I have imagined one plausible end-scenario for Trump’s run in 2016. All signs of the race so far suggest this wild scenario is in fact plausible, while I wouldn’t say now, its likely. Remember, back in August of last year, I suddenly said it was actually plausible for Trump to win the Republican nomination. This blog was the first published source to calculate the Delegate Math that gave Trump’s his nomination, when most said he cannot possibly win. Now follow me on this ‘thought experiment’. What if this is how Wikipedia will tell the story, two years from now, of what will become known as ‘the Trump Con’. A very special type of confidence trick, by which you destroy a whole political party. How Trump defrauded the once-mightly Republican party destroying it and giving rise to the Hillary years and total Democratic control of the US goverment, where the Libertarians emerged as a choice for the discredited Republican party. Follow me and my imagination to this scenario. Imagine reading Wikipedia some day in say 2018:
PLAUSIBLE WIKIPEDIA ENTRY - TRUMP CON
The Trump Con or the Trump Confidence Trick against a major political party.
The Trump Con is a confidence trick, a fraud, perpetuated against a political party which guts the party, robs its supporters of hundreds of millions of dollars of their money, destroys an election, and ruins a political party’s image damaging it for decades to come. Named after disgraced former Billionaire, former real estate developer, former reality TV star and multiple convicted serial con artist Donald J Trump whose previous scams included bankrupted casinos, Trump University, job-creation fraud, etc The con on the Republican party was his last major scam and the one that ended his public career. The Trump Con defrauded Republican voters and donors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and handed the 2016 election cycle in its entirity, from President to the Senate to the House to various local elections, to the Democrats, in the biggest landslide loss measured in the history of US politics. It also gave rise to the Libertarian party as the new second largest party of the USA.
In some ways the Trump Con is seen as a cousin of vulture capitalism and corporate raiding that was popular in the 1980s when Billionaires bought poorly-managed companies and then split them and sold their parts, in what was called ‘raping and pillaging’ those companies. Trump was raping and pillaging the Republican party which had been incompetently managed in the previous years. In some ways what Trump was, was closer to pure vandalism like ‘joy riding’ by youth gangs who steal cars, race them, crash them, then burn them. Trump stole the Republican party, raced it, crashed it, and then burned it. But at its core, the Trump Con is a confidence trick, played on vulnerable Republican base voters, that sold them a fantasy, swapped a nasty reality, and ran away with the profits. After Donald Trump ran his Trump Con on the Republican Party, ‘doing a Trump’ has become the generic word for any outsider trying to capture a political party for his own ends and gains.
ROOTS TO THE TRUMP CON
Donald J Trump inherited a vast real estate empire from his rich father, but Trump squandered most of it in numerous failing business ventures both in real estate, and trying to explore other areas like airlines, vodka, magazines, insurance, education and clothing. His business background resulted in four business bankruptcies and Trump was functionally bankrupt personally by 2015 when he embarked on his most ambitious and in the end, most profitable scheme. While Trump’s actual business deals were a series of disasters, his publicity and personality were perfect for a TV age. He wrote a bestselling book, bought the rights to a number of popular TV show from the Miss Universe pageant to The Apprentice and then starred in several versions of the shows. What Trump excelled at, was a bombastic self-grandizing style of claiming to be the greatest and the best. This he learned from his involvement with the World Wrestling Foundation and its loud abrasive peacocks who proclaimed their personal bestness. While this style of arrogance and boasting turns off most people - and in particular women and minorities - it attracted a certain cult following, white men who grew up with the World Wrestling phenomenon and were attracted to that ‘comic book’ style of a ‘good versus evil’ world of total extremes.
Donald Trump had developed his Trump Con to run against a political party for several years, in stages. He was not initially sure which party would be best suited for it, but after the Bush-Cheney years helped push the intellectual divide so, that increasingly the Republicans were “the dumb white man’s party” it became clear, this was his mark. So Trump registered as a Republican and started building the base for his confidence trick. The big gains were in the early years of the Obama administration, when Trump led a ‘birther’ conspiracy movement against Obama, claiming he was born in Kenya, was thus not legitimate to be President, and was a Muslim. (Trump knew all these were lies, but he needed his victims to start to believe these lies). This endeared Trump to the right-wing media from Fox News to Rush Limbaugh who all gave Trump a prominent platform. Trump also campaigned for the various Republican candidates in the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections giving his voice to be used in robocalls, and he also supported the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections. Trump was building a base of support by supporters who seeked his endorsement, while actually not contributing more than the bare minimum directly to any of the campaigns in actual cash donations. Trump made a big show out of various candidates have to come to kiss his ring, be seen at a Trump building, to seek his blessing. This all helped bring an aura where Trump was in some ways ‘above’ mere politicians who ran for President. Trump already then was all about the style and none of the substance.
Trump identified a target voter segment he wanted to appeal to, on the fringe of the Republican party. These were initially the racists, conspiracy theorists, White Supremacists and Nazis, but in 2008 and 2012 he saw the election cycle was not ripe for him to try his confidence trick. He waited and in 2016 he had the perfect opportunity. The Republican field had its broadest range of candidates ever to run (17 in total including Trump) and yet none of those were openly appealing to the racist wing, ie the ‘Pat Buchanan’ wing of the party which had a significant base of support, especially in Southern states. Trump correctly calculated that if the party was sufficiently split among its factions, by appealing to this base, and then building on the ignorant voters and with his name recognition, he could get up to about 40% of the Republican party total support, but because of the various candidates, this was the year when you did not need to win 50% of the delegates to clinch the nomination. By the time his last rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich quit the race in May of 2016, Trump had only won slightly over 40% of the votes cast up to that point. The political calculation was correct, and Trump exploited a weakness of the Republican party, which back then did not use ‘SuperDelegates’ that the Democrats had. If the Republicans had used SuperDelegates, then Trump could not have risen, and indeed, one of the first actions the dramatically defeated Republican party did in 2017, was to introduce SuperDelegates to its nomination system. This was done specifically to prevent any future Trump Con from succeeding again against the party.
THE POLITICAL CON
The political part of the Trump Con was actually quite simple. Trump took every position on every political issue. He never studied any issue in any depth. He said he is for abortion, and against abortion. He was for the Iraq War and against the Iraq War. He was for gun control and against gun control. He was for Planned Parenthood and against Planned Parenthood. He was for higher taxes for the wealthy and against higher taxes for the wealthy. He was for invading Libya then against involvement in Libya. He was for a higher minimum wage and against a minimum wage altogether. Then whenever confronted with a ‘contradiction’ to a position he had also recently held, he did not claim he had evolved or changed his mind, or try to find some convoluted way to be both for and against a position. Trump simply denied that he had just said the opposite. Trump would utterly deny he ever said it, much like how Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had shown, many Republicans are willing to believe you if you just deny it in strong enough terms. So inspite of videotape played to him, of words he said to the opposite, or of audio tape of his past words, Trump would say that was not him, that was not what he said, or that it didn’t even sound like him.
He would then run over anyone who questioned him with a long rant of mostly unrelated positions, with more lies, to eventually move the matter beyond the initial controversy. This left the audience feeling that Trump was correct that he had never said something. The questioner did know the truth (or a debate opponent in the Primaries) but they had not yet figured out how to counter this, seemingly lunatic way of denying reality. Eventually the press figured out how to counter this, demanding Trump to answer an explicit question, and of course Hillary Clinton never lost her footing on using Trump own words on videotape against his own new positions. So Democratic voters and Independents and rational and moderate Republicans could all see, Trump was lying. This is part of what doomed his general election campaign and why his polling support fell to ever worse standing throughout the summer of 2016.
