NO One can contain a demi-god, the incarnation of the Greek god Narsisus.
1-Trump is a billionaire...money talks, and talks big
2-Trump makes no mistakes
3-He needs no one to advise him...he knows everything (Note how he treated Tillerson, Sessions, Kelly, Mattis...
4- In his own words 'He will destroy the character of anyone that dares to stand up to him''. At best he will demean any one who opposes him using twits and TV appearances
5 He has 'cowed' most of the Republican Congressman...they dare not speak out..,
5-His rhetoric can arouse 45 million of his followers, to action against those those fail to praise him...
6-He lives in his own alternate reality
He is the most dangerous US President ever, elected with much less votes than Hillary...
30
The third possibility is the obvious one. But not because Trump will be vindicated. Trump requires two things to survive (well, three, if you count the 24/7 attention the MSM gives him for free year after year).
He needs a fight, and so far "a fight" has meant undoing everything Obama did. But how can Trump claim vindication this way other than for Douthat to declare everything Obama did was bad, and not even he thinks that.
So, Trump needs that second thing: a foil. And he will have not just Nancy Pelosi for that role but about 87 Democratic candidates for president.
Ruy Teixeira, said 15 years ago by this time we would have a permanent Democratic majority as older base Republican voters passed on and younger Democratic voters of color grew in number.
Today, Teixeira has flipped 180 and claims there is still about another 10% of the white vote Trump can squeeze out of the GOP and that would make the presidency GOP owned for 3-4 cycles.
All Trump needs to do this is a fight, a foil and the $2-3 billion in free media time he gets every year, even if he is simply descending the staircase on Air Force One
So, Scenario 4: Trump needs no vindication; screws up an inter-galactic crisis and still gets re-elected.
Fight
Foil
Free media.
3 "F's" and Trump passes.
6
The Republican Party needs to be marginalized (personally I prefer crushed) badly. It has no policies except getting power. Once they have it all they can think of to do is get rich and indulge their fantasy worlds. The way to this outcome is for the Village Idiot to cause major damage. This will happen. I will regret the human suffering involved, but then the country did elect him.
16
One might use a tried but true thing, T is the worst form of President except for all the others.
1
Good job, Mr. Douthat. You, and columns like this, are two of the reasons I subscribe to the NYT.
2
So far I haven't seen much enthusiasm for the potential Democratic candidates who want to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency in 2020.
4
For one, VP Pence should be expecting to have whatever happens to Trump happen to Him, as well, for standing around, aiding and abetting and NOT saying much about the illegalities etc that he Has to be seeing on a near-daily basis where it comes to the actions of Trump, His Family or the close Aides and Advisors and Lawyers on Staff.
NOT Reporting Treason, when one is seeing it, is legally the same and carries the same penalties as actually participating in it. Dereliction of Duty would apply.
18
The other possibility is Trump, well aware of his legal vulnerabilities, driven by an outsized ego, seeks an exit. Not Nixonian, but relieved of federal and state criminal exposure and without admissions, Trump might quit or retire or whatever. Mueller and the Southern District of NY are relentless and professional.
A Democratic House could target areas creating additional pressures on Trump. Embarrassing disclosures to legal woes for him he frankly does not need to face. An exit may prove attractive.
A grand bargain of this scale best done before Mueller gets disinterested in participating.
5
The question should be how far will GOP enablers allow Trump to go in his destruction of our American system of government? The GOP for a long time now has tried very hard to disrupt the government's role in such things as infrastructure, health care, social security, SNAP and voting system and Trump is only an extension of that. As others have said when Trump is cornered he may well try to go farther and destroy our system of justice. There may well come a point where our values and government will be unrecognizable.
Will the GOP stop him at some point or just continue to enable him as they continue with there heads stuck firmly in the sand? Will this be the GOP's final vengeance as our population moves farther and farther away from their destructive values?
16
For those who have read "The Caine Mutiny", there are remarkable similarities between the fictional skipper of the USS Caine, Philip Queeg and the alleged skipper of the United States, donald j trump. Both paranoid, both distrustful of their subordinates, both given to distortion and exaggeration, neither competent in execution of their office.
It is not my intention to write a review of the book but is hoped that this posting may spark a bit of interest in reading the book. (Ignore the movie)
In the book, Queeg was relieved of command at sea. It is unlikely that he would ever receive another command. How quickly can trump be relieved of command?
11
And for 2019 columns on Trump, you might consider talking about The Apprentice staff having to work to make Trump make sense, or compare Trump and the Minnesota Governor/wrestler's administration.
3
I suggest that the goal for Democrats this season is to put as many Republicans in prison as the law permits.
23
Has he given any reason to think he will be contained? As long as the press covers his every burp, he will keep belching. Until then...
12
"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it."
Warren Buffett
GOP in a nutshell.
Our allies and trading partners can no longer rely on the US. As bad as individual-1 is, it is the 60 plus million supporters that renders the US as unreliable.
22
Imagine where we would be as a country if we did not have gerrymandering, did not gut the voting rights act, did not have a SCOTUS that allowed dark money to flow to our campaigns and instead had real campaign finance laws. Imagine if we were the leaders of new green technology worldwide, lead on climate change and clean energy, held rogue nations accountable for their human rights acts (and didn't deliberately commit them ourselves; ex. at the border), buckled down and committed ourselves to 21 century infrastructure and rebuilding Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We used to have big ideas. We used to want to lead and take the risk that comes with it. We didn't used to be called 'suckers' and believe it. We never used to be victims.
There are still some of us who remember when we had an enviable 'can do ' attitude that was the envy of the world.
29
You forgot "detained"
4
An uncontrolled Trump is on par with an uncontrolled 3-year-old.
Destruction is assured; the only question is just exactly what idiot disaster will happen first.
16
Honestly, at this point who cares? He’s proven himself incompetent to more than 50% of Americans and he has proven himself dishonest to even more. There’s little more Americans need to know. Enough with these pointless analyses and debates. He’s an anomaly we simply need to get past one way or another.
19
I think 'incarcerated' is the word you're looking for regarding Trump's 2019 prospects.
19
Regardless of what the Republicans say, it was Obama that grappled with the economy and finally managed to set it on a path that has continued its healthy growth until now. By there are shakey signs showing and that uphill path just may turn down. Trump will blame that on the Democrats, too. Too bad we all have vision colored by politics, but Republicans have been completely blinded by the cult of Trump.
Maybe we will survive this, maybe not. I hope sanity will reassert itself before The US becomes just another corrupt third world dictatorship, with rich oligarchs, struggling poor, disastrous environment, destructive and narcissistic leader, and a close connection to Putin.
17
So Trump wants a barrier of steel slats. Where is that steel going to come from?.... The only country that makes cheap, structural, steel. China.
Add 20% to that $5B price tag for Trump's steel tariffs, and you have a proposal that will collapse under it's own absurdity.
If only Trump thought that far...
17
There have been so many mistakes that it is difficult to focus on what Trump's worst error is. But remembering the Japanese concentration camps in California in WWII, my vote goes to the present-day immigrant camps where children are kept separated from their parents. Not to mention the death of two children due to lack of efficient medical attention.
11
This column represents a triumph of hope over experience.
4
How will Twitter treat D.J.Frump’s tweets after his presidency? Will they allow him to continue lying without consequence?
8
I suppose if Benedict Arnold had been elected president, some Americans would have been willing to turn a blind eye to his disloyalty, just as the 40% are apparently willing to do now.
Of course, back then, those OK with Arnold’s actions had no Fox pundits to justify his betrayals. So I hope Elizabeth Drew is correct: that impeachment is inevitable. Maybe if Trump’s crimes are laid out rationally, His treasonous mindset and acts will become overwhelmingly clear, even to Fox followers. But before (or during) impeachment, expect more damage from the cornered man who remains in the Oval Office, thanks to the many Americans who haven’t yet shown they care about his unfaithfulness toward American values, laws, and reputation, even though Trump’s duplicity has been, and will continue to be, obvious for all to see.
8
Four days after Christmas, Mr. Trump tweeted about the death of two young children in the custody of our border police. Trump promoted his wall and blamed Democrats for their deaths. Not a single word of sympathy, kindness, or compassion. Not one.
Four days after Christmas: For two thousand years, Jesus of Nazareth has stood as the ultimate symbol of man’s humanity toward his fellow man. Asked what was most important in His teaching, Jesus said: Love God, love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Trump is not a Christian. But he carries the support of millions of self-proclaimed Christians. Their leaders, men like Franklin Graham, have twisted themselves into grotesque monsters by making one excuse after another for this foul, hateful, profane man.
Mr. Douthat writes often of his Catholic faith. Was the Great Commandment, Ross, erased from every copy of every Bible you ever held in your hands?
If it was not, how do justify ignoring Mr. Trump’s remarks? Do these horrid words, from the mouth a man utterly lacking in even a tiny fraction of human decency, somehow not compel you to outrage?
Or has our political climate rendered your heart cold and lifeless? To the point that Jesus of Nazareth is now an irrelevant afterthought?
Stay frosty out there, Ross. In 2019, we will know the truth. It will end Trump’s presidency. The frozen hearts of hypocritical Christians? May God have mercy on them.
And may God bless and comfort the families of the children who died.
22
The vexing question still staring us in the face: How does a pathological liar and treacherous businessman like Donald Trump still maintain a solid base? What do we see that MAGAs don’t? And will Mueller’s investigation — it’s coming, folks — split our country even more?
Our political chasm does expose the ugly underbelly of white nationalism that turns fellow Americans against each other. It’s a race to the bottom but at the same time gives us a good look in the mirror. Staring back are forces of both good and evil.
One great thing for Democrats moving forward: The GOP is still quietly trying to destroy health care, one of the driving forces that fueled the Blue Tsunami in the midterms.
Charismatic leaders who have a lot of bulldog in them, like Kamala Harris, fully understand the dynamics of this key issue. They will sweep Trump aside in 2020 unless the president’s demise comes sooner.
10
The other day I watched a news commentator state that during the McCarthy era (as in Joseph, not Charlie), about 35% of the country was behind the guy. That same 35% apparently begat equally gullible offspring, who today think highly of Trump and his cronies. There's a Bible verse (Matthew 26:11) in which Jesus is said to say, "The poor you will always have with you," but I think in today's world we could state, "The stupid you will always have with you."
21
Who is going to get those children out of their cages in the desert? Hint:It won't be the Republicans.
13
Sadly, I did not get my Christmas wish. But I still have hope for the New Year. Best wishes, Mr. Mueller.
Seriously.
21
President Trump will continue being Trump which is why he was elected in the first place. He is like no other and does not care what others say or think about him. He beats to the sound of a different drum and public opinion comments do not fluster him in the least. He is an independent thinking president and not a puppet. How refreshing and many of us approve.
They find fault with Mr. Trump at every opportunity. They criticized him for not visiting the troops overseas and yet when he finally did visit at Christmas they accused him of doing so only for publicity. Melania Trump was also the First Lady to accompany him on his trip and yet little mention was of this fact. The troops were aware that they have his full support yet no credit for this fact was given either.
He wants to secure the southern border from illegal immigrants and those who have no right being here and again only disdain for these actions. Chuck Schumer, President Obama and other Democrats also wanted to secure our borders and they were praised for the safety of Americans.
Why the turnabout for Mr. Trump. They despise him and want him to fail at every opportunity.
In spite of the hatred, he will continue to be our president and turn a deaf ear to these snarky and nasty opinions. It has not been an easy presidency for Mr. Trump and yet he will not give in or give up. I admire his tenacity and he will succeed no matter what.
5
Donald Trump will succeed at being found guilty of multiple crimes.
23
The need to ask should have been your first clue. You've clearly never lived with a narcissist.
12
Emperor Trump will be forced out of office simply by a widening percentage of the media sector of this disguised global capitalist Empire, along with a dramatically increasing percentage of ‘we the American people’ ourselves, stating public ally what Margaret Brennon started last Sunday (12/23):
BRENNAN: “And, Major (Garret) there's really little part of the Trump empire or Trump White House that's not being probed or investigated at this point.”
Eg. Just by the media and the American people strongly calling-out Emperor Trump and his “Trump Empire” in the White House for being an Empire, a powerful, righteous, public, loud, ‘in-the-streets’, sustained, but totally peaceful “Shout (not shot) heard round the world” will ignite an essential continuation and completion of our first American “Political/economic and social Revolution Against Empire” as expanded from Bernie Sanders’ initial 2016 campaign truth for the need of a peaceful “Political Revolution”.
4
I'm sick and tired regarding the accusation that the liberal media, or Obama, or Clinton got Trump elected.
Look in the mirror conservatives. You nominated him and elected this guy.
Every single lie you allowed him to get away with.
Where were the daily columns from the Conservative commentators decrying the birther nonsense, the pizza place, Hillary's health, Mexican hatred, the cozying up to dictators, etc. ? Where??
By shifting the blame, you sound just like the guy YOU elected, and perhaps that's a big part of the problem.
50
contained? lolol! who's gonna contain the guy? all the adults have left the room!
he's not contain-able.
12
The people who support Trump have applied a means -ends test which justifies Trump no matter how repugnant he may be. Those people are despicable hypocrites and will be the undoing of our democracy.
23
I want a check from the Mexican government to reimburse my share of any wall construction........
16
I have just proven to myself why I don't read Russ Douthat. An entire piece about the Trump "presidency" and not one mention of the climate crisis. SAD.
15
The Trump base was not looking to Make America Great Again. They were looking to make themselves great whether a first time or repeat performance. They found their leader and dug in their heels. Payback and retribution became the rallying cry for disaffected Mid-west and Southern white identity politics disguised as the angry, disappearing backbone middle class. The election of Trump may have proved to be a phenomenon in American politics, but in the history of the world, Trump’s accession to the throne of power is but one more chapter.
Now, some two years later, the damage continues as does the evidence of an incompetent, weak, vengeful, narcissistic and woefully ignorant President. Some would say, "...his electoral mystique gone..." No, Trump’s electoral mystique is not gone. It never existed. It was created, orchestrated and put into a full-scale production. The Trump background, the facts, the program, the players and the script were there for all to see. The media and the public, chose to see and hear what they wanted. s Kellyanne Conway was the first to say it out loud, "alternative facts." This cannot and must not be our future. To give up and surrender to this autocracy and demagoguery is not in my blood, nor should it be in anyone's blood who call themselves an American.
15
Sorry, Ross. The means matters. Whatever direction Trump moves in, it is his blasé attitude and his simplistic understanding of the complexities of government that worries me. He might blunder into a policy, but he doesn't plan it.
He doesn't accept the advice of the professionals in the military, the intel community, politicians, scholars or scientists because he is a "very stable genius."
The man is a vulgar bigot. a fool. I wouldn't care if he succeeded in establishing an enlightened liberal golden era of civic and social welfare, he is not the person for the job.
20
This catalog of potential outcomes ignores the worst one. As his political support collapses in the wake of Mueller's investigation, and as his family members are indicted, Trump starts a war, possibly including a nuclear strike.
We have left a great deal of power in the Presidency. It turns out that an ignorant, incurious narcissist is not a good choice to fill that office.
22
@Robert Stadler
No one wants to think it is possible. But it is.
10
We can only hope that someone tackles Trump before he can blow the world to smithereens.
9
What Douthat, and pretty much all of the rest of the media, doesn't understand is that there is really only one thing that drives Donald Trump, and that is constantly being "at the center of things." In his distorted mind it makes no difference whatsoever what damage he does, just as long as HE is the issue. As such he is dreadfully dangerous, especially as he comes to realize that he has no chance of being re-elected--the ridiculous fury will only increase. And the Republican mice will probably continue to defend everything, no matter how evil.
17
I suggest all the prevaricators for tRump never be allowed to ever criticize any action by any future president since they are willing to accept constant lies, criminal behavior, and treason for partisan purposes.
13
The Republican Party is completely complicit in the nightmare of their own creation. You cannot wait until after they are gone to condemn them. That would be worse than meaningless. You are part of the problem.
18
Ross; The damage was done on election night 2016 when the world saw what we were capable of putting in the White House. Trump is our immediate problem, a man who sees the world through a lens ground by generations of grifting. But even once we're rid of Trump, the people that put him in office will still be here and will vote for insanity again if given the opportunity. The Republican party literally became drunk on power, but exactly like a bunch of drunks couldn't find real consensus among themselves on how to actually govern with it.
It's predictable in many ways that the rhetoric of the GOP is now to attack some "other", currently terrified refugees at our southern border. But amongst the Republicans the enemies list is fairly large and flexible. Feminists, the LGBTQ community, environmentalists, the list goes on. Each one trotted out in turn to fire up the masses. It's really sad that the GOP has gone from a party that had both Lincoln and Eisenhower as its leaders to Trump and instead of being judged by what it's FOR, it's entirely driven by what it's against. The core elements of it's ideology are fear, ignorance and stupidity.
16
Put it this way; Trump is like an out-of-control junkyard dog, that needs to be muzzled, and on a very short leash.
I'm sorry to use this analogy; as an animal lover, comparing Trump to a junkyard dog, is highly disparaging to the dog.
14
As always, Douthat’s ivory tower, vocabulary-rich perspective misses the true depravity of his party and President. Disturbingly sad.....
23
@James
Agree. I absolutely loathe the faux erudition.
10
I love the end-of-the Year Ross Douthat columns. He is the only columnist who owns his mistakes and predictions. Perhaps, that's why today's column is about 'possible scenarios' in 2019. Unbound or hemmed in 2019 Trump will be Trump. The first possibility is dead before arrival because there can never be normalcy again. Possibility two is shot dead because it is impossible to vindicate Trump. Period. He is in a very, very deep hole and if tries to claw his way out he will only sink deeper. The only possibility is the 3rd when there is a Trump even more unbound (if that is possible!). The cage formed by Kelly, Mattis, Sessions, Cohn, McMaster has already disappeared into oblivion. So we'll have a Trump stalking the White House in a bathrobe, tweeting, lying, chatting with Fox News with Bolton, Mnuchin and Huckabee-Sanders and with expensive, long distance calls to friends like Putin, Kim, Erdogan and MBS. Ah!I forgot to mention his dark shadow, Pence.
4
Trump is merely a skin rash.
As a result of a hugely metastasized cancer called plutocracy.
Bush II was no better, he was only slightly saner and better behaved. He did everything that the plutocracy told him to do, often times not even understanding what the instructions meant.
Reagan started off his presidential campaign in a town in Mississippi because it was hugely significant for its role in racist history. He had dementia in his second term, even better for the plutocracy.
Focus should be on the plutocracy, but outlets like the NYT will not do that, since they too are run by plutocrats. All of this public to and fro, Fox vs. CNN, NYT, WaPo etc. is just a WWE wrestling match.
14
To answer the question in the headline: He needs to be contained. By that I mean he needs to be impeached, tried and convicted in the senate, tried and convicted in the southern district of NY, and contained in a jail for the rest of his (thus far) unnatural life.
15
Ross, You forgot to set the stage with the upcoming political campaigns and the constant stream of verbal diarrhea from Trump that will further degrade the rank atmosphere of America's political discourse - a host of lies, insults, threats et al. will test our individual and collective sanity. While I also worry about the ability of these incompetents to manage a crisis (did anyone else note that Melania had to be dispatched from poolside to the White House to tame the mania over the holiday?), Trump's continual debasement of his office and his aid and comfort to Vlad Putin are an actual and ongoing crisis. Not really all that funny.
7
If the best Trump has to show for 2018 is the Kim Jong-un summit, he literally has nothing to show. Aside from the embarrassing photo of Trump saluting a North Korean Officer, what did we get out of it?
12
I wish there were republicans of good conscience. Extinct like the dinosaurs. Oh I forgot they don’t believe in those either.
17
Ask yourself this:
Would you rather have a corrupt, venal, ignorant President whose decisions are determined by naked self interest, or a President who believes that it is God's will that he finds himself in this powerful position and that his decisions are infallible, guided by Divine power?
Pence is as much a True Believer as were the most evil dictators of history and just as dangerous. Trump is a much more mundane despot and his potential follies more predictable.
No impeachment. Let the Democratic House pass sensible bill after bill, only to see them die in the Senate or be vetoed by Trump. When he seeks re-election he'll will blow up what's left of the Republican party. He knows the only way to avoid indictment in New York is to let the statute of limitations run out during a second term. By primary season, he will be a totally exposed crook and traitor thanks to Mueller and the Democratic subpoenas coming soon.
Keep Trump in office- leave him like a dead chicken hanging around a hound dog's neck, and that hound dog is the Republican party
14
@george My sentiments exactly. No impeachment. No Pence. Not ready for life under a theocracy but ready to see Trump destroyed by his 72 years of griftng, cheating and lying.
7
Would “indicted” count as “detained”?
10
Individual 1 has completely reformed thanks to
Rudy Giuliani
2
...”The next exciting year of Trump...”
Really Ross?
Frankly there is absolutely zero that is “exciting” about this monstrosity of a man and his evil administration and policies.
There is nothing exciting about the damage he is doing to our country and the entire world.
There is nothing exciting about the way he is dismantling our democracy and degrading the very institutions that did actually make America great.
There is nothing exciting about the degree to which he has debased himself, the presidency, and the country with his lies, disloyalties, and kleptocratic behaviors.
There is nothing exciting about the fact that our leaders on the Republican side have gone beyond abdicating their responsibilities into the realm of downright treason.
And there is nothing exciting about the destruction he is causing to actual lives around the country and the world.
Ross, it seams to me you are forever looking to point out the silver lining of this man and this presidency. You continuously want to inject some normalcy into this administration and this Congress as if all that is happening is just a slight aberration.
I truly wish that was the case but it is just not and I believe that you, much like the traitorous Senete Republicans, know that full well.
15
What makes this articke typical of conservative enabling of Trump’s worst impulses is this: Ross keeps pretending things might work out in the end.
If Trump was a Democrat, the cautous optimism would be replaced with a hair-on-fire full freakout.
22
Time. Everyday Trump remains in power the more division he can sow. The people of this country have come to expect rapid fire falsehoods on a daily basis as normal for this president. Everyday we watch the acumen of the executive branch wither and the list of people willing to serve shrinking to last resorts or no one. Which of your propose scenarios will play out? I don't know. I do know that, everyday Trump remains in power is just one more horrible day for our country. Each day compounding on the previous day's horribleness like interest.
9
It is such a rare occasion that I agree with Mr Douthat that I will pause and say "Well done!". Trump has provided so much succor to our enemies and has so completely undermined our institutions and those silen, diligent leaders who keep them in tune that I truly fear catastophes afoot.
Impeachment is an important first step toward the kind of trial not seen since Benedict Arnold. Are there enough patriots left in the Grand Old Party to save the Republic?
Too much? Too late?
5
From a long term perspective, other than the trump-meets-crisis scenario, the worst scenario is one that sets the stage for reelection in 2020 and another four years of this horror.
6
Those who devised the Constitution had George Washington in mind as President, not George III. The idea was that those wise electors would never put a 'fraud and phony' in the White House. Their foresight never extended this far. We are in uncharted territory and may blunder through. Or may not. Earlier civilizations also faltered and fell. All it takes is a sufficient number of deplorables gaining influence.
12
With all due respect , Mr Douthat is thinking about the Trump administration in a way that one would think about the Republican Party and it’s leaders in past years . The Republican party as we know it ,no longer exists. Donald Trump and others have helped to destroy the GOP and what is left of it is for the most part , an embarrassment, a lie ,and a misery that can only destroy itself in the final analysis . Perhaps one day we can return to a Republican party that is not seen as a disgrace to the majority of Americans today.
And no one is going to “do”anything to Donald Trump, he is going to do himself in, all by himself.
10
Trump being Trump is responsible for Trump's unpopularity. Paul Ryan's term as Speaker of the House and Republican complicity in Trump being Trump is why Republicans are unpopular.
The synchronicity of the two is why Republicanism should be repealed and replaced.
10
Trump will only be contained when Conservatives attain a desire to have some sort of sense of principle and/ or uphold the Constitution. ... Good luck with that...
10
"Democratic House armed with subpoena power and prepared for political war." AH, no! This is the wedge that lets Trump off the hook. IT IS NOT A WAR AGAINST TRUMP, IT IS STANDING UP FOR OUR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT AND ESPECIALLY THE PRESIDENCY. Getting rid of him is just a side benefit that allows us to work with his base, (a base that has been brain-washed for years about the evils of government, while that government is only working for a few) and make this government and this country work again for all.
8
"channels of a semi-normal G.O.P. presidency"
"influenced more by Paul Ryan"
" Trump hemmed in"
"Trump alone, his electoral mystique gone"
"Senate Republicans more inclined to distance themselves"
"containing his impulses"
Have you been nipping a bit too much at the holiday sherry, Mr. Douthat?
For as long as Trump nominates the appropriate (Federalist Society approved...) judges, maintains an anti-choice/anti-immigration posture and cuts taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals, he will be golden as far as Republicans and other conservatives are concerned.
"avoid meeting a crisis large enough to make White House incompetence matter on a catastrophic scale."
From your word processor to God's eyes, to borrow a phrase...
10
It's really sad, actually, frightening, when the President of the U.S. needs to be contained, or is untamed. Tells one all they need to know.
8
What about the 25th Amendment? Is there really any question that per the Peter Principle--Lawrence Peter--Trump HAS reached (even for him) his maximum level of incompetence?
5
I read news, opinion columns and comments in the NyTimes, Washington Post and Guardian as well as listen often to NYPR. I find the hate, sarcasm, nastiness etc towards Trump over the top.
As an experiment I pretended to myself to be a Trump supporter. I found many of the comments only made me want to double down.
Let's follow Michelle Obama and go high.
Let decency prevail on our planet!
4
I share Douthats uncertainty about where the trump presidency is going. More importantly, Trumps presidency has revealed the deep and deepening ideological tensions that led to his election and are simmering everywhere. This is the real story going forward. Trump may become increasingly irrelevant but his administration will not, nor will the opposing forces in the Democratic Party.
As I write these words I am seated on a balcony somewhere in the country of Colombia interviewing an 82 year old nun who lived through a period of political violence here. I already knew that the assassination of a populist presidential candidate in 1948 kicked off a civil war. But what underlying forces made it possible? She told me she witnessed politically motivated murders the same day of his murder in her village. This was before TV! Her point was that the groundwork had been laid and the tinder was dry. All that was needed was a spark.
Look beyond Trump and the Democratic Party for clues about where this is going. Obama, Hilary and Trump were/are just the latest messengers bearing the will of the people. As such, the real power to shape internal events is more defuse. Happy New Year and may 2019 be the year put aside differences and mend our Great American nation.
We read editorials at the end of one year and the beginning of
another as if the insanity of our president is just a story, comedy or tragedy, being acted out for our entertainment. How bad is it all going to get? Stay tuned, but first this message from the caravan.
2
Trump is nothing but a giant lightning rod.
America’s policies did not suddenly go up for sale when 45 got elected. It has been that way for years.
Policies and laws have heavily favored big corporations for many years: Obama’s ACA heavily favored the insurance companies’ vested interests, he approved Keystone XL and fracking despite the climate evidence, etc.
The only difference with before is that Trump’s administration doesn’t even bother trying to hide the sellout and it doesn’t stop short of poisoning the food chain and environment for profits.
In a twisted way, it’s more honest.
Maybe Trump is exactly what a lot of people need to open their eyes. In fact, a big recall of poisoned meat or fish from places like Whole Foods or Wegmans may be what’s needed to remind the people who sell us out that they cannot avoid the consequences of their actions either.
3
If Douthat is aiming for humility or even wit, he fails miserably on both counts. Douthat's cluelessness is evident in his admission that last February, he described Trump as "tamed," as if we had nothing to fear from an unhinged, impulsive, pathologically-lying vulgarian as long as the military generals could hand him his pacifier.
Douthat now describes Trump as being "unbound." This is a man who ran on the platform of Obama not being a U.S. citizen, Mexicans are rapists and murderers and of exhorting Russia to hack into Hillary's e-mails. Is that the version of a "bounded" Trump?
It is tragic that Douthat believes it is possible that the U.S. may "return to (relative) normalcy" during this bizarre and dangerous administration. Climate change is an existential threat but Trump believes this is a conspiracy theory and rolls back life-saving regulations. He is destroying 70 year old alliances while being in thrall to dictators. He refers to journalists and the free press as enemies of the people. He makes major policy decisions on the basis of what is said about him on Fox and Friends. Mattis and McMaster were never in charge. Coulter, Limbaugh and Hannity are running the show. God help us. The tax cut ballooned the deficit and benefits the wealthy.
To posit that any positive outcome is possible is bizarre. I do fear another 9-11 or Great Recession but what I fear most are the 63 million Trump followers who have entered an alternate reality with him.
8
Why is it so impossible to consider someone somewhere in leadership doing the right thing for America and the world? Have we totally given up doing the right thing? Has Trump's temper tantrums and bullying succeeded so well, that it is no longer feasible to even consider doing what is right? Let's leave Trump out of the equation for a moment and consider the other two branches of government and their ability to put a check on and balance the power of the wannabee tyrant. It is way past time for the Congress to do their jobs and provide ethics oversight and policies conducive to progressing America, not destroying it, as Putin and his puppet have dictated. Russia has no business interfering in our elections, our policies, and our lives. When is their influence going to end? It is time for the United States of America to uphold and defend our Constitution and its laws, even if our chief executive is culpable. No one is above the law. Justice needs to be served, even if it means indicting a sitting president for treason, in continually aiding and abetting an enemy of America. The day of reckoning is coming. Let's do the right thing and then America will be blessed. "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people" Praying for the grace to forgive those who have let so many be harmed by a man whose only interest is in his welfare and continued status/power. 'To much is given, much is required'. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"
4
He is incapable of controlling himself so it's a matter of whether Republican leaders can contain him (doubtful). It seems as if there is a mental illness element at play here, and given the power of his position, we should all fear the possibilities of his desperation — contrived global conflicts, inciting his followers to violence, further disrespect for the constitution and the rule of law... He is impulsive and unpredictable, and we find ourselves in a surreal situation.
5
Another scary scenario: Trump realizes that with Democrats controlling the House and conservative media unconcerned with facts, it's easier than ever to blame others for everything that goes wrong in his administration, and demonstrates that he excels at this. Democratic presidential hopefuls play into this by making ugly generalizations about Trump voters on the campaign trail, and Trump ends the year on a serious upswing with the country on a serious downswing.
"Trump tamers were his fellow Republicans — the mix of senators and cabinet officials who had steered his actual administration (not the Twitter version) into the channels of a semi-normal G.O.P. presidency".
The Trump presidency has never been anywhere close to normal and Republicans haven't bothered to steer anything, instead they have remained complicit so they can hang onto their seats while enjoying their huge tax cuts.
8
The popularity of Trump's management of Syria and Afghanistan, as well as his "Let's Make a Deal" sideshow with North Korea depends entirely on nothing going horribly wrong with any of them.
Care to make prognostications on those odds?
3
Attempting to predict the antics of the Mad Hatter next year is akin to trying to catch a falling knife in the dark.
4
Again Mr Douthat, you are too good for Trump. Apparently you can’t help it.
Here is the background:
The growth will drop below 2.5% in the second half of 2019, old jobs are not coming back, instead new jobs are created in urban areas, trade imbalance with China will not decrease, and increasingly isolated Trump will have increasingly irrational decisions.
This is the scenario to set up the grand unveiling of Mueller Report. The most dengerous part of that Report for Trump, and their associated indictments, will likely be Russian money laundering and crimes against US tax laws. It will only add to the upcoming more unhinged behavior of Trump. Few months after Report is made public we’ll see the uravelling of the US political order.
We may witness something that is very bad, and consequential, for this country.
4
I am not afraid to make a prediction. Trump is nothing if not predictable. Which may seem odd, given how erratic he is. But he is so shallow and obvious as to his motivations and reactions that the only reason he has seemed hard to predict is people refuse to believe he is only what he shows. He has no overarching plan, strategy, or intelligence. He is just what he shows, narcissistic, ignorant, petty, insecure, scared. People are surprised by his actions because they don't believe he can really believe his beliefs, that he can really intend to keep on the path he set. But he will just keep doing what he has been doing.
So here's the prediction: Without the partisan midterms bolstering his support, his approval rating will drop below 40 and will continue to drop as his supporters are no longer deciding about R vs D, but Trump vs Not Trump. His fear of Mueller and the Dem opposition will drive him increasingly crazy, which will cause this "i'm all alone" mad hatter tweeting of the past few days the norm. He will make big, ignorant, mistaken moves and decisions. The dropping polls and bad governance will cause Republicans to realize they need to turn on Trump to save themselves and the country. I don't think he will be impeached, but he will be shut down by concerted R and D control of his actions. Feds and states will find big crimes and misdeeds. He and some family will be prosecuted after leaving office. TrumpCo will be indicted. He will lose everything.
10
Dear Mr. Douthat,
If you wish to avoid sounding like Warren Harding and incurring the disdain of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel, use the word "normality" in favor of "normalcy" which is not really a word.
Best wishes.
TLGK
4
Take a serious look at what happened since Trump’s inauguration ! You will get a reasonable answer to your question !
1
Trump will not be around forever.
One way or another, he will finally go away.
But America will never be the same country again, because he has summoned up a dark, evil, cruel side of the American spirit that will prove impossible to eradicate.
13
As likely as the scenario of Trump meeting a crisis that his erratic governance is unable to handle (a good case can be made that this has already happened if we take into account the long range effects of his shoddy foreign policy decisions), is our president creating a crisis, the seriousness of which will put more power in his hands and strengthen his autocratic tendencies and reach.
Just as we avoid climate change at our peril, we avoid Trump's mental illness, incompetence, vindictiveness, amorality, lying and law breaking at our more immediate peril.
7
As for the super rich and billionaire Trump supporters, I say tax them like it's 1958.
15
Mr. Douthat, I just read the column you mentioned that you wrote in February. You didn't get it then and you don't get it now. Republicans have got to go - the sooner the better! trump is a very dangerous person and your party continues to stick by him.
7
The GOP's depravity, cowardice and greed are the reasons why Trump is still in the White House. Trump may very well be voted out in 2020, but will the GOP get its comeuppance ?
I hope for a recession that will get the non-Clinton Democrats the Presidency, the Senate and the House. The sliver lining of Trump's utterly despicable presidency may be the wake-up call for the true democracy that the United States used to stand for.
This is my hope. The reality is that the deeply cruel capitalism that is currently entrenched in the US may well take a generation to overturn.
6
The most likely scenario of all is the "muddle downward" scenario. Trump's erraticness crashes the economy, our allies become hostile, ISIS mounts a resurgence, and climate catastrophes mount, while Washington is paralyzed by a stupid insistence on the wall.
However, while the U.S. spirals ever downward and the brain drain accelerates, 40% of Americans stay loyal to Trump because they aren't particularly well-acquainted with reality and blame Democrats, and especially, Obama. The facts don't matter to these folks, because they don't know the facts.
Since this 40% is 90% of the Republican base, Republican Senators refuse to vote to convict and also stay loyal to Trump, even as Mueller proves that Trump is a Russian agent and mafia money launderer. Democratic investigations show all kinds of malfeasance, but are powerless to bring indictments or to remove the officials.
