What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Berkut]

We know that Clinton lost in an election against Trump. We don't know if that was a sure, or even likely, outcome. Most of the analysis done suggests that it was a relatively unlikely outcome.

[grumbler]

One of the big problems, to my mind, is that by running Hillary instead of any other candidate, the Republicans were able to use the ghost of Bill Clinton and the warchest of Hillary hate and possible negative information they'd been building since the 2008 primary campaign or before against her.  Add in that she actually held positions of power that required making tough choices that resulted in real world implications and you've got a candidate that could do the impossible: lose to Donald Trump.  If any almost other candidate had been run by the Democrats, male or female, I think they would have won.  Hillary was most definitely qualified, but she also had the most Republican hate baggage to drag her campaign down.

I don't think that this is true.  I don't think that the "Hillary hate" element was what motivated people to vote for Trump, because I think that the people who hated Hillary would never have voted Democratic in the first place.  I think that there were three elements in play, two of which favored Trump:
1.  A lot of normal Republican voters stayed home, because they couldn't stomach voting for either candidate, but
2.  A lot of normally apathetic voters bought Trump's unicorn dreams and voted for him, and
3.  A lot of normal Democratic voters were turned off by either Clinton's rather bland campaign that offered nothing to them, or were pissed because they thought she dissed Bernie.

The electorate in the campaign was not the usual one, and the pollsters and Clinton's campaign was so focused on item one that they didn't see items two and three coming.

[grumbler]

Which raise the question, what would have been the odds in a Bernie-Trump race?

Trump would have crushed him.  Bernie is an honest and earnest fruit loop.  He isn't even a Democrat.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Also I think you're right that anyone but Hilary running for Democrats would have dumped Trump.

To be honest, I don't think Bernie would have.

At any rate, keep in mind that almost all of us thought that there was no way Trump would even win the Republican nomination.  We kept waiting for him to implode or the voters to come to their senses, but it never happened.

Which raise the question, what would have been the odds in a Bernie-Trump race?

Sanders had a pretty substantial lead in polls. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html. I imagine that he'd have cut into Trump's numbers among the white working class, but that some Clinton constituencies (centrist professionals, slightly conservative women, etc.) would have had lower turnout.

[jimmy olsen]

It's hilarious that this is the POTUS Americans want to have.

Not the majority of Americans.

Not even Trump wanted it.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html

Shortly after 8 p.m. on Election Night, when the unexpected trend — Trump might actually win — seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears — and not of joy.

There was, in the space of little more than an hour, in Steve Bannon's not unamused observation, a befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a horrified Trump. But still to come was the final transformation: Suddenly, Donald Trump became a man who believed that he deserved to be, and was wholly capable of being, the president of the United States.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mxLjh4alU8

I can't believe no one has mentioned the Dr. Evil resemblance yet.

[Eddie Teach]

Because he wears glasses and Dr Evil wears a monocle.

[garbon]

ACLU be winning

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/06/aclu-2018-midterms-327115

ACLU to storm 2018 midterms

The American Civil Liberties Union, rarely an active player in national campaigns, is jumping into the 2018 midterms with plans to spend upward of $25 million promoting ballot initiatives and issues in contested races across the country.

Soaring after a banner year — the ACLU raised $93 million online in the 12 months after Donald Trump was elected president, up from $5.5 million the year before, and its membership quadrupled to 1.6 million — the civil rights group is in the midst of a dramatic makeover. The group aims to rival the National Rifle Association as a force on the left and become a hub of the anti-Trump movement.

"It's clear that a larger portion of the American public is deeply engaged in politics in a way they've never been before," said Executive Director Anthony Romero — and the ACLU aims to be a hub of liberal political activism.

Most of the ACLU's spending in 2018 will be directed at Republicans, though operatives haven't ruled out indirectly going after Democrats on the wrong side of their issues, too. It will not form a PAC or endorse candidates, moves that would mean losing its 501(c)(4) nonprofit status, instead limiting its activity to promoting issues and initiatives. Among them are voting rights, the travel ban, disability rights, reproductive rights and immigration.

The explosion in donors and members came during a roller-coaster year that saw the civil rights group in the eye of some of the biggest political storms. The ACLU catapulted into public view with its opposition to Trump's travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries in the early days of his presidency, and experienced a backlash after going to court to defend the right of white nationalists to protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer — a move consistent with its history of defending free speech regardless of the speaker.

Wading into the midterms is part of a larger recalibration for the 100-year-old civil rights organization, as it taps into the same the anti-Trump grass roots that sprouted a range of new Trump opposition groups. It has been rapidly adding new staff and projects, from joining the coalition that organized against repealing Obamacare to taking action to protect so-called sanctuary cities.

The ACLU has already committed to spending $5 million to qualify and propel a ballot initiative in Florida to re-enfranchise up to 1.5 million convicted felons. Romero said if the proposal succeeds in adding that many voters to the rolls ahead of the 2020 election, the effect will be "felt not just in Florida, but across the country, in terms of a very different view of the political map."

A seven-figure investment in a similar ballot initiative in another state is being finalized, Romero said. And the ACLU has begun to zero in on other races: in Kansas, where conservative Kris Kobach is running for governor; in Wisconsin, to stop Scott Walker from winning another term; and in a slate of races for Republican-held House seats that Democrats are trying to flip. In all, ACLU officials say they expect to get involved in about a dozen races, including for district attorney in California and Texas.

"When you look at what Trump and [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions have created, the outrage has made voters want to know how they can reverse the tide," said Faiz Shakir, political director hired a year ago specifically to bolster the organization's activity following Trump's election. "It provides you an opportunity to explain some of these down-ballot races."