To one slice of Republican voters, however, Trump seemed irresistable. As Trump had held every conceivable position on every political issue, a voter could always find Trump in support of what was important to that voter. Trump seemed like the ideal, perfect candidate. He had EVERY position you wanted. As long as that voter was not meticulously exposed to every OPPOSITE position that Trump had ALSO held, that voter could safely believe, that Trump was the perfect politician, the only honest one who the voter had been hoping for years, decades even, that might emerge some day. As long as the illusion was maintained, Trump had ironclad support among his core supporters, while the majority of the nation was dumbfounded, on how can some voters be so dumb. This was why there was a total divergence of Trump support. Some utterly loved him while most hated him. The correlation was very strong with uninformed, lowly educated and misinformed voters. If a white voter thought Obama was born in Kenya, there was nearly a 100% correlation with that supporter also being a Trump supporter. Among those who knew Obama was not born in Kenya, nearly all were not Trump supporters (while many were of course not Hillary supporters either. This group included the majority of the ‘never Trump’ Republicans).
PERFECT CON MAN
The core of any confidence trick is that ‘the mark’ ie the victim (Republican voters) must believe and trust the con artist. Trump was a master at creating an untarnished golden image among his core supporters. Those were mostly the lowly educated white male voters of the Republican party and often also their spouces. A disgruntled, dismissed minority of the Republican voter base, who felt a deep sense of a rigged game against them. Where they felt the minorities (and women) were being given an edge through all sorts of quota systems to actually deny the white male voters their chances. The white lowly educated older voters felt victimized and the culprits were the educated classes (‘elites’), the foreigners (‘Mexicans’), the people of other religions (‘Muslims’), and various groups who seemed to be given preference, from women to gays. This part, closely overlapping with Pat Buchanan’s voters, was ready for Trump and when Trump started his hate speech, attacking Mexicans, Muslims, women, even the Pope, he was cheered by this vocal minority of the Republican party, while the majority of the nation was aghast.
Trump achieved an illusion of ‘telling like it is’ with this voter group. This voter group had plenty of genuine racists but many more who were simply not mentally astute, or culturally experienced enough, to be aware that using a word like ‘nigger’ might anger a black person etc. Many were not actually racists, only they often SOUNDED like they were, out of ignorance. This helped create the opening for Trump, to pursue a battle against ‘political correctness’. When Trump said ‘Mexicans are rapists’ the racists of course loved it, but those who were not racists, but who often were victims of being accused of racism - for not using ‘appropriate language’ suddenly discovered Trump in ‘telling it like it is’. The more Trump used horrible divisive language, accusing Megyn Kelly of being on her period, or accusing John McCain of not being a real hero, or of calling on a ban on all Muslims, or mocking a disabled journalist, or saying the Pope doesn’t have grace, the more this slice of the Republican party loved Trump. They associated Trump’s rude language with the freedom they hoped they would have had, in their own speech, to ‘tell it like it is’. Then, the ironic reality is, that as Politifact measured, Trump’s actual statements were the most deceitful of any leading politician ever measured. Even Dick Cheney only lied 59% of the time, but Trump’s statements were 76% untrue. Yet with this objectively measured fact, Trump’s core supporters had somehow become convinced, in unshaking certainty, that Trump ‘told it like it is’.
The Confidence Artist had now set up his mark (the Republican voters). Next he needed to insulate himself from any doubt or breach in that trust. So Trump waged a relentless war against ‘the evil media’. He took Newt Gingrich’s tactic from the 2012 election cycle but turned up the volume to unprecedented levels. He waged an open war in every public speech railing against the ‘lying media’ and the ‘deceitful press’. This helped Trump with his intended marks, to not pay attention to any media claims that Trump is lying or attempting to defraud them. Because the right wing media in general, from Fox and Friends to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, to Breitbart and Drudge, had been pushing a myth of a broad media conspiracy against the Republicans, Trump found fertile ground and his core supporters were completely willing to accept whatever Trump said to be the truth, and no matter how many dozens of various media sources including conservative media like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal saying otherwise. Trump was now preparing his mark for his confidence trick which did not come in the primary race, it could only come if Trump was able to clinch the nomination, so trap was designed to be triggered in the main campaign in the Autumn.
THE MONEY GAMBIT
The core of any confidence trick is to steal money. Trump did this by creating an illusion that he was ‘self-funding’. In 2016 the US election system was still run under the since-banned rules of ‘Citizens United’ which meant unlimited campaign cash and incredible amounts of corruption, as the various Congressional investigations have unveiled since the 2016 election. So in the 2016 cycle, both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders a Democratic rival to then-Candidate, now-President Hillary Clinton. Both Trump and Sanders made a big political issue about not taking campaign donations from big donors and then being beholden to them. Because of Citizens United, and as major ‘front-runner’ candidates in that cycle like Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz all had ‘SuperPACs’ (a political campaign donations vehicle that was legal under Citizens United but now has been outlawed) that were able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, both Sanders and Trump had a great opening to declare their independence from such campaign financing. Bernie Sanders took openly citizen contributions in small numbers. Trump went even further, he claimed he was ‘self-funding’. Like everything in the Trump Con, this too was a carefully-crafted lie, it was an illusion where the truth was the exact opposite of what Trump claimed. Trump did not self-fund his own campaign, more than by about 1%. About one fifth of his primary campaign was funded by citizens (like any other politician) and four fifths of his campaign was a loan from Trump to his campaign. This was 44 million dollars by the summer. Trump had this loan paid back to him early in the Autumn campaign, out of his donations to the general election campaign.
Trump was able to con his gullible Republican voters in several ways by this claim of ‘self funding’. First, he obviously did not self-fund but he got the full media attention and was able to claim for almost a year of campaigning, creating a lasting impression among his voter base, that he is so independent of any outside influence, that he was actually self-funding, while he was no better than any other politician. Secondly, he had his supporters retroactively fund his primary run, entirely. So in effect the whole claim was a deliberate lie. But always before, in campaigns that ran a lavish lifestyle, where a candidate ran essentially a glorified book tour, paid by donors (like Newt Gingrich in 2012 or Dr Ben Carson in 2016), the campaign finances were scrutinized and the candidate was severely scorned for wasting campaign funds on luxury and frills, first class travel, expensive hotels. Trump stayed briefly in some Holiday Inn style standard hotels when the primary race was at its hottest, early in the year, but one he clinched, Trump shifted his campaigning to only be in large cities, in rich states, and in towns where the Trump organization held properties, like New York, Florida and California. And Trump flew everywhere with his giant private jet. While Trump had no political chance of winning the race for the state of California (which votes by about a 20 point margin for Democrats in every election) or New York (the fourth most Democratic state, with a margin typically of between 25 and 30 points for the Democrats), Trump now camped in those states, and ran an expensive lifestyle. Where any previous campaign tried to life a first class lifestyle, the donors would protest loudly and insist on strict fiscal responsebility, Trump was able to avoid all that, because of his initial claim of ‘self funding’.
The money trick was to funnel as much of the money as possible through Trump enterprises. So Trump struck a deal with the Republican party (and its then-leader, since discredited Reince Priebus) so that the Republican party would staff, fund and manage the ‘field operations’ - a major expense of any campaign - while Trump would do his own travel, events and TV appearances. The Republican party in 2016 was nearly broke and this new added heavy financial burden taxed heavily its fund-raising and what ended up being a useless operation, built to support Trump in states he ended up not contesting, destroyed the Republican party’s chances to hold the Senate and the House, and even win many local contests, as Trump’s organization was now placed in wrong states doing pointless tasks while real needs of the struggling Republican party were left undermanned and underfunded.
Trump himself racked up massive debts and huge expenses billed to various Trump organizations from renting out ballrooms at Trump hotels to catering to transport and of course lavish hotel rooms at various Trump hotels and golf resorts in the richest parts of the country. Under normal political runs, such a lavish lifestyle would have drawn enormous scorn by fiscally conservative Republicans but as this was supposedly a ‘self funded’ campaign - Trump’s con got away with this overspending. Then Trump of cousre further profited by overbilling for all those expenses. Any normal hotel chain would offer various incentives to have a political organization stay at their hotel, packages, bulk discounts, breakfasts, ballrooms etc - but Trump billed all at undiscounted premium ‘rack’ rates with the highest profit margins. So Trump was shoveling campaign money into his own pockets, without any scrutiny. (This practise was outlawed in the Anti Trump Con election laws package that passed unanimously both in the House and Senate in 2017).