Since this 40% also gets massive overrepresentation in Congress and the electoral college, the American people are almost powerless to prevent the downward spiral, possibly even after 2020.
In other words, past will prove to be a prelude to the future and we get more of the same.
6
Trump is hammered 24/7, every hour, every panel on CNN and MSNBC. And the MSM, including here and the WAPO, won't acknowledge even one positive thing his administration has done. The closest was the "First Step" Bill the Senate just passed, but begrudgingly, saying he was late and dragged to the signing. How would you or any of us react to such a barrage? Vitriolic invective, one after another. On this very Comment thread called: an adolescant, a maniacal abomination and traitor and much worse. No wonder he's got a bunker and punch back mentality.
I challenge the NYT, WAPO, CNN, MSNBC and NBC to write an objective, fair and balanced assessment of the Trump Administrations Ups and Downs in 2018. The Times tried in an Editorial last week. The score card was 6 Pluses and 58 Downs.
In my view far from fair and balanced. No mention of the Economy, hostage returns, military no longer "not combat ready" or the North Korea returning American soldier's remains, to name a few. Let's see if anyone will take up the mantle.
Finally, I believe if Trump saw some fair and balanced coverage he might even reciprocate with more access with kudos towards that media outlet. After a few of these maybe it escalates? Am I dreaming of delusional? I hope not. I'm betting that there are some of you who can put aside your hatred and moral condemnation, and for a short time will give hope a chance. The country and our daily civility might depend on it.
3
@Frank Leibold Well, if Bone Spur didn't lie everyday and acted more like a president then he would get the coverage he so pitifully craves.
14
Please. “It’s all the media’s fault” is beyond exhausted, and never was more than an unsupported, lazy attempt to defend the indefensible. Donald Trump is a present and impending disaster, and that’s the only way to accurately report on his fraudulent administration (if it can even be called that).
14
Frank Well
FYI, the First Step Bill has been in the works for years, is totally the result of Congressional efforts - backed by the Koch brothers, the ACLU and other bipartisan organizations. It is not even included in Politifact’s list of 100 “Promises Made” by Trump that they track. Yet, he is so desperate for a win, he now takes credit for it. Sad.
4
He will cling to being President as the crimes he has done become known. Its his only protection from jail. He will continule to charm his base so he can control the Repubs congress to support him. They will continue to weaken voters laws and reduce urban voters so a minority can continue to win. He will keep attacking the Dems to keep them in a ongoing "food fight" so they can't govern.
4
As a true believer, Mr. Douthat's Republican do-or-die attitude is shining through is today's column. He is unwilling to admit that the Republican party is in shambles.
Ross Douthat is hoping to absolve Trump of all of his sins, tweets, spur-of-the-moment policy decisions, Russian denials and championship caliber lying. Claiming that there is a better than even chance they will all work out better for us in the long run.
Take a deep breath and get real, Ross.
7
The author is unduly influenced by Elizabeth Drew, Bret Stephens, Tom Friedman et.al.,that there remain Republicans in Congress who oppose the President. Those men and women are well aware that upwards of ninety percent of GOP voters reject across the board the old line liberal and conservative canards, seen only on these pages, plus on MSNBC, as guides. The fundamental soundness of our economy under this President, fueled by ongoing de-regulation, leads to a consumer confidence long overdue. With an end to the focus on the negatives, e.g., alleged climate change, and concerns about illegal immigrants rather than problems at home, no wonder the President feels stronger than before, and in this lawyer's opinion he should be a strong contender for re-election in 2020.
You might consider factoring in a possible success on the China trade war front. I'm no trump supporter, but his combativeness on this all-important issue is something we could expect from few else, and if there is a positive outcome (and I am certainly hope that) that will considerably solidify his position.
2
I appreciate your column Mr. Douthat. Much of what you say makes sense, even though I disagree with you most of the time. For anyone interested, read Patrick Radden Keefe's article at the New Yorker website about Trump's time on the "Apprentice" and listen to the Tony Schwartz lecture about Trump on YouTube, and then you have an accurate portrait of the man who occupies the White House: incoherent, incompetent, bolstered by others to make him look better than he is, lazy, easily confused, and impulsive.Trump is no rube, however. He is clever and smart in many ways, but he is his own worst enemy, botching whatever he does, because of his continual neediness for attention and adulation, strategic crazy-making, and deeply damaged psyche. Of the three scenarios offered in this op-ed, which of them makes the most sense given Trump's nature and way of doing things? Time will tell, but whatever the scenario, you can guarantee that it will be painful and much of it a waste of human energy and taxpayers' money. Under "normal" circumstances, we would have a president who accomplishes some productive legislation and policy, but with Trump, it's always damage control and crisis aversion. What a costly and wasteful presidency at all levels. I hope for all of us, 2019 brings us some resolution. Option 3 may end up being the case for this year, but as Douthat states, one major crisis, and we could be heading for uncharted and potentially terrifying territory.
3
Wow, that was some awfully thin and quick justification for Trump’s policies. I’m not an economist, but I have learned from the last couple weeks that the only good policy on the Fed the president can have is to not interfere, and that it’s impossible in the near term to know if interest rate policy has helped or hurt the economy.
I don’t think there’s any chance Trumps’s approval rating goes up measurably in the coming year, but there’s a strong possibility it doesn’t go down. It also might go south of 35% if the Mueller report is particularly devastating (and made public, of course).
4
"certainly a case that the Fed’s interest rate policies are hurting both stocks and workers "
I would love to hear you expand on this point, especially in the context of reform conservatism vs trumpism.
Preferably, you would do so after reading Paul Krugman's piece on the subject (and conservative pundits), while reflecting on your own thoughts about these interest rate policies during Obama's administration.
In general I fear your columns describe what the public cares about or what different schools of thought believe, but fail to present your own opinions on policy.
Perhaps that kind if distance is meant to protect you from rabid liberal readers like me, but you should take a stand on interest rate policy and the Syrian foreign policy before you analyze how the different political factions will interact around them.
1
What does “deconstruction of the administrative State” mean? Aside from the obvious abandonment of regulation and regulators, we have seen mostly policy and administrative actions that are just unconnected to goals. The federal government used to try to accomplish something positive with its actions. Now the results are harmful to people, but most importantly these government actions do not accomplish what they purport.
I agree with the author: the most likely scenario is continued, purposeful, and thoroughly incompetent ideas, all products of a feeble, isolated and uninformed mind. Finger painting that turns to mud as he keeps throwing on more colors. He doesn’t care that it’s ugly; he was going to throw it away anyway.
Do some Republicans decide to save this presidency? Probably, unfortunately for us.
121
@Dave W
Answer:smaller government that serves the people and makes America and it's people more prosperous and civil.
Economy at 3%, unemployment at 50 year low and consumer confidence at 17 year high indicate a strong economy. Military no longer "not combat" ready will help keep us safe. ISIS caliphait destroyed and no attack here since Jan. 2017 is another goal and good sign. Assad not gassing his people and no tests in NK are also good news. Removing 2k felons and reducing illegal immigration (67%) make us safer. Getting hostages and soldiers remains are positive Trump actions. Energy independence, Keystone and ANWAR access ensure a good economic future. Sanctions against Iran and Russia support our foreign policy. Getting out of TPP, WTO and Iran deal will help the future economy. Having Gorsuch and Kavenaugn protect our rights, including the unborn.
4
@ frank all of the economic stats you regurgitate are due to the momentum carried over from previous administration. The effect of the deficit acceleration from the tRumps is just starting to kick, hence the uncertainty displayed by Wall Street. Also, none of the other achievements you sight are positives.
52
The Repiblicans base wants the wall, Trump wants it. They want to wall out the murders and drug dealers they think are coming for them. They think Trump will cut contacts with the big scary world, cut big government that controls them, never mind that it protects them, their personal gun arsenal will save them. They remind me of an ostrich that puts its head in the sand so as not to be scared. They want fake news to protect them from inconvenient thought. But imaginary fears can be worse than facing reality. Once you face reality you can deal with reality. Otherwse you are lost and drowning in a sea of lies. Women are learning this now. Join them.
26
Trump understands that he only keeps the Presidency by continually stoking the grievances, real or imagined, of his base. They inhale his racist ranting like air. He will endlessly pander to their gun fetishism, xenophobia, christian supremacy, and misogyny. He knows he can manipulate their ignorance, fear, hate and greed. In 2019 he will only get worse. He has to win reelection to stay out of prison. He learned in 2016 that he can lose the popular vote by three million, and still win the election by skimming off 80,000 votes in crucial electoral college states. So a desperate trump, unrestrained by advisors and the GOP, will double down. We ain't seen nothing yet. Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy 2019.
244
@Robert Wright
I just hope the Dems realize the Republican Party is more like Mr. Trump in every way. These next two years will either make or break the Democratic Party because the Republicans will not cooperate with them unless Mr. Trump REALLY goes off the rails and that is a big if. Stay strong Democrats in your investigations because if you do not...it could mean YOUR demise and not Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell.
28
@VJ - FOX 1
Sorry, but of 17 Dems mentioned for 2020 I can't find one who has a chance against Trump.
4
@Frank Leibold
I can find several of them. Your “picker” is way off.
30
Ross, you want to know what has changed since last February when you described Trump as “tamed”? The answer, actually, is that nothing has changed. The question you should be asking is why you saw Trump through only your subjective, partisan eyes while it was evident to any objective observer that our President was even worse than he promised to be during his ugly racist campaign.
If you don’t want to be caught at the end of next year having to write another column like this one, you should acknowledge right now that the Republicans in Congress care less for their country than for their re-election chances. They have shown no courage to stand up to Trump’s shameful personal behavior or his vindictive and incompetent political decisions. Their acquiescence has been sickening.
Don’t ask next December why the GOP did nothing. Ask yourself right now why you’ve not been holding your party accountable for ignoring—or even encouraging—the shameful actions of a President who has no moral, ethical, or political compass.
458
@John Vasi
Graham, Corker, Flake, Rubio and Cornin have been critical.
@Frank Leibold
Only at times. Graham, Flake and Rubio have strongly supported him, too.
16
@Frank Leibold
Five, to no effect at all, never joined by others and most particularly their leaders. McConnell and Ryan, sycophants extraordinaire.
21
Trump is using the emergency he is himself creating, refusing to sign off on the mundane funding bill, as his equivalent of creating the Reichstag fire. Following his own juvenile ideas on using his negotiating “leverage”, Trump feels that he can use the funding of the US government as a pivot point to obtain a big political win on the “wall” he promised. And since the money and lives he is playing with aren’t even his own, he doesn’t even care if he miscalculates. And of course, if he “wins” on this it would just encourage him, next time, to demand that some other law or governing modality be fundamentally changed just to keep the country and the government alive. For the sake of the constitution and of our future and our history, let alone the survival of the two party system, the Democrats cannot give this child what he wants while he is holding his breath until he turns blue.
217
@Isadore Huss
I beg to differ. Appropriations have long been used as leverage in the Halls of Congress. I believe he does care for people he leads. He and the Border Control, ICE, DHS and local law enforcement experts who testified to Senate Armed Services Committee ALL recommended 1,100 miles of wall/slated fence in about 30 Sections. Everyone!
In fact, border agents tested and said the eight prototypes were practically impenetrable. But they recommended the height could be lowered from 30 to 24 feet to lower costs w/o affecting effectiveness.
Sorry to say, I voted for Trump. It was a serious mistake.
Why did I vote for him? Because I realized that both sides in the US political debate have been wrong for a very long time. And the Democratic position is in some respects even worse than the Republican one.
For the past 50 years, Democrats have seemed to argue that population growth doesn't matter, in spite of the fact that since recorded history began, population growth has inevitably led to wars to kill off the surplus males. Much of society was organized around the principal of having periodic wars. That includes autocracy or monarchy in Europe, for example.
I keep hoping that some of the intellectuals will make the connection. Yes, global warming is real but it is caused by population growth. Population of earth has doubled since 1970. And shifting to electric cars and firing all the coal workers solves nothing if you don't also cut down on the number of births.
The reason for the migrant caravan is that the population of Guatemala has increased from 3 million in 1950 to about 17 million now.
Trump promised to stop illegal immigration. It was a daunting task and building a wall does not necessarily represent progress.
Of Douthat's scenarios the most likely is impeachment. I support impeachment because Trump has crossed too many red lines.
But the danger is that the country will remain divided and Democrats will continue to ignore the fact that population growth is destroying standards of living.
67
@Jake Wagner
It's impressive that you can admit your mistake; good on you.
However, regarding population, which party supports sex education, healthcare (including affordable contraception) for all and women's rights ?
Which party systematically issues a Global Gag Order on contraception and abortion every time it can, defunds Planned Parenthood and defunds the UN population fund which provides contraception to millions worldwide ?
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/apr/04/trump-administration-un-population-fund-abortion
It is conservative religious fanatics and their political leaders (Grand Old Patriarchs) who do their destructive best to facilitate the population explosion.
How in the world did you get so cognitively dissonant on the issue of population ?
Up Is Not Down; Down Is Not Up.
Please rethink things, Jake.
207
Points for at least admitting the obvious @Jake Wagner.
Personally, I never ask anyone to vote for anybody or anything, only that they be honest in their decision-making. Whether that leads any given person to vote as I do is irrelevant.
What terrifies me are people and groups who will not... CANNOT... admit mistake. If the GOP has listened to their own 2012 autopsy, we wouldn’t even be discussing Trump right now. That said, I’d like to think that the people standing around me at the polls bother to make self-assessments such as your own and truly consider whether they are making a wise decision in giving power to certain people. We all make mistakes, few people admit them.
30
@Socrates Agree on conservative policies, but guilt on the Democrat side looms large and begins with non-strict border control or even open borders for some. Population growth, often in areas that could least well handle it, will continue to fuel a non-relenting supply of immigrants -- the problems just get worse from here.
6
Another possibility is the threat of charges by Mueller against Trump's family, leading to a behind-the-scenes deal by Republicans to drop the charges in return for Trump's immediate resignation. Another long shot, but, as his poll numbers go down (federal workers, the military, investors dismayed by the Fed tweets and tariffs, farmers and workers hurt by tariffs, never-Trumpers, and mainstream Republicans all becoming part of an ever-growing aggrieved group), there's a chance that dynamic could play out. His poll numbers have been dropping the last two crazy weeks. I'm not sure Trump wouldn't sell out his kids to stay in power, though...
14
I don't care about "him" or if he's contained/uncontained. I care about RESULTS by the Democrats: healthcare, climate, jobs, infrastructure, protection of Medicare and SS; raising min. wage, ending opoids and EDUCATION. Keep eye on the ball, bring those bills to the GOP Sen. and then let the chips fall. The Mueller report will do the job that the Dem's should not waste their time on. Instead of further dividing the country, the Dems need to show they have the policies and bills to restore our great Country.
34
We have been reading and hearing about President Trump's downfall since he was elected in 2016. It has not happened yet and it is unlikely to ever happen. The liberals talked about impeachment the day he was elected. It grew louder from voices like Maxine Waters and Jerrold Nadler and other leftist Democrats. He may have had a few slips here and there but he has always bounced back. The Mueller investigation has taken some twists and turns in the investigation and still no wrongdoing on President Trump's part. There is unlikely to be any the longer it goes on.
The Democrats and Trump haters have hoped he would fail from the start but it has not happened. For a businessman who has had no political experience, he has done remarkably well while in office. Remember he beat 16 Republican candidates all with political experience to win the presidential nomination and Hillary Clinton who was predicted to win by just about everybody. His election was a total surprise and shock and those who loathe him have still not accepted him as our president.
President Trump will never resign because he is a very determined man who wants to win and he has. Guess what. He will remain in office and will probably run in 2020. Many of us hope he does run and are very pleased with the progress he has made so far. He is surely to be reelected and continue to make our country great and prosperous. We feel very positive with the direction he has taken our country in so far.
4
@WPLMMT
It took the Bush-Cheney-GOP Express seven years or so to wreck America.
The Trump-Pence-GOP Runaway Train will do it quicker.
Enjoy the exploding deficit, the extra mercury-arsenic-benzene in your salad, stagnant wages, and unaffordable healthcare.
Nothing satisfies an 18th century mind like a fresh lump of coal.
Sad.
33
If you think that President Trump is a law-abiding citizen, you are delusional. The only serious questions in that respect are:
1. Has he left enough evidence of his crimes to act upon?
2. Do the people hoping to benefit off of Trump care whether he is a criminal?
My personal prediction is that the answer to the first question is almost certainly “yes.” Trump is quite foolish and all but admits to all manner of misconduct as a matter of pure arrogance. His habit of settling all legal matters with a large check and a non-disclosure agreement will not be useful once the GOP is unable to corruptly shield him from Congressional oversight.
The answer to the SECOND question, however, is probably, “no.” I do not think it would matter to much of Trump’s base if he were proven beyond all question to be a criminal. Already, many conservatives have decided they do not care if he violated certain laws (like campaign finance) in anticipation of proof to that effect. His guilt or innocence (similar to Kavanaugh’s) is wholly irrelevant to them compared to what they imagine they will gain (“The Wall,” triggering libs, other nonsense). Will the base attempt to elect Trump again if he runs in 2020? Absolutely. If he wanted to remain president for the rest of his unfortunate life, they would probably support that too.
5
Many individuals who believe Mr. Trump has had a successful presidency also believe the Catholic Church is a net force for good in the world.
Coincidence?
6
Trump is damaged, by life, by genes, by both, but the people who support him are using a man who automatically does what they want, damages a system they think flawed. But they should be tweaking the existing system so that it supports the little person. This is always what they claim they are doing. But they give the rich huge tax cuts, cut regulations that damage the general public and help the corporations, gut health care and opt out of international agreements to go it alone. I alone can do it, is Trumps motto.
If you think that big money needs endless support at the expense of the general public, you can take a look at many countries, esp. Canada, and see that it works nicely if you balance the benefit and reduce the risk to little people and it can be done with a much smaller economy than the US.
It is not even hard, but you do have to have the right intention.
14
The liberal media is responsible for getting him elected. He brought them wealth. And they have him on 24x7 with all his cruel remarks and lies. His every nonsensical utterance makes headlines for them. The topics changes daily with no followup and no consequences to yesterday's topics.
Lets face it, when there are no consequences, it does not matter. And Trump knows this, enjoys this. He tells it to their faces and yet, the media pretend they are reporting real news. No they are not.
And he is right about the media though. They report fake news daily. Trump's fake news.
12
Trump will not last his term. Mike Pence will finish his term after Trump resigns or is impeached.
Why?
No serious republican (if any still exist) will take any serious job with his administration. Chris Christie's walkaway should be indicative if nothing else. Why do serious republicans shy away from this administration? Because they smell damning consequences from Mr Mueller's report.
What's likely to happen?
The Iowa tight end who really wasn't an Academic All America and really was a shill for a fraudulent patent company will attempt to withhold Mr Mueller's report. He will fail. The report will detail the money laundering, the conspiracy and further expose the cons pulled off by Trump, his family and his associates over the past decade, including his time in office.
Republican senators outside of the true red states of the former slave holding confederacy will weigh the economic impacts on their states resulting from Trump's failed trade policies, the weight of Mr Mueller's findings, and the sheer lunacy of Trump, and will not support him once the House votes to impeach.
The reason is simple. 2019 is the year before the 2020 elections. Republicans will want as much time to recover from Trump as possible to avoid the fate similar to that of the Federalists.
Trump will negotiate a pardon from Mike Pence for those who remain inside the Trump circled wagons.
In further news, OJ Simpson was found to be innocent of all charges.
13
@TDurk - think you are right - but I'm still worried that Whitaker will manufacture some excuse to get rid of Mueller before a report is written, and at that point that a foreign policy crisis is intentionally created to divert attention.
Well, folks, he has finally done it! In order to avoid admitting that his political party and its unhinged leader are a clear and present danger to the republic, Mr. Douthat has turned himself completely inside out. So now, alienating all our allies abroad, cozying up to dictators, gutting the EPA, transferring even more wealth to the American oligarchy through tax “reform” and locking infants in cages in the name of immigration reform are all just normal, every day, garden variety government policy. Douthat’s attempts to normalize Trump is truly pathetic.
21
Ross is putting all other qualifiers aside because he got what he and a lot of conservative Christians want - a supreme court that will overturn Roe v. Wade. All the other inconvenient truths and wrecking ball imagery is something to just 'tut tut' over. I'm sure Ross thinks the same thing about his beloved Catholic church - but even there, it's getting harder and harder to step over the continually growing pile of priests who were protected by the church while molesting children. Pretty sad that we'd have to experience another 9/11 attack or some other such horrific disaster before Republicans and Christians get their consciences restored.
15
For 2019 I hope the best for all good, well meaning, hard working, compassionate people who realize the potential value in every human being of every economical condition.. no matter what their color, orientation or monetary worth.
Which leaves out the incredibly selfish, racist, hopelessly insecure evil that presently disgraces the presidency of our good Country. For him I hope nothing but misery and pain commensurate to all the misery and pain that he has dealt to every unfortunate person he has ever touched with his darkness.
12
Trump is a criminal. More and more evidence of that is coming to light as the new year starts. The only real question is whether or not that matters anymore.
20
None of your scenarios will play out, Ross. What the national media fails to understand even after two years of DT is that he has absolutely no "strategy," plan, or thoughtful agenda. DT is paranoid, sadistic, and quite insane.
18
Untamed has positive connotations: a maverick indifferent to public opinion, being unafraid of criticism and able to go it alone if one has deep convictions. This does not describe a vain, pompous , vindictive person who has no filter and says whatever pops into his little bouffant head ( or whatever Fox News says)
10
Trump will not recognize that his continued arbitrary behavior ("I alone can fix it.") will continue to peel off a steady flow of fringe supporters.
Therefore, he will triple down on his idiotic rants and ill-considered mandates, not realizing that his actions are hurting his constituency.
Remember, three states with razor thin majorities gave the Danger-in-Chief the role he has so abused.
13
@East Coaster in the Heartland Trouble is, that last 38% or so of hardcore trumpies shows no signs of "peeling away." The protest voters and the briefly deluded have already peeled away. I don't know what it will take to shave off any more. Fortunately, all it will take is a good double handful of Senators. The hard core electorate can pound sand.
Let's hope Trump resigns, Pence is implicated in foul deeds by Mueller, and also resigns, and Nancy Pelosi becomes President. You simply can't make this stuff up...(well, maybe you can!)
21
Well Ross, I have to agree with one of your points. Scenario one is as likely to happen as Satan turning into Mother Theresa. As to your other two scenarios, so much depends on Mueller and the SDNY. Just how much jeopardy are the kids in and will dad take a bullet for them (i.e. resign) if said jeopardy means real jail time. Democrats and talking heads have been going on about what we don't know that Mueller's team does. Is there a smocking gun? It hardly seems to matter at this point. I believe that Trump could go out on Times Square and shoot someone, and his pathetic enablers would deny the video tapes or support his fantasy that the victim deserved it. So in my mind the awful news for 2019 is short a stroke, we're stuck with this awful human being at the helm. Let's just pray nothing major comes along that actually requires competence and integrity.
6
A normal person of average intelligence would willingly act constrained, but you can't say the same about Trump. He'd act like a wounded, cornered animal growling and pouncing at everything in sight.
9
The adult-in-the-room thing is as overplayed as off target, for 1600's rampaging Dr. Strangelove and his gut.
With so many approaching intersections, 2019 should be a vintage year for T, with all the king's horses and all the king's men put in blenders before being shot out of cannons.
Jesus, Joseph and Mary!
1
Actually, during the Bush (the son) years, the 8 years, I imagined a book entitled “the worst years of our lives”.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
14
@David Martin
Not so much, David. Both Bush (43) and Trump were and are disasters. Honestly, I can't decide on any one day which of them is the worst president ever. Okay, today it is Trump.
2
The crisis will arrive, but the Senate will let your incompetent president in place. Only when it will become evident that Trump’s actions are putting America at risk, than they will move. This will create another crisis and leave America like a headless chicken. Putin has won, with GOP’s help!
4
Your columns continue to show an unnerving disregard for a democracy which many gave their lives for.
To use this precious space to say anything short of 'this disaster needs to come to an end' is quite un-American.
18
He will continue to bloviate. The only way to stop him is to get him out of office and that may just happen!
6
Here we have Ross doing what Republicans try to do, normalize Trump. Anybody with a functioning brain knows that there is something seriously wrong with Trump and he will get worse and worse until the Republicans see him as liability or he is carried out with a bag over his head.
7
In order for democracy to work, the media needs to speak truth. Trump and his GOP enablers strategy on immigration is a dog whistle to his supporter who are racists. Most of his supporters never seen an illegal alien but their deep down bigotry overwhelms any facts about illegal aliens or immigration.
Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers shows that the intoxication of xenophobia can lead people to give the ultimate sacrifice, their lives. Knowing that the majority of the GOP voter are bigots supported by a multibillion media empire of Murdoch and other evil plutocrats, the dog whistle of bigotry has proven to be very effective. The same way that Osama Bin Laden convinced millions to follow him, Trump and his GOP enablers use, bigotry, hate, misogyny, etc. for their unconditional support despite all the evident evil they commit on America.
America is now being sheppered by the axis of evil of Murdoch, Trump and Putin while the concubines for plutocrats, the GOP enablers see it as their only path to power. Unless we force the GOP politician to give up their axis of evil and once again become the party of Lincoln and Roosevelt, we will lose everything we fought for the past three century. The media has to stop sugar coating the GOP's strategy and speak truth!
4
Not a very perspicacious column. The most likely outcome for #45 is a head-on collision with the Supreme Court. Owing to his lack of understanding and respect for the Constitution, the Current Occupant is going to challenge of the authority of the Court- likely over to the right of the Legislative branch to put limits on his ability to use his office as a vehicle for self-enrichement- and try to mobilize his base against them. This will force Roberts to weigh his greatest priority: serving the Republican establishment, or preserving the legitimacy of the Court. It will be an epic battle.
6
Trump, like all bullies, is fearful and insecure. His scowling demeanor, absence of empathy, and uncaring cruelty are all measures of self protection. The Border Wall is a symbol of his fear of the the outside world, its scary inhabitants, and the danger he believes they represent to Americans.
Fear obscures logical thought and impairs thorough analysis, leading to poor outcomes. This damaged president constantly sows the seeds of his own destruction. His ignorant, ill-considered acts have demonstrated the harm done to his shrinking circle of associates, and, by extension, the danger he represents to the future of America and the world.
Democrats and Republicans of good conscience must face this noxious and detrimental presidency in full damage control mode.
9
@Reed Erskine
Agree completely with Reed.
We now clearly have a bully President, who, day after day, sows his own seeds of self-destruction.
Clearly, the only remedy now is Impeachment...so when will our Congress have the courage to proceed with this.?
Let's not wait for even more damage to occur.
1
Hoping he will be detained.
4
Mr. Douthat’s op-ed pieces always seem to me to be efforts to advance his viewpoint masquerading as analysis. And this one is no exception. 2019 will present far more risk for this country than Douthat wants to admit.
10
The only way Donald trip is going to be contained, is in a prison cell. We either get rid of this horrible man, or our country is going to cease to exist.
10
The phrase 'further off the policy reservation' probably shouldn't be used by a 'progressive' writer. Its appearance, here, seems to imply either (a) Mr. Douthat doesn't know that he's referencing the original (and ongoing) colonial violence of the the United States of America, or (b) that he is happy to not-so-subtly marginalize, and downplay the plight, of the indigenous peoples upon whose territories he resides and relies. Either way, he helps to encourage other Americans to perpetuate this foundational blindness.
5
Trump can't avoid "meeting" a crisis for one simple reason - he IS the crisis, at least the one we need to worry about the most.
We've seen Trump during external crises already: The fires in California, Hurricane Maria, etc. He inhabits a strange state during these times - managing to exude complete indifference to the suffering while at the same time sporadically mimimizing the scope of the disasters and blaming others for their occurrence. Mostly, he just seems bored. And why not? It's not about him.
Where Trump becomes truly dangerous is when he senses that he can be directly held accountable for what happened. With a financial crisis, or another 9/11, or an escalation of tensions with someone like North Korea that takes us to the brink of nuclear war. In those cases, whatever the underlying issues that get us there, you can be assured that Trump's only concern will be deflecting from his own culpability, swinging at everything, and caring not one bit about the stakes for anyone but himself and how he believes he's perceived.
This nation has gotten through a lot. 9/11 didn't end us. The Great Recession didn't end us. But in both those cases, we had Presidents who understood - however flawed their handling of the crises may have been, and in both cases I believe it was, indeed, quite flawed - that there was something larger than their own self-image at stake.
Trump as President will guarantee that any real crisis will be one we don't recover from.
9
I think two things are likely: Trump doesn't change, and in fact things seem no different versus the past 2 years; and democrats overreach and investigate anything they can think of, making them appear uninterested in trying to address the nations problems. In this scenario, nothing gets done.
6
"And to save myself the embarrassment of future mea culpas, I won’t make predictions but just offer scenarios for how this combination might shape the next exciting year of Trump."
Ross, No worries. Trump won't last another year.
4
Perhaps it's time for Republicans such as Douthat, who I assume considers himself a "true" Conservative, to start pushing for Conservative policies they'd like to see enacted, and promote those policies in his columns?
The columns criticizing Trump have all been written. Those criticizing Democrats for their lack of policies and how they can improve are written.
So it begs the question. What are those Conservative policies and how closely they align with what Trump is enacting? Why the lack of detail about what true Conservatives want in your columns?
Would such a column expose the fact that those policies are the new norm of today's Conservatism movement, and Trump is the perfect representative of such?
14
Republicans seem to forget that prior to letting Trump harness the RNC so that he could afford to run, Trump's ONLY credentials as a "conservative" or even a "Republican" were that he was 1) willing to take the mantle of the Birther Movement and help McConnell and friends in their mission to weaken Obama, and 2) he is a self-entitled, old, white, "businessman" willing to abuse our legal system to benefit the wealthy.
25
Yesterday, 11 nations signed a trade agreement excluding the US but leaving the door open should the country regain its senses and, in one fashion or another, remove Trump from office. The world is learning it can do without the US in trade and ultimately I sense in all other matters including defense and military alliances. So in that respect, Trump has been successful in fulfilling his promise of making America stand alone. But in Making America Great Again, our leader's many grievances will also succeed in destroying a political party he climbed aboard and drained of any semblance of normalcy.
Symbiosis is a funny thing, the conjoined parasite and host live together easily enough until one simply dies. The Republicans should bone up on some biology, it is more likely they will be left bloodless and rotting than Trump. It really isn't Party Over Nation or its reverse. It's a death spiral they can gain control over if enough Republican Senators gin up the common sense to vote him out off office in an impeachment trial.
7
With low 40S rock-solid support and perhaps a chunk more in hiding, this looks and feels very much like a two-term presidency. The amount of negative information surfaced during his presidency seems to have had very limited impact since Nov 2016
8
@Poulian "Very limited impact". Is there a short term memory problem you're not telling us about? A midterm election where turnout was at near historic levels, and a full 9% more voters pushed the D button than the R button, would seem to refute your claim.
11
It would seem reasonable to believe that the many investigations into corruption and democracy undermining will come to something in 2019. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they do grind on and nothing good will come of it for this crowd of bogus americans.
11
@citizenduke The question is will enough Americans care for things to change?
1
My first reaction to your question was -
"What could possibly be unclear to you about this man's countless pathologies."
After reading your article, the question remains, but with the following answer ... untamed and worse than we thought.
8
The Republican party, as seen through Douthat's column and the results of polls, is a sham party. You see, the fact that a do-nothing/know-nothing president can achieve a free pass from the author and still get 90% party support shows how empty their view of governing is.
The extent of their belief system is "keep your hand out of my pockets (taxes), leave my guns alone, stand up for God and little babies that aren't born, and appoint Supreme Court justices." That's about it. No more "family values." No more "balance the budget." No more nuance, eloquence, and cooperation internationally - because it's either bad or unnecessary.
That's the current party, as it stands in this column and in the voters' minds. Progress and issues are the furthest things from their minds.
18
While I consider myself a liberal, that is not the main reason that I find the Republican party of the past quarter-century so abhorrent. As a veteran, I watched the swift-boating of John Kerry and fumed as the GOP chicken-hawks tried to tear down a war hero. That was but a mild prelude to draft-dodging Trump's disgusting behavior. From disparaging gold-star families, to ignoring advice from four-star generals, to using a troop visit as a campaign-style ego-boost, this man has zero redeeming qualities. Now that the Republicans own Trump, and he owns them, I can never imagine anyone with a modicum of moral character ever voting for the current version of the GOP.
29
@KenF
Agreed. Apparently we have a lot of people with no moral character in this country. They are the problem. This pathetic excuse for a President is just a symptom.
1
Once upon a time, every fourth deciduous tree was a chestnut. They were called the Redwoods of the East and their nuts fed us, squirrels, and other critters. Their wood was used to build America. Then a blight hit and this foundation of eastern ecosystems was undone.
Trump is also a blight and I hope we can recover our lost decency, alliances, and values.
10
How about Trump blows my mind and actually pulls together bipartisan groups to look at the genesis of every social ill - and then make bi- or non- or mixed partisan solutions. With full transparency on costs, benefits and winners, losers, etc. This would take courage, originality, and would be truly populist because it would honor the intelligence of the people along with the power of the elites.
1
Douthat referred to Jeff Sessions as a 'normalizing figure'.
My God, I fear for the future of my country.
Oh...and one more thing.
Does Douthat not understand that he is one of Trump's enablers?
21
The outlook is grim if Trump support holds. We will become an autocratic society with no health care, or poor health care, a nation of the few fabulously rich and the struggling poor. We will have few protections against anything and The US will slide into just another third world dictatorship led by just another deranged man.
Putin will have much more influence and say over what happens in the US. God help us.
6
He is a catastrophe waiting to happen at all times, and this is a good summation of Trump and America going into 2019 together.
I want indictments. I want him impeached and removed. I want a real president and not a Putin puppet or a destroyer of our democracy and middle class America.
I want him to hang himself high because people apparently are getting used to Trump and just ignoring him. This includes more and more members of the GOP as well as the majority of Americans.
However, he is too dangerous to totally ignore and we must never forget that. We must never get complacent again as far as our president or Congress. We still need to get rid of the greatest national security risk America has ever faced from within and then just keep No Sense Pence in line. He can be intimidated easily enough.
7
What happens depends on two things: the Republican party and the Supreme Court.
2
I've just done online research on the 3 revealed religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - and the thoughts of the philosophers, ancient and modern, about LYING. With 38 pages of notes.
It is very instructive to realize that the POTUS would not now or ever pass the commandments or teachings of all these religious and scholarly institutions and thinkers. I would add that no contemporary jurisprudence would accept lying as either a legal charge or a defense.
What do the faith leaders in the USA make of that? What do those religiously committed voters for the POTUS believe? That the POTUS doesn't lie? If they think it doesn't matter, then they should immediately stop going to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday services because they are committing a sin as their own religions define it. The biggest sinner of all is? The POTUS.
4
I think what many fail to realize is that a President Trump "unhinged" is simply the new and more public incarnation of male patriarchy in American politics, no matter if you talk about Obama, GWB or Clinton all these Presidency's had "similar" people with in the Administration who acted and spoke like Trump, it was just hidden from the public's view.