Pushing comparisons to the NRA's success in turning an issue advocacy organization into a key stamp of approval for elections, the ACLU will issue a scorecard rating officials by their voting records and public statements; host town halls and conduct phone banks; and invest in radio and TV ads to "hang civil rights and civil liberties issues around the necks of candidates and officeholders around the nation," Shakir said. Voter turnout will also be a major focus.

In addition to Shakir and his existing staff, the ACLU is planning to hire a pollster and contract an outside political strategy firm. Though most of the activity will be directed out of the ACLU's national headquarters, operatives there will coordinate and direct activity through local chapters.

The ACLU will also continue efforts on the state level, modeling voting rights initiatives off its successful pursuit of sanctuary city ordinances last year in places like Ann Arbor, Michigan; Phoenix; and Dane County, Wisconsin.

Other groups on the left have seen similar booms in response to Trump's presidency.

...

[The Brain]

The group aims to rival the National Rifle Association as a force on the left

Not that hard?

[Sophie Scholl]

It could be the people in my area, but the anti-Hillary sentiment was stronger than the pull from Trump for undecided voters I personally know.  It's also one of the reasons Sanders did so well in the Democratic Primary.  You can mark as anecdotal, which is fine and true, but I think that sentiment might have run more deeply in the smaller city and rural rust belt regions which proved so vital in the actual election.

[DGuller]

I think Hillary has been character assassinated with remarkable success over the last several decades.  In my experience, even when I spoke with liberal minded people, when I said that "we don't really know whether Hillary is as corrupt and scheming as she's portrayed", people went "okay, I think you're just being contrarian now" or some variation on the theme.

[Razgovory]

One of the big problems, to my mind, is that by running Hillary instead of any other candidate, the Republicans were able to use the ghost of Bill Clinton and the warchest of Hillary hate and possible negative information they'd been building since the 2008 primary campaign or before against her.  Add in that she actually held positions of power that required making tough choices that resulted in real world implications and you've got a candidate that could do the impossible: lose to Donald Trump.  If any almost other candidate had been run by the Democrats, male or female, I think they would have won.  Hillary was most definitely qualified, but she also had the most Republican hate baggage to drag her campaign down.

I don't think that this is true.  I don't think that the "Hillary hate" element was what motivated people to vote for Trump, because I think that the people who hated Hillary would never have voted Democratic in the first place.  I think that there were three elements in play, two of which favored Trump:
1.  A lot of normal Republican voters stayed home, because they couldn't stomach voting for either candidate, but
2.  A lot of normally apathetic voters bought Trump's unicorn dreams and voted for him, and
3.  A lot of normal Democratic voters were turned off by either Clinton's rather bland campaign that offered nothing to them, or were pissed because they thought she dissed Bernie.

The electorate in the campaign was not the usual one, and the pollsters and Clinton's campaign was so focused on item one that they didn't see items two and three coming.

This is undercut by the fact 2016 had a higher turnout than 2012.

Talking about how "normal" republicans didn't vote for him, or how "normally apathetic" did, seems like a good way to miss the obvious take-away.  A lot of Republicans are bigots.  They nominated the most bigoted man in the primary and they voted for him in the general.  They knew he was a liar, but they don't care.  They believe he will hurt Hispanics.  They believe he will get rid of the Muslims.  They believe that blacks will be put back in their place.

[Malthus]

It totally would not surprise me if Trump, Bannon etc. are playing a version of a two-man con; the one writes a book full of nonsense, the other makes it popular by (completely unenforceable) attempts to suppress it, tantrums, etc. - they sell a mountain of copies, make a mint, distract attention ...

Maybe, but that's not what this is... this is an independent investigative author who had unprecedented access quoting a bunch of administration insiders (including Bannon at the time). It highlights how many of Trump's team think he's an idiot, and it highlights how dysfunctional the administration is. Bannon does not profit from this at all, even if he's quoted as saying nasty things about Trump.

The suggestion is that Trump is once again playing the 'all publicity is good publicity' card - focusing attention on the 'Trump is a clueless moron' angle to distract attention away from the 'Trump is a hateful criminal and traitor' aspects of his story.

The "Trump is too much of a neophyte to have knowingly committed a crime" narrative is a favourite of the GOP, and they have been spouting it since the spring. Fire and Fury gives it renewed life, as do Trump's tweets on Saturday, in which he proclaimed in an ostentatiously moronic way that he's not a moron. As evidence mounts in the Mueller probe, Mr. Trump seems to be casting himself as a dupe instead of a deceiver.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/trump-is-no-genius-but-hes-smart-at-playing-dumb/article37518954/

We all know that he's a narcissist of the first order - as well as being completely shameless. Could this be an example of clowning around at playing dumb, specifically to distract public attention from his actual crimes and failures? It is very odd that this independent investigator was allowed such access to the White House and only on the eve of publication is Trump making a (totally ineffectual) attempt at suppression.

[Razgovory]

A gossip reporter getting access to White House and even Trump himself is not as odd as it appears.  Trump craves these people's approval.  At Trump's core is still the young man from Queens who wants the respect of the Manhattan elite.  What Trump isn't, is self-aware.  He really doesn't understand how other people see him.  I think these two strands of his personality explain much of his behavior.

[mongers]

A gossip reporter getting access to White House and even Trump himself is not as odd as it appears.  Trump craves these people's approval.  At Trump's core is still the young man from Queens who wants the respect of the Manhattan elite.  What Trump isn't, is self-aware.  He really doesn't understand how other people see him.  I think these two strands of his personality explain much of his behavior.

Indeed, I favour your interpretation, rather than Trump as the arch-manipulator.