Two years of congressional hearings in the Trump Con aftermath and into the series of bankruptcies of the Trump Campaign 2016, and the Republican Party, and various Trump enterprises that followed, have not been able to piece together the full trail of where the money vanished, but estimates go from 100 million to 400 million snatched by Trump, moved to offshore accounts, and hidden. Typical of Trump in his various past bankrupties, all major people who ran the parts of the scam were convicted and sent to prison, but Trump escaped without a day spent behind bars. While he was eventually forced to give up his last possessions and his various homes including that in Trump Tower, in his personal bankruptcy that followed, Trump’s family had by then acquired so much of his fortune, that Trump continues today to live in his seclusion, but as a permanent family guest with various properties owned by his children.
TIMING OF THE GAMBIT
The Trump Con was about stealing money in the end, while it destroyed the Republican party in the process. Four elements were critical to the exact timing. Trump had to have his own loans paid off. He had to pick up new funding enough for his escape. He needed to postpone his promised tax returns until the last possible date. And he had to have his excuse to quit the race. That was all timed to the week prior to the first TV debate. While in the Spring, Trump had seemed to be reasonably close to Hillary Clinton in national polling, and in May some polls showed him even slightly ahead, after the Conventions Hillary had built a solid double-digit lead over Trump foretelling a massive election rout. Trump built his promise of a surprise win by a fantasy of winning in large states that the Republicans had not won in many decades (like California and New York) even as all polls showed him behind by 20 points or more in those states - and by beating Hillary in the upcoming TV debates. It was the TV debates that had Mitt Romney climb to a tie from being far behind President Obama in the 2012 election cycle. As long as the first TV debate had not occurred, Trump could still sustain the illusion that he still has a chance. As he promised his loyal supporters, he claimed he could demolish Hillary Clinton in the TV debates, and then the race would be tied. The first TV debate became the crucial focal point of the whole 2016 election which actually decided the race.
As mounting pressure came on Trump to release his taxes, including loud voices by Senator Elizabeth Warren that Trump had a conflict of interest with his 100 million dollars he owed foreign banks, Trump finally accepted he would release his tax returns by mid September, just after the scheduled first TV debate. Trump’s pretense all along was the audit which by then had ended. As later congressional hearings and leaked tax documents have shown, Trump in 2016 was only moments from bankruptcy (a condition he declared in January of 2017). That was why he was terrified and determined never to actually show his tax returns, and would rather quit the race than show his financial condition. Congressional hearings also revealed that Trump had successfully tricked many US and international banks to extend loans to him even when his personal wealth no longer justified such amounts. This resulted in both parties instituting their ‘Tax Return’ rule, that all candidates must release 6 years of tax returns by Super Tuesday or forefeit all won delegates to be distributed to then-viable rivals. No candidate since Trump has ever even suggested not showing 6 years of tax returns and most modern candidates show every tax return from age 18.
With the promise of beating Hillary Clinton in the debates, Trump was able to sustain enough of a hope, that his supporters kept sending him money. Trump also pleaded very strongly to his base, at all his rallies and in his now-frequent email pleadings, to send him money as Trump listed various measurements of how much ‘Crooked Hillary’ was outspending him in the various expensive TV ad markets. Trump achieved a large haul of campaign funding, which according to his official filing was about 200 million in the month of August, directly for his campaign and another 200 million for his SuperPAC but various independent measurements have estimated it to be possibly twice as much. Trump ran a large run of TV ads and booked up major blocks of TV ad space, well exceeding his total campaign budget and in many popular TV shows, maxed out the total available TV ad inventory that was left. The TV spending in August would not have those advertisement payments coming due until in mid September.
The negotiations between the Trump and Clinton campaigns about the TV debates were acrimonious but seemed to finally reach agreement by early September. Then Trump started to demand new concessions which in the end, derailed the first announced TV debate only 24 hours before the debate was scheduled to be broadcast. Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, sitting President Obama, past Presidents Bill Clinton, both Bushes and Jimmy Carter, Republican past nominees Mitt Romney, John McCain and Bob Dole, and past Democratic nominees John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale all condemned Trump. The Libertarian ticket of Johnson and Weld came out against Trump and offered to present their candidate as the alternative (which Hillary Clinton and the debate commission turned down, as at this time the Libertarian ticket did not qualify by polling to pass the threshold). Almost all major current sitting Republican leaders from Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan to Reince Priebus came out against the decision. Almost all major media from the left with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC to Chuck Todd on Meet the Press in the middle to Morning Joe Scarborough on the right to Bill O’Reilly on Fox to Rush Limbaugh on the extreme fringe on the right, all condemned this move. Even staunch Trump supporter Sarah Palin said it was cowardly to skip a debate reminding people that she won her VP debate against Joe Biden.
That was the opening that Trump needed to claim being the victim, that the game was rigged against him. That the Republican party was deserting him, that the mainstream media were biased against him and even conservative media were rooting for Trump to fail. Trump said he could not in good conscience continue a race which clearly was biased against him - and over the weekend, live on Fox News, he announced he quit the race.
ELECTION BLOODBATH
The Republican party was registered to have Donald J Trump as their Presidential candidate on all ballots nationwide by this time and could not withdraw the name or substitute an alternate. But as Trump now was a ‘quitter’ his support instantly collapsed. The polls showed a huge spike in ‘will not vote’ where most loyal Trump supporters went. Those less convinced of Trump migrated their support almost instantly to the Libertarian ticket. But many Trump loyalists voted for Trump anyway. The Presidential election had Hillary winning 55% of the vote, with Johnson second at 30% and Trump with 15%. Johnson won 9 reliably Republican states by narrow margins like Alabama, Oklahoma, Kansas and Idaho. Hillary Clinton’s 25 point margin over Johson (and 40 point margin over Trump) was a historic victory with 42 states and the District of Columbia, even winning several ‘very reliably Republican’ states like Utah, Texas and Mississippi.
The television news coverage of President Hillary Clinton’s victory election count, was unique in that while the news broadcasters did not want to run the headlines or have their news staff say ‘Hillary Clinton has won the election’ while the voting was still going on in California, Oregon and Washington and other Western states, the actual vote count in the Electoral College showed already at midnight Eastern time, that Hillary Clinton had clinched the election and had won enough Electoral College votes that she was the winner. Runner-up Johnson of the Libertarian party called President-elect Hillary Clinton by 01 AM Eastern time to concede and congratulate her but Hillary Clinton waited until the news broadcasters actually ran the story that she had won, which happened the moment polls in California, Washington and Oregon had closed by 02 AM Eastern time.
Because of the ruinous campaign run by Trump, who then deserted the race and left the Republican party with hundreds of hired staff in the wrong states, with a campaign but no candidate, the resulting expensive reorganization and reallocation meant that the Republican party was completely in disarray for the last two months of the 2016 election. This doomed what was already a perilous election for the Senate and House. The Democrats picked up nearly all available Senate seats, recaptured the Senate and Mitch McConnell was forced to give up his gavel to Chuck Schumer the Democratic Senator of New York. The Trump aftermath caused also many ‘Trump crony’ Republican Senators to lose seats in the 2018 midterms, when Hillary Clinton and the Democrats expanded their Senate lead and gained a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. 2018 was the first year that the Libertarians won their first Senate seat, displacing a ‘Trump crony’ Republican sitting Senator.