America's political nature is highly combative, narcissistic and self self-serving.
The painful irony is you can have a person, like our President, who embraces all the qualities of modern day sociopath and we elect him to the highest office in the land and then think he is the problem.
One has to wonder which American citizen will show up in 2019 and beyond?
3
Ross has a strange blindness to substance.
All of his scenarios neglect what's already been done for the sake of a contest. For example, he talks about the popularity of the meeting with Kim, but neglects to mention that it was smoke and lies and to evaluate where that leaves us.
What about what he's given away to Russia? What about our allies? What about the damage he does every single day?
Ross doesn't seem to mind the constant bad-mouthing and lies re Dems, but that too is causing damage in further polarizing.
Don't you think we've had enough being lied about and lied to? Don't you think our allies have had enough weakness and coziness with Putin?
You haven't begun to examine scenarios for next year.
8
Dear Mr. Douthat,
In one of your scenarios “...Trump reacts to indicators he understands, the jittery stock market above all...”
You double-down on this by stating it’s reasonable to suggest that Fed policies are hurting both the stock market and workers.
Risk assets have been artificially inflated by 10 years of historically low rates and quantitative easing. Did you and Trump expect that to last forever? The Fed’s response helped stave off another Great Depression. One by-product was the longest bull market in history.
I for one will never forget that Congressional Republicans argued for austerity and tried to block infrastructure initiatives during the financial crisis and into the early years of the recovery, while agonizing about the deficit.
Leave the Fed alone. You guys just don’t get it.
12
If Trump is unceremoniously dumped one way or another, the question will then be: Whither an un-president Trump?
Once expelled from the oval office and back out on the hustings, Trump will still be spewing his hatred to whatever is left of his support, poisoning the body politic as always. Will the press still cover his every tweet as something which is newsworthy? If yes, ugh! If no, it will likely be because he has no access to a computer from behind bars.
The best possible scenario for me is that justice is served to him, plainly and simply, in or out of office. This man's lifelong record of business and political shenanigans cannot go unpunished.
Trump is simply the face of the worst of our angels. He is an accident of American history and I, for one, believe that in the end we will even the score in dealing with a thoroughly reprehensible human being. We must.
6
You give the Bloviator-in-Chief too much credit about finances. He may know how to work the celebrity angles and the borderline criminal edges of real estate, but he has no concept of the how the financial markets, or certainly greater than a 7th grader.
5
What wishful thinking. The better scenario is that the dems don't cave on the wall, the border is shut down, China doesn't cave and the tariffs go to 25% on all imports from China, immigration comes to a trickle with the border shut, fed workers don't get paid again and the whole artifice collapses, to start anew.
1
To attempt to place Trump's impulsiveness and sheer incompetence into one of several likely scenarios is a silly gesture: he himself has little command of his behavior. He lives in the moment in the hope of always making headlines (the old salesman's goal), and he succeeds in doing that. But as to leadership of the country in expressing the democratic values of our nation, he has no interest.
He is a clear and present danger to our republic! A bottom-feeder realtor looking for a pitch is not going to care about anything but publicity in the moment.
159
@Damien Wilson
He is a danger to 17 Den hopefuls in 2020. Not one can beat him.
@Damien Wilson
I think your wrong. Trump knows exactly what he's doing, ask people who have worked with him.
2
Mike Pence was given a letter by Mike Flynn's lawyers in July of 2016 informing him of his work with Turkey. Flynn showed the letter after he was fired, to confirm he didn't lie to Pence (the alleged reason for his firing.) What else has Pence done wrong - legally - that might push him out of office? This relates to another possible scenario, where both Trump and Pence leave office - guess who becomes the next President? The Speaker of the House. That is the nightmare scenario for the GOP. Likely? No, but at least as possible as some of Douthats paths. My prediction is that Trump will NOT be on the GOP ticket in 2020, and that will so upset his supporters as to help the Dems win a super-majority in the Senate.
3
Actually the other major scenario, involving but not revolving around Trump per se, is the total absence of Congressional governance. This is particularly true of the republicans, but there's residual partisan splash on the democrats.
Wouldn't it be ironic if Trump's looming impeachment were the catalyst to the Congress actually carrying out the roles envisioned for it by the founders?
1
"Paul Ryan's agenda dragged down Trump's approval ratings'.
Really!!
What was that agenda? Tax cuts. Check. Trump certainly had no objection to them. Repeal Obamacare. Did I just imagine the party with Trump and the House Republicans celebrating the passage of their objective in the Rose Garden?
The Fed's interest rates are hurting the stock market. Between 1969 and 1994, I purchased seven different homes. The lowest mortgage interest rate I ever had was 6.5 percent, a loan I assumed. The highest I ever paid was 12.5 percent. Did these rates have an effect on the stock market? Perhaps, but not the volatility of recent weeks.
Ross, your argument doesn't hold water.
18
Impeachment is not the real test. It is whether they send the economy into a recession. Forget the pundits. They missed 2000 and they missed 2008. The live in this media bubble and have no idea what is going on outside of it.
4
Mr. Douthat's list of options is kind of like a TV meteorologist saying, "Today will be hot or cold, with between zero and three inches of rain or snow and wind gusts of three to forty miles per hour." That kind of prognosticating I can do on my own. For free.
22
I'm still waiting for someone to ponder the nature of a Pence presidency. Dems are so eager for Trump's removal, they haven't much considered that Pence might be much more capable and focused. He's a cool and collected guy. And, unlike Trump, he actually believes in something other than himself. He's a fundamentalist Christian: he will probably pray for the Union after his swearing in. Then, having restored the Union with the help of the Lord, he will confront a Social Progressive offered up by the hapless Democratic Convention. Pence could be around for a very long time.
9
@Burroughs
If that happens, I suppose that would be God's will.
But it is challenging to imagine a fundamentalist Christian pardoning a moral slimeball like Donald Trump - which he will need to do to win reelection following the impeachment.
1
@Burroughs--Oh heavens no, we would not want a Social Progressive. The authoritarian, Ayn Rand nutcases, scientifically ignorant, power hungry, and corrupt persons in the current administration are certainly what we need.
6
@Burroughs I just can’t imagine that Pence could do one tenth, or maybe evn 1/100th, the damage that Trump has already done. It’s insanity vs. sanity, in my view, and not having someone in charge who tweets, “my nuclear button is bigger than yours, believe me,”with barely a thought of the consequences, to the unstable leader of the country that President Obama warned was our biggest threat. No, I am not a fan of Pence by any stretch of the imagination, but even with fundamentalist views, I think he is far less of a threat.
All I learned since Trump became the President is that our constitution is deeply flawed. Any constitution that gives unlimited King like power to one individual needs to be amended. In any other western democracy and adding to that many Asian countries Trump would not have lasted this long. We like to boast about checks and balances but that’s only a talk. There are true checks and balances in Western Europe democracy. In our country we say a sitting President cannot be indicted no matter what.
This is no democracy. There was a time before Trump when I sincerely believed we have the best constitution of any country , now I believe exactly the opposite.
34
@Eraven I agree and think the Founding Fathers would be chastened if they could witness the sorry spectacle of this authoritarian so-called president, who has already mused publicly about becoming president for life.
19
@Eraven
I have been shocked by all Trump has been able to do with the stroke of a pen without the consent of Congress or anyone else. The only check available is the courts and when Republicans pack the courts with their own guys even that check maybe gone.
11
@Eraven - Our Constitution is not flawed. The people who are occupying the branch designed to check the president are flawed. The Republican-controlled Congress has refused to do its job. When a child is a terror making adult accede to its every whim or wish, that's not the child's fault for asking. It's the adult's for not exercising their authority.
Tariffs for national security reasons (on POTUS Trump's say so, when EVERYONE knows he doesn't even listen to security briefings and can't understand the summaries)? Stop them.
Put strings on funds regarding the arbitrary, spontaneous shuffling of forces.
Stop jumping at his every comment or tweet as if it were a divine revelation that he won't negate five minutes later.
If there is a constitutional crisis, it's in the Republican-controlled Congress. Spineless sycophants who won't do their jobs out of fear of being primaried.
1
why should 2019 be any different than any other year of Trump's life?
22
@Rick Because, he, the now semi-cornered malignant narcissist, is spiraling down. Which means his compensatory psychological defenses will rachet up. Expect not only more bombast but also a greater level of irrational and self-serving impulsivity, actions that will place all of us in serious danger.
6
@Rick, except that he be GONE. Someone of Douthat's intelligence musing on Trump's survival and the 30% actually growing is beyond comprehension. What is wrong with us that we can't rid ourselves of a madman. Our own Stalin.
4
Another scenario that would make the most sense would be that the President Trump, Ivanka, Jared, Don Jr. and Eric will go to jail? This seems as likely and warranted as any outcome that you have suggested. It's baffling that there are intelligent, informed people, who will continue to put "lipstick on the pig".
37
@batpa So, could DJT actually be arrested, tried, and convicted in a court of law for ongoing major crimes being committed while still in office like...money laundering?
The State of New York has been looking very closely at the Trump Organization that Mr. Trump still operates and if they find ongoing criminal activity, it seems the first thing they would have to do is get a state or federal judge to review the evidence and if he/she agrees, the next step would be for the state or federal judge to sign an arrest warrant allowing the state to proceed through normal law enforcement procedures to arrest DJT while he is still in office?
Just because that has never been done before...does that mean it can't be done if the State Attorney General takes action?
You know...just wondering...
4
Or: a scenario in which Mueller indicts Don Jr. and Jared and, in the wake of the special counsel’s deeply embarrassing report, Trump agrees to resign if the charges against his son and son-in-law are dropped.
3
I had to laugh at Mr Douthat's piece. Like a fortune teller, each prognostication gets darker and darker. When I was done laughing, I had to admit to myself that the present reality was already very grim. Let's pray there's not a major crisis added to the ongoing one. My brother, who supports Trump, had posted on Facebook that he believes a Leftist conspiracy is afoot to make the stock market volatile in order to show its contempt for the president. My 90 year old Progressive mother said to me,"Have you heard anything more stupid than that?" I told her, "No," even though some of the presidents tweets came to mind. To all the people registered to vote but stayed home in 2016, you are partially responsible. Please get out to vote in 2020.
31
Your starting point was an illusion. Trump was not "tamed" a year ago, has never been, and will never be. I don't understand your motivation. Why is it so important to defend Trump and the Republicans that you are willing to twist your brain into a pretzel? Is Kavanaugh really worth it?
36
For Trump Part Deux, which one hopes is mercifully short, imagine a new White House press secretary, a Rod Serling clone, greeting the media with, "You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone."
To date this calamitous administration has been truly frightening and the worst is yet to come.
20
Untamed? Contained? Unhinged? It doesn't matter. What matters is the rest of us. Do we understand our responsibilities as citizens?
16
Trump will flip, flop, flap, fall, flounder, flail, fabricate, flatulate, finally fail. However, the damage will be generational. Good luck USA. Empire down!
15
Truer words have never been written.
@Loud and Clear. Nice alliteration! You echo the sentiments of soo many outside our borders, especially the schadenfreud. Of course Trump will fail. The issue for the rest of us in the US is to recognize that it is really about us, and how we can take care of ourselves in the unfolding chaos. Would you be willing to give us temporary asylum if needed?
Re the author and his constant optimistic musings re Trump and the Republican Party: will no one rid of this turbulent priest?
14
He will continue to be who he is. His psyche is gratified by causing aggression, opposition, chaos (and the secondary attention he receives). And I'm not really sure why such a large part of our population has difficulty discerning what sociopathic behavior looks like. What is unknown is how the structures around him will react.
26
@Carl - For many of his power hungry, weak-willed, selfish fans, they'd do the same thing in their own little worlds if they had the power and could get away with it. It makes their hearts race with glee.
2
Virtually everything Donald does from now on will be a propaganda stunt. The Border Wall is a large, fictitious, and faux-religious icon, an Iron Virgin of Krakow to rally his devout, Hispanic-hating base. He will rule from Twitter, while Fox and Sanders back him up. Every move will be more dangerous and more self-centered. Just watch-- he'll fire the Munchkin if Trump Corporation's debt rises due to interest rates. He'll be Bannon's puppet. The private dirt will get dirtier as House investigations and Mueller emerge. Merely informing people of what's going on will get more and more risky. The key to containing him is building a counterweight to the State Propaganda. Dems must realize that the country is on the line and they obtain defections from the ex-Republican Party.
14
There is a fifth scenario that seems more plausible by the day. Trump is crazy. Not sorta but really. He can restrain his insanity only so long as his ego is safe. But reality catches up with him, as it has a nasty habit of doing to us all. He finds twitter bombs insufficient and starts using real bombs. And a year from now, Ross finds it a tad more difficult to justify wry humor.
25
@Victor James Psychologists tiptoe around his mental pathology but to a layman it is obvious he is criminally insane. Lex Luthor in the White House. As the walls close in, he’ll play the military card and embroil the nation in a war. Iran or North Korea are good possibilities. The ultimate distraction. American soldiers die so he can maintain his grip on power. This is a very likely scenario.
5
Here is another possibility. Trump has a mental or physical crisis, and is removed from the presidency by either the cabinet or the women and men in white coats. Given his current physical appearance, and his obvious mental deterioration, this option gets my vote. Tick Tock...
16
The flaw in this logic is the premise that before now there was anything constrained or logical in Trumpism. There was and is not. Douthat and the Republican enablers bear much of the blame, although Trump and his advisors bear still more. Anyone who serves Trump - and anyone who enables his contempt for norms so hard-won since 1787 - will forever bear his stain and his stench.
26
@Native Tarheel I agree with your statement that anyone who serves Trump "will forever bear his stain and his stench." Question: at this point can Mr. Douthat be counted among his enablers? I honestly don't know. Perhaps this is me, perhaps R,D. with his interesting intellectualisms is in fact still fence-straddling. How about it, Mr. Douhat: in this great moral crisis which side are you on?
4
@Jennifer wade Absolutely right!
The media is certainly responsible, in part, for how Trumpian 2019 will be. The way he is covered needs to change. No more breathless, clutching-at-pearls headlines of his Twitter tirades, please. Stick to policy and leave the rest alone. So, of the examples given in the article, the coverage could be: resignation of Mattis--yes, stock market falls--yes, pull-out from Syria--yes. But, Mattis accusing Trump of being soft on Russia--no, possible firing of Fed Chair--no, conversation with Turkish dictator, no. Of the current NYT front page: Trump issuing order freezing federal workers' pay--yes, Trump blaming Dems for deaths of children in custody--no. In other words, cover only Trump's actions, not his opinions. Not every Tweet deserves a headline. We don't need to know what he thinks of Nancy Pelosi, only what action he takes to negotiate an end to the shutdown. Just give us the facts and leave Trump's cockamamie theories, opinions and rants out of it. A tirade is not news. Those who are interested in his rants can follow on Twitter. Just the facts, please, for the rest of us.
26
"... certainly a case that the Fed’s interest rate policies are hurting both stocks and workers"
Then why did Trump replace dovish Yellen with hawkish Powell?
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-26/never-ask-an-inflation-hawk-to-do-a-dove-s-job
Could it be that President Bonespurs has no idea what he is doing?
16
Trump is the wrong messenger with the right objectives: withdraw from foreign adventures, deal with immigration, restore economic vitality/roll back regulation, speak to the Left’s itch for more government control of American life, confront China on intellectual property theft. He has support, because Democrats lack the spine to tackle these items and choose to purchase votes with promises.
While it comes as a surprise to NYC Progressives, there is a broad consensus behind Trump (much of it from middle class voters who, contrary to Socrates, have never seen a WWF event).
The readers of this paper would do well to cool it on the racist and divisive rhetoric. Calling people stupid and expressing contempt for Americans who attend church is not a journey that will end well for either side. The Left has lost any semblance for self-awareness, and that is a problem for everyone.
Here is a little project for 2019: go clean up the obvious mess that is Hollywood. Start with muzzling the openly provocative acting community (who are just as harmful as Fox and the shock jocks) and turn full-time attention on the working conditions for women, post #MeToo, as well as considering the damage being done to our girls in a society that objectifies women for commercial gain. You will find plenty of Democrats in that garbage heap, so start digging and give the nation a real gift as we roll toward another Presidential Election.
Signed,
An Obama Voter Turned Libertarian in 2016
6
@Stuart. And you think the right has self-awareness? I think greed and power might be the course for the political right. Sure, they love to throw around Christian values but practicing what they preach is getting harder and harder these days. The taste of bile must be sickening.
4
Wow this comment exposes the deeper issue. Why after every conservative led disaster to people always turn around and blame democrats for not achieving the impossible task of passing reasonable and informed legislation despite every attempt to block anything they do. And let’s put the responsibility for self awareness where it belongs
3
The three pillars of Trump's entire life and his "presidency" are:
Greed
Hatred
Delusion
These are also, historically, the three prime causes of all human misery.
12
@WRH
Yeah, he looks pretty miserable.
I guess he's not such a genius after all.
1
You're in trouble when you regret the leaving of sessions and kelly. Or better, the country is.
5
I just hope. That we don’t wake up some morning in 1931. OR some other morning to learn that the Baltic States have alll “...decided...” to rejoin Russia.
3
Meanwhile, in he background, McConnell is influencing the agenda just like Cheney did to W. McConnell is a truly disgusting Senator that just cares about himself and his friends. He does not care what most Americans want or need.
18
Comments abound, and for good reason...even if for no possible good outcomes...under the awful tutelage of an unhinged beast in the Oval Office. Trump's tramplings on this democracy are, for all those willing to see and hear the truth, see our reality, obvious. Aside from the capitalistic system in vogue, i.e., a worsening inequality, Trump's legacy shall be the loss of trust in democratic institutions, and trust in each other, and likely lasting much beyond his misrule. Incompetence and corruption usually go hand-in-hand, and this vulgar bully is certainly so well endowed with both it is scary. Now that Trump's 'straightjacket' (adults in the room) is gone, how could you possibly expect edible fruits from a poisoned tree?
6
Untamed or contained? Here’s hoping he’s impeached, convicted and put in a prison cell. That really gives many of us something to look forward to.
10
Trump's going to continue to be a crazy person, mean as a snake, completely unqualified to be president, a slave to unfocused anger and a traitor until Mueller releases his report and Congress finally decides to man up and impeach and remove him.
I predict they'll do it eventually.
12
Insanity is insanity! Trump is not OK, anymore, period.
Investigations will continue and Trump will likely be impeached.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
We fought many wars, many battles to protect our democracy.
No matter how popular Trump is with Trumpsters, right is right.
Trump's famous OK sign reminds that he is not OK, period.
I suggest the use of the OK sign, maybe with both hands to remind people that Trump is not OK, not OK...
OK? OK?
Happy 2019? Goodbye Trump insanity!
------------------------------------------------
5
Forget about Trump... The Big Story in 2019 is going to be the Democratic free-for-all meltdown. The House is going to fracture into competing Investigations as media diva like Schiff, Nadler and Waters - to name a few - pose for the cameras and primp for Sunday morning "news shows" to regale the Base with the latest update on their confidential investigations of the Evil One....Meanwhile the hordes of hot candidates for the Democratic nomination will be shredding each other like roast beef for a taco. It's going to be real mean and dirty...Anyone want to bet that the Progressive Fringe of the Democratic Party doesn't run a candidate of their own in 2020. Aitch, there could several "Democrats" on the Presidential ballot in 2020....Just call it "Dems Unleashed [ Unhinged? ]".
2
@Albert Edmud Forget about Trump? You wish.
Well, it’s a good thing Ross is consistently wrong. I hope for impeachment.
14
Douthat's scenarios and all the reader comments come from "inside the box." The mistake all of you are making is the failure to embrace the territory "outside the box." Example: At the upcoming Academy Awards presentation, Jack Nicholson (as Jack Torrance from "The Shining") opens the envelope and presents the Oscar for Best Performance by a Politician in a Leading Role to Donald Trump. The voice-over announcer says, "Donald Trump could not find the courage to be here tonight. Accepting the award as Donald Trump is Alec Baldwin."
3
I have to confess that I generally only read the first two paragraphs of any article related to the president who shall not be named. I generally know after two paragraphs that I’m not going to learn anything new; it will just be a rehash of a rehash of a rehash of a rehash of lies and misrepresentations by he who shall not be named. I used to spend at least 45 minutes a day delving into the news out of Washington. These days, I don’t much care. I’ve lost hope for my country anytime during the remainder of my lifetime.
1
@Tom Debley I can totally relate to how you feel. It's gotten to the point that I feel the need to avoid the news at all costs. I've become increasingly addicted to news out of Washington on a daily basis and it is eroding my health and emotional stability. I'm beyond weary of looking at him and listening to his inane lies and rants.I've lost faith in a large portion of the American populace who voted this character into office. Apparently ignorance is bliss for many U.S. citizens. Also bigotry and prejudice are alive and well also.
2
Given that no one wants to be anywhere near him these days tells me they know something we don’t. That puts scenario #2 at the top of the list. You give Mr. Mueller’s findings short shrift, Ross, but I’m willing to bet he’s found the smoking gun, and when his report is made public (no way can Whitaker or Barr can keep it under wraps), what’s left of Trump Party support in Congress will disssolve like an ice cube on the 4th of July.
One can only hope.
5
Trump is isolated and paranoid. And, because a poorly understood and distinctly American cult formed around him, he currently occupies the office of the President of the United States.
Because of his position, and his ongoing erratic behavior, he can reasonably be described as potentially the most dangerous person on the planet.
I believe a crisis is imminent. Trump completely unbound. Tipped into snapping, snarling, howling madness as his "empire" begins to come apart at the seams.
A slow speed motorcade chase from D.C. to Mar a Lago? Yeah, I can see that.
A mad dash to the Russian Embassy? Yup.
The secret service should maintain their stun guns at full charge...
9
@interested party Yes, extremely dangerous!
1
Actually there may be another possibility of a great presidency with the following happening: Appointment of another conservative Supreme Court Justice, Mueller reports nothing other than payment to Stormy Daniels and some other minor infractions, with prison reform in effect, lower unemployment and opportunity zones in effect Trump gets higher approval from Blacks, N. Korean Kim coming to America and start to implement his promises, good relationship with Russia with a visit by Putin to WH, an actual wall at the border start to get built, American soldiers are back from Syria and Afghanistan and better conditions start to develop there, trade friction with China end, economy stay the same, Fed starts to slow interest rate hike because of Trump's loud noise, Democrats find nothing with all their investigations and impeachment process, start a peace process between Israel and Palestinians, start talk with Iran, more countries in trouble in Europe due to immigration issue, more tax cuts through higher deduction to middle class in suburban areas, Trump's tweets get more funny and pointed, and more. There is a good possibility that all of the above things will happen and Ross and other never Trumpers will be on Trump's side or Ross will retire from the business of predictions.
2
@Alex E
Or...Imagine exactly the opposite of everything you've speculated here. That is far, far more likely how 2019 will play out for the Trump administration.
3
@Alex E. For Trumps tweets to get "more funny", they would have to be funny in the first place. Mean, spiteful, narcissistic people are not funny, in case you haven't noticed.
1
@Alex E
So - you live in the same fantasy bubble as the tRump and the rest of his rabid base, right?
1
My guess/hope/prediction is that a faction of anti-Trump conservatives will back a 'third party' conservative presidential ticket in 2020.
In this way, these heroic conservatives will simultaneously promote their conservative philosophy while ensuring that Trump is not reelected.
Once Trump is gone, they will resurge for the 2022 midterms, hoping to take back the House.
1
Guess it depends.
In 2019 will the media continue to be entranced by the DJT White House "reality show'" or will they actually hold up the mirror or cast a bright, piercing, unfogiving, and unrelenting light on the DJT dump of a White House AND the syncophants GOPmemebers of the House and Senate.
If the media continues to give the amoral, corrupt players in this main feature a "Stay out of Jail" card, then nothing will change in 2019.
If the media changes, then 2019 will be different.
Remember Einstein's definition of insanity: "Doing the same thing over . . ."
We still have hope thanks to the Great President Barack Obama,Michelle, Joe Biden, and Dr. Biden.
What we need is change.
So who will the media accommodate?
5
Good piece - brings a little perspective. Here's some more. Trump's approval rating today (the 710th of his administration) is 41.4%,.
Before we all take too much delight in that (or see it as an indicator that he won't return to power in 2020), it's important to recognize that Obama's approval rating on his 710th day was 45.8%. Bill Clinton's was 43.3%. Saint Ron Reagan's was 41.1%. And of course, the worst President in history, W.,-- more destructive than anything Trump has done to date (financial collapse, fake WMDs, the forever war, waterboarding, Mission Accomplished) was at a scary 60.6%.
So, all I can say is this: Be afraid. Be very very afraid.
10
How about real news and not Trump rehash - flooding in N Carolina, feeezing conditions in the SW, earthquake in the Philippines, and not raising federal workers pay. Leave Trump to stew alone in the White House. His attempt to blame the Democrats for two years of inactivity in Congress is Trump, Ryan’s, and McConnell’s fault. Replace McConnell with Romney and let’s tamp down Trump.
4
One thing absolutely mystifies me about Trump. He, in his heart of hearts, must realize that his business dealings and other activities are largely unethical and borderline criminal. How on earth he thought he could run for and attain the presidency without all of this coming to light is a mystery. The Republican Party has scrutinized every nanosecond of the Clintons’ lives over the past three decades. How Trump thought he could escape this level of intense examination with the Mueller probe and now a Democratic Congress is just mind-boggling.
I’ve read that he is a narcissist and is able to compartmentalize things but, still, he should have expected all this.
4
@BrianP 1. He has gotten away with bad stuff all his life. 2. His severe malignant narcissim works to justify and reinforce his extreme self-serving perspective.
3
@BrianP
Yes, he is mystifying if you discount psychological illness.
What 'explains' his behavior? In psychological terms: narcissism, megalomania and egomania.
In business terms, I believe he has exhausted all sources of borrowing - except from foreign strongmen and their mafia; (i.e., Putin and his oligarchs, M.B.S., etc.)
So he saw the presidency as a way to perpetuate his 'empire' without the need and oversight of our traditional banking infrastructure.
2
@BrianP Simple answer: he never expected to win, so why would he bother to expect the subsequent scrutiny?
"... the equivalent of 9/11 or the financial crisis will come along and things will get very, very dark..." And that can happen based upon the evolving consequences of Trump's actions during the first two years.
Too much political analysis is based on the naive assumption that the consequences of a major blunder will show up in the daily news within a few weeks. No! the effects are long term. For example, health care insurance rate increases associated with the changes Trump and the Reps have already made in the ACA won't show up until early 2020. The lack of tax reduction for the middle class from useless tax law will become obvious in 2020. The North Korea situation is utterly unresolved and unchanged by Trump. The pullout from Syria that was unannounced to our allies is going to lead to withdrawals of allies from various coalitions -- I wouldn't trust Trump to protect my backside any more!
Poll popularity in 2019 will only reflect Trump's latest Tweet and not the major unsolved problems Trump has created and swept under the carpet. As those explode, as Ross says, the Trump Administration is utterly unprepared to deal with the consequences.
It is beyond merely "sad" that we have to wait for one of those explosions before Trump is removed from office. But the functional illiteracy of the American population makes that consequence guaranteed. ("Functional illiteracy": it makes no difference whether you can't read or don't read, the consequences are the same.)
6
In my opinion it would be best if Trump was sent to monitor his Wall in Mexico until Mexico pays for it!
It will be a long wait. But seriously I find his tweets, his rhetoric, his simplistic policies, his endless demagoguery
to his base by now tiresome, repetitive, and truly despicable and totally unpresidential.
How does anybody including Republican voters and leaders still support him?
I find the fact that 38% of the public still back him more troubling than anything else. Where is true Patriotism, love of Democracy and the vast diversity of our population and compassion for the less fortunate in his supporters? It is truly disheartening!
8
My expectation and hope is Trump just twists in the wind until 2020 as his incompetance becomes more evident, a Mueller report devastates what ever remains of moderate support and is widely aired by a impeachment indictment that leads to a Senate vote that exposes the GOP senators as the hacks they are, and that growing world political turmoil, a recession, and environmental disasters have demonstrated the stupidity of his policies and the repugnance of conservatism. Let me be clear, I do not hope for these events (except a Mueller report that is at least scathing), but do expect them.
1
Trump will last only as long as key Republican senators’ backers say he should last. As soon as financial volatility really starts to hit the wallets of the Koch’s, etc., they will signal to McConnell and others that it’s time to bring in Pence. My guess is the playbook is already written, they are just waiting for the call.
6
Unfortunately there's also a fourth scenario. Trump is forced to resign but he continues to go to his rallies while his supporters continue to gun up. They march on Washington DC from each direction each irregular army some 38,000 strong. As the pass through the United States they pick up thousands more supporters. The army and police forces all stand down, refusing to interfere. When this mob gets to the capital they number over 100,000. The Democrat(ic) Party members from Congress and The Supreme Court who don't flee are trapped in an office building where they hold out for about a week before surrendering. Fox covers it has the much needed clean out of "The Deep State".
Something similar happened in Russia and it could happen here.
2
To my chagrin, I must agree with the last scenario Douthat posits. Trump will NEVER "go gentle into that good night" - ever. The ego is so ravenous that the idea of being forced out without a bloodbath is unthinkable. Reminds me of Nero but hopefully Washington doesn't burn as he pines for a final tryst with Stormy. No, he will try to take everyone into his abyss once the fatal report from Mueller is released. Of course his mindless minions will never desert him, but their numbers will be reduced to the bottom-feeding 30% or so of Americans that are entirely devoid of every semblance of morality or decency. MY hope is that he doesn't instigate a crisis so overwhelming as to truly threaten the continuation of our government, currently being tested to the max. We like to say that things can't get worse. Didn't I think that during Dubya's presidency! Looking back, that seems almost like a quaint period in American politics. After Trump, NOTHING is impossible. There is something, however, extremely occult about his rapport with Putin, the TRUE devil incarnate. That relationship and how it might play out for our future is the one thing that causes me most anxiety. Otherwise, I can't wait to the day that will hopefully come sooner rather than later when he slithers out of the White House and retreats to the confines of Mar-A-Lago. Thankfully, I don't see him living in Manhattan again so least we won't suffer his stench here on our little island whatever else happens.
3
@ManhattanWilliam Yes. And yes, as he finally goes down he will try to take the rest of us with him.
2
Trump can't behave differently (i.e. better) than he has before, because he is incapable of any honest self-reflection and because he understands the two things that hold his supporters in thrall: unabashed showmanship and the assurance that he will do everything in his power to make the GOP's super-rich puppeteers (the Kochs, Adelson, Mercer, McMahon, etc.) richer. Money and celebrity - the American double whammy that rules the land.
4
Ross Douthat offers political scenarios of 2019 inducing everything from acid reflux to mind-numbing shock. Thanks Ross.
America doesn't want any of your scenarios nor Ms. Drew's scenario where an inevitability of impeachment leads Congress to grant him a non-prosecution deal to resign. (What nonsense! Let Trump go free and replace him with Pence? Never!)
The scenario most Americans hope for is a Special Counsel report that cannot be dismissed by Trump, Republicans/Fox as fake. America wants accountability.
Here's the best outcome for 2019:
Mr. Mueller submits his report. The indisputable facts show Trump was party to the Russian lawyer meeting in the Trump Tower, just as he was the author of Junior's lie that the meeting was just about adoption of Russian children.
Other evidence prove Trump illegally pocketed millions of dollars of the inauguration funds and prove that, within the statute of limitations, Trump committed numerous other felonies.
Republicans in Congress finally realize that Trump has been nakedly exposed for what he is and they have no where to hide other than a desperate attempt to claim they were never with him.
Democrats AND Republicans in the House unanimously vote to impeach Trump. The Senate unanimously votes to convict Trump.
The nation demands more! Trump and his children are arrested and jailed to await numerous trials.
Newly sworn in Pence is removed under grounds of the 25th Amendment, ending 2019 with President Nancy Pelosi in charge.
6
@JABarry
I agree with all of the comments above except for the last paragraph.....I think Pence will see things are really bad and that him staying will only get worse. He will also leave on his own accord and then the Republicans will happily blame Madam President Pelosi for everything. McConnell will work very hard so that Mrs. Pelosi will be a one term president as she works to save America and right our floundering ship of state. Then the whole process will start all over again. And so it goes...Please God...Bless America...we need you more now then ever...
@VJ - FOX 1,
You make good points, but what will happen in 2020 is McConnell and his fellow traitors to America will be punished by the electorate.
What's different today than 2016 is women have united to save America. They are the new super heroes. On January 19, 2019 the third Women's March will take place across the nation. Women are the nurturers of the nation, defenders of civility, protectors of decency, soldiers of democracy.
Ross the fourth option of an international crisis that overwhelms the incompetent Trump administration is the most likely. So far the only crises Trump has faced have been of his own making. Let me postulate one for you. Putin decides Trump will never back NATO. He decides to test this by invading Latvia under the guise of protecting persecuted Russians. Trump pulls troops out of Europe. The other NATO allies decide they have to react and send in unprepared troops that are badly beaten by the Russians. Putin decides not to stop after he has capture Latvia.....
1
When Nixon was faced by facts that he had a choice to resign or be impeached, he took the proper way out. He knew what it was to lose, and this time what that loss would mean for him politically as well as privately. He went, he kept his own counsel, stayed out of the limelight.
Even if Trump were to be threatened with impeachment, I cannot see him going quietly into the night. And, IMO, he will, if out of office, continue to do as much divisive damage to this country as he is now doing. For example, long before he ran for president seriously, how long did he use that 'Obama wasn't born in America' slander?
2
You know you are living in the "Upside Down" world of Stranger Things when you have Ross Douthat floating the preposterous idea that a 40% approval level would vindicate Trump from all of this surrealism. I fail to see where a 40% approval level can ever be a positive thing for a President of the United States. Trump barely won the three blue wall states that gave him the electoral college in 2016 and he was six points stronger then than he has been since that time. That may not seem like a lot but that six points he has lost just happens to be in those three blue states.
2
It doesn’t matter what Ross, or for that manner, any of us thinks will happen with Trump. In order to make predictions, you have to have a barometer or normalcy of some kind. With Trump, none of that exists.
If I were to write a novel or especially a screenplay about what Trump has put all of us through since 2015, I’d be laughed, or probably kicked out of a producers office. “Something like this could never happen in America” the producer would yell at me as he threw me and my script down the staircase.
After 80 years living on this planet, I can now say that I’ve seen and witnessed the possible “Fall of America.” Trump didn’t come to power all by himself. He had a lot of help. If it’s true that his “base” makes up approximately 40% of the American Electorate, then what does that say about us as a nation?
How many times have you heard the statement “That’s the end of Trump this time!”
How’s that working out for you so far?
During the 60’s, I was part of the so-called Peace Movement. You know how we changed things back then? We marched in the streets. We had “the establishment” beat us back with clubs and water canons. But we fought on, and we finally won.
My question now is “Do we love this country and our freedom enough to do the same thing today”?
If not you, then who????
