment Republicans very happy. Now they might have more success doing what they want to do, which is to give tax cuts to their very close, rich, white fellow oligarchs (with the bonus of screwing poor and disabled people even more). At first, the Republicans were worried. Donald Trump ran his campaign as if he were a populist. He promised to improve the Health Care System, not destroy it. He promised to save jobs, not help them ship manufacturing overseas to save on labor costs. He promised to build a hugely expensive wall that would do nothing to stop illegal immigration. To stop the Great Cheetoh in 2016, the Republican establishment sent 16 warriors into the primary battle. Alas, Trump slayed them all, one by one, in one of the cruelest and funniest primary election race in history. In the end, Donald stood alone, and actually won the general election.
But Trump constinued to be Trump - he didn't "become more presidential." as some insisted he would. Neither did he drain the swamp as he promised. He continued to run his businesses as usual, defying the constitutional requirements of not accepting emoluments from foreign powers.
Donald Trump has crippled the U.S. government in four distinct ways. First, he hired a national security with a "compromised" foreign agent. Second, he brought in many rich oligarchs to head executive departments within the government who clearly had interests in destroying the departments they now lead. Third, he's leaving thousands of open, critical positions in the executive department unfilled. And fourth, he's fired federal prosecutors en mass, including Deputy Attorney General and the FBI director - basically, anyone who could investigate his criminal activity.
This is perfect for the establishment Republicans. They love the fact that they are fullfiling the dream of their close, personal friend, Grover Norquist, who wants a government small enough to drown in a bathtub. But even better, they have a President who is certifyably insane - hundreds of analysts attest to this fact. Donald Trump is a narcissist, a compulsive Twitter user who isolates himself in the White House watching Fox News and Saturday Night Live, a proven liar and probably in debt to foreign leaders, mafia kingpins or both.
All of this adds up to a President distinctly succeptible to domestic blackmail. The Republican establishment has multiple resources to remove President Trump from office at any time, including the 25th Amendment and the impeachment process.
The Republican establishment has one clear obsession - greed. A number of things prevent them from becoming as fantastically wealthy as they deem themselves to be entitled, the two biggest items being high taxes and Obamacare, the legislation that prevents them from really screwing over the poor and middle class. Obamacare is really putting a dent into the coffers of the insurance industry, so removing health care protections from the middle class is their most pressing need. Once they get that, then the tax cuts they dream of can literally start writing themselves into law.
Just put the two things together - 1) Republicans desire to kill Obamacare and cut taxes with 2) a compromised President. This is a recipe for extortion. Mitch McConnell holds all the cards now - Donald Trump burned all of his cards in the first 5 months of his presidency - his approval ratings are in the basement, he's acted recklessly as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and he's under investigation by practically everyone for colluding with the Russians to tamper with the election. McConnell is now, apparently, the only one in charge of the health care bill that was just released this morning. Once the bill gets thru the Senate, he can deliver it to Trump and give him two options - sign the bill or get out.
At this point, Trump has three options. Sign the bill, succumb to a coup via the 25th Amendment, or be a maverick. Rumors have it that Trump wants to quit anyway. He can go out on his own terms though. If he takes his evidence about his campaign collusion to the people, he can throw the entire govenment into disarray. McConnell's plans of inserting Mike Pence into the Presidency would be in serious jeopardy if the evidence shows that Pence was a co-conspirator in the Russian hacking scheme. Trump could also claim that the entire operation was endorsed by Paul Ryan, thus making the entire chain of succession to the presidency completely poisoned. A full constitutional crisis meltdown.
A liberal can dream, right?
p.s. I wanted to get this diary out into the public domain quickly, so I needed to forgo links. My apologies.