In the House, the Democrats flipped control of that chamber which was considered by many to be ‘invincible’ because of gerrymandering (a system of rigging voting outcomes so that one party gains more seats than the party had won in percent of actual votes. Gerrymandering was made illegal in Hillary Clinton’s first term and stood several challenges in the Supreme Court). California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi returned to chair the House and never again lost her gavel, becaming the longest-serving House Chair until she died in office in 2036. Nancy Pelosi successfully played the rising Libertarian party against the diminishing Republican party. On many social issues she struck a deal with the Libertarians to support the majority Democratic positions (while allowing some moderate Democrats in Republican districts to defect and vote against that law), while then using the dramatically diminished Republican party to give support on several foreign policy and trade issues where not all Democrats were onboard. After 8 years of Republican obstruction and the six Boehner-Ryan years of Republican gridlock in Congress, Nancy Pelosi created the image of the ultimate deal-maker of bipartisanship even as in reality, she just played ‘divide and conquer’ after the Republican party had been destroyed. The 2016 Trump Con election is what started the US Congress on its journey from a gridlocked two-party system to a more flexible multi-party system, eventually opening the path also to the extremist Tea Party split out of the Republicans, and eventually the Sanders-Warren Green Party split out of the liberal wing of the Democrats.
LIBERAL ERA
The Trump Con damaged the Republican party so badly, when no other third party was yet viable, that Trump ended up ushering in the over two decades-long Liberal Era, after the eight Obama years of moderation. The survivors in the rump Republican party, who lasted the Trump Con purge and the Tea Party explusion, say the Obama years were the golden years, and universally blame John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan for squandering the period when Obama genuinely offered them a chance at sharing power in bipartisan manner. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer never made that mistake again.
The first political reforms enacted by the Democratic Congress, with its fiercely partisan new President, and supported by a freshly liberal-leaning Supreme Court, did away with the corrosive damage of unlimited campaign financing when Citizens United was outlawed. This deprived the Republican party one of its strongest weapons of recent years. Retired Senator Harry Reid returned as Independent Council at the express personal request of President Hillary Clinton, to prosecute the worst offenders of campaign finance excess and was instrumental in breaking up the Koch Brothers empire and sending both brothers to prison.
The highly popular and populist voting rights laws, such as national motor-voter laws (automatically registering every US citizen of legal age) brought a fresh new enrollment of eligible voters for the 2018 midterm Congressional elections and the 2020 re-election for Hillary Clinton. These were mostly youth voters and minority voters which greatly benefitted Democrats in those elections. The Democrats in Congress ran through a series of laws outlawing several voter suppression methods from ID requirements to denying votes by felons who had served their time, to mandatory national 8 day early voting, to elongened voting times on voting day, and other such laws. These all were incremental small changes, which combined, helped boost Democratic vote in 2018 and 2020, while reducing some of the Republican party activities to try to reorganize and regroup after the Trump Con, with a party whose reputation was in tatters.
The Democrats ran the statehoods for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia which both were inaugrated as states in 2018 in time for the mid-term elections. Some have attributed as an aftermath of the Trump Con also the personal success of one politician related to these new states. DC became the state of New Columbia which elected as its first Governor, the lady who would eventually become the first black female President of the USA, the most popular candidate ever to run on any ticket, Michelle Obama. Her whole message from being Governor to being President was no more Trumps. She succeeded the two-term highly popular first Hispanic President, Hillary Clinton’s two-term Vice President Julian Castro. The two new states brought two new stars to the US flag, and the way Hillary Clinton campaigned for DC statehood and Puerto Rico statehood, the new flag with its 52 stars rather than 50, has become to be known as ‘The Hillary Flag’. Sending loyally Democratic Senators and House Members, for the next three decades, these two new states were part of what kept Congress in the iron grip of the Democratic Party even as the two-party system itself was crumbling.
Hillary Clinton’s first major legislation, the amnesty of the 11 Million illegal immigrants, produced a significantly larger wave of actual illegals than had been estimated. In total nearly 14 million illegals were given legal status and over the next two decades most of them also applied for and achieved citizenship. When their spouces and relatives - afraid often of registering or voting, were added, more than 20 million total voters were eventually added, almost exclusively to the Democratic party ranks. Their role in boosting the Democratic base were part of what future Democratic Presidential hopefuls always referred to as the solid ‘Hillary base’. Paul Ryan in his memoir wrote that this one act was what doomed Republicans from ever returning as an equal, as a major party again, when trying to recover after the Trump Con. Ryan claimed that the internal power battle between the pragmatist Republicans who had read the Mitt Romney autopsy, and the Tea Party fanatics, was what prevented the Republicans from enacting the Immigration compromise that would have prevented this political suicide.
After record-setting Republican obstruction on the Supreme Court, once Hillary Clinton and the Democrats took over in 2017, they rapidly confirmed President Obama’s nominee, Justice Garland and Hillary Clinton nominated a fiercely liberal minority female Justice as her second nominee just as an elder liberal Justice annouced retirement. Three years later, at the next Supreme Court retirement, Hillary Clinton was able to fulfill a promise she made four years prior to then-President Obama, when she nominated Obama to the bench who was approved by unanimous Senate confirmation. A year later Chief Justice Roberts retired and Obama was named the new Chief Justice. He served as Chief Justice over many of the most important rulings from the bench of the modern liberal era, until, in typical Barack Obama fashion, he stepped down from the bench, when his wife announced her run for President, to join her campaign as a surrogate and to do the only thing he loved more than the law - campaigning.
The Libertarian party used the Trump Con year to gain its foothold in the House, winning a dozen upset-victories for little-known members of Congress. Johnson and Weld would run again against incumbent sitting President Hillary Clinton finishing again second in 2020 but their actual impact was to help legitimize the Libertarian party as the only ‘sane’ or ‘adult’ or ‘modern’ alternative to the giant dominating monopolistic Democratic party, as the Republican party went into its desperate decade while it struggled with the remnants of the Tea Party lunatics it would eventually reject and eject. While the Republicans kept nominating white rich men as their always-losing candidates, the Libertarian party eventually won the Presidency in 2040 when they nominated an openly gay transgender woman ex-man atheist isolationist peacenick. Her successor was the last in the link to the Trump Con, when New York Governor Chelsea Clinton ran for President on the Democratic ticket and won in 2044.
VOTERS IN THE WILDERNESS
As always in confidence tricks, the lasting damage is with those who were directly injured. The base white male lowly-educated voters (and often their spouces) who had fallen for Trump were for a while lost, trying to reconcile the reality. They seeked Trump’s reassurances that Trump was right and they were robbed, but Trump soon left them as any con artist does when the mark has been robbed, and Trump went into his seclusion. As the parade of investigations and Trump Campaign bankruptcy was followed by the Republican party bankruptcy and then Trump personal bankruptcy, the reality set in. The disillionment among the core Trump voters was immense and for many they quit voting in elections forever, and some only returned when Michelle Obama ran, but then as freshly-registered Democrats. By this time Barack Obama’s Presidency was seen by the remnants of the Republicans as the ‘Golden age’ and Michelle Obama’s new brand of optimism and bipartisanship and post-partisanship (actually totally resurrected Barack Obama Hope 2008 campaign positions) were seen as hopeful for a new era, after what all on the right wing viewed as hostile authoritarian rule by President Julian Castro. Michelle Obama in her term was able to introduce a new kinder, more hopeful and less partisan era, as the last legacy of her husband and a new period past the divisive Hillary-Castro years. Michelle appointed several young Republicans and Libertarians into her Cabinet, as a sign of her post-partisanship, similar two what husband Barack Obama tried in 2008.
The Trump Con also meant that the blind trust by conservatives in the absolute truth of the right wing media instantly collapsed, and Fox News lost its leadership position in news, eventually leading to a total reorganization and a recommitment to news facts and the truth, rather than ratings and ravings. The hearings held by former Attorney General, appointed Special Prosecutor to Congress, Eric Holder, found so much deliberate lies and unethical behavior at Fox News, that Fox fired most of its on-screen personnel starting with Bill O’Reilly. After Megyn Kelly became the new face of Fox, a recovery was slowly built on facts, not fiction, with rigorous fact-checking and immediate on-air corrections to any mistakes, something Fox had not had as its policy for more than a decade. An internal audit, headed by Jon Stewart, was run with all findings published, which finally cleared the way for Fox to return to credibility as a news channel.