2
A low 40s approval rating and avoiding impeachment is "vindication"? That means the sizable majority of Americans disapprove, and you call this success for Trump. It's certainly not a success for the US. It's an ever lowering bar of competency that you seem to be happy with. With that as your mindset, how can I ever take you seriously?
2
@Brookhawk "Trump base" explained: low-information Nascar Evangelists.
Ross, you wrote, “And to save myself the embarrassment of future mea culpas, I won’t make predictions...”.
You are in little danger making incorrect predictions; to make a valid one requires some relationship to events or circumstances in the past. The Trumpist Era is unlike anything we have ever experienced and with which we are ill-prepared to deal. Because the president is a comp,etc reactionary, not the least bit a visionary, even he has no idea what will happen or even what he wants to happen.
There can be guesses, but no predictions.
The problem with the third option---somehow Trump's policies work---for any of his policies/ideas to work in any fashion at all would require a working bureaucracy in DC---which, appears to me to be confused and demoralized. All along this has been the achilles heel of this administration---they are unable to connect the implementation dots. Of course, this has been Trump's MO for his entire career---the art of the deal was never followed up with the art of execution.
1
It feels as if we are on a cliff edge nervously awaiting a black swan that will either pull us back from the abyss, or push us over the edge. There are numerous potential black swans, from war with North Korea or Iran to an environmental disaster, financial meltdown, or hopefully an irrefutable case of Trumpian treason. Personally, I think the black swan flying overhead right now is immigration and its metaphor is The Wall. Immigration is about fear, a manufactured fear that foreigners will steal our jobs, rape and kill our daughters, saddle us with drug addiction and basically erode the very culture by which we define ourselves. It is a fear that will take precedence over the fear that we might be ending our great experiment in democracy in favor of autocratic, single party rule where criticism of power becomes forbidden and elections predetermined, all so that we are kept safe from the invading hoards. That is the black swan landing in democratic countries around the globe. When Democrats kibosh The Wall we’ll either be saved by Mueller or watch as the far right reactionaries take control in 2020. The two great lessons of the Trump era are that power will literally do anything to sustain itself, hence the Republican capitulation, and fear will override hope every day of the week. Democrats must learn how to speak to this fear and reduce the appeal of fascism or they, not the Republicans, will be put out to pasture.
2
It is my hope that there are enough good and decent people in Washington DC to put an end to this last two years of misery and embarrassment and get this man removed from office. Probably won't happen but every day he remains increases our peril.
1
We didn’t get where we are with Trump by accident, he has brought himself and the country to this place where we are now. The problem is, like the proverbial frog in the slow heating pot we do not have a clear perception of where we are and I fear it is much worst than you think. Russia, Russians everywhere, indictments as far as the eye can see and acting heads of every facet of government including an acting President, normal, you wish! Once Mueller releases his report and it is finally made public, Trump will fake a health issue that will force him to resign, instead of going through the ruination of the equivalence of a public hanging. His name is everything to him and preservation of that name is all he lives for. Pence will pardon him, he can claim innocence and project himself as a martyr, his disciples will love him more than ever and he will continue to have great influence over national policy from his Fox platform as a pundit just like Hannity, only much much bigger..
1
Trump can do much worse.
So far, only Puerto Ricans killed by the hurricane and its aftermath because of his incompetence and malevolence have died.
How many more may die and how?
1 Consequent to the sabotage of the ACA by Trump and Republicans in Congress, 100,000+ people die in 2019 who would have lived had they had health insurance and health care.
2 Kent State writ large. Trump orders the National Guard to fire to kill at a demonstration against him -- 1000+ die, 5,000+ are wounded.
3 The tents housing 4,000+ infants, toddlers, and teens in Texas -- illegal immigrants -- are doused with gasoline overnight by ICE and all 4000+ are burned alive. Republicans in the Senate pass a resolution praising Trump for his "solution" to keep out immigrants from south of the border.
These atrocities are more likely than Trump ever saying to the American people about his own behavior, "I am sorry".
1
If this criminal situation does not come to a justice centered jailing of DJTrump, and his cronies, this country is not what it was. This Union will not stand, if our laws mean nothing and it is everyone for themselves by any means at hand. My firm hope is there is no way he will ever be re-elected, November 2018 all the evidence needed. This is a guerrilla civil war and like the North won the last one, these toxic insurgent nativists will not win.
1
Such cavalier attitude among Republicans is what has brought the country into the peril that we are facing now. I guess its easier to be so blase about potential doom if you think you yourself are actually immune to the consequences of Trump, but you'd be wrong. No one is immune. The whole world is in danger, but hey, at least you got your tax cut and a bunch or right wing judges out of it, right?
3
If he and his minions are not crushed by law then the nation and humanity have chosen doom.
3
Trump just naturally can't help being obstructive, lying, destructive, combative, devious and power hungry. It is his nature. He will always roil things up, get people exasperated and angry, confuse the situation with lies, make punishing decisions, make bad decisions just for distraction, etc.,etc.
Anyone reasonable person knows that trouble will follow Trump wherever he goes. He has a world stage and power to boot now. He can mess up virtually everything. He likes to. And he will, whenever he can. And put the blame somewhere else, which he enjoys doing, and repeat this tale until it becomes an alternative fact. When nobody knows what is going on, he has things where he likes them.
Chaos is Trumps normal mode. It is who he is.
Expect things to get much worse.
1
Given Trump's chaotic, erratic mental status, I doubt that he can be tamed/contained, no matter how correct his advisors.
1
The Pence line was pretty good. Well done.
We've GOT to get rid of him. By any legal means necessary.
3
For me, the importance of pulling out of Syria by tweet (!!) is the fact that the president, one man, has this kind of power. It should be with the advice and consent of Congress, fergodssakes.
1
Good article, but I noticed that you use the phrase “off the [policy] reservation“. The origin of that expression is pretty scary, and a lot of people don’t fully know what it means.
Basically, it’s from a time when Native Americans were literally not allowed off their reservations. You can read about it here. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/06/29/326690947/should-saying-someone-is-off-the-reservation-be-off-limits
1
Good discussion. So, now what?
This is what; prepare for Hurricane Donnie (like we in NC prepared for Florence and Michael).
Take defensive action with your investments. Take your Trump Bump gains before they become Trump Dump losses.
Put personal finances in order. Pay down credit card balances. Increase emergency cash reserves. Cut discretionary spending.
Be indispensable at work - assuming you have a good job. As my father told me: Get up, Dress up, Show up, and Shut up.
Stay healthy. Exercise, eat right, lose weight, stop smoking, etc.
“Invest” in improving relationships with your family, friends and neighbors. Volunteer.
Turn off cable news.
(I’m sure others can add to this list).
Happy New Year.
3
Who will prevent Donald Trump from starting a nuclear war? Even if his top advisers were bad choices, they probably had enough sense to keep him from trying to exterminate our species, which is a real possibility by the end of this century.
Impeachment simply means the equivalent of a grand jury charge, except in Constitutional terms. The House of Representatives is the equivalent of a prosecutor bringing charges. The Senate is the equivalent of a jury. We have never had a conviction. So far.
None of my posts have ever been published. I am a paid subscriber. Should I be paranoid?
I look forward to a post being published. More important, tell me why I should have hope for the survival of Homo sapiens past 2099. Please. Thank you.
2
Trump has NEVER been held accountable for his behavior. He has always escaped (usually by paying out some (probably Foundation) money to make it go away. Banks just don’t do business with him. His family or others always cover for him.
As the noose tightens because evidence is gathering and becoming more concrete by the day, Trump realizes escape is less likely and circumstances more embarrassing and threatening to His ego.
Trump is a cornered animal and will strike out. It’s only going to get more chaotic, illogical, and frenetic as his grasp loosens. As he trusts fewer folks, I suspect there will be more firings and delayed backfilling of open positions. He will pander to his base more vociferously.
Our adversaries will be more emboldened to challenge and embarrass him. Since Trump thinks himself a “strong” man and peerless negotiator, we’ll have more stupid, impulsive, grandiose move like ceding Syria to Turkey, Russia, etc.
Russia will use him like a Muppet; the embarrassment from compromat will continue to bias Trump to be accommodating to Russia, Russia will pressure him through continued military saber rattling and tweaking Trump over his weaknesses.
It’s not getting better. But I don’t want impeachment. I want justice after we hit our bottom and can have a chance at recovery. Trump is anti-American. It needs justice.
5
@historyRepeated I want Trump impeached and convicted by the Senate; however, this will never happen as long as the republicans have a super majority in the senate. The decent majority of the American people have to start now to organize and give money to the Democratic Party so they can defeat as many republicans as possible in 2020.
The other scenario is Trump moves to the Southern White House till April then to Bedminister and other properties throughout the year. Avoidance of Presidential Daily Briefing, policy reviews and the White House Head Groundskeeper left to make the tough calls.
The twitter account censored and finally disabled leaves Trump no venue to vent.
The Head Groundskeeper, “Groundskeeper Willie” turns out to manage the Oval Office competently. The Rose Garden never looked better and they become a Meet the Press regular.
Pence’s Seven Mountain’s Domionists machinations revealed in a searing expose which leaves him exiled to the Naval Observatory.
Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Groundskeeper Willie form a DC Troika and await the ascendency of President Elect Bloomberg.
Trump who?
1
How about this scenario- mere anarchy, like some sub atomic particle following a random path from collision to collision before it is annihilated, leaving either no trace or having its mass turn to energy in a violent explosion. By the way, if there is an explosion, you and your colleagues on the right own it. He came out of your universe, voted for by the same people who think Democrats are the enemy and then pull the lever for any available Republican.
3
a mad dog cannot be contained
3
Have grown weary of waiting for a socially sane Republican...
Now placing my hopes on some economically sane Democrat...
If someone would just come along who’d been both a socially sane Republican and an economically sane Democrat...
Yeah, I know – get real...
Only place something magical like that could ever happen – Broadway...
Some thoughts. Bear with me.
The example of our sixteenth president comes to mind.
Having gotten into the Civil War, he said something like the following. He proposed to fight on UNTIL--
(1) we win
(2) we lose
(3) "the country forsakes me."
THAT, Mr. Douthat, lingers in my mind.
A politician? Abe Lincoln? HONEST Abe?
You betcha. Look at that marvelous film, "Lincoln." The man was a politician to his fingertips. To pass that crucial Thirteenth Amendment, he pulled wires--he cajoled--and yes! he plied the obstinate with moolah.
BUT--
--he stood for something--
--something bigger than himself. There were core principles in this man. Oh yes, he played the political game. For all it was worth. But why?
To preserve, to perpetuate those principles in American society. The society we live in nowadays.
Mr. Trump (so far as I can see--after two calamitous years) stands for nothing. Nothing at all.
Except himself.
These last two years--an unspeakable reality show! Bluster and posturing all over the place. Loud expressions of non-existent sympathy with the poor--the unemployed--whatever. Non-existent victories trumpeted as bona fide victories.
As the entire world--and a generous portion of Americans--look on with incredulous horror.
Currat lex, Mr. Douthat.
Let the LAW deal with this odious imposter--
--who now (nodding and smirking) clutches the fortunes of these United States--
--in those tiny pudgy hands.
God help us all!
10
Trump will play out the Elizabeth Drew scenario - but worse.
You've spent too much time in the Ivory Tower and the confessional, Ross. Trump is N-U-T-S, nuts, nuts, nuts.
Conservatives enjoy using Trump as their knight piece to jump over liberals to get what they want. But soon Trump's irrationality will reach a critical mass, and the Republicans will have no choice but to cut him loose.
A crisis is looming. Then all will see that the Emperor has no clothes.
3
The overwhelming evidence of obstruction of justice and treason on the part of this president will lead to his resignation.
1. Mueller will reveal his report. It will be damning beyond anything the GOP thought possible. Denial is their favorite hobby. Public support will decline slightly. Legal and Congressional armies will be emboldened and begin to march hard.
2. Trump will continue to attempt to delude the public. His act will become more transparent. He is just winging it. His core base will love it even more. But calls for impeachment will increase to a deafening level.
3. International events can't be controlled well. But they can be made much worse by uninformed decisions. With no over arching strategy for allies to rely on, random responses may lead to greater wars.
4. As commented already, the Oligarchs will lose patience as trade matters and conflicts mess with the normal flow of goods. Koch, Mercer, etc. will work the back rooms and deliver the message that Trump has run out his clock.
5. Trump realizes that the game is up and he could actually see a prison cell - he resigns. The investigations and prosecutions will go on for years. Pence will pardon Trump but also face legal jeapordy for his role in the election and the transition team.
6. John Kasich will face Sherrod Brown in the 2020 election. Ohio will decide our political future.
7. Millions of innocents around the world will continue to suffer needlessly as climate issues are made worse.
2
Here one way to end of President Trump. What about going back to Shakespeare's time. President Trump is leaving Washington to Gettysburg where he will have his last stand. Encircle by his ennemies with only Mike Pence on his side, his last words will be "My Republic for a golf cart."
1
Remember when the pundits actually thought Dump would "pivot" to being presidential? The only pivot has been from inept loudmouth dotard to destructive loudtweet authoritarian. What has not pivoted is unswerving support and approval of this sociopathic narcissist from the Republican party that comprises his solid sub 40% approval.
5
Trump is dangerously unstable, and much depends on Mueller and the wall. He is incapable of coherently dealing with opposition, and he's going to get some come January 3. Nancy Pelosi will give him a schooling in how balance of power and oversight really works, and Justice Roberts will help him understand that the President doesn't control the judiciary through insults and diatribe. When Trump knows for a fact that he is losing, when he is truly backed into a closet, what comes out will make the boogeyman look like MisterRogers. Then both sides of the aisle in DC, maybe including Mike Pence, will need to act jointly and decisively to stop the President's hedonism, paranoia, narcissism and psychopathy from destroying democracy as we know it.
6
When you got it so, so wrong in that February column, and others telling us that the criminal Trump isn't that bad, anybody with a working brain and paying attention understood the danger and criminality of the Trump mob rolled their eyes at what I can only describe as a disconnect from reality. The honorable republicans "contained" Trump? That's a zinger. You were wrong then, you're wrong now, and you'll continue to somehow be wrong as a transparent Trump apologist who pretend to criticize him. At least you're consistent.
4
Impeached and driven from office.
3
I don't agree that Democrats are intransigent whereas Trump is flexible, as some of your letter writers contend. I think the major problem with Trump is his bloated and fake evaluation of his own abilities. He is essentially a stupid and ignorant man, who gets education from Fox media. His notion that he knows better than the experts---more about military matters than any general, more about foreign secrets than any Intelligence Professional, more about climate than any scientist---he just knows it all. He does not want to listen to others --to experts and professionals. So his decisions are often not only stupid but also dangerous. Why should any politician negotiate with him on this basis? He rejects the danger of climate change, the danger of mercury and other harmful chemicals being released freely into air and water, he ignores the danger of a stronger Assad regime in Syria, bolstered by an empowered Iran and Russia----all the serious mistakes he makes because he just ignores the advice of the best people. Instead he listens to Rush Limbaugh , Ann Coulter, Hannity, Miller, and other small-minded biased low IQ misfits he feels most comfortable with. I will say that there is one statement for which he should not be criticized. He said the federal workers deserve their loss of pay because they are Democrats. On his statement that they are all Dems, he is now correct, although before his stupid shutdown for a stupid, unnecessary wall he was not correct.
3
Finally, Ross gets to a real point: something really bad happens, and Trumpty Dumpty doesn't have a clue and totally, completely boots it and really really REALLY bad things ensue, irrecoverable things. Do we know the concept of "cascades"? Disasters can do that sort of thing. Scaling starts to really matter. Stupidity becomes the pivot...
It's a more likely than anything that I can think of. Occam's razor, and all that. Given what we've seen so far...
1
Will Douthat go on gossip spinning in 2019 or transform into a mensch?
Vegas doesn’t have a line on that bet. No action.
Wake up! Trump bashing is a go nowhere negative and a waste of time and energy. Offer some constructive advice, if possible.
3
Actually all are plausible, however the third scenario is the most likely. Trump has maintained 36-42% approval the last two years. 80+% of registered Republicans support him. With senate Republicans as afraid of their voters as they are of Trump, nothing might happen, even if the investigations bring up damning evidence. We cannot forget the possibility the Democrats will overplay their hand
Trump is entirely predictable and I remain amazed by anyone who thinks otherwise. I shake my head when reading or hearing how Trump is behaving outside the “norm” for Presidents.
Why is this even a debate or news anymore?
The President of the United States is:
A liar. Truth is not his motivation, support for his narrative is and truth is in the eye of the beholder. Ask his supporters.
A bully. Defy him and you will be attacked to the point where you support his narrative by not fighting back. Ask the Republicans who cower and have all but abdicated their legislative powers of checks and balances.
A narcissist. Only Trump knows the “truth” and can lead. A narcissist does not want advisors because they are not worthy, even if they agree. Failure is not his fault. The power of the office is self-justification and his inability to admit failure is key.
A puppet. The irony in all this is Trump is being manipulated. Industry, Republicans, far right conservatives, etc. recognize the opportunity and are using Trump’s severe personality flaws to fundamentally change this country in their vision. Trump does not care as long as it feeds his ego.
Everything Trump does justifies his actions and he will never change, even if impeached. Contrition is not within his soul. The only solution is to recognize the obvious and forcibly remove him through impeachment kicking and screaming from office. Stand up to the bully before this gets even worse and believe me, it will get worse.
4
Michael Lewis: The Fifth Risk.
Read it.
2
Mr. Douthat, your scenarios are thoughtful and entertaining but none straight up condemn this man as the awful, degenerate, immoral fool he had revealed himself to be. As a fellow Catholic, I simply weep. How can you not just outright castigate and cast off this sinful man? And why won’t you?
4
I’ll say when one thing about Trump in 2019. He’ll be a racist because racism is a core value of the Republican Party.
3
This column like nearly all media efforts in the last 3 years attempts to create some type of narrative and agenda based on political ideology and policy goals to explain and predict this Presidents actions. Why? How much evidence is required before our docile and obedient Fourth Estate can open its eyes, worry less about ratings and clicks and see the reality of this President for what it is. He is mentally ill--Full Stop. He undoubtedly meets diagnostic criteria for a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and ALL of his actions need to be viewed thru this lens. There is no three dimensional chess or manipulative genius here--only the bizarre, untethered, unfiltered fantasies and lies of a sick man with a pathologically fragile ego whose only intent every day is to protect his grandiose and deluded sense of self. Why isn't this man and his administration challenged everyday about the thousands of lies he has told. We spent YEARS hearing about Bengazhi and Hilary's emails, so where is the same determination and relentless attention now? Spoiler alert--given a Democratic House armed with subpoena power, the impending Mueller investigation results, tanking economy and foreign policy failures the Narcissist only gets sicker. Forget impeachment, try the 25th amendment.
4
I stopped reading at "...by containing his impulses a little more...."
Not going to happen. Why even mention it? Shows out-of-touch-with-reality reporting.
Maya Angelou: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
3
In one article in this same edition of the NY times "President Trump blamed Democrats on Saturday for the deaths of two migrant children in detention at the southwest border this month, wielding the episodes as justification to fund a border wall." In another article, same edition, "Trump orders freeze on pay for all federal workers in 2019."
So, Ross, what's your point? Trump IS an out of control, self-indulgent, self-absorbed maniac who will do whatever suits him that he can get away with. Blames the democrats for the death of two kids that HIS orders demanded be separated from their parents? Denies pay increases for the same workers he has shut out of pay because of his thumb-in-his-mouth pout about "his" wall? Are you kidding me? Trump is a menace to US society and any societies that seek to interact with ours. Getting rid of him would be the best thing we could ever do in our 250 year history.
2
Ross's pessimism is more optimistic than mine. The totally manufactured crisis at the border and the deaths of 2 small children (7 & 8 years old) and Trump's take on them is terrifying: Imagine an armed home-invader saying if you don't let him rape your child, he'll kill her and it will be YOUR fault, and then accidentally kills her and now shouts "IT'S YOUR FAULT! YOU KILLED HER!"
That's exactly what Trump is doing, blaming Democrats for these poor kids' deaths. No. It's you who killed them. You, Steve Miller, Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions, and Kirstjen Nielsen, but ultimately, you, Donald Trump, killed them!
Virtually every, no, EVERY crisis this nation has faced since Trump took office is either the direct result of his selfish incompetence, or aggravated by the same selfish incompetence.
ALL the international crises we face are his doing, from the attacks on NATO, the EU, NAFTA, TPP, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Other than the natural disasters that he totally mismanaged--the Cali wildfires and the Puerto Rico hurricane, so are every domestic crisis.
The ONLY good that's come out of Trump's election is, after 40 years, Democrats have finally been shaken out of their complacency. He isn't Reagan, Newt Gingrich, or George W. Bush--he is simply the greatest threat our nation has faced to our very existence since the Civil War.
5
Your most likely scenario assumes that Trump's approval ratings are the only factor that matters. Sorry, Ross, but popularity doesn't trump the rule of law... at least, not with the House in the Democrats' hands.
But hey, Ross, since you're concerned about the lack of "adult" leadership in the White House (and apparently, kind of a fan of Trump policies), why don't you apply for a job there? Then we won't have to read your columns anymore.
3
Applying Occam's Razor: the simplest solution to the Republicans' re-election challenge is to have Pence and he Cabinet, none of whom could define loyalty with a gun to their heads, remove Trump via Article 25. He is immediately indicted and arrested (thus deprived of his Twitter connection) and drops from sight for a few weeks (I mean, really, do you grant bail to a guy who has his own jet plane and a powerful friend in Russia?).
And it all blows over. As if it had never been.
We can always hope the observation, usually attributed to Otto von Bismarck, holds true, "God looks after drunks, fools, and the United States."
Interesting how the unprecedented corruption of Trump and his cronies seems not to bother Mr Douthat at all.
1
It was Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell who did not bother to reconvene a GOP Congress before Christmas to renegotiate a Wall deal, but in Iraq, Trump blamed the Democrats for no wall, and for his Limbaugh-Coulter government shutdown, and now Trimp again blames Democrats for the deaths of asylum-seeking children, even though it is TRUMP’S administration that was negligent and incompetent in caring for these vulnerable people.
I am getting so sick and tired of this jerk.
1
Trump 2019 will be so inept, sleazy and reviled that he will help lead to the Democrats' victory in 2020. Eyes on the prize!
1
My prediction is that Le déclin de l’empire américain will accelerate as Republicans and Democrats continue to hurl invectives at each other and do nothing, and I do mean a strong absolutely nothing, but complain about the man in charge. Stop your complaining - you got exactly what you deserved.
You continue to make the same erroneous assumptions that have hobbled your commentary all year: Trump doesn't have a policy position. Period.
All Trump has are talking points...statements designed to elicit response from an audience. What you fail to understand is that all of Donald Trump's life he has lived a fantasy delusion where he is the main character. His performance was not only ludicrous and embarrassingly silly but also protected by wealth and the totally made-up myth of the Trump name. He succeeded in his play acting because his stage was limited to temper tantrums in the offices of incompetent bankers and on television stage sets.
That behavior has failed in the White House. He struts and pontificates now as if he had a single informed thought. He doesn't. He only has a circus mirror in which only his own deformed brain sees and hears the cheers and applause. He is sick...very, very sick.
2
Douthat once again reminds me of the line: Artificial Intelligence - what other kind is there?
His heart I fear, was damaged long ago.
2
Ross is always sharp when analyzing the regrettable trump.( too bad he wants to take away my reproductive rights)( but that’s a comment for another day). Who the heck knows what stupid things will happen? However, you simply cannot run the ship of state with a skeleton crew of die hards. Baghdad Bob at the podium, Miller of the painted on hair, the list goes on. This means that crisis will be what shows him up and gets him booted out( at the ballot box). Hopefully the world will still exist. What a mess.
1
Who were and are the “tamers”. None of the aforementioned. Kelly, McMaster, Mattis, Cohn or Sessions “tamed” Trump. In fact all of them, at one time or another, made excuses or stayed mum when he either made outrageous statements or did crazy things.
Like, believing Putin when he embraced Putin’s denial of Russian involvement in the 2016 election. None of these so-called “tamers spoke up. Not Mattis, not McMaster.
Cohn’s cowardice when Trump said there were “good people on both sides” during the hateful rhetoric against Jews, etc. in Charlottesville,
Kelly’s defense of Trump and his bigotry towards a Florida Congresswomen, including Kelly’s bigotry.
Sessions smarmy support of Trumps worst instincts.
These men are not “tamers”. They are Cowards. They may have served at Trump’s pleasure, but they swore allegiance to our Country not Trump. Although Mattis did, in the end critique all that was wrong in his resignation letter.
Do not fool yourself Ross. It is going to be worse with Trump in 2019. He and his family have been found guilty of using the Trump Foundation as their personal piggy bank and are barred from serving on any Foundation Boards. Trump was ordered to pay 25 million to settle the scam that was Trump university.
If we think he is unhinged now, Trump will really go over the edge when the Democrats take over.
I would say the Country is in for a bumpier ride until Trump is driven out of office.
3
Ross, on what planet do you reside?
The man is the most morally bankrupt individual to ever hold a public office and I include Dennis Hasert in that group.
He needs to be removed, and quickly, if the Republic is to survive.
5
Donald Trump is and will always be contained and tamed by his smiling and smirking dummy pawn pet puppet clown jester masters aka Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman.
Donald Trump is and will always be contained and tamed by whatever Trump Organization profitable advantage that he is hiding from the American people in his personal and family income tax returns and business records arising from his occupation of the Oval Office of the American peoples White House.
Donald Trump is and will always be contained and tamed by whatever Robert S. Mueller, III knows about him and his family and friends activities.
Donald Trump is and will always be contained and tamed by whatever 320 million of his fellow Americans think of him and all of their other elected and selected hired help in their divided limited power constitutional republic of united states.
Ross, you haven’t learned anything about Trump.
We are now, apparently, annexed to Russia.
Almost for certain, we have not seen the worst of this disgusting man.
Judging by his past statements, he won't think twice about unleashing violence by his supporters as the walls close in on him.
Forget impeachment, Trump belongs in jail.
4
Off the reservation is racist. An otherwise good column spoiled by old speak. Lose the jive Ross.
1
It is beyond pathetic to watch Douthat put on his pink tutu and spin Trump’s unhinged and disastrous administration as under control. The smoke emanating from his toe shoes says it all. None of the supposed adults in the White House ever showed any desire to tame the toddler, they were all just hoping to line their pockets while they lasted. Douthat and the rest of the Republican commetariat continue to show their complete lack of morals or patriotism as they lie to support their boy.
1
Besides wearing those I Survived Trump t-shirts, what will we say of Trump when he is gone? Will we be thankful knowing the reasons why he came to power? Will we learn the lesson that is Trump? If Congress abdicates power to the executive and judicial branches, all hell breaks out.
1
The third scenario seems the most likely to me. “Retain a low-40s approval rating and avoid impeachment“ is basically just the status quo, and betting on the status quo to continue is usually not a bad bet. I wouldn’t call that “vindication” though; it’s a pretty low bar.
3
As the vices of justice tighten around #45's throat he will become more bombastic, vulgar, hate-filled, threatening, off-the-rails, etc, ... than ever before.
Bone-Spurs in Chief has narcissistic personality disorder; he cannot behave in any other way for very long. As he is threatened more, he will lash out more.
If he can he will incite violence, he may even try for a civil war. He may try to declare martial law after the growing Resist and protest movements gain traction with the newly turned Congress.
If anyone thinks the Narcissist in Chief will quietly into that good night is sorely mistaken. The Liar in Chief is a fighter for what he perceives is right: himself and no one and nothing will convince him he does not deserve to be King.
14
@James Siegel. Excellent comments. I share you fears. Trump will implode and fight back doing just as you describe. Threatening his power will result in some national tragedy. He will start a war, or declare a national emergency that gives him power to declare marshal law. Emprison his critics, punish his challengers, act as the dictator he wants to be.
The real question is not Trump’s predictability, it’s how the Republican Senate chooses to defend our values, the Constitution and the democracy we cherish.
3
"My bad." That's it?
2
So odd to dispassionately discuss a monster, and strain credulity to pretend that a single thought from a random bankrupt buffoon and refugee from reality TV can merit sober consideration. Trumps election proves that democracy will always be under threat from an unholy alliance of gun nuts, crazy uncles, farmer's who seem to have forgotten who picks their grapes or buys their soybeans, and Maureen Dowds brothers. But that's ALL it proves. Why spend time parsing why this pathetic and needy bully chooses to suck up to dictators, send more troops to the Mexican Border than to keep the next ISIS from emerging in the Muslim world, and picks fights only with allies? All that matters is that we use him as lens to judge other republicans, like McCarthy, and that he leaves in disgrace or defeat, but not so soon as to give a fanatical Pence any time to do different kinds of damage.
11
Seriously? This is your question?
2
"columnizing?"
Ross makes up words - as he does make up a Trump world which doesn't exist.
Wake up, Mr. Douthat.
1
Don't forget Wonder?woman, Kelly Ann Conway, is on the bench, waiting to be wound-up and unleashed as a talking-head apologist. Can't wait for her to eat crow.
Trump wanted a $20 billion dollar wall... That's easy.. The Democrats want $3 Trillion for universal healthcare [including illegal aliens].
Let's see who wins in 2020 .. It will not be a Democrat.
@Aaron
Obviously you need a wall more then health care. Basic economic principle, guns vs butter left out graft and self serving thievery which is what the liar in chief’s choice. That’s where our tax dollars are going. Not my choice!
1
Just reading only the title to Douthat's essay I will predict untamed bit contained.
Canada gets along very nicely with universal health care and Canada does not have all that many billionaires.
Thanks for the Happy New Year, Ross. April Fool,would have been more appropriate.
1
You forgot committed 25/45
Your first scenario, Ross, is simply a reiteration of what hopeful/delusional people had hoped for when this ignorant, selfish, and destructive man took office: the whole "adults in the room will contain him" scenario. Why do you repeat it when it was so obviously wrong? Your mea culpas mean zilch because you simply can't bear to admit that his "policies", all based on an "An Idiot's Guide to Conservatism", are simply wrong and harmful to the country and the world. You shouldn't even have considered this first scenario because no one, mainly the Republicans, has the guts or the brains to see what havoc the man is sowing. Worse, they are just like him in that they just don't care.
2
Has he ever “improved”? Has ever shown any sign of becoming more decent or more honest or more hardworking or more informed? Has ever shown any sign of caring about anything more than himself? Why would anything change or get better in 2019? Everything else failed (primaries, election, presidency etc). All he has done is set the bar for his own performance so low that if he managed to read mindless from a TelePrompTer for 2 weeks we’d all start seeing stories saying that he has “grown in the office”. He’s a corrupt, weak, vain, stupid, immoral 72-year-old man. He’s not ever going to improve.
14
Kids in cages. Get past that. I think not.
2
Why do the editors allow the publication of phrases such as “further off the policy reservation he goes”? Douthat (like Hillary) should avoid using language that is steeped in a history of dehumanising Native Americans. It’s unnecessary symbolic violence that should make anyone with a moral conscience cringe. But, sadly, we live in a moment without shame, where folks find pleasure in offending lefties with reasserting the right to use white supremacy talk. (cue trolling below...)
2
Still holding out for the “Contained Trump”?!?!
Where have you been for the past excruciating two years?
5
I think one aspect of this president is forgotten in this opinion. That is the passion of the man himself to do - in is opinion - the right thing for America. This is also my reason to worry. Why?
The actual situation made me think of a book i read long ago about a far bigger dictator causing much bigger disaster (until now). Sebasian Haffner - Anmerkungen zu Hitler (Notes on Hitler) gives as one of his main conclusions that H in fact punished the German people for failing to fulfill his mission and reduced support in the last stage of the war, by unnessesarily prolonging the war and by letting the more cruel Russian troops advance further than nessesary.
There is a worrying parallel (though never one on one) in the loyalty Trump demands: it may come to some sort of punishment towards the American people when the soil under his feet gets too hot and he feels rejected.
Signs of this can be seen in recent actions: the shutdown and the closing of the southern border as a sort of blackmail and his using of the interest of the American people and economy as a hostage. Both propelled by the wish to get his base satisfied to win the nomination for 2020.
But why does he receive scarce real loyalty? I think because he is himself a disloyal person. You can be praised on day 1 and fully rejected on day 126 and fired by tweet. At some point the fuse will burn out.
2
Trump is completely without morals or empathy. He is a thug and a gangster. All his life he has lied, bullied,threatened ,stolen,cheated and created his own reality to get what he wants. He is not going to change because he can't ! What I find so puzzling and upsetting is all the people who support him seem to not be bothered by his character and behavior, which means we have at least 40% of the population who are also thugs !
9
I never liked clowns as a child as I found them to be rather false and thought them probably sad, and tragic. If you add the adjective pathetic, then you have the perfect description of your president.
2
Your last two paragraphs are the reason I call the office of my republican senator, Rob Portman, once in a while to say, basically, "Do you get it NOW? You're enabling an incredibly dangerous and irresponsible president! Speak up! Do something!"
I'm a progressive democrat, but I would gladly have Mike Pence in the White House for 2 years. He's odious, but at least he's not a sociopath or an imbecile.
4
Trump will increasingly behave like a feral, snarling, trapped animal as a steady stream of damning revelations from Mueller and the House Democrats becomes a flood. He will self-destruct and bring down the Republican Party with him.
The only way this will not happen is if the Republicans stand up to Trump and get him under control. NOW. How? For starters, they should pass legislation in cooperation with the Democrats to re-open the government. It should not include any funding for the border wall. When he throws the expected tantrum, they should override his veto.
As John Dean once famously said, there's a cancer on the presidency. It is virulently malignant. If the Republicans delay any further in dealing with it, it will spread from Trump to them. And it will kill them.
11
Me. Douthat,
What is self serving is your refusal to accept that you back a party that is completely corrupt.
You are boxed in a corner and are using your writing skills to try to dance away from the truth. Donald Trump is racist, amoral and a malignant narcissist. The Republican Party, the party of supposed family values supports this man and everything he does including separating children from their families at our border.
7
>
2019 will be worse than 2017 or 2018; the nightmare will continue to increase in its intensity; but the real barn burner is going to be 2020, especially, the last months and the first 20 days of 2021, when DJT "probably" has to come to terms with the fact that he has to move out and back to NYC. All bets are off here.
An untamed, irrational, not so bright, defeated POTUS can cause all kinds of chaos & political shenanigans, not to mention testing the POTUS powers to the greatest degree possible.
You put the GOP mindset, "experienced" behavior, and DJT into this mixing bowl, well, there are no limits, no boundaries.
Read and learn:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418/
4
You miss what to me is the most obvious scenario: he feels cornered & causes an apocalypse & our only hope is that the GOP & Dems on the Hill call on the men w/ straitjackets to carry him to a rubber-lined room before he has time to hit the red button.
Douthat wants Potted Plant Pence to "stay frosty".
Seriously?
He's not frosty, he's catatonic.