A part of Trump’s voters were not traditional Republican voters, they were on the fringe, racists and White Supremacists, and conspiracy theorists who normally would not vote at all. They retreated to their utter disgust and distrust of politics. But about one fifth of the Republican party base were Trump supporters who now felt completely betrayed. The man who ‘told it like it is’ was in fact a serial liar. The man who ‘self funded’ was in fact stealing their money. These were embittered and some migrated to the Libertarian party but many quit politics. The loss of these reliable if lowly-educated voters is what made the Republicans a junior party after the Trump Con and gave the chance for Libertarians to overtake the Republicans eventually in national support.
USES IN POPULAR CULTURE
Several movies were made of the Trump Con including The Greatest Con which won Tom Hanks his latest Oscar in the title role. The English Language usage of the term ‘trump’ has shifted from its previous meaning ‘to supercede in a bid’ to its modern meaning ‘complete fraud’. This is similar to how the word ‘gay’ once meant ‘happy’ but the meaning now is ‘homosexual’. The popular international card game Bridge, changed its international game rules to stop using the word ‘Trump’ in its bidding and has abandoned the word for its negative connotations. In Las Vegas, the modern meaning of a ‘Trump card’ has become to mean a hidden card by a cheat, such as hiding an ace in the sleeve. All meanings of the term ‘trump’ today have negative connotations.
TRUMP PERSONAL LIFE
After he quit the race in September 2016, the Republican party pleaded for Trump to resurrect his campaign, to no avail. His name was on the ballots and his final count was 15% of the vote in November. Already in October the various TV stations resorted to collection agencies to try to recover unpaid TV ad bills and stopped airing scheduled Trump TV ads until past bookings were paid for. The Trump 2016 Campaign managed to avoid bankruptcy until December but as numerous lawsuits were under way and creditors were loudly demanding to be paid, the Trump 2016 Campaign was placed into Chapter 11 protection. The debtors found no money in the Trump bank accounts and in the years of litigation that followed, none of the remaining debtors were ever paid. The Trump campaign had repaid all personal loans to Trump himself by late August when the Campaign still had plenty of money. The campaign was run so precisely to not cause Mr Trump any further losses, that Trump Enterprises were not even listed as debtors when the bankruptcy started. While the debts were several hundred million dollars, no money was owed to Trump enterprises by September.
Trump campaign finances were what seemed to be an orchestrated systematic mess designed to hide all transactions and enable as much of it to disappear as possible. As with all past Trump confidence tricks, Trump himself was able to remain untouched but all of his people running the scam were indicted and convicted to long prison sentences. Trump himself was forced into bankruptcy in January 2017. He tried several times to resurrect a TV career but now nobody wanted to watch him. His name was removed from the various buildings and golf courses as the name had become toxic. Trump was never invited to speak at any TV show again. His publisher refused to publish his new autobiography which he self-published and which saw negligent sales levels. Trump’s children kept his name but his grandchildren all switched to the family’s historic name Drumpf. Trump lived with his fourth wife, a former Eastern European Miss Universe contestant with significant plastic surgery, after his third wife left him. Trump lived to an age of 103 years in good health but never again had any chance at returning to fame and adulation. He was never invited to speak to the Republican party again in his lifetime.
TOMI END COMMENTS
So the above is a scenario, not a forecast. And yeah, I tricked you - like a good con man, eh? Its not a Wikipedia page written in 2018, it goes all the way to 2044 and haha.. but hey, lets say that this page was CREATED in 2018, and then had updates all the way to 2044.. Did you enjoy it?
I think its plausible that Trump will quit the race. He does not want the label ‘loser’ and when the loss to Hillary is clearly unavoidable, he will seek some way to end the run so he can avoid the ‘loss’. I wouldn’t say this is a forecast of what will happen (lets see how it plays now, I may change my mind as we get nearer to the debates) but Trump’s past behavior suggests this is DEFINITELY possible. If Trump were to end his run - he CLEARLY fears showing us his tax returns. He is terrified of that. He won’t. And if he quits, he won’t quit before he has repaid his own loans, so it will be sometime in August at the earliest. But Trump also doesn’t want to go into that debate against Hillary. He knows he will be massacred in that debate. So if he quits, and we just have to pick a date of when that might happen, then yeah, September, first debate. The week before, possibly as late as the day before, thats when it might happen, yes. Remember, Ross Perot the previous Billionaire to run, also quit his campaign. Trump is clearly irresponsible and eratic and a loose cannon. He could do it. And then, no matter if he comes back (like Ross Perot) then ALL credibility is lost and his loss will be EPIC. And the beneficiary will not be Hillary - who will win anyway - its the Libertarians. And the Democrats down-ticket, running to unseat sitting Republican Senators, House Members, Governors, Mayors etc.
Secondly, note two elements to this blog. One, is the ELECTION result, if Trump suddenly quits the race. Then a landslide victory by Hillary becomes an all-engulfing tsunami-wave utterly obliterating the Republican party at every level. BUT, the second part of this blog, is a speculation of a possible money fraudulent motive, a true confidence trick. They are not necessarily connected. Trump can well quit without the evil money-grubbing side to this story haha, that is just my wicked imagination. I am thinking obviously of the worst possible scenario and imagining Trump as a horrible monster of a person in a Bond-Villainesque manner. He is a nasty person with short fingers and ugly hairdo, and he’s run a lot of shady deals, but he does not necessarily have to have an evil money-corruption side to this play. He could drop out simply to save face, without any actual money fraud side to it. Its just more fun to speculate going the full distance to the worst I can imagine.
Trump will lose this election, that is clear. I don’t see the Libertarian party with a chance to get more votes than Trump, if Trump stays in it till the end. But Trump might quit (this way, or some other way, just before the debates, or at some other time). If Trump did quit, then I think many of his voters will stay home. Some will switch to the Libertarians. And some will come and vote for him anyway. Then it could well be that the Libertarians win more votes than Trump. And yeah, if Trump quits, its not just that Hillary wins by landslide and flips the Senate and House, then the Republican party is wrecked for years and years to come, and they will have HUGE mental trauma of the Trump Con. Now, can Hillary avoid scandals and troubles of the third Presidential term by the same party? Can she possibly win re-election? Could the world really be so bad that Castro then becomes the next President in 2024 and the fifth consecutive term by Democrats (and then Michelle haha as the next Democrat for the seventh consecutive term in 2032?) haha, yeah, at some point this blog is pure fiction. BUT, if Trump quits before November, then it is an election disaster for the Republicans like we have never seen. And Hillary and the Democrats are EXCEPTIONALLY poised to capitalize on that kind of total failure now, after 6 years of Republican obstruction in Congress and now the shenanigans with the Supreme Court. I think if Trump quits the race, then yes, an exceptional Liberal Era would be witnessed for maybe a decade or more. And the Libertarian party would then emerge as a legitimate third party for the USA with seats held in the House and even eventually winning some Senate seats.
So what do you think? A wicked Trump exit scenario, eh? Lastly, my thanks to two CDB blog readers, Winter and cornelius, who first suggested this to me and this blog, that actually, Trump might quit the race before the election. Winter first suggested it, and cornelius added the critical part - the ridiculous pretext and a related temper tantrum. Those two comments are what triggered my mind to devise this fantastical - but still plausible - exist strategy - and grand conspiracy - for our Trumpster.
UPDATE August 1, 2016 - I have now updated my 2016 General Election forecast and full analysis of all the details (fund-raising, electoral map, surrogates, TV ads, everything). Its at this link: Election Scorecard August 1, 2016
@Tomi: with enough lawyers and dogged outrage, I think the RNC could claw back some of the money from a Trump bankruptcy. Not sure either he or the RNC will survive the money pit that court case would become. As an example, groklaw.net (still alive but inactive) documents all the published court motions and documents of SCO's self destruction through bankruptcy.
Maybe the RNC can save themselves by demanding Trump pass a psychiatric evaluation before he gets the delegates.
Then "digby" has this idea about any pivot Trump might make for the general election:
"If Trump subscribes to the same wingnut stuff I do, this is what he's hearing: [...]
I think it's important to remember that all the things normal people find appalling about Trump are the things that his fans find appealing."
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/they-like-him-just-way-he-is.html
Here is a story about the origins of Trump University ...
"The booming industry of real estate investment seminar gurus—who by the early 2000s numbered in the dozens—made it clear that you could make big money selling a roomful of people at a time on the dream of easy riches. But seminar work itself was complex, ranging from managing teams of travelling crew members to keeping sales pitches just murky enough that law enforcement wouldn't butt in.
Trump wanted a piece of the action, so he struck a licensing deal with the Milins in 2006. The couple created the “Trump Institute,” using much of the same pitch material and some of the same pitchmen."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/we-witnessed-the-birth-of-trump-university/
Posted by: Millard Filmore | June 06, 2016 at 12:04 AM
Best for Trump would be for the FBI to refer numerous sorts and counts of felony charges against Hillary Clinton after she has secured her nomination via a contentious and riotous convention rivaling Chicago 1968.
Best for Trump would be for Bernie supporters to be denied twice. Once at the convention as Bernie's plan for super delegates to vote according to the candidate which carried their state is thwarted. Second at the point nominee Hillary quits post-convention, is pardoned by Obama according to their pre-arranged deal, and Joe Biden is declared the democrat nominee by the super delegate backed DNC.
Posted by: Stephen Reed | June 06, 2016 at 04:14 AM
@Stephen: If your scenario comes to pass, there is a good chance both Republicans and Democrats will have an empty slot at the top of the ticket.
Posted by: Millard Filmore | June 06, 2016 at 04:40 AM
@Millard
Explain please.
I do not believe there will be an empty spot at the top of the Democrat nor Republican ticket. It would be best for Trump to face Joe Biden with lots and lots of frustrated Bernie supporters, some of whom would vote for Trump.
West Virginia exit polls for example showed that many Sanders supporters would vote for Trump.
If the FBI refers charges before the Democratic convention and Hillary forced out, then Bernie has a case that he went to the voters in the contentious primary and that he should be awarded the nomination, even if Hillary instructs her delegates to vote for Biden.
Posted by: Stephen Reed | June 06, 2016 at 04:48 AM
The paranoia level in American politics has hit a high that we haven't seen in a century or more. Which makes this concept scarily plausible.
Talking about under-educated Trump voters, a Canadian politician has gone on record with his belief that schools are teaching non-Conservative values!
http://www.pressprogress.ca/jason_kenney_claims_canadian_schools_hard_wire_youths_with_anti_conservative_beliefs
Posted by: Wayne Borean | June 06, 2016 at 05:02 AM
@Stephen: Its all a mater of timing. If Hillary's indictment comes too late for the states to change the ballots, I think she will drop out. Then the lawyers for all the states get involved to decide what happens to the voting process.
Trump has 2 big vulnerabilities. One is his Trump University ... did you read the link I posted above? Texas and Florida have attracted the attention of the press. I will dig up some links and post them in a few hours. The issue is that the 2 states had cases in progress against Trump U. ... the cases were dropped, and some time later a nice election contribution was made.
The Texas problem might slide, as I think the delay between dropping the case and the money was measured in years. Florida is much more interesting as the "donation" was maybe a month.
The other Trump issue is his personality. I think Hillary, or her successor, can push his buttons to the point where he goes postal.
Both parties might be minus the top of the ticket after passing the point of no return. Wouldn't that be a hoot?
Posted by: Millard Filmore | June 06, 2016 at 05:13 AM
We've been discussing electoral dissatisfaction. It is happening in Italy too.
http://gu.com/p/4keht?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Posted by: Wayne Borean | June 06, 2016 at 05:24 AM
@Stephen:
Texas: case dropped, 3 years later $35,000 (the price of a Trump U 'elite' course!) donation. Maybe not a direct connection there.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-texas-official-says-he-was-told-to-drop-trump-university-probe/
Florida: This is the interesting one. Attorney general announces start of investigation into Trump U. From the second link below: "But three days later, a political action committee that supported Bondi received a check from Trump, and then nothing came of the investigation."
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-09-13/business/os-trump-institute-complaints-20130913_1_trump-entrepreneur-initiative-trump-university-florida-attorney-general
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-university-investigations_us_5751a6efe4b0eb20fa0dae66
Posted by: Millard Filmore | June 06, 2016 at 05:31 AM
@Stephen
The police arresting a leading politician just before the election on anything other than the most clear criminal cases is generally considered a coup d'etat. It is pretty common policy for dictators and juntas.
We have already heard from legal professionals that the email case is not a criminal case.
I am very sure Democrats will see this exactly as the attack on democracy it would be.
Posted by: Winter | June 06, 2016 at 06:32 AM
Btw, Tomi, good story. Drumpf would make for the perfect Bond villain. Not only his looks and mental disorder, but also his air of perversion (his obsession for his daughter).
To continue in along the above lines. Trump might be preparing the Trump U case as his exit excuse. Driving the judge's roots as "prejudice" as a conspiracy by the Democrats to deny him fair elections.
Growing fear inside GOP about Trump
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/05/politics/gop-fears-donald-trump-judge-attack/
Trump is under fire for repeatedly accusing U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing a lawsuit involving Trump University, of bias because of his Mexican heritage. Those concerns intensified Sunday after Trump said he would have the same concerns about the impartiality of a Muslim judge.
Posted by: Winter | June 06, 2016 at 06:46 AM
@Tomi
Also GOP and Dems would pass together with a new law which would be a "personalized" tax called Trump Tax, which applies only and only to Donald Trump. Something like 95% tax.
It may very well be that Trump game's from now on will be to take use the threat to quit the presidential race unless the GOP pays off all the debts (plus a nice fee) which he has accumulated during his campaign (by staying at Trump hotels).
Posted by: Oibur | June 06, 2016 at 07:03 AM
@Oibur: I like the way you think! Extortion!
Despite any comments I leave here on this blog, I do not get warm fuzzy feelings for the prospect of one party rule for as many years that the Republicans will be in disarray.
The mischief and influence of the oligarchs will follow sirens' call of power over to the Democratic party.
Posted by: Millard Filmore | June 06, 2016 at 07:40 AM
@Millard
" I do not get warm fuzzy feelings for the prospect of one party rule"
I do not think you need to worry. Contrary to what Tomi describes, I think that the Democratic party will split the moment the "threat" of the Republican party disappears. That is just human nature.
Posted by: Winter | June 06, 2016 at 07:48 AM
And we are not alone with our hunch that Drumpf might simply quit the race:
Hunch: Trump will quit the race if he thinks he'll lose by a wide margin
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/blogs/20160601/hunch-trump-will-quit-race-if-he-thinks-hell-lose-by-wide-margin
Posted by: Winter | June 06, 2016 at 08:15 AM
Hi everybody
Great comments. I especially liked Oibur's contribution - yes, of course extortion. He's done that before, of course he will. How did I miss it, haha... great one Oibur!
To Millard's worries - I totally concur. Its so very true that power corrupts and total power corrupts totally. Hillary would be politically the most powerful President in many decades, but after also many decades where more power has been concentrated to the executive branch. A 'near saint' like say Jimmy Carter, might not take much advantage of all that, but a machiavellian and vengeful President like Hillary (with all the gripes they have with Bill going back to his Presidency) would only make her even more eager to consolidate and use (ie abuse) that power.
Now what do I mean political power? Gosh EVERYTHING. The Senate was with Repubicans. Its her coat-tails which mainly bring the Senate to the Democrats, but even more with the Senate, the previous Democratic boss there, Harry Reid is retiring so Chuck Schumer will be even more under the thumb of the White House. Then the House. Its a HUGE hole for the past 6 years where the DEMs have fallen. If Hillary can bring a tsunami-wave to overcome that gap, then even as its veteran wily Nancy Pelosi as the returning House Chair, she will have to admit its Hillary who brought her back to power and let the White House lead on her agenda too. Also Pelosi's fights with Obama in 2008-2010 were more around his initial bipartisan agenda and obsession to try to seek Republican bipartisan support to every law - rather than the DEMs pushing their advantage, where they even briefly had a filibuster-proof Senate. Pelosi's views are far more in line (on domestic matters at least) with where Hillary is and vice versa.