7
Well you should know Ross. You and your other GOP pundits helped put him there: you laid the groundwork for Trump with years of dog whistle racism, xenophobic hogwash, Democratic demonization, vicious knee jerk vilification of Obama, sedition and obstructionism (especially when Obama was trying to pull the country out of the toilet the GOP dropped it into in 2008) and your shameless apologies for and rationalization of Republican lies, phony baloney ginned up non-issues, criminality and neo-fascism. You were all in on the disgraceful Gorsuch nomination and found lots to like in Brett i had a few beers and don't remember raping anybody Kavanaugh. And of course you buy into those endless Republican tax cuts for the rich, destroying the environment for profit, and helping the Koch Brothers and the GOP's other corporate and plutocrat owners with their vile covert agenda of reducing Americans to serfs.
Here's a scenario millions of Americans are eagerly awaiting in 2020: the end of the Republican Party, a cancer on the American body politic. We're sick and tired of them trashing the nation in eight year cycles and leaving Democrats to clean up their mess. We will be voting out the rest of these liars, crooks, and covert fascists in 2020; and this time, no more bygones be bygones, no more turn the page, look forward bipartisan kumbaya idiocy. We demand commissions, investigations, indictments, trials and jail time for this criminal mafia masquerading as a political party.
11
The only way to contain Donald Trump is in a prison.
10
Trump will not last. He is already in the toaster and feeling the heat. Hope he takes the deal he is offered to step down. My guess is he will not and... Armageddon? I hope not. He is crazy! Who would be so stupid to tell the soldiers he visited that he got them a 10 percent pay raise and they had not gotten a pay raise in 10 years? The 25th is our only salvation, I wonder what is going through Mueller's mind about the complete lack of any mental or emotional stability in Trump. How do we save ourselves and the world from an infantile mad man?
With every passing day, Donald Trump is doing more harm to our nation. Just today he has ordered a pay freeze for federal workers. Just today he has blamed Democrats for the deaths of those two children. He has labelled those refugees seeking asylum criminals. When will this nightmare of the man who admires tyrants and Nazis end? It will take the courage of our Congress to end it, but who among the enabling Republicans will speak up and demand impeachment and imprisonment?
2
Grandson of a German barber......what made him say that he has a better gene and IQ, while mocking all. His granddaddy was a barber from Kallstadt, wine country of Germany, crossed the Atlantic in 1885.
1
@Trevor Diaz
His granddaddy took his wife back to Germany and was told to leave because he had dodged required military service when he left for America. Very brave family the Trump's got there, four generations without a single one serving in the armed forces. Also, four generations of grifters.
1
humpty trumpty wanted a wall
gop leaders wont keep him in thrall
all of his grifting and all of his sin
wont help poor trumpty muster a win
4
criminals, thieves, liars, grifters, con artists -- the president and his party all belong in jail. i do believe that justice will prevail
2
I believe there is another scenario that deserves consideration:
Although the Democrat House majority may see impeaching Trump as very attractive, they don't see the consequences of a successful impeachment/conviction - President Pence - as very attractive. I also believe that the Democrats believe, that, based on the 2018 mid-term elections, they are in a good position to defeat Trump in 2022.
Of course, not impeaching Trump leaves the real problem in place; that this incompetent President will continue to create havoc, havoc, that in some cases, could have serious consequences on our beloved country, and in some cases cause irreparable damage to our country.
My proposed solution: Legislate limits on executive powers. Create real checks and balances among our branches of government - requiring Congressional approval of certain Presidential decisions is something that will be very attractive to members of Congress and to the American populace. Republicans believe that Obama exceeded his authority, and Democrats believe the same about Trump.
I fully understand that, in some cases this may border on Constitutional matters. If so, the Supreme Court may get involved, and based on the rulings of the Supreme Court, a Constitutional Amendment may be necessary: "Amendment 28, Congressional Oversight of the President."
Although this suggestion is being offered as a solution to an immediate and pressing problem, I believe the end result will be a better functioning government.
3
It's as hard to think that Paul Ryan (or anyone else) pulled down Donald Trump's ratings, as it is believing Trump can be untamed or contained in 2019.
But there's no doubt that the carousel ride of his day-to-day political antics will be greatly restrained by the incoming House Democrats.
In the two years since Trump has been in office we have been subjected not only to his tempestuous behavior and frequent outbursts, but the demoralizing effect it has had on the country, if not the world.
And now it has even come to the point where many Republicans are even hedging their bets when it comes to being seen as supporting him.
How 2019 will turn out under this president is anyone's guess -- but it's hardly a good sign when it's beginning with a government shutdown.
Happy New Year, AMERICA.
3
Sorry Ross, your boy will never be normal, never be popular, never be anything but unfit, unhinged and uninformed. No matter how much you hope for another outcome, he must be removed or neutered or the country may never recover.
26
@Peter Do you read the paper regularly? Douthat is a Republican but hates Trump - Trump is not 'his boy'.
Of course Mr. Douthat is climbing aboard the anti-Trump train now. The hour is late and he and his Republican friends have set mechanisms to maintain power no matter what happens to Mr. Trump. Mr. Douthat helped get Mr. Trump elected. He helped perpetuate the idea that Hillary Clinton is the Wicked Witch of the West. Mr. Douthat has no credibility.
2
@JS27 Douthat is a Republican. He has spent the last two years hoping that Trump will normalize while complaining that Trump is not normal. He, like so many of the rest of them, is complicit. He cares only for the destruction that is befalling his beloved Republican party at the hands of their mad king.
1
This masthead is really a rhetorical question. Right?
2
Which part of Captain Queeg piloting the Titanic don't you get?
A total misfit at the wheel when all the wheels are coming off.
What part of perfect don't you get about the storm? Trump at the wheel, in a hurricane in a sea filled with icebergs.
We'd have to be the proverbial Christian holding four aces to get out of this jamb intact. Which is what many people are counting on -- Hallelujahs on the sinking deck.
A quickening to the reckoning, paralyzed by the sight of a million red lights flashing, not knowing which to respond to first.
Hint: ... --- ... = twitter man at the wheel
4
Talking about how unmoored and unrestrained Trump has become is coming way too late from conservatives and even from many progressives. My hope: Mueller issues his report very soon. It is every bit as damning as we have all believed it would be. The top Republicans go to Trump, as they had gone to Nixon, and tell him he has got to resign or else. He does. Even with Pence as president, at least some actual sanity will be restored for the next couple of years. Then we get him out, good riddance, in 2020.
10
Trump is like a caged lion who lashes out at everything!
4
Oh, Ross...do kindly spare me.
Mr Trump is just bigly scary.
There's no saving grace.
When he tries to save face.
And Repubs refuse to be wary.
[RIP, Larry Eisenberg.]
5
2019 is shaping up to be perhaps the worst year in the up until now charmed life of Donald Trump.
He's painted himself into a corner with his wall/shutdown showdown. There is no way he can win and several ways he can lose. If his own party threw him a rope he's as likey to hang himself with it as use it to climb out of the mess he's made.
Trump won't have a compliant Congress. Newly empowered Democrats probably have the first drafts of many subpoenas already written. That would include the Mueller Investigation report if DOJ tried to sit on it. (That report will be the hottest document Washington has had for several decades. It will be impossible to keep it under wraps for very long.)
The big question is how is Trump going to react to everything going to hell all around him. His previous MO when things got tough was to pick up all the marbles, declare bankruptcy, and go home. With that option no longer available we are left wondering, and worrying,
9
@Ralph Averill
When the going gets tough, he will declare that he has done what he set out to do, shake-up the government. He will declare victory, call himself a winner, and say he wants to go back to his old life as a carnie barker, er, real estate developer. He will take a victory lap around the country to say good-bye to his faithful followers and hop on to his own jet, landing in a foreign country where he will avoid extradition to be brought to justice. Maybe he can have a room next Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy.
2
The title of the article should read "Will the New York Times be untamed or Tamed in 2019?" It is a shame that the Gray Lady has reduced itself to tabloid status since Trump took office. Publishing front page headlines about Trump / Russia Collusion for 1 1/2 years without a shred of evidence is the epitome of Fake News, CNN is even worse.
5
This man doesn't have a filter. Nor he knows what hat is for the matter....
He babbles, he's incoherente, he's an ignorante.
Just plain stupid...
But, I have to say that I have used him (and his wife), as a teaching tool for my daughters on how important it is to know about:
Plagiarism,
reading comprehension,
writing skills,
verbal skills,
social media,
honesty,
arrogance,
narcissism,
humbleness.....etc, etc, etc.....
4
The most likely scenario is that nothing catastrophic happens in 2019 due to Trump's incompetence. And the reason is because Trump, like the predatory capitalist that he is, focuses his policies on winning in the short term. All of the worst of the Trump policies will be baked into FUTURE disasters that happen long after he's gone.
So his degrading of the environment won't cause cancers right away, nor will his neglect of the global warming crisis lead to catastrophic events just yet. In the same way Trump's wall building to protect America and just let the rest of the world burn will work at first. Refugees can just die on the other side of the wall and Trump's supporters won't care as long as they think it makes America safer (and whiter). Of course chaos will reign worldwide and the world will become a much more violent place. We will just watch it on the news. For now.
There is no doubt that the extension of Trump's policies into the future will result in a balloon payment due some day. Meanwhile it's the Trump Mad Hatter's Tea Party! Down is up. Bad is good. Cowards are heroes. Traitors are patriots. Pass me the mercury laced tea, as hell is freezing over.
14
Trump will be contained by the wall he has built around himself and his administration. His base of supporters is really all he needs to feel "successful" so everyone else be damned.
He will keep out voices of dissent because he thinks he knows what is best, for everything. Thank God the U.S. House of Representatives will be controlled by Democrats.
The best we can hope for is that he'll spend the next two years whining and complaining and blaming everyone but himself for the containment he has brought upon himself. Then, he will be voted out of office.
3
Republicans are the closest to a cult I have ever seen. You all are lockstep and never speak ill of each other. You do not govern with all americans' best interests and you believe in conspiracies.
Mediocre people deserve the mediocre liar party.
4
The third possibility reached here, which could lead to the possible cataclysms Mr. Douhat mentions, or worse, only strengthens the argument for the immanent removal of our president from his office by any legal method that works.
3
I don't think normalcy is possible. Quite the opposite. Trump's end of the year policy torrent made his intentions universally clear. As others have pointed out, Trump is betting his entire political survival on his base. Far from toning things down, Trump is ratcheting things up. December was like a season finale. We're now onto season two where the prizes (or should I say surprises) are even bigger.
By contrast, impeachment seems plausible. However, removal from office seems unlikely. Unless something dramatic happens, Republicans are still party over country for the time being. I also think we're daydreaming if you expect Trump to resign humbly in exchange for a personal pardon. Ms. Drew's prediction overlooks the joke about Trump's administration. The entire family is up to their necks in Trump's malfeasance. Even if Republicans abandon Trump en masse, I don't expect him to go quietly.
As for scenario three, I think we can safely agree Trump is even less prepared to handle a real crisis than he was two years ago. The man is a clear and present danger without equal. However, I'll propose a slightly different alternative.
What happens if Trump manufactures a major crisis intentionally? We saw something similar in Mexico during midterms and now Syria at year end. If you corner Trump on something, his default response is diversion and distraction. I can envision a future where Trump creates a national emergency in order to deflect attention away from himself.
7
Or, Trump - by deconstructing the norms - by encouraging foreign despots (some allies) to act with abandon thus revealing their truer natures, and in executing policies plainly anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-scientific - in doing so sets the stage for an ever more powerful and energized left.
Trump has made the unthinkable thinkable and this can cut different ways. Medicaid for all. Thinkable. A Carbon Tax. Thinkable. Low cost higher education for all Americans. Thinkable. New standards to be a Corporation. Thinkable. Higher minimum wages. Thinkable.
Thinkable because we cannot forget the larger failures that enabled Trump in the first place. Economic policies that benefited the few while the greater struggled, decade after decade with no change in course.
Corrective action is now thinkable, perhaps, if we no longer regard the economists as great oracles.
6
As usual, like other Republicans Mr. Douthat tries to rationalize tolerance of the president through mentioning his "good works" like an empty summit, and a troop pullout that signs a death warrant for the Kurds, and a hectoring of the Fed, and of course the judges, oh my goodness, the judges.
You cannot separate the person from the president, and that person is the most morally and politically corrupt man in the country, a total shame on all of us. If you are comfortable with a president like this, then have a great time with him. Just have a great time with him on the Island of Elba or Rikers.
Oh, but the judges...
13
Thank you, Ross. It was brilliant and funny. Happy New Year!
Some people thought that he was going to pivot to a more presidential persona once he was in the White House and they were wrong . Some Republicans thought they could manipulate him into advancing their agenda and avoid the crazy part and they were wrong . Some , including generals , thought they could act as guardrails and serve the Country that way , and of course , they were wrong . Some people think that he may resign, like Nixon did , when the situation becomes untannable , and they are going to be wrong . What people fails to understand is that Trump believes his own myth . He is not only President but the best President ever . His gut instincts are better than the opinion of the experts . Only him can fix things and those that do not agree with him are fools . Once you understand that this man is delusional , it is not that difficult to predict what he may do in the future . The important part is what we as a Country are going to do in response .
15
Right on.
Trump has been, is, and will be a chaos machine. What you've seen is what you'll get.
13
The scenario is this: Trump is a toddler in the high chair. He throws all the food given to him all over the floor. The base and Republicans refuse to clean up the mess. In fact they give Trump more food to toss around. Now the kitchen looks like a full blender has been turned on with the lid off. Still no one cares about the mess. They are convinced a beautiful surf and turf dinner that Trump promised is still on the menu. Nothing will change until that 40% realizes that in the economic race Trump promised they would be a part of, the hare has been given a huge head start. They, in the role of tortoise, were far behind the starting line to begin with and did not reach that line when the starting gun was fired. And the race will be called as complete when the economy slows down. Then they will have to grapple with the reality that the promises made were not kept for them but were for the hare. The hare has retired to the post meal drawing room for a snifter of brandy. While the tortoise is on the floor under the high chair getting splattered with the mess from above, trying to find something worthwhile they can pass off as a meal.
7
I have almost never agreed with Douthat. But I (sort of) agree with his conclusion that the Trump disaster will not be from the stock market collapse or withdrawing troops from Syria or elsewhere.
Trump's stamp on America and the world will come in the form of an unprepared, knee jerk, flailing response in the face of a crisis, such as a financial meltdown (a la 2008) or an attack on American soil (a la 9/11).
Trump will take to Twitter and keep tweeting even as the world around him crumbles. Just like Nero fiddled while Rome was burning.
And that is the real scary part. So, what is my New year wish? Let us hope for two successive New Years without any cataclysmic events.
9
@chickenlover Indeed. Let us never forget that Trump has the nuclear codes. And to paraphrase the lunatic, 'whats the sense of having nuclear weapons if you're afraid of using them'?
1
On the theory that even a horse can fly a plane with working autopilot, I think your last iteration is the most chilling.
But on the off chance that the country does not meet an awful crisis of some sort before Trump departs, the second most chilling thought is that once Trump is gone, everyone who voted for him will still be eligible to vote. And those self-same Americans will still have their valuable Facebook and Twitter accounts so that they can remain informed.
No, we may survive Trump only to come face to face with our voting friends and neighbors (some of them living in states with a full complement of senators and representatives and less population than the D train at rush hour.)
The decisions being made by an ignorant electorate under the current very imperfect electoral system are what will keep me up at night long after Trump has been retired.
11
@Lkf
Ah, but if the Democrats can pass statehouse bills that outlaw gerrymandering, everyone else will be able to vote so Trump's supporters will be out numbered four to one.
3
To my chagrin, I must agree with the last scenario Douthat posits. Trump will NEVER "go gentle into that good night" - ever. The ego is so ravenous that the idea of being forced out without a bloodbath is unthinkable. Reminds me of Nero but hopefully Washington doesn't burn as he pines for a final tryst with Stormy. No, he will try to take everyone into his abyss once the fatal report from Mueller is released. Of course his mindless minions will never desert him, but their numbers will be reduced to the bottom-feeding 30% or so of Americans that are entirely devoid of every semblance of morality or decency. MY hope is that he doesn't instigate a crisis so overwhelming as to truly threaten the continuation of our government, currently being tested to the max. We like to say that things can't get worse. Didn't I think that during Dubya's presidency! Looking back, that seems almost like a quaint period in American politics. After Trump, NOTHING is impossible. There is something, however, extremely occult about his rapport with Putin, the TRUE devil incarnate. That relationship and how it might play out for our future is the one thing that causes me most anxiety. Otherwise, I can't wait to the day that will hopefully come sooner rather than later when he slithers out of the White House and retreats to the confines of Mar-A-Lago. Thankfully, I don't see him living in Manhattan again so least we won't suffer his stench here on our little island whatever else happens.
5
@ManhattanWilliam
There's a decent chance he'll be living in exile in Moscow, a welcome guest of 'the true devil incarnate.'
2
In my lifetime, beginning with FDR, there has never been a president who so systematically rejected the idea of accountability and is so utterly lacking in constancy that he is not even accountable to himself. Finally we have Ubu Unchained. If we must assign blame we need only to look in the mirror, and if truly we wish to find a remedy we need only to look in the mirror.
5
None of the Trump "scenarios" acknowledge his core behaviors for which we have truly lost a sense of horror and outrage: the pathology of a man unable to stop lying, who has an undiagnosed psychiatric disorder and who has a strong connection to Putin and Russia. Trump is impulsive, exercises poor judgement and twitters his lies and accusations daily. In my mind, there simply isn't any scenario where Trump remaining as president, isn't a clear and present danger to the well being of our country, indeed to the world.
12
Hi Ross - 90%. 90%! of your fellow Republicans view Trump favorably. You have never mentioned, does that make you question foundational Republican positions? I mean, any policies supported by a grpup of peoe who view Trump favorably deserve to be questioned, don't they.
I'd also argue you are one of the people who helped to create the monster that is Trump. Yoiu and your fellow conservatives who long enseavored to fan flames of false equivelance, and seek to convince the electorate that "government is the enemy" are responsible. Nice job.
16
If the midterm election had been held last week the GOP would have lost 100 House seats instead of 40 and the GOP Senate wouldn't exist. The "Wall" rallies the ever dwindling Trump base because it is a visual display of the hatred and fear of "the other". Trump needs them because he believes that they can save him from what is about to come. They can't. He is toast.nough is enough. Donald Trump was right when he said there's nothing he can do to lose a single deplorable Trump fan, but Congressional Republicans are beginning to realize that Trump and his base is an anchor around their necks.
The question is how long they can hold their noses and far they are willing to sink willing to sink.
4
Trump inflation is destroying workers.
5
Trump is playing from the dictator’s handbook. Begin with your enemies and then round up your friends. Most of the 40% who support him simply haven’t woken up to the fact that they are also in his sights.
Polluted air and water, poor health cover, etc are aimed at them. Yes, the imaginary wall givers them protection from the imaginary enemies. But to save them from themselves the Democrats must prove that Trump is their real enemy.
4
I agree that the most frightening possibility is an international crisis. He judgement is so poor and his instincts so bad that he could blow up a minor crisis into a major war.
Maybe we're lucky he's in love with Putin and Kim. It makes nuclear incineration less likely. The main risk is war with Iran.
4
Douthat and his "intellectual"-right, Never-Trump-Lite cohorts are just now swinging at the ball the rest of us have had our eye on since the beginning of the last presidential campaign. After laughing off all talk of the 25th Amendment's invocation for the past 1-2 years, they now slip it in to their personal narratives hoping no one notices the laughably late swing.
In Ross's case, as with a multitude of his center-right "conservative" compatriots, it frankly takes a peculiar "intellect" to force oneself to believe that ancient, empiricism-defying mythology is real, while real-time 21st century events-in-evidence are not, and shows how far some are willing to ironically compromise their own "spiritual" integrity, as well as their country, in an ego-laden attempt at not having to admit when they're flat out wrong.
8
Ross,
Good preview of two of the biggest questions for 2019: Whither thou goest, Trump? and Whither thou goest America?
However, your list of Trump's more sensible and less sensible ideas saddens and alarms me, because it omits the most damaging Trumpian injury to the soul of America.
No sober observer could disagree with your well-stated concern regarding Trump's management skills in the face of potential military or economic crises; particularly now that he has cast out the "adults in the room", and the oval office is roamed, unfettered, by a 72 year-old man whose highest enjoyment appears to be converting the fantasies and appetites of his adolescent core into policies, edicts and explosive temper tantrums.
However, you leave out his darkest and earliest insight and source of power:
"Us against them" and its malignant manifestations:
White against brown;
"True Americans" against immigrant Americans;
Men against women;
True capitalists and climate deniers against scientists and other "wimps";
Christians against Muslims, Jews and Hindus et al and on and on...
Ross, the day after Donald Trump was elected, a group of white students in a middle school here in Oregon chanted "go home" to a group of US citizens who were fellow Latino students.
We are all reaping what Donald Trump sowed as he prepared his run for the oval office - five years of corrosive racism in one repetitive thought, one insidious lie:
Our black president was not a US citizen.
6
Time to cease speculating on what further needless chaos and fly by night decisions Trump will make this coming year and only write columns with viable solutions for his removal. Rally your conservative readers, drum it into their heads the precarious position Trump has placed on this country. Quit calling his violation of protocol the new norm, his communications with foreign leaders are under the radar, with no documentation. Quit calling those at rallies his base and use the proper word fans, they lack idealogy but enjoy the entertainment. The corruption and lies are endless and include his family. Aggressively pursue their prosecution a watch the Trump house of cards collapse.
6
This is how police states begin. This "president" has unilaterally ordered splitting immigrant families presenting themselves lawfully at ports of entry, denying them their Constitutional rights. He has stated publicly that American citizens lawfully exercising their right to peaceful protest (NFL players) should be stripped of their citizenship. He believes he may unilaterally ignore the clear definition of birthright citizenship, and has found little outcry when he forced Hispanic infants and children into cages - still in internment camps within our borders.
Who will be targeted next? Brown skinned minorities would of course. Then religious minorities. And then political enemies follow soon after. Trump has stripped some of the nation's most respected military personnel of their security clearances. He wouldn't hesitate to strip average citizens of their Constitutional rights. He has said the press is our "enemy". Essentially, anyone who speaks out against him will be a potential target.
I doubt this Supreme Court will stand up to Trump as he further consolidates his power. Even without Kavanaugh, the court upheld the Muslim ban on the flimsiest grounds. This court may well give Trump similarly expansive powers in avoiding impeachment and prosecution.
And the one card Trump hasn't played? His rabid base. As he becomes more cornered and more desperate, he will call upon them to exercise their "2nd Amendment" solutions. And this is how he will retain absolute power.
4
Ross, really? By now, some two years in, it should be pretty obvious to everyone that Mr Trump will get worse, much worse as this thing drags on. He doubles down on everything. It's what he does.
8
Trump, and all of us, are in for a very rough and tumble year. Mueller will release his report soon and the Democrats will be running an investigation into all things Trump. A loose conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian contacts will be laid out clearly where it will have biggest impact --- Congress.
Trump will whine and bluster, but now we are talking subpoenas, not op-eds.
This is where all Americans will see that our government is not evil, but on the side of the rule of law. Even the GOP will have to change their views and practices, winning an election by any means is not a get out of jail free card. Trump will resign, because he is a cowardly empty suit.
4
As a former Republican and an embarrassed native of the Congressional District that elected, and re-elected, Steve King, perhaps the single worst Congressman in Washington, I pledge to take two actions--my part to try to bring this country back from the abyss.
1. Vote for Democrats for everything, every time, for the foreseeable future.
2. Never buy anything from any company that advertises on the terrible TV troika of Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham.
9
Who cares,as long as he is incarcerated. There are many more choices than two.
1
Ross,
Good preview of two of the biggest questions for 2019: Whither thou goest, Trump? and Whither thou goest America?
However, your list of Trump's more sensible and less sensible ideas saddens and alarms me, because it omits the most damaging Trumpian injury to the soul of America.
No sober observer could disagree with your well-stated concern regarding Trump's management skills in the face of potential military of economic crises; particularly now that he has cast out the "adults in the room", and the oval office is roamed, unfettered, by a 72 year-old man whose highest enjoyment appears to be converting the fantasies and appetites of his adolescent core into policies, edicts and explosive temper tantrums.
However, you leave out his darkest and earliest insight and source of power:
"Us against them" and its malignant manifestations:
White against brown;
"True Americans" against immigrant Americans;
Men against women;
True capitalists and climate deniers against scientists and other "wimps";
Christians against Muslims, Jews and Hindus et al
and on and on...
Ross, the day after Donald Trump was elected, a group of white students in a middle school here in Oregon chanted "go home" to a group of US citizens who were fellow Latino students.
We are all reaping what Donald Trump sowed as he prepared his run for the oval office - five years of corrosive racism in one repetitive thought, one insidious lie:
Our black president was not a US citizen.
11
Father Ross stole the best of times, worst of times sequence. I will pose one question, when has Trump ever done anything where it didn't lead to disaster?(for others, not necessarily himself)
7
Douthat overlooks, inexplicably, the subject's penchant for abusing himself in public, sacrificing every knowable impression of normality for a lunge at the throat of reason, fact, humane conduct, and people who are not white and male.
5
History is going to pass a savage judgment on the entire Republican Party, which will be seen to have become flesh in the form of Donald Trump, and then split like an amoeba so that there were creatures like McConnell, Ryan, Nunes, Collins, et.al., to enable and cover up for the Monster Trump. The entire Republican Party has become the tool of wealthy oligarchs, and has sold out our Nation and the entire planet’s hopes to stem the impending disaster of climate change—all for the benefit of the Koch’s, Adelsons, Mercer’s and other greedy billionaires.
5
The Emperor with no clothes and no morals will not be deposed until Congress and Mr. Mueller act. They need to act fast and furiously in order to save us. Until this happens, America 's downfall will be inevitable. It has already started, the wheels are off and the rest will be history. Instead of trying to analyze and waste our breath to understand this illegitimate and corrupt President, let's finally recognize that the past two years have been a nightmare, brought upon by a man who is an error of history. I agree that the departure of the staff members ( Mattis and co) who garnered more sanity and morals than their boss shows that we are definitely into crisis mode. However, America's institutions are too slow to react to this crisis, which to me does not bear that much comparison to Watergate and other previous crisis. We have entered a very dangerous time, a time when the monster-bully at the helm and his band of merry men (Stephen Miller and the Barbie and Ken couple come to mind) could press on the nuclear button if they feel very threatened. Their base will not save them. They are not smart enough for that. Thereafter it will be bye bye America. Go Dems, Go Mr. Mueller, act fast!
5
If one views the presidency as a popuarity contest, it's fair to say there is some support for much of what Trump proposes.
We do need to address immigration although he is doing it in the dumbest way imaginable. Our wars are going nowhere and have no prospects for success. Peace with North Korea, while not possible, is still something to wish for. China does, and will continue to steal intellectual property.
Democrats must choose wisely! They are on the right side with infrastructure, global warming, taxes and healthcare. But the ground is soft beneath immigration, and stuff like Stormy Daniels is already baked in. If the Mueller investigtion reveals Trump to be a dishonest businessman, it won't generate shock and awe. Complex issues like Syria are too difficult for the president to grasp, so why expect MAGA voters to care?
My hope for 2019 is that politicians interested in the welfare of the world will treat Trump as dismissively as possible. Watch from the corner of your eye, but talk over him and work around him.
3
The opinion pages of the NYT have not had a good record predicting the past 2 years of the Trump presidency (or any presidency really). Perhaps it is because the lense is so close to the events. Will history judge these past few years as a blip on the timeline of American greatness or will it be its end. Because for sure it is clear that whatever Trump says is the opposite of truth - so make America Great Again is make America not great at all.
What seems clear from all the editorials and talking heads in the news media and the Trump fan fiction shows is that this ungovernable man in the White House is wearing out the emotional capacity of the country to tolerate 2 more years of being stuck on Trump marketing overdrive.
I find myself musing upon the possibility of a coup. It would completely destroy the validity of the Constitution but all rational tolerance has been challenged and, like an overtired parent, I just want the big baby to stop the tantrums and behave so I can get my sanity back.
Nancy Pelosi might just be the Mary Poppins we need to pull us from the brink before the country goes stark raving mad.
5
Sorry, Russ, you don't get off the hook by reminding us of your "never Trump" credentials.
Republicans have spent the last 2 decades making the ground fertile for a Trumpian leader, beginning with Willie Horton (I don't recall any "Never racist" movements on the Right), and running right up through the birther movement.
You may have been surprised and appalled at where the Right's tactics ended up, but none of the rest of us are.
You share the blame just as much as the bozos wearing "MAGA" hats do.
9
Speculate, predict, and bemoan, Ross, but give us something of substance amidst the hand-wringing!
I urge all journalists and commentators to take a simple resolution for the New Year. Never quote Trump directly or report his tweets. Trump has proven himself a pathological liar who lies, even about his own lies. His words do not qualify as legitimate news; only his actions and accomplishments do.
Reporting the drivel that issues from Trump's mouth keeps the media and the public on edge. Reporting Trump's paucity of accomplishments wouldn't cause so much as a stir.
4
My vote is for “untamed.”
My vote is also for his followers cheering and marching in support of the train wreck that has always been Donald Trump.
4
Oh, we have arrived at a stage when Trump is "finally unbound"?
I guess it depends on where you draw the border between bound and unbound. (NB: it's interesting you didn't use a hinge as your metaphor.)
The goalposts (to use a different metaphor) have moved so entirely towards authoritarianism vs. a trace of normal parliamentary order that your question blinds you to the overall phenomena.
Trump, since he descended from the escalator in Trump Tower has been 'unbound'. Since he insulted a gold star family, since he essentially called McCain a loser for getting captured, since he....
It is nothing short of amazing to me that a college educated person who took rudimentary survey courses in American presidential and congressional history would frame a column in this way.
What if he does a complete about face and plays the role of statesman and executive with aplomb, makes concessions for the good of the country, re-signs the Paris Climate accord, repairs our broken relations, lets poor kids get their food stamps, and doesn't embarrass us internationally...
BUT still leaves close to 14OOO kids separated from their families in private prisons that make his friends rich.
Would he then be 'contained'?
Conservatives playing the voice of 'reason' for their 'movement' are dangerously close to normalizing the continuing slide towards an authoritarian oligarchy (begun long ago) that is destroying the American republic.
You think this is hyperbole? Go back to the history books.
5
Two points briefly: first point. Despite seeing who Trump was,how mean and incompetent and crazy, 63 million of our fellow Americans voted for him. Please NYT allow us to understand why.
Second point: Trump’s public craziness is getting worse and with myriad investigations and Dem politicos swarming it will worsen to a degree where he’ll crack completely. That is, I favor (hope) scenario two.
4
I don't believe Trupm will be impeached and/or resign. The Mueller probe doesn't have the goods on him or we would have already heard of seen signs of it. But I believe there is a fourth scenario not mentioned. That is, as I have previously posted, that people begin to see that the President "get things done." Once he starts getting some recognition for his achievements, I believe there is a 1a scenario where the fairness of recognition frees him up to move towards normalcy. And this can snowball. With MSM recognition he positively modified his behavior. This produces more acknowledgement that amplifies positive changes etc. I believe it can happen. Why not try it, the country's success depends on it. Who's going to start? Read my 25 positive results in 2018. Ross it could be you.
2
@Frank Leibold
Oh. One of... "them".
"Trump unbound" -- great words, Ross Douthat! We are here on the eve of a new year, 2019, and fearing we will live through the nadir of Trump's presidency. Normalcy will not return. The worst is yet to come. Trumpian drama and chaos will multiply and cause fright and anxiety among Americans and the citizens of the world who shrink aghast at what our democracy has become under our 45th president. Trump himself is toddling toward impeachment or removal from office. He has reduced his inner circle -- by firing, resignations, pink slips, scorn -- to his family, real estate holdings, reality TV and social media. Only a few young loyalists like Steve Miller and Mick Mulvaney have his distracted ear. Trump may benefit like James Joyce's Ulysses from being ignorant, irrational and finally constrained. Our attention will be caught in 2019 by unforeseen catastrophes in the natural and manmade world. Politically, environmentally, financially, all is not well. The dark of night may well last for the next two years. We won't be rising to joy in the mornings as long as Donald Trump remains our inexplicably ignorant and headstrong president.
3
Well... that was depressing. It's that cold, dark time of year when spring seems miles away, and your retirement portfolio shrinks a little bit every day. There seems to be nothing to look forward to but more bizarre, sick tweets and inane policies from the evil guy in the White House some call "the president". Lord, give me strength.
But wait! The Democrats have taken back the house! Mr. Mueller is about to release his report! Maybe this year, our patience will be rewarded. Maybe when it's revealed that Trump was actually in bed with the Russians (literally!), and that Putin helped him "win" the election, and maybe when we see the money trail, and Trump's taxes, and it all comes to light, maybe then Congress can get an impeachment vote to pass. Or is that asking too much?
4
@Chris Wildman
"maybe then Congress can get an impeachment vote to pass. Or is that asking too much?"
Frankly, it's not asking half enough.
The problem is not the asking but the improbability of a meaningful rational response.
We are living in a topsy-turvy Orwellian world.
Beware.
Politics and the presidency will not be boring but predictable. Senate Majority Leader McConnell will walk up to microphones and give the expected “We are doing what the American people want” speech, when the Senate does absolutely nothing, sloughing off responsibilities to the Constitution, perverting the rule of law, refusing to safeguard democratic institutions and our democratic Republic, and blaming Democrats. And, I agree, most Republicans will continue to support the President, which would be “normal” for Republicans, who seem to have rejected democracy a long time ago, but not at all normal to those who embrace democratic and human values, who understand we live in a world that will not disappear by shoving our heads in the sand.
It is the duty and responsibility of the US House to pursue Articles of Impeachment if investigations and hearings warrant constitutional remedy. The GOP-led House failed miserably and without shame the previous two years in this respect using political kabuki theater, midnight conspiracies at the White House, creating their own circle of obstruction of Justice and diversions to protect a white nationalist, anti-democratic, seemingly inhumane President. The Senate will likely refuse to even perform its constitutional duty as the body for Impeachment trial.
I have not lost acceptance of democracy to prevail but have lost acceptance of the Republican Party as a democratic entity to preserve it.
21
No, he will never contain himself. He doesn't have to because he's the president, he owns the Monopoly board. djt will continue to line up all his loyal 'tin soldiers' and, if anyone attempts to play interference, all he has to do is fire them or disgrace their character.
I don't think he can contain or tame himself. The man has no Emotional Filters, like a coffee filter that separates the coffee grinds from the coffee. These filters are a paramount part of development when speaking to Emotional Intelligence. We are being led by an adolescent.
9
@Mary
Contained or unbound is the wrong question----
Ross suggests that the rest of the world will just wait around until we get time to either vote Trump out or impeach him. But Putin knows the cards Trump has as well as his own. Putin knows all the traps Putin has laid and how many Trump realizes and how many Trump doesn't.
Because Putin has all the dirt on Trump and all the data on how Trump responds to inputs, he knows when Mueller will be close to understanding what Trump has done and can also predict how trump will respond. I bet Putin will pull a tactical surprise (or multiples) to force us into some sort of major problem or cause some major mistake. Something we cannot walk back from. I don't even want to imagine what that could be but I bet our enemies have.