The big other key is 'mandate'. Obama could fairly claim a mandate when he won by 7% in 2008. Hillary is probably winning by 20 points and very very likely by at least 15% which is twice the size of the mandate Obama had. Hillary could be as far up as 25% on her mandate, meaning that by election result 'standard' the nation would have accepted her with more than King-like authority, its nearly God-like authority haha.
Again, this would be dangerous even if the President was a really really nice guy (Jimmy Carter) and nearly incorruptable. But if the President herself is ALREADY a corrupt and power-hungry person - then this is a very bad recipe. As I've written many times, the Obama years will be seen as unusually devoid of any scandals. The scandals will come back in the Hillary years, and they are likely to grow BIGGER and worse with time. This would be a great opening for Republicans if they still exist as a significant major party (ie Trump had not been able to destroy the party and enable the Libertarians to emerge as a viable alternative nationally). If the Republicans are so much in disarray - in the 'autopsy' stage of the demoralizingly massive Trump loss - then some will hold their Tea Party passions and missions of denial and obstruction but now with no power to deny or obstruct anything anymore - and the religious wing will insist on their purity - while the moderates will demand a shift to an open, large-tent, welcoming multicultural Republican party. This internal battle has to be resolved (to the moderate wing's success) before the party can hope to win in national elections again. And I think it won't even be possible before they nominate a Ted Cruz style extremist and 'pure' Republican, which should happen in 2020. That means the first election where a consolidated Republican party might emerge is mid-terms 2022 at the earliest, Presidential election of 2024 more likely.
But it means, that while the Hillary Clinton Presidency is likely to feature severe over-reach by her administration, pursuing vendettas, and various characters taking advantage - into real scandals - but as the Democrats hold all the cards, most of these will also be papered over with minor slaps on the wrist, not any major prosecutions etc, it also gives a feeling of invincibility to those in positions of power who are close to the White House. Its all a VERY bad prescription for honesty and good governance.
And thats before we consider that the Supreme Court switches balance, so even SCOTUS is far less likely to interfere with Hillary's activities..
I do believe that currently the 'do nothing' Republicans are acting like children and they deserve NOW what they have sowed. Once they grow up and reverse course, they should be able to get back into power. Unfortunately for the Republicans, this Trump situation will make their exodus from power far more widely-felt and long-lasting.
Now, a good major political scandal is a good way to help the 'other party' get back into power. Expect the standard refrain from all running in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024 - both on Republican and Libertarian tickets - to keep singing that song, that the Hillary administration is incredibly corrupt and full of scandals and must go. BUT... She will run through pretty much all the laws I outlined in the above, to change the political landscape of ELECTIONS by which the advantages now given Republicans are removed (gerrymandering, Citizens United, voter suppression etc). And the Republicans even before Trump troubles are the smaller party TODAY (before we consider defections to the Libertarians) and the demographics keep shifting against the 'classic' Republican voter base. So even if they have a good cause ie Hillary's scandals, they are likely too weak to really capitalize on it and get back into power.
After gerrymandering is removed, then the pattern of where the gains are most likely follow the pattern of - Presidency, House, Senate and SCOTUS. The Presidency can be captured by a party in very poor shape, if they have the perfectly appealing candidate and the rival party is in bad shape. Jimmy Carter coming from nowhere to take the Presidency in 1976 - because of the Nixon pardon aftermath. Bill Clinton coming from nowhere in 1992 after 12 years of Reagan-Bush scandals like Iran-Contra and of course, Read My Lips.
So even if the Republican party was destroyed, their CANDIDATE could run 'inspite of the party' and win. Imagine the best most appealing moments of Marco Rubio this past cycle, and imagine if that was run in 2020 instead of ruining so much of that youthful hope and promise now with the sillyness about Trump's penis size etc. So someone as exciting but honestly fresh and untested - and young, vibrant, Hispanic, hopeful - to run after 4 years of grumpy vengeful overpowering grandma Hillary in the White House. There is a huge bench of VERY competent election professionals on the right wing, including of course very competent Big Data professionals. Regardless of how much in disarray the national party might be, an individual and strong campaign could well emerge to challenge for the Presidency. And funding will be available. After Citizens United, not in obscene amounts to SuperPACS (but neither to the Democrats) and again, a young smart social-media oriented modern campaign, could do fund-raising like Bernie Sanders and get a big budget and be viable.
Now, the 2020 midterms will have Hillary the sitting President with all that power of the incumbency, who will REALLY know how to use it all. She also will have changed the political GAME with all the election law changes - which her team knows best, which have all been tested and run through her Big Data operation to tweak and adjust those legislative changes to maximize her re-election chances (its the only thing she cares about, she doesn't want to go down as a one-term President when Bill was re-elected). I don't think any sitting President has ever worked as hard and worried as much about re-election as Hillary has ALREADY TODAY before she has won the first election haha. Plus again, she has exceptional insights into how to do that via the inside view with Bill and on Obama's team (she quit the State Department only after the 2012 election if you remember, so she saw that election also from the inside).
Thats why its FAR more likely that the first genuine chance to steal the White House back is 2024 when Julian Castro is likely - but not certainly - the Democratic nominee. Its very possible if the scandals are bad, the economy is down, there are new nasty wars draining the nation's patience - that Castro is 'severely tainted' by Hillary's Administration and he'd want to run away from her, like Al Gore did from Bill Clinton (and Daddy Bush from Reagan). And the race for the Democratic nomination 2024 could be a heated contest - imagine Elizabeth Warren at her prime, a VERY strong candidate likely, at that time.
But yeah, Presidency is 'easiest' to recapture. Then the House is next easiest. It takes a wave election, a national effort, not just one campaign but something well planned and coordinated (like Newt Gingrich's Contract with America) but the good thing is, the House elections come every 2 years, giving a chance often. And you just need one success. Thats why its easier than the Senate.
The Senate is difficult to recapture in one good year, because only a third of the Senate is in play at any one election. So if one party is powerful, the rival has to make a long-term play, to take PART of the lead away in this cycle, then continue the attacks 2 years later, to narrow the gap more, and then maybe win another 2 years later.. And at any time, the other party may have a good year and reverse some of those gains.
The hardest to flip is the Supreme Court, because the appointments are life-time. So unless one dies in office, then its a very long haul to get rid of a Justice who might be on the 'other side' Conservative/Liberal - and often the oldest, nearing retirement Justices when they have their 'own side' in power in the White House (and Senate) will then retire so their own President can nominate their successor to continue that side. As we've seen its 40 years since the Supreme Court last switched its balance.
All this is why I said in my scenario, that the first pillar of power that the Democrats lose is the Presidency - to the Libertarians. That is a popularity contest and an exciting Presidential nominee can easily make it a real race. Imagine Nicki Haley, she is very well poised to be a viable Republican challenger for 2020 or 2024 now, with a far better chance of winning the Presidency than say Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, even if Hillary Clinton is in a total swamp of a crashing economy, several new wars and conflicts, various riots back home, soaring gasoline prices, and a dozen scandals haha (including at least one about her, herself and probably another about Bill).
Once the Republicans (and Fox News and right-wing talk shows) are out of power totally, their ONLY way to be noticed is to scream and yell about how rotten she is. The attacks on Hillary will make the Obama years seem like a love-fest. And for good reason, she also will not pretend to be a bipartisan post-partisan. She will govern with the most partisan agenda we've seen in our lifetimes. She has seen how the Obama experiment was a total failure and thus, she will react by going the opposite. Not total bipartisanship; total partisanship. And holding all aspects of power, she can then ram that through with ruthless efficiency.
I totally agree with Millard that the future past years 2017-2018 will be likely quite nasty political years and her Presidency will not be viewed kindly with the hindsight of history, BUT where Obama was seen as weak and not accomplishing a lot, her Presidency will be seen as VERY strong and accomplishing a lot, BUT with all the damage that her style will do, and taking consolidation of power to a whole new level.
If Hillary campaigns on continuing the Obama agenda and years (while she won't) its VERY likely that Julian Castro will campaign in 2024 on a campaign of a kinder-gentler era, past the hostile Hillary years - and try to campaign on DIScontinuing the Hillary agenda and years (while he actually will mostly actually continue those anyway).
Thats partly why I had the Michelle Obama scenario written in. If the Democrats do achieve an astonishing uninterrupted 7 Presidential election wins in a row for their party, Obama-Hillary-Castro-Michelle, and running 2008-2036 in power (or up to 2040 if Michelle is re-elected) then SHE, Michelle HAS to run on a total break from Hillary-Castro years and corruption and abuse and foreign policy and severe partisanship. She could run everything Barack Obama ran in 2008 and it would ring true then, hope and change. Change by a Democrat, to change AWAY from a long reign of Democrats.
PS more likely, the Republicans (or possibly Libertarians) retake the Presidency in 2024, where a heated contested run where Castro tries to get the nomination leaves the Democrats torn and a hopeful young different - very 'pure' and very 'anti-war' and anti-globalist Republican (or Libertarian) would win. Being out of power brings a lot of motivation to focus and unite and fight. Year 2024 is VERY likely a change where the Democrats lose the White House.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | June 06, 2016 at 08:52 AM
More who think Trump might just quit:
https://samvaknin.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/will-trump-quit-the-race/
Start with the facts: Trump is a quintessential quitter. He had quitted marriages, business deals, enterprises, and campaigns. When things get rough, he reflexively abandons ship. He is labile, desultorily hopping from one harebrained scheme to another, one romantic union to its successor, one burst of self-promotion to a spectacular, implosive feat of self-destruction. Indeed, this is his brand: a feckless, reckless, daring, unpredictable, vicissitudinal Trump with a capital T.
From earlier:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-polls_us_5611856fe4b07681270265d5
Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will drop out of the presidential race if polling shows that he is going to lose.
"I'm not a masochist," the entertainer and Republican presidential candidate said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And if I was dropping in the polls, where I saw that I wasn't gonna win, why would I continue?"
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/donald-trump-2016-quit-business-deals-213264
Throughout his career, Trump has demonstrated wild enthusiasm at the start of big projects, and ruthlessly pursued a profit agenda that, in many cases, has led him to ditch the deal when the risks, whether financial or reputational, start to outweigh the prospective reward.
http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2015/07/07/trump-will-quit-the-race-rather-than-reveal-details-of-his-finances/
The reason for Trump’s impending withdrawal is rather simple: He doesn’t want to disclose details of his financial empire.
http://www.scotsman.com/mobile/news/opinion/joe-nocera-why-donald-trump-will-quit-2016-race-1-3904913
There’s one other thing. All his life, Trump has had a deep need to be perceived as a “winner”. He always has to be perceived coming out on top. That’s why, ultimately, I don’t think he’ll ever put himself at the mercy of actual voters in a primary. To do so is to risk losing. And everyone will know it.
Posted by: Winter | June 06, 2016 at 08:54 AM
PS two more thoughts
I esxpect the closest parallel to Hillary Presidency is Margaret Thatcher. She was VERY strong, ran the party and country in her iron grip, but she was NOT liked, not even within her own party. Considering her incredible list of accomplishments home and abroad, she left office in very much national fatigue and even the party wanted a total change>
BUT. The reason I said the abuses and scandals period of Hillary's 8 year administration start only from 2019 onwards, is because of the VERY populist easy wins she has early on, thanks to Republican ridiculous obstruction in the past 8 years. So Hillary has already telegraphed her early agenda and its all populist stuff that will be highly popular, the minimum wage, paid maternity, taxes on the richest, sensible gun-control laws etc. In addition to the popular changes to election laws, the first two years of her term will feature a huge list of 'easily achieved' laws which will be NOTICED - including some economic pandering (jobs for infrastructure) which will help either postpone the coming recession or quickly pull the US out of the one if it slipped into recession in early 2017.
So the first two years of her term will likely feature a TON of laws and governing that is POPULAR and she may well hold a positive popularity through the mid-terms of 2018 but I think that will be exhausted by about 2018 and from 2019 we start to see the bad sides, and the inevitable Democratic over-reaches. Once you have tasted the sweet taste of taxing the rich - that becomes a pattern - it won't be only one tax increase on the rich, and only on the millionaires, it will soon be a second and third tax increase, also on those earning more than 500,000 dollars, and then even those earning more than 300,000 dollars etc... a classic slippery slope. She'll bring the Democrats back to their roots on the area of being 'tax and spend liberals' partly because the budget deficits are so bad, they HAVE to raise taxes and partly because she is the hawk and doesn't want to cut the military spending nearly as much as her fellow Democrats would like.. This in turn, will help galvanize many to come back to Republicans (or now, haha Libertarians) calling for less taxes!
Yeah, it will be an interesting period, but the first 2 years of her Administration is VERY VERY much-needed emergency-style legislation to fix all that Republican obstruction - like say the Zika virus and dealing with that, etc.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | June 06, 2016 at 09:12 AM
@Tomi
"I esxpect the closest parallel to Hillary Presidency is Margaret Thatcher."
If we take this parallel, then I expect Hillary to use her first term to cement her power to ensure her grip on the house(s) in 2018 and her reelection. Although she has the power in the executive and elected branches, she still does not have it in SCOTUS. She will also have to break the power of the Oligarch Billionaires (Koch brothers, Adelson). The Clintons were almost bankrupted by the relentless suing by Republican agents (e.g., Stark). She will want to make sure that will not happen again.
Therefore, I do expect the decay to only set in after her reelection when she starts to push the career of Chelsea.
Posted by: Winter | June 06, 2016 at 09:49 AM
@Millard,
Pam Bondi has close ties to the Church of Scientology. Makes you wonder if Donald Trump may also have ties to them.
http://tonyortega.org/2014/07/01/rathbun-scientology-never-endorsed-anyone-where-there-wasnt-a-clear-self-interest/
Posted by: Wayne Borean | June 06, 2016 at 10:01 AM
@Tomi,
You've mentioned corruption and the Clintons many times. I think that it may not be as big a problem as you assume.
Hillary Clinton is not a stupid woman. Nor is she a poor one. When Bill was governor of Arkansas the Clintons were not rich. Since that time they've become rich, and therefore knowing that everyone will be watching out for her and Bill to line their pockets, I suspect she'll play it straight.
Which doesn't mean I'm right. She probably is not as smart as I am!
Now as to scandals by Democratic insiders, she has less control over that sort of thing, but if she is smart she'll bring the hammer down hard on anyone who does get involved.
At least that's what I would do if I was her.
Now as to Veep choices, everyone seems to want to push Castro. While he might be a good choice, he shares his last name with Fidel, and Fidel is still the Devil to a lot of Americsns. Also he isn't very well known except to political junkies.
So let's accept that Hillary is not going to hand a Senate seat to a Republican Governor to fill. That limits the number of candidates. She will want to pick someone popular, who has a good grasp of policy issues, and preferably some White House experience. A Law degree would be a bonus. The candidate should also be a minority. A minority woman would be a bonus. A minority woman with countrywide name recognition would just about be perfect.
Using that set of requirements the perfect Veep would be (drum roll)
Michelle Obama!
Yes, Republicans hate her. Republicans will hate whoever Hillary picks, so this isn't going to change anything. But...
It solidifies the Black vote. It solidifies the Woman vote. It solidifies the Millenial vote.
I can't think of a single downside to picking Michelle Obama as Veep. No doubt someone else here can. I await your comments.
Posted by: Wayne Borean | June 06, 2016 at 10:23 AM