Why don't the republicans realize that, through their silent complicity, this strategy for Putin is working better than anything Putin could have hoped for? Putin succeeds one step more whether Mattis remained or quit. why don't the republicans realize that we are no longer governing ourselves on our own terms as long as the 38% pretends not to see?
3
Well Ross, you're of course overly optimistic, being a conservative and unable to admit your transgressions and role in the downfall of our country. The fact is, as many other posters here have pointed out, is that nobody knows what this character will do or what will happen to our country when we confront an urgent existential crisis. This is anathema to what a POTUS is supposed to provide. We need some stability, some confidence in his leadership abilities, and someone who recognizes the people who didn't vote for him are Americans too. We get none of that from this miserable excuse of a human being. Happy New Year.
13
@JP "miserable excuse of a human being"; well said.
2
He will continue to act like a dangerous ego maniac demagogue 12 yr old.
He will alternate between unconstitutional damaging policies, tweets, decisions and when there is a backlash on them, read a script that his lackeys have written for him and backtrack a bit.
He will most likely be defeated in a primary or the national election in 2020 because even if impeachment was started it would probably take that long for anything to happen with debate and legal delays.
A more likely possible scenario is if the Mueller commission indicts him and his family for crimes, he may make an offer to resign if Mueller does not prosecute.
If all else fails the two term amendment will get rid of this greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War.
That amendment is getting to look as good or even better than our bill of rights.
6
@Paul why on earth would anyone think that Trump is going to leave the White House for any reason?
1
@Joe Hall- Well you are basically right but if it imperils his family or money he will and only those conditions and I am not sure 100% sure re his family. Thank you for your reply.
1
@Paul
At this juncture, I prefer the 25th.
1
Its truely remarkable and disappointring that, even after ALL the incompetence, ignorance, total lack of fit for the job, and - lets not forget- the glaring narcissim ( with the known and destructive inevitable behavior), Ross still writes about trump AS IF he were just another
president.
Ross clearely doesnt get it.
the scandalous abomination, shameful catastrophe which trump is started when Trump won the elections.
if matters have not been very seerious indeeed, on meriad of levels and areas, with multitude of deamage to show for, we couyld just lough at the circus that has taken place in DC.
unfortunately for the country and the world however, the disaster of Trump is far, very far from being a funny joke. or a scenario to consider whether it was successful more or less, or whether things could get worse still.
"reading the full text of the 25th Amendment, according to Ross, should be a smart trhing to do for our law makers.
regretably, that reading should have started as soon as Trump won the elections in 2016.
8
The most likely scenarios to my mind are:
1) Trump explodes (a crescendo of increasingly erratic behavior leading to minor - or major catastrophe), or
2) Trump implodes (mental or emotional collapse).
Any disinterested, keen observer would view Trump and his family (including Kushner and Ivanka) as a long-running criminal cabal with a patina of reality TV gold dust that they (and Jeff Zucker through NBC's TV show "The Apprentice") threw up in the air and serves to partly obscure their true nature as fraudsters.
A family whose modus operandi is serial real estate and tax fraud cannot survive indefinitely under the twin lenses of intense public scrutiny and thorough federal criminal investigation (as Mueller's team is conducting).
Whether they collapse/are hemmed in/or lash out is the key question . . ..
6
Until Trump and his presidency are viewed through the filter of his mental health status and the disability it causes in his thinking and relationships, he can never be understood in any normal sense. Once it is accepted that nearly all his actions and reactions can be easily forecast by understanding the impacts of malignant narcissism and pathological lying for self aggrandizement, all becomes clear.
Trump's entire adult life has been directed by his out sized ego, his inability to feel empathy or express caring emotions, and his complete distrust and distancing of anyone who suggests he may be incorrect in his thinking. His business plan is using the courts, intimidation, public humiliation, non-disclosures, and tax avoidance to portray himself as a business genius, when he is nothing of the sort measured by any moral standard. He offers no value as a community leader, never has.
So, what will next year be like? What would a megalomaniac do will?
6
"Trump pulls out of Syria after conversation with Turkish dictator …"
If the president of this country doesn't respect or listen to his advisors--the ones he appointed as well as career civil servants--and starts listening to Erdogan of Turkey, MBS of Saudi Arabia, Putin of Russia and other dictators, does that not constitute treason, even if it doesn't technically qualify as treason as we found out when the judge presiding over the Michael Flynn case raised that issue?
Putin high-fives MBS and Trump defends MBS. Coincidence? I think not.
Trump is not Nixon. He will not go quietly. This is the guy who send troops to the Southern border to gain an advantage for his party and himself in the midterm elections. (Mattis should have resigned then, by the way. ) So there is no telling what Trump will do when he is indicted or impeached. The country better brace itself for the worst.
11
Based on his behavior over just the last few days, his actions are getting even stranger and more unreasoned (is that a word?) and we should expect more of the same.
I imagine the greater the pressure from various investigations becomes, the more likely his head actually explodes on national tv. He must know that his pyramid of lies and corrupt acts is nearing total collapse. Anything that heavy and unbalanced cannot stand forever.
There’s almost nobody left to blame for what are his own misdeeds and poor decisions. If this anything to learn from his time in office, it is that real leaders take responsibility for their actions and do their best to correct mistakes.
A small section of the wall could be funded to contain the remains of his administration and that day can’t come too soon for many of us.
4
Mueller probe turns up nothing substantive. Trump tweets triumphant tweets, but then does something so abhorrent that even GOP stalwarts want him gone. He resigns after one term. Pence wins 2020 election.
@Barrie-John. With everything that has come to light so far, you really think there’s a chance the Mueller probe does not find something substantive? Really??
"read the full text of the 25th Amendment, Ross wrote.
congress shouild've been reading the 25-th amendment as soon as Trump sworn in.
beter late than never.
happy new ( another) year with Trump...
3
This reader does not understand how there can be a possiblity that "things will get very, very dark" when things are already "very, very dark." and have been "dark" since a man incapable of tweeting the truth began to occupy the Oval Office.
8
All of these scenarios are best case, so let's consider the elephant in the room - Mueller's investigation proves conspiracy with the Russians, along with a rot so deep and wide within the GOP that we'll be swearing in Ms Pelosi as President before 2019 ends. Only then can our country begin to heal.
11
Donald Trump will continue to do as he pleases because the Republican Party wants political power to enrich its benefactors and is willing to destroy this democracy to achieve its ends.
8
Well since things keep getting worse, and not better with Trump spinning and tweeting out of control, so I would say "fasten your seatbelts (in 2019), it's going to be a bumpy ride".
Mueller is closing in, the West Wing is all but empty, and the House is going to be controlled by the Democrats, so Trump is getting squeezed and is lashing out like a cornered animal, and just like that animal all of this will make him even more dangerous.
I am hoping Trump will just resign as Nixon did when it became apparent he was going to be impeached. I also know that is most likely not going to happen.
3
The Supreme Court is a key to his survival. If Ginsburg is unable to continue two more years and Trump appoints another Kavanaugh or Gorsuch, his base will sing hosannas and the rest of the ends-justify-the-means folks out there will vote for him. Trump's words and despicable conduct (blaming Democrats for two dead children) don't matter to all his moral compass-less supporters.
3
I can't forget that Trump's original principles' committee was Bannon and Flynn, warhawks and Muslim haters, who were trying diligently to keep out the military chief. Now we have Bolton, an inveterate warhawk, and Pompeo, a practiced yes man. Again the generals don't seem to count. And lurking in the background is Erik Prince who says you don't need the military anyway--my private army has it covered.
Not only are they still planning war with Iran (another oil grab and huge favor to Israel,) but the Saudis will foot the bill.
We have interfered in the middle east more than enough. Let Iran live in peace.
3
@betty durso The Saudis will not foot the bill. That is another of Trump's lies.
Articles with this tone will go down in history as evidence of a nation engaged in furious denial.
There is an immensely erroneous notion in this article that holds Trump as an anomaly, and different from republican mainstream.
He is not.
Trump is dead center, bedrock of republican politics; i.e., the desire for an ethnic-religious nationalistic state without saying those words (and using nonsense terms such as individual responsibility, rugged individualism, low taxes, small government etc.). Every one of the the republican philosophical tenet - now it is clear - is about maintaining a white, christian state. I.e., a state in which wc's enjoy unfettered rights to do what they want without consequence, and everyone else fears a bullet, or incarceration if lucky.
Only squeamishness prevented republicans from making such proclamations; but Trump did it for them. Then they ran to him like maggots to a carcass, and are feeding fat.
The notions of 'taming' or 'containing' are irrelevant; he is them; they are him. Who tames whom?
It is up to the democrats. If Americans care enough, and vote, maybe we will slow down the catastrophe. But Trump's damage to the nation, our collective psyche, our economy, our justice system and education, and our physical environment is irreversible in the near term.
13
Yet another pile of dissembling from Douthat!
"When NeverTrumpers envisioned the Trump presidency, it was basically the last couple weeks of headlines extended over four long years."
- Wrong! Even though YOU blithely brush away things such as Trump's constant lying, his destruction of norms of civility, and his disdain for the rule of law as less important than the recent policy failure headlines, many Americans actually DO care about how badly he's damaged our society over three years.
"So here we are, with Trump finally unbound, just as everyone who once opposed him had feared. Except that Trump unbound is also Trump hemmed in... by a Democratic House armed with subpoena power and prepared for political war."
- In other words: Thanks to the Dems for protecting our country, and doing what the Reps were too weak to do.
- Furthermore: The Dems aren't investigating Trump for the sake of "political war"; rather, we're doing it: 1) Because the rule of law matters to us; and 2) we want to protect our country from further destruction.
"And Trump unbound is also Trump alone,... Senate Republicans more inclined to distance themselves the further off the policy reservation he goes".
- Huh? When have any but a few brave Republicans EVER voted against Trump's GOP party? Sure, they occasionally give an equivocating soundbite as lip-service; but they NEVER break ranks when it matters.
Yes, it really HAS BEEN as bad as we Dems have been saying, no thanks to Douthat and his abject ilk.
11
Will Trump in 2019 Be Untamed or Contained?
It all depends on the Mueller report.
If Mueller finds no collusion, Trump will be even more untamed in 2019 and claim total vindication. In fact, Trump might start his own witch hunt against all those who feathered and tarred him as a Russian lackey.
If Mueller finds that the Trump 2016 campaign conspired with Russian operatives, wittingly or unwittingly, then Trump will be contained by impeachment proceedings that will commence in the House of Representatives. The Democratic majority will ensure that Trump will be impeached. Even if he is acquitted by a Republican-controlled Senate, Trump will limp into 2020 a beaten man.
His reelection prospects will then depend largely on the state of the economy. If we are in or headed into a recession, an impeached President Trump will most likely pull an LBJ in early 2020 and not seek reelection.
5
Trump will surely be worse in 2019 than he's been in the past 2 years. His base will stay with him in lock step, becoming even more convinced that liberals are plotting against Trump in some form of conspiracy, Deep State, or otherwise. They will hold Trump accountable for nothing, while giving him credit for things he's had nothing to do with. They love him because he hates what they hate. The 2016 election was not about jobs or the economy, it was about hate. Sorry to be a Negative Nancy, but the things Trump will do this year will make everything he's done in the past two years seem insignificant. And he'll still have 16 million voters.
7
Best outcome going forward in my opinion:
1) Trump is bound and gagged (figuratively of course) by a Democrat majority Congress for the next two years;
2) Some combination of Dems inevitable investigations and a damaging Mueller Report lead to the greatest landslide defeat in 2020 of Trump and the GOP ever seen in the long history of our Democracy;
3) The entire Trump Crime Family Organization is brought to justice, bankrupted and potentially jailed in 2021.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
7
Anyone who’s thought trump has been unhinged as a candidate or in his first two years as president,
hasn’t seen unhinged. He’s feeling the pressure of the Mueller investigation coupled with his re-election survival instinct. It’s going to be a very bumpy ride with trump holding the world hostage.
5
We are not mere spectators.
Trump's actions as President are not mere shenanigans.
I take no comfort whistling past the nation's fears that Trump causes.
3
Trump is trying to "execute" federal employees in order to "get his way" on the wall.
He's also stripped federal workers of a cost-of-living pay increase.
Predictably, he passed tax legislation, adding to his family's largesse; a defacto violation of the Hatch Act which, in effect, contributes to his re-election efforts.
This all conjures up impressions of big city machine politics of yesteryear, or buthchers with thumbs on scales.
It's also a replay of Tsarist Russia, a relegation of federal employes to the status of Serfs...
Donald, you're going to be desperate for the 800,000 votes you're alienating now in a few years, that is, if you're still residing at Pennsylvania Avenue, and not Allenwood!
3
The sole example here of Trump being 'constrained' is GOP 'distancing' themselves. Barely. And that doesn't absolve them of having been collaborators. And continuing to collaborate by their silence. Yesterday this paper reported that Trump will now deploy more mercury into our atmosphere via his beloved coal burning plants. In other words, coal by itself isn't toxic enough for him: he wants to add mercury to it--> the man (loose use of that word) LITERALLY spews his personal toxicity onto the planet, while his GOP cowards and collaborators encourage more of it to happen.
4
I hope that Trump's penchant for self destruction brings a us to reevaluate how our Executive branch has become a playtoy for autocrats.
If Trump was not elected we would have eventually found some other elite domineering leader to rule us.
America is no longer a republic. We worship heroes and love our strong invincible President who entertains us with tweets and crude behavior.
I hope he continues to follow his baser instincts and give us an opportunity to fine tune the 25th amendment. He does not have the temerity required to resign nor does he have the moral fortitude to admit he is wrong.
3
Trump is not large enough to impinge our Democracy and not influential enough to destroy the world's financial markets. However he bears the sharp sword of America's military power. That is what I fear most about a desperate and panicked Trump.
2
How about the idea that most of the nation and most of those who pretend to leadership in Washington, DC, come to the stark realization that the nation and the world are in grave danger every moment Trump stays in the White House? How about the idea that we all come to understand that Trump's most rabid supporters, the 27% or whatever level they are at, don't ultimately matter because much of their energy is based on little or no knowledge of what is actually involved in governing? Democracy, even in our attenuated version, involves getting accustomed to frequent disappointments.
Those who are virtually in love with Trumpism are bound to be disappointed anyway at some point; it is more a matter of when and how than if. The Wall is a ridiculous idea that bespeaks a frightened, defensive, insecure America, sending a message throughout the world that we live not with hope and belief in human progress, but in continual fearfulness. The signature promise, like those that surround it, is a sad, sick joke.
This has been a drama looking for an endgame from the start. Nothing has changed, except we know better now, and day by day, the ugliness and depth of the problem we face. A near accidental president displays his amateurish shortcomings by the hour.
A safe prediction: 2019 will be like this closing year. Only worse.
The only question is whether we could face an undeniable, long lasting catastrophe.
5
This is tantamount to, "If I beat my head against the wall, and then stop, it will feel good." No doubt, Trump's approval rating will go up and down. His base can be moved, quite easily, in fact. It is a perfect pairing in many ways, a man without morals or principles, and a constituency to match.
The possibility that the media will continue their attempt to help make things normal by basically wishing so, will continue unabated, else wise, they would have very little news that was fit to print. Do we really need to print his tweets? Don't we need to watch and report what he actually does?
This is a depraved person, who is totally unfit for office, but the Republicans are basically cowards, who care more about holding on to their job than doing it.
The government could not be any more dysfunctional until it becomes even more dysfunctional, and Trump proves the possibility of that everyday. The most we can hope for is that he is contained and does not become too belligerent as a result. It would be icing on the cake, though, if some body, some where, had the nerve to indict the President for what will prove to be his many criminal offenses in and out of office. Seeing him go to jail, along with his son, daughter and son-in-law would be justice done. They are all crooks, who have been aided and abetted by a tacitly approving Republican controlled Congress. We need to look at those people, too, and bring some justice or correction to that kind of malfeasance in office.
4
The possible crisis you have forgotten to think of might well involve Putin. Unlike Cadet Bonespurs he a strategist and may yet find a opening to reclaim more of Russia's historic sphere of influence. Trump will likely let him get away with it. Then watch out.
4
You left out the most likely Trump … the man cornered in the bunker while his world crumbles around him, striking out at everyone and destroying everything he can.
At this point, whatever Trump may do he will have his 40% base, which is with him because his stated positions (he does not have any actual principles) agree with theirs on abortion, religion, guns, and/or race. Whatever Trump may do he will not add to or detract from this base.
And he cannot, and will not, change.
7
Eventually the GOP will decide that Pence is the lesser of two evils and has a better shot at holding the White House in 2020 and perhaps Trumps impeachment will follow. Pence frightens me more than Trump. Trump cares for nothing beyond his own ego. Pence is a devout Christian with an agenda. He wants this country pushed back to the 1950's, with LGBTQ's back in the closet, school prayer, abortion and birth control bans, and a church on every corner. Compared to Trump he comes across as sane and steady. I would rather Trump flail for the next two years and just hope the Dems can find a shining knight to gallop in and save the day.
2
Mitch McConnell vowed to block President Obama at the moment that his term began. And yet we now have the most dangerous, capricious, manipulatable president in our history and McConnell just goes out to dinner. That is the epitome of the entire Republican Party--wrapped in a flag yet opening the door wide to the Russians, Chinese and Saudis-- to infest our elections, our journalistic freedoms, our technologies, the security of our hemisphere. Republicans could piously resist a temperate, intelligent, real American and yet they are stupefied, or possibly mesmerized by the biggest grifter of all time.
And Ross isn't sure how this ends?
God only knows where we will be this time next year.
8
This president knows only one direction. Down. Now he is blaming the Democrats for the recent deaths of two immigrant children. He claimed it was their policies that caused the deaths. Conveniently ignored is the fact that his party has been in control of both Congress and the presidency for the last two years.
He will continue his practice of hitting back ten times harder for his remaining time in office. He will reach into the gutter and sling freely and frequently. That is what he does best. I fear the real ugliness has just begun.
4
Untamed or tamed?
If he breaks the law, if he broke the law, if he is a Russian agent in whatever form, if law means anything he must be held accountable. If not, we have opened the door to total corruption and an end to any form or hope of republic. He is the end for everything decent. He is utter chaos.
2
Trumpublicans, Trump, basically the same policy The wealth effect, by giving Trump's backers, the very rich, are we feeling the effects? The rollback of environmental regulations, not a boon for the US, for your town, my own. I remember the brown haze that hung over my town before regulations, it will be coming back. No drinking water, more precious than oil, for consideration with wetlands. But Douthat is all about the fetus, and making sure there are fewer abortions. New laws will make MORE abortions, New laws will have women going to prison for drinking while pregnant, or driving recklessly while pregnant, and all the while making laws that roll back Obama era contraception coverage, which has the lowest teen pregnancy rate. Young families that are married don't get pregnant for a 3 AM act of fornication without contraception. There is nothing that promotes growth about Trumpublican economics, except short term fixes for the very rich, and for businesses that prey off of public goods, like education, or the military, that are DeVos's place or her mercenary brother in law. Privatize profit, socialize risk. The Republican platform. Undo Obamacare, turn banks into casinos with our 2% deposit, make more gig jobs and more of America precarious. Republican victory.
2
Mr. Trump's 38% will continue to support him until Fox News truthfully reports his actions and the implications of those actions. Because the Senate and the Electoral College have power based on acreage instead of population, 38% is all he needs.
7
Every Sunday, during mass there is a point where we all pray for things beyond our own personal needs. Invariably the priest says ' May the leaders of our country/world be guided by wisdom and goodness etc. etc." The congregation replies 'Lord hear our prayer'. So far not so good. In my daily prayers over the past year or so I've included 'protect and save our democracy.
As a Republic, we depend on our elected representatives to do the right thing for our country. Something has gone amiss. We see and hear partisanship like never before and together with the self-serving behavior of some in power, we are at a loss as to what to do. We believe our vote counts for something. Does it? If not, what else do we have? Marches and rallies? This country needs help and we need it now.
13
@Rosalie Rinaldi
I know I hear that prayer evey Sunday at Mass also.
Funny how the Holy Roman Church, at least not at my parish in Northern Virgina, has added a single prayer for the children separated at the border, the asylum seekers, the children who have died in ICE custody, or ending the Muslim travel ban.
So much for Isaiah's admonition to care for the widow, orphan, and alien.
The silence and deafness of the American Catholic Church is astonishing.
This is the church (USCCB) that in the 1980s wrote the social justice teaching against nuclear weapons.
Sorry, but my wallet stays in my pocket when the collection basket comes around.
As Dr. Phil says, "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior". If there is anyone reading this response, I will not waste our time reiterating what we painfully already know. As the crises, or what Trump perceives as crises encircle him in an ever tighter spiral, it is not unreasonable to expect worse behavior. For is his own needs, he has sullied the military by spending 70,O00,000 to send soldiers to this country's border for no sane reason. For his own needs, he has shut down the government, giving no thought to its impact to country's economic situation ,as well as, the loss of income for the hundred of thousands of government workers. Circumstances for him are not going to get any better with the many personal legal tangles he has. Given these past few acts of insanity, our imaginations can not handle the acts that may come. Without Mattis, who will keep the nuclear codes from him?
17
I view most politicians, including Republicans, as intelligent persons with critical thinking skills. I also view those voters (at times I am one) who elect Republicans are also able to think and act wisely.
However, many GOP politicians, their supporters, and those who still have a belief that Trump is their messiah, their savior either left their thinking caps home, are easily fooled by con artists and can be bought with a few shiny trinkets (at times I believe Ross falls into the shiny trinket scenario).
Trump, in his quest to have a lasting legacy and a yuuuuuge win to keep his supporters at bay, and happy, needs to paint the Democrats, the liberals, as anti something, for open borders, and his enemy at the gates.
Rather than act in a responsible manner and try to win friends and influence enemies he resorts to twitter tantrums and gaslighting which, I admit, works with "his people".
The unbound Trump in time will lose his luster, his draw. He will be wandering the halls of his palace, or the White House, lamenting that everyone who did not bow to his demands is a failure. Chris Hayes may be on to something-all that will be left his his grifter family to "advise" him.
Ross, it appears that you may become Trump's enemy in your baby steps to emerge from the dark side of our politics.
5
@Dan
ALWAYS VOTE---ALWAYS WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
It is the ONLY way we will survive and win.
If soldiers spend years fighting and dying daily / hourly in a far off lands, we can never justify not walking or driving to our neighborhood polling place twice a year and spending five minutes to cast a ballot.
Even if you have to wait in lines for hours, the inconvenience and discomfort we experience is nothing.
Also, remember those who in our country in the 21st century are denied the opportunity to vote or are discouraged from voting.
There are also those who simply serve (government employees) for decades.
What is asked of us citiizens is the bare minimum. Certainly, we can do at least the bare minimum.
NOT TO VOTE ISN'T A CHOICE, it is a failure to serve the country at its most fundamental level.
VOTE!
My scenario is that some Republican Senators have had enough of him and they form an alliance with the majority and the presidency becomes a little more irrelevant. Not entirely, of course, and this still doesn't address a real challenge coming his way. But it might create a better path for us while we limp along and try to impeach him.
3
This is the essence of the divide between Republicans and the rest of the world. They are waiting for the next 911 to see how the administration acts while the rest of us see this administration as 911.
23
I'm going to be very happy if Trump's 2019 is 'Trump Explaining'. I'm going to be very happy with Congress, at least the House, acting as a truly co-equal branch of the government, acting as a 'check and balance' against the excesses of the Trumpian administrative (?) style. Trump, you got some 'splainin to do in 2019. No more willful 'see nothing, know nothing' Devin Nunes-style "oversight". Perhaps Trump will be "tamed" not by the Republicans, but by a Congress, in the House at least, that tries to actually get some facts (real verifiable facts, not "alternative facts") before the public. And may the Trumps fall where they will. I'm sure the Senate will continue ignoring every egregious Trumpian folly while furiously confirming Trump judges to pack the federal courts for the next 40 years, but the House just might uncover something even Republican Senators can't ignore (well, other than McConnell). And then there's Mr. Mueller's report of whatever findings he may uncover... "tamed" may be better spelled "indicted". "We'll see."
3
In the world of nature, the most dangerous animals are those wounded and cornered.
The only predictable thing about them is that they are unpredictable.
Perhaps Mr. Douthat, it is more fitting to quote Yogi Berra: “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
I look forward to next year's catalog of mistakes.
7
Ross: I think we have a no-brained here. Trump will not be contained, but lash out with pathological lies rife with hate and insult as he’s attacked on multiple fronts, especially by Mueller and the very focused and capable Adam Schiff whose following the circuitously shady route of the family money with subpoena power. Destructive and defensive policy decisions will be made from Trump’s famous “gut” for the sole interest of his self-preservation. Things will necessarily get darker, and if a trickle of current GOP collaborators jump ship, more will follow. My bet is on the astute Elizabeth Drew that impeachment is already baked in next year’s future.
10
The odd thing is that the Federal Reserve bank gets blamed if they raise interest rates, and the stock market goes down.
But if they didn’t raise rates, and the stock market continued to balloon out of control, and finally exploded, creating a financial mess that caused years of hardship, they would get blamed for that too.
I guess that it is best to figure that you will be blamed in any case, and not lose any sleep over that, and just do the right thing.
Trump, on the other hand, will probably be dead in ten years (by natural causes), and he would prefer to have his 38% saying how fantastic he is now, while he is still alive, and let his kids later say, in ten years, that the mess that followed was not their dad’s fault.
3
@David Martin
In the 1970s Marty Zweig wrote a book that captured the maxim that evryone working on Wall Street knew for decades:
Interest rates go up, the stock market goes dow. Interest rates go down, the stock market goes up.
Why is everyone surprised?
It all depends on whether the Democrats can get their act together. So far they haven't. The only ones I like listening to are Adam Schiff, and sometimes Nancy Pelosi. Who is the next FDR?
1
I've seen the Trump administration underlings described the same way in a number of articles, but I liked and cheered for the inhabitants of the original Island of Misfit Toys, such as Charlie-in-the-box. These guys are another thing altogether, grotesques to be sure, but not cute and lovable. True travesties.
2
The only time America was great was when it benefited from President Franklin Roosevelt's governance.
3
@James Great in what sense? We have been both great, and not great simultaneously, at multiple time in our history. FDR was pretty great. But he also presided over throwing 150,000 American citizens into internment camps, because of where their parents had been immigrated from, and blithely allowed all their property to be stolen while they were interned.
In all of our greatest Presidents, there are elements of not-greatness too.
2
I understand Douthat’s last scenario but not the examples he uses. Even if the US pullout in Syria or the maybe-pullout in Afghanistan don’t lead to disaster or massacre how’ve would this actually improve Trump’s standing? Most Americans outside foreign policy think tanks and the Pentagon have long stopped caring about these wars even as a handful of US servicemen die there from time to time. Simply pulling out a few thousand soldiers from a foregotten battlefield isn’t going to markedly improve a President’s approval ratings. This is not like bringing the boys home from Vietnam or Korea - it’s like ending the 1930’s US occupations of Haiti or Nicaragua, a barely noticed gesture.
4
Ross,
While your scenarios are interesting, there is a set of assumptions that underlie this column that are invalid and undercut two of your projections : what your readers see as failures and cruelty; Trump voters see as the exact opposite. They see as positive what we see as negative. They are 35-40 percent of the electorate, and they and Fox news are all Trump cares about. It’s an Alice- in- Wonderland stance, but one that seems reasonable and right to his voters; Fox news told them so.
His decision to leave Syria and abandon the Kurds to be slaughtered is simply keeping a campaign promise, his attempts to damage Obamacare is another plus, his gutting of environmental regulations is a plus as well. His tax cut, and appointing reactionary judges are all simply keeping his campaign promises. Lower unemployment, a rising stock market (until now) leave his voters and other Republicans seeing his presidency as moderately to very successful. Again, they see as positives that validate him, what we see as negatives.
A Trump voter in a rusted out steel town said, when asked, ‘is there is anything that Trump could do that would make you vote against him said, “Nope”. That is the rock that your scenarios about Republican politicians and voters changing founders on; and even, God help us, his voters changing in the face of a catastrophe he creates or mishandles.
3
The title question is like asking whether a Disney animated movie will have a happy ending.
1
Very dark will be what's needed to get a significant portion of Trump supporters on board with impeachment or a resignation.
But what are the very dark scenarios?
1. A war that is an obvious attempt at getting us to look the other way. We already know the electorate is gullible to a well-propagandized conflict so it will have to be one that is blatantly egregious.
2. Shutting Mueller down and burying the report but only after the other investigations have revealed the shady wheeling and dealing with Russia (and others I suppose).
3. Declaration of martial law for some reason, perhaps illegal immigration or some type of anti-policing demonstration that turns violent.
4. Depression number 3 due to stripping government revenue as a result of the tax bill and killing government-funded jobs like infrastructure.
I'm sure there are others I haven't thought of. It is always out of left field with this President.
3
The President is going to do as republicans have done for generations now. - that is govern by fiat and see what sticks to the wall. (pun intended)
It is then up to the public, or affected group to take them to court and overturn whatever executive order, policy or law. By then, the damage is done or theft is complete.
Why do you think republicans want to push as many radical and ideologically ''pure' judges on all level of benches ? (especially the highest one)
They like to take their ''chances'', and this President will continue on until he is held accountable by his own republican party, the courts or the ballot box.
It won't be the first, but most likely the 2nd and 3rd...
1
Trump has the Russians led by Putin on his side, or is it vice versa? Either way, you can bet that right now the Russians with perhaps sub-contractors working on enhanced election meddling. Such 2020 election subversion could dwarf 2016's successes minor by comparison. All Trump needs to do is to outlast whatever legal moves come at him and reach the Republican convention with 35%-40%—his base—support.
SCOTUS will essentially endorse and stimie Trump's legal challenges and Special Counsel, SDNY, and states' pleas to the court.
None of the current Democratic Party apparent hopefuls excite the party in toto or American voters, yet. Unless one of them or someone else is adept countering Trump's mastery of the news cycle and sharp tongue, Trump possesses an important and perhaps unable to conquer advantage when including Russian media and voter manipulation processes, and possible next time actual vote-count manipulation.
(The Congress has not, and likely will not, regardless of Democratic House desires, investigate or legislate against election meddling and worse. Trump would certainly not sign such legislation if it did pass both houses.)
Is the perception that Trump is on the ropes, boxed-in, facing serious legal and constitutionally inspired jeopardy realistic or hopeful wishes and desires by many, but not necessarily enough to block (God forbid!) a second term?
Trump will not change his behavior. He simply cannot. Look at the evidence. Every public public appearance becomes a campaign rally, even if it’s not. He responds to critics with the same tactic: accuse your accusers of what they accuse you of. Every economic problem has been caused by foreigners. Even his wardrobe, with that extra long red tie, is so limited that it simply screams “I have no imagination”. Trump will be Trump because that’s all he knows.
The question is how long will Mitch McConnell protect him. Sadly, the answer might hinge on the health of RBG and the prospect of a huge Conservative majority on the Supreme Court. We may only find out where Mitch stands when we reach the Merrick Garland point of the election cycle, when he may have to reveal just how devoid of conscience he has become.
4
When Jeff Sessions is on the list of normalizing influences, you may need to take another look at the definition of normal
4
Whether untamed or contained, I don't think Trump will be around for much of 2019. Once Mueller completes his report of Trump's collusion with a hostile foreign power -- yes Virginia, collusion is a crime in bribery statutes -- along with obstruction of justice and all the other investigations into Trump's charity, his shady business practices, his money laundering, multiple conflicts of interest and violations of the emoluments clause, he's toast. His foreign policy blunders and military missteps in Syria and Afghanistan have already tilted some Republicans toward impeachment.
3
I think that speculation on what may come with Trump is dangerous passivity. When you know that everything is wrong, terribly wrong, how can you resist action -- for you, Mr. Douthat, not powerless scenario building but actively building a positive resistance.
2
@Jim You and I definitely agree about Trump. But I don't agree a newspaper columnist's job is political activism.
Looking back, one realizes the GOP-controlled Senate intentionally chose to not do its job for the past two years. One example, GOP legislators wrote laws behind closed doors and brought them to the floor for a vote before Senators of either party could read them. This is not democracy and begs the question, why, why did the GOP turn its back on democracy? Perhaps in 2019, we will learn the answer to that question.
NYT: Please verify if Pence still retains a lawyer to represent him in the Mueller investigation.
1
From The Economist, Oct 2018
Foreign policyTrump is not doing badly abroad
Unpredictability has some advantages
'The administration has negotiated updated versions of the North American Free Trade Agreement and a trade deal with South Korea. It has levied tariffs on $250bn of Chinese imports, and made clear that it views them as part of a wider pushback against China’s commercial abuses and military provocations, which has bipartisan support. European NATO members have raised defence spending after years of failing to."
This will not sit well with NY Times readers, but as someone who has lived in several countries and has watched the fall out of President Obama's foreign policy in the Mideast :
Trump's foreign policy is actually better than that of the previous Administration
1
So here we are, with Trump finally unbound, just as everyone who once opposed him had feared.
Everyone who once opposed Trump - a great majority of Americans by all accounts - still opposes Trump. As for the immediate future of Trump's administration, with Democrats controlling the house the columnist needn't worry himself over whether or not things could break in some way that 'Individual - 1' is vindicated. The Democrats are poised to open the drapes and let the sun shine in at last. Hurrah!
3
The President is going to do as republicans have done for generations now. - that is govern by fiat and see what sticks to the wall. (pun intended)
It is then up to the public, or affected group to take them to court and overturn whatever executive order, policy or law. By then, the damage is done or theft is complete.
Why do you think republicans want to push as many radical and ideologically ''pure' judges on all level of benches ? (especially the highest one)
They like to take their ''chances'', and this President will continue on until he is held accountable by his own republican party, the courts or the ballot box.
It won't be the first, but most likely the 2nd and 3rd.
I honestly don't understand how those words get formed into sentences that are supposed to have meaning, because they only make my head pound.
Yeah, the streets are lined with those of us weeping and wailing at the loss of Paul Ryan's piggy leadership.
There were no normalizing forces in the Republican party or the WH in the Trump era, no decent person would get within spitting distance of any of them.
1
There is no change, the Mueller investigation ends in a fizzle not a bang. Democrats are left holding the bag and embarrassed. Trump continues with the Republican base popular ideas, and the only change is the entire America is remade in Trumps image. The wall is built and draws more tourists than the Wall of China, and Trump casinos are built along it, paid for by Mexico. Foreign policies are a huge success, mainly because trump says so, and that's the complete take over of the United States by aliens. Trump gets a second term, as the greatest president ever, and Eric Trumps is elected president by huge, great margins throughout the country. Smoke, mirrors, lies, illusion win! What a great country!
The Dems should have little difficulty painting Trump into a corner; but the bigger issue is the GOP. They have to be driven out of Congress and they have 40% of the vote locked up. The baloney machine run by billionaire backers and the efforts of Russia and China could lead to a third party candidate to siphon off another 20% of the vote, leaving Trump in his second term.
The Dems have the difficult job of appearing so competent and sincere that more than 50% of voters think voting for them is a no-brainer. That requires focus, focus, and not going off track chasing Trump’s red herrings!
2
The only action that will weaken Trump and move us back towards sanity and sustainability is for the Democratic Party to develop a lucid, constructive way forward.
Any such vision must start with recognition that the destruction of our middle class and political center are the direct result of the re-formation of monopolies and oligopolies over the past 45 years. This means that we, in fact, no longer live within a capitalist system nor can we depend on a sustainable democracy since competition and the free market have long since fallen by the wayside.
The Democratic Party will not find political strength in Socialism which contains within its definition the state ownership of the means of production. In addition Socialist, Socialism and socialized have become such pejorative words over the past century that Democrats commit political suicide by attaching themselves to it.
Capitalism has demonstrated an ability to raise up the middle class and sustain democracy when applied where competition is maintained and appropriate. There are, however, four categories where government ownership and operation is necessary.
1. Emergency services — fire, police, military, medical
2. Distribution networks utilizing easements — rail, roads, sewer, water, power grid and communications grid.
3. Pay-it-forward enterprises — schools, infrastructure, medical
4. Sovereign wealth investments — interstate highways, moon mission, renewable energy conversion
This IS the way forward!
2
You still cannot bring yourself address the fact that Trump was installed by a hostile foreign power and that all of the mayhem is by design -- and that this country is still under attack.
2
Americans can find comfort in another possible scenario: The Mueller Investigation finds compelling, extensive evidence of a Trumpian criminal trifecta, including oligarchic money laundering, obstruction of justice, and participation in a Russian conspiracy. There may also be some entirely unforeseen additions to this unprecedented list, not to mention felonious charges prepared by state jurisdictions. Because of this broad umbrella of criminality, Mr. Mueller may decide that an exception to usual Department of Justice protocol is in order. The Fake President is unceremoniously led out of the White House, in handcuffs, for legal processing at the D.C.federal courthouse. The Era of Trump is over.
1
From the outset, many believed Trump was dangerous yet some gave him the benefit of time to see if he could, in any way, be presidential. It is obvious, he is not just a danger to this country but to the world and peace. Simply, we now have a hospital janitor doing heart surgery. The best scenario is for him to resign, perhaps on the advice of his puppet doctor. God willing.
2
Trump has performed exactly the function that the GOP establishment long ago realized he could provide: an effective circus act of racist and xenophobic distraction, the ultimate bad boy reality-show, all to keep attention elsewhere while taxes are cut for the super-wealthy, military budgets exploded, and environmental, housing, financial, and consumer regulations are dismantled. The Republican establishment got what it wanted, and within the two-year window they always knew they had before inevitably losing the House. Now, with divided government, Trump gets to switch roles in the show: the veto-happy spoiler who ruins every scene. The GOP establishment may not like the central casting decisions they made now that the Federal government grinds to a halt in 2019.
Well that's certainly a white man's analysis of Trump's presidency. If you happen to have brown skin however, you've already suffered two major crises at the southern U.S. border and in Puerto Rico with a reasonable assumption of more to come. The only optimistic prediction for them can be the hope of the Trump family being evicted from the White House.
2
Trump has shown us who and what he is.
Douthat is delusional if he expects more.
In a few days, we will begin to finally have some Congressional oversight.
Something Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan refused to do.
And I wouldn't put your money on Pence.
One of the biggest and earliest Trump lies is Pence did't know anything.
Hopefully Mueller is taking a close look at all three.
There are things the House can do without the Senate.
And we shall soon see if there are any Republican Senators that will put country before party - something the GOP Congress failed to do.
Trump is about to meet the board of directors, something he's never had to deal with in his entire life.
America is not one of Trump's family businesses.
Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer and Cummings will give Trump a lesson in government and civics.
Trump will pass, or he will fail. And we will see if a very stable genius can actually learn anything.
4
To us, the general public, trump looks untamed and uncontained.
To the people that have mattered so far - the Congressional Republicans and their wealthy benefactors - he is tamed and contained; why else do they so solidly support him with their votes or dollars, no matter what some of them may publicly pretend? He is delivering them an America that's the stuff of their dreams, with tax welfare for the rich, gutted health safety and environmental regulations, a right-wing federal court system, dismantling health care, driving expertise out of the government.....
As long as he willingly stays within this box they'll be only too happy to contain him in it. The anti-government and anti-governance party has its ideal leader, and it doesn't matter how corrupt, criminal and treacherous he may be.
357
This is the most realistic, accurate comment I've read. Well done.
36
@mancuroc
Also among the right-wing dreams Trump is delivering on: validation of white supremacy.
20
@Larry @mancuroc
Because he gets things done! See my previous
posts (27 in 2018)
1
As a mAnager I was trained to review all the facts, attempt to foresee as many outcomes as possible, consult with respected subordinates and peers, before making a decision. Then I would explain the strategy and the decision to effected staff. Trump makes up the facts, decides on spur of the moment and explains his decision in a 300 character tweet. He says he knows more than his generals, gives himself an A plus for his presidency. What can possibly go wrong now that he is completely unemcumbered by his staff.
4
Of the Times columnists I am aware of Michelle Alexander, Michelle Greenberg and Linda Greenhouse are the only ones I feel a deep political attachment to. This is true even when I disagree with what they are writing.
As for the more [moderate, liberal, center left} columnists even when they write something I agree with they always double back into the arms of the institutions of oppression that they timidly and at times aggressively challenge.
As for writers like Ross, Bret Stephens and David Brooks I don't know what word to describe them. They clearly don't see themselves like Trump and those that support him. And in many ways they are not. But still they want much of the things those supporters are clamoring for. For example Ross is exhilarated by the judges Trump has gotten confirmed. Among other things, there is the real possibility they will help usher in his dream of a nation of women stripped of their sexual and reproductive autonomy.
I don't know what to call them. Conservative sounds way too benign. Reactionary feels gratuitous on my part. Said only as a way to hurt them, if in fact they can be hurt. Anyway I am kind of stuck here. Don't even really like putting any category around people. But clearly as things are now the tone of some type of shared consciousness that they and their more moderate colleagues take can lead to a false sense of common purpose and a complacency that very likely come back to bite us.
52
@Robert Roth,
Much has been written about our affinity for placing labels on people for a variety of reasons; some to make them more recognizable. There are few originals walking in our midst, and David Brooks earlier this year gave his opinion on why we feel comfortable affixing names on others and ourselves.
It is a practice these days to have an introductory meeting with one's origin, one's religion and one's political views. We are hearing more recently 'this guy has to go'. There is a tacit understanding that this is not a reference to Guy Fawkes, a minor player on setting off fireworks in London on November 5, or Election Day.
David Brooks has told his readership that he is a 'Whig', and when referring to his writing, I describe him as our moderate voice in contrast to the more conservative Ross Douthat. The latter has his admirers too, who march against abortion and gay marriage, better known as pro-life or women's rights among the Democrats.
It can be difficult in view of the above to find where one feels comfortable on a perch. A capitalist here who wishes to make a profit, not at the expense of others, there is little complacency to be found in any of the journalists mentioned for they remain in conformity with their nature, where quiet conviction, character and belief in our Nation is to be found in their respective voices.
Mr. Douthat, while addressing the trials and tribulations of Trump, might wish to offer him a heavenly prayer.
@Robert Roth "Smug" is, I think, the best word to characterize all three. Always has been, always will be.
3
The House of Representatives, even with 435 members, their staffs, and the committee staffs, will not be able to keep up with Trump's tweets.
Just consider how many decisions-by-tweet he has made in the past two weeks that EACH would require a House committee investigation.
Add to this the amount of damage being done weekly by his minions in the Cabinet departments. The House is already WAY BEHIND the curve with respect to Interior, EPA, and Education.
There is only one way out and that is an investigation of Trump himself aimed at eventual impeachment and conviction. If not that, then the House needs to put forward a persuasive agenda for America that will bolster the eventual Democratic nominee in the 2020 elections.
With respect to his decisions on Syria and Afghanistan, what we will see are the professionals at the Defense Department working behind the scenes to prevent a disastrous outcome, so Trump may never have to face that reckoning.
16
Here is my prediction...
Markets were puzzled, and scared, when Mnuchin tried to reassure us all with his message around bank liquidity. What we need to remember is that Mnuchin knows a lot -- and he knows that we are sitting on the edge of another financial crises.
The last crises was triggered by so called collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) tied to housing. Today we are sitting on essentially the same instruments, but now called collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) tied to corporate debt. As interest rates rise, the cost of servicing debt increases as does the probability of default. In February 2018 the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that CLO managers no longer need to comply with the 5% risk-retention rules, thus creating conditions similar to the last financial crisis.
Jamie Diamond testified to Congress in 2010: ""Not to be funny about it, but my daughter asked me when she came home from school 'what's the financial crisis,' and I said, 'Well it's something that happens every five to seven years,''. It's been 10 years. We are overdue.
14
The president has no Chief of Staff and a revolving door of advisers who tend to be forced from office for their grifter instincts, get fired for their lack of subservience, or else run for the hills to avoid the taint of association. Farmers this year will feel the real impact of the lack of a Chinese market due to tariffs. Annual interest on the national debt will exceed the annual budget of the Defense department. Climate related disasters are likely to become more frequent. The government shutdown was ultimately prompted by the scolding words of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. At least fifty million voters and an entire political party are quite pleased with how things are going. Contain Donald Trump? Maybe Mueller will, but otherwise not until more people’s lives get much worse.
43
@PeterKa,
Listening to the roosters at dawn, the blame for this state of affairs is growing louder from our farmers, and being placed on the heads of our political 'Bozos', Mother Nature, and the rising cost of living. Trump is rarely mentioned.
When there is a problem, our human tendency is not to look for solutions but tol ook for the 'Bad guy.' Trump is the "bad guy" but the problem is not in him. Not to say that he is helping. But he is not the cause of climate change and global warming.The latter goes back to Henry Ford and "a car in every garage". The population of India has tripled since I was a child and there are cars and motorcycles everywhere. Delhi and Beijing are unlivable because of the bad air.
People, open your eyes. Not everything is reducible to US politics.
16
@Ludwig Yes, automobiles have been used for over a century, but even with alternative (electric and hybrid)cars available, they are still a very small part (2.75%) of the market.The recent Trump proposal to roll back fuel efficiency standards and to stop California and other states from setting their own, illustrates his roll in global warming.
@Ludwig Of course some of this is true, I have spent half of my life overseas but don't fool yourself. Trump is the bad guy. He has gutted environmental protection and is a spoiled child who governs by whim.
1
Untamed with bad ideas and vicious reactions to disagreement.
13
Ross, the only person that Trump should fear in the new year is Robert Mueller.
Yes, the Special Counsel holds the key to Trump's downfall or his continuing to rule a vast and complex country like ours for two more years in a tamed and contained atmosphere.
Although it seems like an Utopian dream that Trump can be contained, especially by the Democrats of the House but somewhere along the line it's not impossible.
But with Mr. Mueller's complete report ready to hit our nation with a ton of brick what else Trump and the Republicans do to avoid their party's meltdown in the next election cycle in 2020.
Mr. Mueller, who's totally restrained in his appearance, not giving an iota of hint about what's inside his report, will hand over a bombshell to the congress around next week we hope.
And once he does that most of the Americans will go through each and every lines of Mr. Mueller's report and ask for Trump's impeachment.
Now it's everyone's guess what'll be in the Special Counsel's report?
My guess is, Mr. Mueller's report will say Trump obstructed justice at least 34 times with one horrible case,when he received four phone calls from his son Don Jr. who dialed a private number to inform his dad about what was going on in the infamous Trump Tower meeting on June 9,2016.
Trump wrote in his answer to Mr. Mueller's questions: NO, meaning he had no prior knowledge about the meeting with the Russian oligarchs and a Russian lawyer with his core campaign team members.
11
@ihatejoemcCarthy Is Mueller going to change the fact that China emits twice as much CO2 as we do? Trump is here today and gone tomorrow. But our planet and the need to protect it will stay.
9
@Ludwig We can't make any significant progress at addressing climate change while Trump is in charge. He presents an existential threat to the planet as well as our nation. Your dismissals of concern about him are not logical if you truly care about the planet and not simply deflecting.
4
@ihatejoemcCarthy Where are these avid American readers who will read every line of the special counsel's report? Perhaps in your early bird special at the restaurant community of transplanted northeastern types in south Fla., but not in the America I know.
This country barely reads more than Trump, which is to say next to nothing. Captions on cat videos, and posts on social media platforms. Mueller's report will come to their ears from the mangled, truncated and I fear inaccurate coverage on local news TV. It will be today's news, gone tomorrow and I say that with dread not relish.
1
Here’s another scenario, equally likely, I submit. Trump is not only sympathetic to Erdogan, Putin and other tyrants, but he aspires to be one, himself. To that end he will try to destroy every legal, institutional and personnel restraint on his freedom of action. But he may worry that his own efforts will not be enough, and that he may need outside help. From whom will he get it?
In promising to pull our troops out of Syria, Trump is, in effect, giving Putin a free pass to do whatever he wants in the Middle East. In exchange for what? What is the quid pro quo? To thank Putin for helping to elect him? For future help with a Trump tower in Moscow? Doubtful on both counts.
More likely, it is in exchange for Putin’s continued efforts—which so far have proven powerfully effective—to promote conflict and undermine democracy here in America.
At some point, when the chaos becomes bad enough, Trump will declare martial law and start rounding up his opponents. He and Putin will have won. Or, maybe we should we say, Trumputin will have won.
38
@Ron Cohen, if ever trump achieved dictatorial status, his most sought after ambition will have been realized. The zenith of his ego.
1
@Ron Cohen
Scary but believable!
1
@Ron Cohen oh, dear, this sounds exactly right, seriously.
1
Trump has always gotten advice from his friends and associates -- e.g., Steve Miller, whom almost no voter has ever heard of, has an outsized role. What Trump does is perform. Do we believe that actors and comedians are actually reflecting their own "facts"? Of course not. Plus a lot of what Trump says is extemporaneous. The point is that it works. And low 40s approval is enough for him to win re-election. Because his hard-core supporters enjoy his act.
5
@Richard Many Americans feel his "act" is getting old, and
are tired of the constant chaos. Every show has an ending, sometimes to applause. This one is a bummer destined to have an unhappy ending, for Trump as well as we
the people. There already is some erosion in his hard core
cult and I don't feel he will be in the low 40s now or in the
future. He has put a dark cloud over this country - it won't last. We are too hopeful a nation.
1
@Richard Enjoy his act and are easily bamboozled.
I believe Trump has to go. I had long assumed he would leave the way he came, via the ballot box, in 2020. But the resignation of Mattis was a turning point for me. Trump is a loose cannon. In a crisis, either unforeseen or of his own making, he may well sink the ship of state. We cannot wait another two years.
That said, I do not believe the Republicans in the Senate, no matter how disenchanted they become with Trump, will take on both Trump's base and their billionaire patrons at the same time. Only when they get a green light from those patrons, will they move against Trump.
And that green light will come only when those patrons—men like Charles Koch, Robert Mercer, Art Pope and Sheldon Adelson—decide that Trump is more a liability than an asset for them, that he has become a threat to their far-flung business interests, and the global stability those interests rely on. That time may be near.
I, too, have concerns about a President Pence, but let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. One problem at time.
43
@Ron Cohen
The billionaire patrons may well may be waiting for how devastating the fallout from Mueller's report is. I think it's safe assume they don't feel Putin is out to serve their interests. When it becomes clearer that Trump is more concerned with his own, and Putin's interests than those of ultra rich Republicans, he won't last long.
15
@RH. Trump has already delivered: tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and deregulation for their businesses. They really don't need Trump anymore. When they signal that to Mitch McConnell, the playbook will be rewritten.
15
@RH Trump is amplifying wealth disparity, destroying the EPA, and espousing an extremely isolationist, libertarian agenda. Both Putin and the American oligarchs love those policies. Putin, his puppet, and the billionaire patrons are in synch.
2
No, no, no. No more logical assessments. We have seen everything we need to see and everything we need to know.
It all comes crashing down as soon Mueller reports.
The very day he does, the countdown begins. It’s over and reconstruction begins.
21
@Paul Yates I, too hope for a revealing, damning Mueller report, but I fear we may be disappointed. A lot of hope is being pinned on him and I just pray it is as bad as we think it will be. One bright spot is the Dems will be in control of the House and won't let whatever Mueller finds be swept under the rug and kept secret, which I think the GOP would have done if they still controlled both Houses. Here's hoping 2019 delivers a devastating blow to Drumpf and maybe to Pence so we can be freed from the lunacy.
I'm inclined to think that the most likely condition to expect from the Trump presidency in 2019 is a continuation of what is already underway: A Trump meltdown.
As more of the emperor's clothes are ripped away, reality, always Trumps most existential enemy, will ratchet up the threat level felt by Trump and be the catalyst for more impulsive and defensive reactions on his part.
Several weeks ago, the NYT published an exhaustively detailed and documented expose of how Mr. Trump's mythic self-made business empire was actually based on Daddy's repeated bail outs compounded by massive tax fraud. Mueller's findings are on the way.
My hope is that Trump will spend more time conducting mindless MAGA rallies to stroke his ego and less time making asinine threats such as a closure of the U.S. - Mexico border or uninformed military decisions designed to deflect attention from his travails. Actually, that is the most optimistic scenario I can envision.
52
In the larger scheme of things, isn’t the most important question whether the 35 - 40% of Americans currently remaining pro Trump will develop, over the next 22 months, any insight into what is required of them to preserve our nation’s well being, its democracy and our standing in the world community. The supreme challenge for potential 2020 candidates and for our venerated Press is to clearly communicate to this segment of the electorate what White House decisions mean for the future. If we can’t get a more resounding consensus (not just at best another photo finish vote count outcome) around a better direction for progress after this catastrophic administration then this country has no viable future. Guessing how the next two years play out for Trump is a parlor game compared to the broader concerns.
36
@Rick G.
More likely most will become even more recalcitrant.
What we new is a new great awakening and these folks need to repent. Which televangelist will stand up?
1
Above all else trump must win and now he has a divided Congress to deal with. We will see how this shutdown turns out however it appears to me that Nancy will not be intimidated by him. This might just force him to be a little bipartisan so he can win.
11
Haha, Trump won't even run.
Not to worry. What's happening now may be part of a grand plan for the re-election and triumph of Trump as a mythic hero.
He has passed through the reluctant hero stage by agreeing to run for President. He has also crossed the first threshold by besting his presidential contenders and becoming President. He has also encountered the 'woman as temptress' ---several times.
He is now in the separation stage where shorn of his advisors and supporters he faces a trial by his enemies, a declining economy and the looming winds of war.
2019 will tell us whether our hero will be mythic or tragic. This is our reality and it is not teevee.
14
@Michael Dowd There's a cure for what you have, but you have to want to stop it first.
2
@Michael Dowd you have been much too occupied reading cultural anthropology books. He is no shaman. He is no trickster. He is certainly no mythical hero. He is more relative to an evil cartoon character like Snidely Whiplash or Boris Badanov.
2
This is why I cannot take Jung seriously anymore.
1
The litany of poor policies in this Administration brought together here remains startling, but misses the biggie. Environmental criminals are running the shop! The environmental policy reversals are as bad as anything Mueller will find. It's been decades that we've known how important the environment is and these self-satisfied policy-makers at EPA, Interior, and other agencies still don't get what their real job is. It says environmental protection or conservation on the door--and that and protection of human health are what they're supposed to be doing! The Earth is our only home, and nothing is more important than caring for it. Talking about scenarios, one’s ideology will be of no help without the ecosystem services it provides. Will the latest, the allowance of more toxic emissions be the tipping point that brings any parts of the Trump base to realize MAGA with more mercury in our rivers and fish, and children with lower IQ scores are a con? How about the Republicans in Congress who care about wildlife, children, and their reputations? If economic development is your priority, there are many untapped ways to bring environmental and economic policies together. Hurting our children’s health through changing which numbers are counted is not one of them. Historians writing about this period will not be kind. And they aren’t the only ones. Ross: we can use conservatives such as yourself and those you sometimes mention talking and writing about this.
56
@Matt Polsky " Environmental criminals are running the shop!" Trump did not begin global warming and he is far from the biggest factor. The big factors are the growth of CO2 emissions by China and India, a relentless growth of population and the insistence by economists that growth is good. When a man has cancer you do not keep pointing at the cold he has. Trump is the cold. What the rest of us are doing to the planet is the cancer.
2
@Ludwig It is so obvious that this article and the comments are not about saving the planet or the world. They are both about expressing hatred towards Trump, fanned by the NYT, since Jan 2017. Doesn't anyone have a mirror? Trump would disappear tomorrow, and our problems will still be here.
1
Because the equivalent of 9/11 or the financial crisis may come along and things will get very, very dark before there’s even time to read the full text of the 25th Amendment, we should do so now. That is, a blue ribbon panel of psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists and internists should be commissioned by Congress to evaluate Trump's mental and physical fitness for office. Particular attention should be focused on the impact of Trump's narcissistic personality disorder, obesity and sleep disorder and his possible age-related dementia, on his capacity to execute his duties. A finding of diminished capacity by the panel should be grounds for Trump's removal. Better now than after it is too late.
45
As a psychiatrist I note that by definition, Trump does not appear to have dementia, now termed major neurocognitive disorder. His memory for slights and extemporaneous speech plainly demonstrate that. Yes he is not high functioning with regard to complex attention, but he has long shot from the hip. Yes his executive functioning appears impulsive and anger-driven. But again, longstanding. There is no evidence of perceptual-motor impairment.
Rather, he appears chugging along with his modest intellect and his personality defects. What is changing is the degree of stress he is under as events shift to his disfavor and soothing or competent advisers depart. There are few Lincolns or Shacketons, and we have all seen citizens and world leaders unhinge under stress without pathologizing them.
Now just imagine how Trump would react to efforts to have him cooperate with a psychiatric exam.
1
Did you perhaps forget that psychiatrists are not supposed to issue professional opinions/assessments about public figures?
As for using someone's (DJT) possible reaction to suggestion that he be evaluated by a psychiatrist as an excuse not to bring it up or for mental heath professionals to back off -- that kind of thinking is probably a reason too many have fallen to mass shootings, domestic violence, and other forms of violence and abuse.
Perhaps Trump's response to a formal request or demand that he be evaluated by a diverse panel of mental health experts (and treated accordingly) would be part of said evaluation -- it certainly would prove the point. In my humble opinion.
Both words; 'untamed' and 'contained' are too good for this excuse for a human being. He will be ignored and sidestepped. The democrats will create new legislation and perhaps be able to override his veto. His presidency is the result of a 'perfect storm' within both parties plus the vagaries of the federal election system.
Let's hope enough republicans and cabinet members have concern for the world to prevent him from doing anything truly dangerous.
Beyond the next 2 years we need to bring our election system into the present:
electoral college - A constitutional amendment is necessary to repeal it; perhaps a simpler solution is to encourage states to award electoral votes proportional to popular vote. Presently only a few do this, most award ALL their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote; often that margin is only a few percentage points.
polls - We have seen many 'irregularities' in the past congressional election; in the famous Bush v Gore there were many, way beyond the 'hanging chads'. Presently states administer all aspects of elections, usually thru the state attorney general. We need more federal oversight BEFORE a 'problem' surfaces.
election day - make it a national holiday, encourage people to vote and make it easier to vote by mail and/or online.
education - We must teach students from elementary thru high school about elections. The history, the details, the importance. Don't wait for another catastrophe.
50
@CD: some states, by entering into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, have agreed to award their EC votes to the winner of the popular vote, once there are enough members to ensure a win, i.e., 270 EC votes.
wikipedia: The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their respective electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who wins the most popular votes is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome.[2][3] As of September 2018, it has been adopted by eleven states and the District of Columbia. Together, they have 172 electoral votes, which is 32.0% of the total Electoral College and 63.7% of the electoral votes needed to give the compact legal force
1
The "island-of-misfit-toys feel" is a funny and accurate characterization of Trump's campaign crew, but their leader, Santa Trump, delivered the goods in the end. As for the present administration, the shedding of people like Mattis, resistant to Trump's Middle-East pullout strategy, and Kelly, not a political guy going into a campaign season, were predictable. Being "bound" by generals is not normally viewed as a good thing. As for whether Trump will be bound by popular will and democratic principles remains to be seen. Talk to you next year.
4
I do not think the probability of the equivalent of 9/11 or the financial crisis to come along in 2019 is high. I can trust relevant officials. But I do think the probability for Trump to induce a crisis like the Korean war (precipitated by the grandfather of Kim Jong-un) or an economic disaster like the Great Depression is substantial. It looks to me he is almost on the way to concoct such a crises.
26
Ross Douthat is already behind the times. The latest:
"Trump Issues Order Freezing Federal Workers’ Pay in 2019" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/29/business/trump-federal-pay-freeze.html
The TrumpFoxRepublican playbook is to silence and criminalize the Democratic party and all it stands for, compassion and efforts to work together for the common good, which they have labeled "socialism" as if socialism of the democratic kind is the most evil of evils.
Then there's the article about criminalizing mothers in favor of unborn fetuses. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/28/opinion/pregnancy-women-pro-life-abortion.html "More and more laws are treating a fetus as a person, and a woman as less of one, as states charge pregnant women with crimes"
I already know Mr. Douthat is not only not a woman but puts the rights of the fetus over the life of the mother, though he probably doesn't see himself that way. It's always so easy to judge from the outside, but if men got pregnant and had to raise babies maybe they'd realize families and babies are important too.
Trump has never been complicated. He discovered the straight path to shallow evil when he was young. His mountebank skills, amplified by the presidency, are doing harm every single day.
The worst of it is the permanent damage Republicans impose on the majority by cheating in elections.
The hypocritical cowardly bully must be stopped!
Those who call themselves Christians should read the Gospels and follow Jesus.
69
Susan,
Your comment is on target, especially this excerpt -
"Trump has never been complicated. He discovered the straight path to shallow evil when he was young. His mountebank skills, amplified by the presidency, are doing harm every single day."
He discovered the well traveled road, and has been powering down it with gleeful avaricious abandon.
If there ever was a time this tired world needs Divine assistance, its now.
6
My fear is that in response to a terrorist attack (especially if successful) he may order a limited use of small nuclear weapons to destroy whom he (as convinced by the pundits on Fox News) feels is responsible.
Will the US military obey him? Will the Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment if he orders such a strike?
I hope that we do not learn the answers to those questions.
44
The President is going to do as republicans have done for generations now. - that is govern by fiat and see what sticks to the wall. (pun intended)
It is then up to the public, or affected group to take them to court and overturn whatever executive order, policy or law. By then, the damage is done or theft is complete.
Why do you think republicans want to push as many radical and ideologically ''pure' judges on all level of benches ? (especially the highest one)
They like to take their ''chances'', and this President will continue on until he is held accountable by his own republican party, the courts or the ballot box.
It won't be the first, but most likely the 2nd and 3rd <
24
@FunkyIrishman In regard to the courts I am counting on some of judges to take their calling seriously, that is to take off some of their more partisan political ideas when they put on the robe. Also I am counting on Chief Justice Roberts to hew to the center to avoid the overt politicization of the Supreme Court.
17
@FunkyIrishman Hi there ;)
Here we all are, and what are we going to do about it? It's all too easy to despair, but unfortunately apathy doesn't fix a thing (just trotting out my usual bromides, using responding here as my excuse).
But the corruption of our courts is a serious business, as is the Jim Crow jailing of black people, with privatized for-profit prisons and the school to prison pipeline. Gotta shut up those "uppity" other races by hook or by crook.
16
@Harold Johnson I hope you're in Palermo Sicily because if not, you're in the wrong country for such hopes. Trump is a buffoon with buffoons, clowns and prestigitators all around him. The entire US government and justice system is a farce. You're better off in Sicily with some form of Cosa Nostra. At leat they are consistent at how they administer justice.
1
Until Trump is stripped of the power that derives from the presidency, there are no limits to the damage he might do to this nation and the world. Our government is not designed for and will not be able to overcome a man who literally cannot tell the truth. The chain of command is too powerful to be resisted on the military side, unless our most senior commanders are convinced that Trump’s orders are unlawful and refuse to obey him. It’s hard to see that happening. And on the civilian side, the machinery of executive authority will continue to be engaged in support of Trump’s vision, if that is the correct word, a vision driven by fear and prejudice and ignorance. The civilian chain of command is also powerful, and while not as authoritarian and direct as for the military, it’s hard to imagine flagrant insubordination rising up in the federal agencies that report to the president’s cabinet and administrators.
We can only hope that the Mueller provides convincing evidence of Trump’s misdeeds and that the Democrats in the House can unravel and expose other aspects of Trump’s tangled web. But no matter what is discovered, no matter how damaging the truth turns out to be, Trump will have supporters who will always, without question and without skepticism, believe him. And he will freely lie, outrageously and openly, as long as he is president.
57
@Mike
"... unless our most senior commanders are convinced that Trump’s orders are unlawful and refuse to obey him. It’s hard to see that happening."
I don't find it,"hard to see," but quite likely. A member of the Joint Chiefs can just stand up and walk out of the room, like someone quitting a job.
I don't believe he would be took out back and shot.
1
@Mike Iker A good example of his lying is reported in the NYT today. He claims that Democrats are responsible for the deaths of two children in custody of INS officials at the border because they haven't funded a border wall to prevent illegal entry of aliens into the USA. Those people are at the wall making a lawful claim to political asylum. They are not trying to enter illegally. Trump knows this. Do most Americans know this? I only hope so. For his base to understand I have personally given up hope given their sources of information and their mind set. I suspect I will have to wait for that group to see old films many years from now of Trump's speeches at the rallies and his flagrant lying in those speeches. At that time they may wonder whatever possessed them to support such a lying loser. I base this hope on having known Germans who supported Hitler and who later, on seeing the films of his rallies, could only shake their heads that they had not seen Hitler for who and what he was. They felt deep shame for having drunk the Hitlerian Kool Aid.
1
Another day another crisis...it is a concern that the landmark 11-country Pacific Trade Pact takes off today with tariff cuts between 6 nations. The trade pact which will slash tariffs across much of the Asia-Pacific region and does not include the United States after the president pulled out of the TPP negotiation in 2017. A high percentage of tariffs on goods were removed today (Dec 30th) between trading partners Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Singapore participating in the agreement. With Vietnam, Chile, Brunei, Peru, and Malaysia set to follow in the next few months. This will effect US farmers growing wheat and beef in the US.
36
Ross doesn't get it. He keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, when in reality, the election of Donald Trump in and of itself was a major disaster and a black mark on our democracy. That a wealthy self promoting tax evading lying real estate mogul who knows very little about anything was elected President, with the help of powerful oligarchs and plutocrats from within and without of the US, and that he managed to get so many Americans to ignore reality about what he is and believe any lie he says - is already causing enormous damage. We have an idiot running the country, who only cares about his bottom line, and leaders around the world know it and are taking advantage of it.
With the help of the Republicans, Trump has been turning the country into a plutocracy and the expectation that gov't can or even should help ordinary Americans is becoming suspect.
After years of Republican attacks, public belief in good gov't has become so diminished that people aren't even reacting to the self-dealing that Trump engages in. They don't care that he's greedy and self-serving - they admire him for being open about it.
Ross chooses to believe that Trump supporters saw him as more empathetic and caring about their issues than the other politicians, but really what they responded to was that he said he would put them first - ahead of the illegals and our trading partners and those people living off of gov't handouts.
177
@DebbieR
The irony, as most of us knew all along, is that most of his supporters live off government handouts.
His supporters admire him for doing all that lying, cheating, stealing and tax evading because they want to do it themselves and love thay he gets away with it. They want to too.
Trump makes who they are and how they live their boorish, reality tv lives seem A OK. Liberals make them feel like the losers they are and Trump likes to stick it to liberals as much as they do.
Trump is now sticking it to the government employees and their familes with his shutdown. 2019 he is sticking it to them with a wage freeze.
Does anyone think they're going to forget that in the 2020 elections? I sure don't.
8
@DebbieR Yes, Debbie, exactly.
Don the Swindler is a classic psychopath, he has no control, his mind is infected, hr is convinced he can do anything he wants, he does not even understand he is lying even when he contradicts himself, he is classic psychotic narcissist, he has not rational thought, no introspection, is humorless, is offended by anything he does not agree with.
His "Deals" are always one sided, if he were not rich which he may not be as rich as he says he is, he would be described as just plain nuts. When enough of his followers desert him, he will act more and more irrational to keep up his own opinion of himself and will attack them even more. You can see this when an aide or appointment of his quits. That person is suddenly one of the worst people when they were wonderful ten minutes before.
He is a textbook case of border insanity and will have to be restrained to prevent him doing actual physical harm to someone and himself.
76
@David Underwood
I've noticed among the few Trump supporters I know that they buy into the myth that you must be smart and capable it you're rich.
Perhaps Trump will bust that myth for all time, but I doubt it. It's too intrinsic in American identity.
1
I think this overlooks a 4th possibility - that Trump adopts the Obama pen and phone rule by decree option. This option has to survive impeachment but otherwise functions like a rogue government. While Trump sees the world very differently to Obama, his predecessor opened the door to a very imperial presidency. It differs to the Trump Vindicated scenario in that such an option could be far more divisive - an imperial presidency can simply ignore Democrats and other Leftists as irrelevant just so long as he maintain his core support.
3
@Andrew Mason
It wasnt Obama who opened the door to an imperial presidency. It was the Republicans, who refused to cooperate or negotiate on most matters and left the President no option but to bypass them where he could in order to do anything he had been elected to do.. His actions on the Dreamers was to remove them from their limbo until Congress decided what to do about them rather than leaving them there while congress failed and dithered. Obama came to office ready to work with Republicans and thereby avoid the imperial presidency, but they refused.
The imperial Obama is an invention of Republican propaganda, a Big Lie endlessly repeated so it would become part of common knowledge and rally oposition to whatever he did. Anything he did against oposition could be painted imperial. Anything he failed to do showed that he was not assertive or strong enough to get things done.
197
look at the executive order numbers, Obama signed far fewer executive orders than his modern predecessors. The idea he was an imperial president was a false narrative spread by Republicans to rouse the base and invalidate his record.
Managing and prioritizing the work and governing laws of the bureaucracy is the job of the president. Only Mitch McConnell and the Republican spin machine would fault the legitimate purposes of the gov't departments that are there to serve the people, not the imperial capitalist economy that has infected democracy.
Trump's only skill worth celebrating is his uncanny ability to expose the weaknesses of his business partners. One can only hope that with enough time, McConnell, the Trump extreme anarchist base, the billionaire political manipulators and all the sycophants hanging out in the oval office will be revealed in all their self serving glory.
6
@Andrew Mason
Ah, the myth of Obama's "imperial Presidency". Have you compared the use of the executive orders by Obama to the number of times executive orders were employed by his predecessors? If not, you should.
4
As noted elsewhere, millions of pages will be written about The Donald during coming generations, atop the hundreds of thousands written in this one. The point is, however, that Mister Trump is not a functioning representative of constitutional democracy. Whatever his legal problems, therefore, or his fact -vs-fiction-vs-political issues, he should be impeached by the House of Representatives and brought to trial in the Senate. The trial should comprehensive and its proceedings broadcast - live - to the nation to create an indelible record for the writers who come after to draw upon; likewise to put his Senate 'support' on said record before the 2020 elections.
The Constitution was written to account for human disfunction and it should be employed accordingly. There are no substantive reasons for Mister Trump's daily bouts of mania to destabilise the Country's governance. Let us proceed with the Constitutional remedy called for and quit pretending that zig-zagging 'news feeds' serve as a substitute.
112
@Wm Conelly Yes you want impeachment, but you forgot you need to show he committed high crimes and misdemeanors. Without that, your whole impeachment maneuver looks like a partisan political power grab much of the country will regard as illegitimate.
@Caleb Mars -- 'Robert S. Mueller III has indicted 33 individuals and three companies. He obtained convictions on eight counts against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, obtained cooperation from former national security adviser Michael Flynn and pierced Trump’s inner circle by enlisting the assistance of Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg. He has operated without fanfare or leaks. His court filings have repeatedly surprised onlookers, reminding us we know a fraction of what Mueller and his prosecutors have uncovered.' -- via the WaPo
Impeachment is no more than an indictment. If The Donald is innocent, let him stand up like you or I would have to and clear himself in a fair and open trial. The Constitution accounts for this situation. Let's use it instead of the various, changing 'news feeds.'
4
@Wm Conelly None of those indictments allege anything with respect to Trump. Manafort didn't register as a foreign lobbyist a decade ago and wasn't forthcoming on loan applications before the campaign. Flynn fell for a perjury trap and supposedly lied about actions that took place after the election. Again you have no charge of anything that looks like a high crime and misdemeanor against Trump. Impeachment is not meant to be a vehicle to overturn an election. Your remedy is to win the next election.
Never before in my long life have I felt so little hope for the future of the United States and such lack of faith in its political system and leadership as I do now. That is the mood in which I look ahead to 2019. I doubt that I am alone.
474
@Penseur, I agreed with you before the election. Our emotional roller coaster in chief and his party are for the most part an odoriferous mulch of fundamentalist ideologies and grifters who will continue to put us at risk of having our pockets picked, and it is unfortunately true that there will be some small possibility of nuclear winter as long as the toddle in chief is in charge. I am, however, hopeful that with the installation of a Democratic controlled House of Representatives in a few days and the Mueller report relentlessly grinding toward completion, we just might be able to muddle through this. The sun will—no, may come out after the November, 2020, tsunami.
11
@Penseur
You are NOT alone! A majority of the population is with US!
12
@Penseur : you are definbitely NOT alone in feeling so desondent about the US. with you are the 3.5 million POPULAR voters who picked hillary.
11
Note that there are no good options in the bizarro world of Trump where down is up, lies are truth and the very worst outcomes are the best we can hope for. Your really can't make this stuff up, but somehow Trump does, again and again. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
116
Reading this I find myself saying, "Well, yes, that's what Ross Douthat would think." But I do find your somewhat apocalyptic final scenario generally plausible and ultimately pretty frightening. I sense (rightly or wrongly) a level of passivity and even satisfaction with Trump's policies (I'm not sure the term really applies to him) that mildly alarms me. I would be hard-pressed to say anything good about this horrible man.
76
@jdc Yep about the passivity and satisfaction part. There are many who voted for Trump who just wanted a "kinder, gentler" populist, regulation slasher, tax-cutter, immigration disliker, etc. Trump pushed the envelop too far but his case doesn't actually mean that a right of center fulcrum in the body politic has shifted all that much.
Mr. Douthat,
Here's a list of Republican presidents in my adult life.
Richard M. Nixon
Gerald Ford
Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
George W. Bush
Donald Trump
In my not-at-all-humble estimation, there are only two in that list that are even close to "a semi-normal G.O.P. presidency." They are Ford and Bush I. The rest are crooks (Nixon, despite protestations to the contrary), Reagan (purveyor of voodoo economics and Central Castings perfect spokesman for the 1%), W. (war criminal along with his coterie of war criminals, Cheney and Rumsfeld, who launched the US into an illegal attack on Iraq, thus displacing the madness of Vietnam-era anticommunism for 1st place in the Worst Foreign Policy Blunder in American History Sweepstakes).
And now we have Trump. Semi-normal? You have got to be kidding. The GOP can barely run semi-normal for the highest office in the land. Remember Eisenhower? *That* was semi-normal.
939
@Lennerd
My lifetime frame is the same and I could not agree more. My only hope is that, if we still have a functioning Republic, this con and his entire family are put behind bars and their entire wealth is grabbed by the US Government under RICO statute.
If it also hits some of the billionaires from their RICO interpreted donations, all the better.
72
@Lennerd That's very much an eye of the beholder approach. Consider the Democrats of the same timeframe:
Jimmy Carter
Bill Clinton
Barack Obama
Carter is widely considered one of the worst presidents of all time. Clinton was so appalling that he faced impeachment- one of the very few presidents to do so. Though he remains popular he was widely condemned for appalling morals and ethics. As for Obama, has there been a more divisive president in the history of the country?
Compared to the above Trump honestly doesn't seen particularly problematic. Compared to Carter he's competent, compared to Clinton he's moderately ethical and moral, and compared to Obama he's not particularly divisive.
2
@Lennerd
Ford pardoned Nixon, a travesty at best and a High Crime if it was planned in advance of Ford taking the oath as Vice President.
Bush I also pardoned the Iran-Contra perpetrators and most likely played a role in the affair from the start.
29
Based on the past three years, we can predict that things will not turn out the way we expect. Mr. Douthat's third scenario is indeed possible, especially if the Mueller report comes back finding no direct ties between President Trump and Russia (or with other directly linked criminality).
However, all these scenarios assume that our country will face no major crisis in the next two years, occurring by happenstance or created by President Trump. The scenario that frightens me the most is Mr. Trump leading our country in a time of a war, domestic terrorist attack, major collapse of the market, etc. Such events would be terrible in any event, and would challenge any President. But with Mr. Trump in office, given how reckless, ignorant, and dangerous he is, a major crisis could be catastrophic.
138
Untamed or contained?
He's so often unchained that I wish he'd abstain!
22
Why does anyone think he could be contained in 2019 anymore than in 2018. One wonders how this person was brought up. He is so cruel and lacking compassion. He has never taken the blame for any of the despicable things done to the country or to individuals who don't agree with him. He has absolutely no redeeming features. He will go down in history as the worst President this country ever had. What a joke his legacy will be.
685
@Sari
What scare me is that Trump may very well double down when faced with adversaries. When opposed, Trump fights. This is not new behavior. It's been a lifelong habit. And he has gained from it. Deutche Bank gave up trying to collect from him. He just stood strong and would not budge. He has a long history of not being held accountable. Why should he change now?
I predict he is going to get more and more erratic as he is faced with an opposing House. I think our only chance is for Republican Senators to finally defect and bring some sanity into our political life. But if the past predicts anything of the future, I wouldn't hold my breath.
39
...will he, though? Or will the Republicans simply come up with somebody even worse, and get him or her elected by successfully playing to a minority of voters, and thus simply delete or overwrite Trump's legacy from public record?
I am not convinced that it can't be done...
9
@Sari
I agree totally with what you wrote. You asked how a person so cruel and so lacking compassion, who has never taken the blame for his many offenses could be President. I think it had to start in childhood, when he misbehaved. lied and bullied. As a little boy his parents thought perhaps that sending him to a private military-style school would curtail these deep-rooted personality deficits. Instead, as he grew his mis-deeds, his bullying and lies grew stronger and stronge and he perfected his art as a con man. He was never called to account for anything. As he learned from Cohn, the lawyer who worked for McCarthy, Cohn taught him to be even more vulgar, lie and victimize anyone who goes after him ---including his wives, his business associates, lawyers, tenants, contractors. The man never had any close meaningful friendships, he is devoid of feeling for anyone else. There is no easy way for this country to remove him from office, I have no doubt it will be a difficult and painful process going forward l until statesmen (where are they in the GOP party) coalesce and get him out. Then the country will enter a very long path of healing and Trump can return to taking care solely of himself.
29
It seems as if the ghost of Steve Bannon is skipping merrily through Trump's brain causing lots of deconstruction. Holding Trump blameless is to ignore the damage he is doing to this country. In some perverse way he always escapes responsibility because there is always someone else to blame. Nothing will really change even if it is shown that he has committed crimes, sold out to a foreign power or maybe much worse. Keep your powder dry folks. Trump will not go quietly.
77
A good friend is an aviation instructor of many years. The point he makes when we talk about crashes is that the whole picture is never only one risk factor. It always comes down to multiple risk factors that taken together couldn’t be managed.
Likewise, a family member in medicine makes the same point. Modern medicine comes down to managing multiple risk factors. Some, such as genetics and age, little can be done about. The more of others added, such as obesity, high blood pressure, smoking, recreational drugs, risky sex, and individual reactions to medications., the more they narrow possible medical paths to recovery. Eventually the risk factors can reach the point where there is no path to recovery.
Looking ahead regarding Trump, I see the same situation. It won’t be any one thing that causes his ouster or causes him to tank in 2020.
His risk factors, most of which he’s already created by his actions in and out of office, coupled with his personality, will become entangled, overlapping, reinforcing, and devoid of escape routes. No longer able to manage them collectively, collectively they will cause his panic, public rejection and demise.
We may be seeing the start of this panic in the hysteria in his statements during the holiday portion of the shutdown as Rep Pelosi ignores his manufactured shutdown - and as she might continue to do after Congress re-opens.
158
I submit yet another term that rhymes, as a matter of speech: Impaled! By Mueller!
3
"The first possibility, and to my mind the least likely, is a return to (relative) normalcy. In this scenario Trump reacts to indicators he understands..."
Yes, that is the least likely scenario, as it appears unlikely that Trump understands much, beyond the menu at McDonalds, and whatever he perceives to benefit himself.
30
I've always thought that he would resign the same way that Sarah Palin did.
Fat Nixon is basically a coward and will have no stomach for an all out political war with the Democrats and a gradually increasing number of Republicans.
He will go out whining, just like his other 2 year old behaviors, because he can't get his way.
40
@adara614 Or an alternative scenario, and one more frightening is that he runs in 2020 and loses. At which point he refuses to leave office declaring the election 'rigged' I don't think he'll go out whining. I think he'll have to be dragged out. Hope I'm wrong.
1
@adara614
we live in hope, as they sayin church.
1
I have too many times over-estimated (and never under-estimated) the morals of the Republican Party with regards to Trump. When Trump was saying McCain was no hero because he was captured, and denigrated all who had been pow's, I thought there was enough patriotism in the GOP to reject that. When Trump bragged about grabbing the lady parts of unwilling women, I thought at least some Republicans would abandon him but his popularity went up within his party. I have learned.
Douthat has made more such mistakes, and more extreme ones, than I. He however has never learned what the Republican Party is. It's a Trumpian mob, and its leaders in Congress realize that if they oppose Trump they do not get re-elected (and probably don't even win the primary). If anything, these leaders will cleave closer to Trump now, because the Democrats now have the House. McConnell sometimes ignored Trump's wishes when Republicans held all of Congress. But now that he can score points on the Democrats, he will be unable to restrain his inner Trump.
Be realistic, Douthat. Neither the GOP rank and file nor its leaders are as moral as you are unrealistically assuming.
345
The Donald is done by this time next year. You forgot to mention that Trump has broken numerous laws, and continues to do so. There was little mention of the fact that Mueller is prepared to bust him on all of them.
Forget the pee tape in Moscow. Trump cannot keep himself from peeing on our laws, our institutions, and truth itself, in the form of rolling back mercury and lead regulations for coal plants and insisting that his big brain realizes that global warming is a hoax.
With the exception of Krugman, all NYT columnists mention global warming only as a throwaway line. Read the scientific papers, Times columnists, and write accordingly. Otherwise, we face an abrupt climate regime change this century, requiring life on earth to be forced to re evolve via rodents, lizards, and worms. Not that they are worse than today's Republicans.
126
Mr. Douthat:
You indicate that the President might react to indicators he understands, e.g., the "jittery stock market." With respect, I am curious as to what evidence you have seen which supports the conclusion that Mr. Trump, in fact, understands the market.
Happy holidays to you and yours.
79
Having dealt with the mental illnesses of at least two of my close relatives, I suspect there is another scenario.
People should know that serious mental illness rarely presents itself with foaming at the mouth or drooling. The dangerously ill can have neatly combed (and sometimes even normal-looking) hair, and can function at a certain level of competency until . . .
Until is the operative word. Breaks with reality can be small enough to allow for semi-normal functioning. Then, when the breaks becomes too large, there is no hiding the seriousness of the problem.
I wouldn't wish anyone that sort of break, but there's a chance it might happen and then there will be no denying the problems Trump and all of us face,
313
@Elizabeth Fuller
I too have learned the hard way that there are seriously mentally ill people embedded in all walks of life, and that they are wreaking havoc all around them.
Often as not, they are undiagnosed, simply because one has to consent to tests to get a diagnosis--and guess who doesn't want to get tested?
Usually, these people don't make it into high office. They only destroy those adjacent to them. We are now seeing a grotesque and dangerous exception to the rule.
Perhaps when Trump is gone and the fall-out has settled, he will have inspired a national conversation about mental illness and the damage it does.
27
No, Mr. Douthat, Mr. Trump will not be constrained by anything other than the 25th Amendment or the Senate removing Trump from office.
Remember, Mr. Trump believes in striking back against those he perceives as opponents. Yes, the House will issue subpoenas - Mr. Trump will ignore them, then fight them in court. Cries of 'witch hunt" and "fake news" will be Tweeted regularly, and the only documents turned over will be so heavily redacted (due to claimed executive privilege) as to be meaningless. Oh, and it's quite likely that Trump will claim that the government shutdown makes it impossible to comply with any subpoenas.
In short, Mr. Trump will act the same way he has throughout his entire life: with complete disdain for any inconvenient laws. The Right Wing Media complex will back him, and the rest of the media will make "both sides" statements.
If things get bad enough, Trump will stage a Gulf of Tonkin-style incident with Iran, and attack them. His base will cheer madly - and if he loses, he'll blame Democrats for sabotaging the war effort.
267
@John M...I truly believe that the Mueller investigation, trump's sinking mental state and the citizens of this country finally getting completely fed up- that 2019 will be the utter undoing of this wretched man and his family, administration and every miserable republican that has been complicit in this despicable sub human's evil reign.
9
@susan mccall: Perhaps, but only if the folks owning the major media outlets allow reality to penetrate their coverage. Notice how Mr Trump’s positions change based on how Fox covers them?
There’s a saying that a successful politician is one skilled at spotting a parade, running to its front, and pretending to lead it. This is Trump’s one true skill. Until the right wing outlets change their tune, Trump will keep dancing to it while pretending to be the band leader.
12
Well for once my man you didn't have me slowing down this read by looking for words I was not familiar with in the dictionary. Instead I was interrupted by laughter- probably precipitated by fear : but you can be perspicacious with some reasonable forethought.
12
@R.Terrance Same here. Guffaws all around.
1
The point of Douthat's February column was that Republicans in the Senate (Douthat could name only one) and in the cabinet had effectively constrained Trump's disastrous policy impulses, and therefore that conservatives should not vote a straight Democratic line in the 2018 midterms.
I disagreed with Douthat's premise - https://politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com/2018/02/07/the-untamed-demagogue/. To the extent that Trump had been constrained at all, the constraints had come from the judiciary, which, I pointed out, Trump and the Republican Senate were stocking with partisans so extreme that before long the judiciary will constitute no more effective a constraint on Trump than the Republicans in Congress.
I appreciate Douthat's confusion. He is a partisan who sees the leader of his party for what he is but can't bring himself to reject his party. So in February, Douthat advocated re-electing the Republican Senate majority that would continue to gut the judicial check on Trump. In December, he finds Trump both "unbound" and "hemmed in," simultaneously "more dangerous and less so." .
Trump was never constrained, not by cabinet members who served at his pleasure, and not by supine Republican majorities in Congress who were not concerned to maintain the co-equal authority of the legislative branch or the norms and values of American democracy.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
89
@Ecce Homo
" ... and values of American democracy."
I left the "norms" out, as the norms of American Democracy have become a collosal joke at this point in time, and insofar as "values" are concerned, that's an even bigger joke.
We are well and truly off the rails, in a deep dark ravine, and there are no rescuers coming.
We may yet have to accept that the Founding Fathers had good sense, and incredible foresight, in suggesting that armed militias need be maintained.
"We The people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitition but to overthrow the men who would pervert the Constitution." - Abraham Lincoln
3
Watch out for the formation of a viable third party candidate to get at least 3-5 %of the vote in 2020. No third party candidate on the scene today is likely to be a vote taker from Trump. That means that a Kasich, Bloomberg, Steier or even Jill Stein making another run will take votes away from the democrat.
The depressing thing about this is that even with a 33-40% of Trump’s base, that is solid support.
Against a generic democrat, Trump is counting on the inevitable third party candidate wanting to be noticed while narrowing the gap in the electoral and popular votes in 2020.
24
@JT FLORIDA
While there may be a third party candidate - from either the left or the right - the Democratic candidate has a chance to win if he/she truly believes in help for the working and middle classes, as opposed to same old same old. Neoliberal incrementalism, at a time of such severe income inequality, isn't going to fly, just as it didn't in 2016.
8
@JT FLORIDA
I still want to know what Jill Stein was doing at that dinner in Russia at the same table as Putin and Lt. Gen. Flynn
34
@JT FLORIDA
Expect the Republicans to fund a third-party shell candidate to simply siphon votes from the Dems - this is an old political trick and will be the Rs only hope if they are again stuck with Trump. I suspect we'll soon learn that much of the money behind Jill Stein in 2016 was Republican money and that the Putin-Flynn-Stein meeting in Russia was far more important to the election outcome and the Russian interference than originally thought.
1
While I have no idea if Trump will be untamed or contained, I think he's actually growing more erratic, as hard as that is to believe.
He's blaming Democrats for the deaths of two young migrant children he's failed to mention until now--a truly wild accusation that even some Republicans are appalled at.
He's freezing pay for federal workers in 2019--hardly a strategy to win love from the little guys, unless he just assumes all federal workers are Democrats.
He launched a shutdown he's wanted for a long time, and now blames Democrats when rolls of video exist that shows otherwise.
And he visited troops only to turn the encounter into a political rally where his biggest lies yet concerned their pay levels-- this aftercomplaining how dangerous it was for him to come there in the first place.
I won't mention the latest abominations of the EPA, since I doubt Trump even knows about the new pro-coal rules that will likely increase respiratory illnesses from all the increased muck in the air.
So, untamed? Or, again contained? Does it really matter?
If Trump stays Trump, which of course he will, his administration will still be unable to deal with a real (financial, terrorist) or imagined (the caravan) crisis and our goose will be still be cooked just as pundits predicted.
Happy New Year, Ross. May old predictions be forgot.....
437
@ChristineMcM
The father of one of those illegals refused medical treatment, but jury is still out on the cause of death for the other.
A pay freeze for federal workers might offend those in government - most of whom are likely Democrats, but may win votes outside DC.
Democrats caused the shutdown through their refusal to fund the wall - Trump's signature policy.
The political rally is mostly MSM spin. The troops wanted his signature and independently acquired Make America Great Again.
The Democrats are so busy fighting Trump that they don't really have time to govern. And the MSM are so obsessed with shredding his achievements and legacy that they're distracted from life beyond Trump.
2
@Andrew Mason: There is so much wrong and inaccurate in your reply to my post, that I don't know where to begin. So let me address the "biggie", when you write, "Democrats caused the shutdown through their refusal to fund the wall - Trump's signature policy."
Democrats decidedly did not cause the shutdown--Donald Trump did, on vivid display in the Oval Office with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. And why should they vote for his "signature" issue? Did Republicans ever support President Obama on any issue, let alone a "signature" one? Of course not.
Donald Trump's wall, according to experts, is totally outdated, inefficient, and porous. If folks can't go through, they go under. You know it, and I know it. Far better are all the security techniques that Democrats favor and have allocated plenty of funding for: drones, technological detection systems, and the like. According to polling, more Americans are against funding an expensive wall, an obsolete solution, than are for it.
The president screamed that Mexico would pay for his "wall" for more than two years. Yes, it's his signature issue.
For him to renege on a deal because Ann Coulter criticized him and try to demand that Democrats pay for something only he and his increasingly smaller base pay for it, when they had a deal prior to that far right intervention, is ludicrous.
There is no negotiating with this man, because he moves the goalposts based on right wing talk radio.
54
@ChristineMcM
let's add to your very good list of increasingly erratic recent behavior:
-telling heartbroken and reeling Californians he will withhold aid for the fires and it's their fault for not raking the forest floor.
-declaring unpaid government workers Democrats (so obviously they deserve to be punished by the shutdown)
-implying the Pittsburgh synagogue is to blame for the shooting deaths because they didn't have armed guards
Sadly, I think he will stay in office and continue to damage America.
22
There are so many scenarios that Trump can cause to be in 2019, and if he survives 2019, 2020 as well.
We can dispense with any reasonable possibilities, as you did, & cite the most likely, based on his business history, and his last two years of brinksmanship as our President and Commander In-Chief of our armed forces.
As I see it, having been alive nearly 70 years, knowing much about the modus operandi of Trumpian types, and what nearly 70 years of watching our government apparatus at work has resulted in, leads me to conclude as follows -
Trump is, first, foremost, and will always be, a survivor, and as we approach mid 2019, Trump will in fact resign, but, and this is a certainty, but not before everything is in place for this very devious man to resign with not so much as one hair on his pate being disturbed.
He has spent these last two years rebranding America, all but placing the actual Golden Trump logo, on every main government property, not needing to since he has done it in a virtual sense, by firmly imprinting his ideology on all government branches, with the nearly total cooperation of his party, yes, his party, the former Republican party.
Foreign and domestic partnerships have been created, and permanently cemented in place, becoming the cornerstone of his future survival.
He will be praised, he made certain of it, and his resignation will be seen as his handing the baton to Pence, the wunderkind in waiting, waiting to "Make America Even Greater Forever".
23
@Mel Farrell: Much of your prediction sounds plausible except he can't engineer a consequences-free resignation. As things now stand some of his inner circle and probably some of his family are going to prison. There are jurisdictions over which he and the federal gov't. have no control or sway, and some of those have initiated actions against him already (like NY state). There are many at DOJ and the Pentagon who find him scabrous, vile and incompetent and would work towards his failure or removal, given the chance. He may exit to the accolades of a cheering audience but it will be based on cue cards. Each of his many lies is a bullet hole in the hull of his ship of state, it's sinking faster than he can bail. To survive he may form a 3rd party, which would have to be named after the historical know-nothings.
Pence doesn't measure up on the arrogance scale and will fall to conventional political process in short order.
1
Your comments are too negative. Our government agencies will gladly reverse most if not all the mis rule of King Trump and his minions. It will take time, but it will happen.
1
@Mel Farrell
He has trashed the NATO alliance, in place since WWII. He has trashed the Agreement with Iran put in place by Obama: no weapons grade plutonium production for 10 yrs. with U.N. Inspectors on site. To date the U.N. Inspectors confirm Iran's compliance. He supports a Saudi Prince who had a U.S. resident journalist murdered and dismembered in a Consulate in Turkey. He has extensive business interests in SA. He has a murky relationship with Putin, with hidden loans from Russian financiers, laundered through The Bank of Cypress and Deutsche Bank which refuses to release records showing those loans, reported by New York Magazine a yr. ago. The President of the U.S. is in debt to a known adversary. Imagine if FDR had been in debt to Hitler via business with Krupp Industries. Mueller is not corruptible; he will follow the money. If the GOP does not support him, the mid-Terms will be followed by the loss of the Senate, and the loss of the WH in 2020. We are not a banana republic; we voted for Clinton by 3M more popular votes than for Trump. Trump cannot force money from Congress with Pelosi holding the purse. Military pay will not see a large increase. Farmers will be hurt by Trump's trade policies. The GIG economy cannot survive without loans from TBTF banks. Young voters will not follow Trump over a financial cliff. His base has never cracked 50%. The Wall is dead. Trump is isolated, cornered, and fatally weakened.
2
Trump’s re-election prospects would be enhanced by a rising Dow Jones especially if it is record setting. The economy should be his sweet spot. He claimed he knew business and understood markets. The settlement of complex trade deals and continuing record setting employment and rising wages could turn things around for him. Trump knows this. If proven criminal activity or collusion with Russian do not take him down a strong economy and strong stock markets will be hard to beat.
11
@Milton Lewis
You forgot to indicate what it really means for you to say these things.
Americans are so short-sighted that they don't have an idea what's behind a rising stock market. Americans have no clue that you don't run up recessions during a good economy. That that is a really bad idea b/c there's absolutely no way to do deficit spending during an economic crash. And so you don't indicate any of these things, which means your discourse isn't really helping the situation.
Never having been in harm's way nor held lives in his hands or those he commands or run so much as a peanut stand himself, Mr. Douthat takes Trump too lightly.
On a daily basis, we remain engaged in the same relentless conflict with, as Jim Mattis put it, "those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours" and their national and sub-national surrogates.
Every day that Trump remains in the White House is a day of enhanced risk to our nation, our interests, and our military personnel.
344
President of the United States Donald Trump is tamed only by Putin and is now awaiting further instructions regarding Syria and Afghanistan.
And Trump is certainly uncontained by the Senate, the body with the ultimate power of removal. Mitch McConnell, the cowardly lion, is biting his own tail and practicing his specialty of doing nothing. "No need to protect the Special Prosecutor!" says Mitch.
So I believe the Trump Administration will become a global pariah, weakened by mounting evidence of indictable actions and distrusted in any joint actions.
Being laughed at in front of the UN General Assembly was not a good sign. Promoting coal at climate change forums makes a mockery of efforts other countries regard as existential.
But his support in the US will remain a solid 39%, even while the GOP brand is damaged, because global disdain is just fine with the base.
Hopefully, the other 61% can take full charge in 2020, with a newfound enthusiasm for voting.
196
@Look Ahead...If there are 61% of y'all chaffing under the utter shame of global disdain [I'm assuming you're not including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, China as part of your "global"], how did Trump get elected in the first place? A distinct minority of deplorables outfoxed a distinct majority of DNA superiors? In what universe does that make sense? Y'all got lots of splaining to do.
4
@Albert Edmud You're confusing the people who voted with what the people actually think. The latter is inferred by polling. A lot of people in the US didn't vote but if everyone voted, I believe the result would be 60-40 against Trump. But since everyone doesn't vote (for a complex set of reasons, but it's a catch 22 having to do with the electoral college):
It's not 39% vs. 61% - it's 39% vs. something like 40% - you can see that the Democrats do better in terms of actual votes (by a few percentage points), rather than numbers of Congressional positions or electoral votes for Presidents.
So a distinct minority of deplorables outfoxed a distinct minority of bleeding hearts. There's nothing in the DNA about being deplorable - it's a learnt trait.
17
@Albert Edmud
"...how did Trump get elected in the first place?"
That's a good question. He won 46% of the vote to Clinton's 48%, with Jill and Gary grabbing the other 6% that proved pivotal in 3 Midwestern states.
That closely matches his post Inaugural Day approval of 45% (Gallup). But as the American people later learned for the first time what the FBI knew before the election about Russian interference in the campaign, extensive Trump campaign involvement with Russia, Trump boasting about firing Comey to the Russian Ambassador and the appointment of a Special Prosecutor, that approval dropped to 36% and since has settled to 39%.
The voters heard twice about dramatic FBI "investigations" into Clinton before the election but only post-election about the Russians and Trump campaign.
Some people believe that changed the election result.
53
While Trump takes up all of our attention, the hard work of governing is not going on. Congress is not passing laws that help prepare people for good jobs, that address social injustice, and that reverse global warming. A year from now we will still be dealing with this toddler-throwing-tantrums, but these problems will have grown worse, not better. It is time for leaders who will get us back on track and get people working together towards a common and better future.
99
@Rod Stevens
Exactly. And the "leaders who will get us back on track and get people working together towards a common and better future" are WOMEN. Seen it before, many times.
47
@Rod Stevens
Perhaps I am living in never-never land, but I don't think he will be in the White House in one year.
2
I fear the last paragraph of this column is the most likely scenario, unfortunately. After being bombarded almost to the point of becoming numb with what's going on in the White House, I don't have a lot of hope for a return to "(relative) normalcy." But I will continue to have a little hope, mainly in a system that might drag itself up off of the ground and recover long enough to do what is right.
15
As of today, 538.com has Trump approval rating at 41.4%. This is not a measure of popularity. 41.4% believe that he is doing a good job.
Could somebody please do cross-tabs and enlighten me as to who approves of his job performance? and how these people are benefiting from his actions? There cannot possibly be so many voters in the northern states who are so frightened about a foreign incursion from the south.
BTW as far as the "Wall" is concerned, I still don't see the basis for hysteria. When a plane lands at SFO, disembarking passengers are required to be processed through immigration. That is a wall. A country has a right to protect the integrity of its borders.
13
@Padonna
The Americans who support Trump are the same people who support the Worldwide Wrestling Federation.
Sad.
500
@Padonna. There is no hysteria about the wall, just common sense. It’s a waste of money, ineffective, symbolic of anti-AMERICAN values, and would only serve to reward Trump for bad behavior. I suspect opposition to wall funding is mostly about opposing Trump and all he represents. Honestly, I’m just fine with that.
11
@Padonna, of course we have a right to protect the border. But a wall isn't going to do it. Have you read even one iota of reportage about the pros and cons of a physical wall, including how ineffective it is, how damaging to the environment, how dangerous for species who move back and forth across the border, and countless other fact- and evidence-based research that documents why a wall is a bad idea?
Why do so many millions of people refuse to learn anything? It boggles the mind how anyone can move through life in a fog of abject ignorance, no desire to learn or understand the basics.
13
Never again in our history, let us allow America to feel threatened and bullied by a president elected by The Will of The People, or The Will of God, who is the cause of so much diversion and divide between Our People: Americans.
And if this American has your attention, Mr. Douthat, when in search of Christ, you may find him in Nelson, traveling with The Caravan. A legal immigrant from the Honduras, he wishes to ensure safe passage to his younger and more vulnerable travelers: Refugees who are pleading for their life and future. But we really do not care, do we?
So close to the border and yet so far, while some of The Exhausted Majority 'Here', will continue to do well under Trump, and what does it matter about 'Elsewhere', even if it makes one sound selfish. So 'There'!
We are being Pressed to behave like Trump, while some of us want to strive to do better. And, listening to some true confessions on your part as to your errors in judgement this year last, a reminder that we are not saints or priests. The G.O.P. has a better role than that of a Trump Tamer, and while you are to be commended for inviting us to read a catalog of your mistakes, this is not as good as it gets.
My thoughts are with Judge Ginsberg on the advent of The New Year; a peaceful one, with substance and joy, to All Americans in this Country of Ours.
41
Prediction: Trump will be a pariah in the Republican Party. They've just about squeezed that lemon dry.
We used to be a country where people dreamed of running for President. Now they dream of running from him.
83
@Sera
The Republican Party has embraced Trump and is in-lock step with him every step of the way. There is no chance of him becoming a pariah in the Party. In for a dime in for a dollar I say. The price seated Republicans in Congress will pay for their court packing conservative judge fest is to forever be tied to Trump. History will never forget (nor remember in a positive way) those that signed on for Trump's agenda.
We can only hope that no real lasting environmental or international relations damage is done in the next few months before he is removed or forced to resign from office.
Sure Corker, Flake and a few others have vocalized their resistance (and resigned to do so). Ryan's silence can be considered acquiescence and support. We can only hope that Republican leaders of tomorrow are ready to take a stand and resists Trump today.
1
@Sera
More like a nightmare that doesn't end when I wake up.
2
Who can read his mind? But I think Trump calculates he has nothing to win - and everything to lose - by compromising with Democrats and losing his base.
25
@Mr. Quay Rice...And, the Democratic Horde calculates that it has everything to lose - that would be elections in 2020 - and absolutely nothing to profit if it gives one iota that can be mistaken as working with Trump. The Progressive Base will annihilate anyone who dares to challenge its wrath. Just watch.
@Mr. Quay Rice. I’m not sure why this is so hard for Trump. Take the Democratic deal, call it victory, and move on. For a guy who lies to the public at least 10 times a day, how hard can that be?
2
@Mr. Quay Rice
Scene: Donald Trump, deep in thought.
Above his head a balloon reveals his thoughts: "I want Hamburger. No, a cheeseburger. I'll send Mulvaney down to the kitchen for a cheeseburger......I wonder if Ann Coulter is still mad at me. She gets sooo mad. She's mean....I'm the President! The greatest President ever!....If they won't let me have a wall I'll get a moat! ....Nancy Pelosi is really mean to me too. I think I'll tweet that....I wonder, when was the last time I saw Melania with no clothes on? Long looong time ago...I could really use a hamburger right now. No, a cheeseburger!...
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With an even more erratic Donald Trump now shutting down part of the government unless he get his "wall" or "slats" or whatever; then adding insult to injury, in true Trump fashion, by freezing furloughed federal workers now non-existent wages; blaming Democrats for the two immigrant children who died in the custody of the Trump border security forces; and treating the military as a Trump campaign rally; one cannot easily dismiss impeachment as Republicans in the Senate see this behavior as unacceptable and dangerous. And, if Robert Mueller starts indicting the Trump inner circle like Don Jr. and perhaps even issues a report showing conspiracy, it may prove the last straw. But, I do agree that "winter is coming" either in a collapsing stock market due to Tariff Man Trump's trade war with China that is pushing it toward recession and the world with it, or a Frank Underwood attempt to divert attention from his collapsing "House of Cards" with a major Middle East war between Saudi Arabia and its reckless and ruthless Trump-embraced Crown Prince and Iran. And then, darkest of all, the "vindication" scenario where Republicans continue to abrogate their duty to the Constitution and its "rule of law," and instead support the autocratic "rule of Trump."
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Mattis, Sessions, Comey, Rosenstein, Tillerson, McMaster, Spicer,
and Putin all have the goods on Trump, and that's not counting Mueller or the Republican campaign's indicted personnel. If you want predictions; the Democrats will cave to the wall, ending the shutdown with nothing to show for the fight. It's the Democratic party's DNA to do the right thing, and take the heat. Every Trump tantrum will become worse than the last. Ultimately, more important than the puppet Republican legislators are the donors, and they will finally pull the plug on Trump. Watch Romney's moves. They can't stand the guy, and two more years is a very long time to see their bought and paid for stooge play them all the time. This administration thrives serving the customer base, but when the top customers have had enough, good-bye Trump.
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@purpledot spending billions on a wall versus building infrastructure is not the right thing. Hopefully the Dems have found a spine.
@purpledot
"It's the Democratic party's DNA to do the right thing, and take the heat."
I hear the ghost of FDR in this.
“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”
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One problem I see with Ross’s third scenario is that the republicans’ whole philosophy of governance is bankrupt, so there is nothing, really, for them to go back to. Their only purpose is to take from the many to give to the few, something their base had cottoned on to by the last primaries, resulting in Trump. They are now the Trump party.
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