What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[CountDeMoney]

Trump is great buddies with Putin and Xi. Nuclear holocaust is very unlikely outside Korea.

Right.

[CountDeMoney]

Oh man, looks like Der Trumpenfurher is gonna go down to the playground, gotta throw down at the playground.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account
@realDonaldTrump 20 minutes ago

The Democrats have said some of the worst things about James Comey, including the fact that he should be fired, but now they play so sad!

Donald J. Trump‏ Verified account
@realDonaldTrump 12 minutes ago

James Comey will be replaced by someone who will do a far better job, bringing back the spirit and prestige of the FBI.

Donald J. Trump‏ Verified account
@realDonaldTrump 4 minutes ago

Comey lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike. When things calm down, they will be thanking me!

What an infant    We're all going to die.

[CountDeMoney]

[OttoVonBismarck]

Eh, Trump has a point in that a lot of Dems were saying Comey needed to go. My 1000' observation is Comey really did need to go, he basically went rogue at the end of Obama's Presidency; despite what was said earlier no one at DoJ gave him authority to start doing press conferences and breaking years of FBI precedent by offering opinions on whether a person's behavior was good/bad while issuing a statement that they shouldn't be prosecuted (which said statement also was out of norms for an FBI director.)

Loretta Lynch never actually said the FBI could run the DoJ, she said basically she wouldn't be involved in the investigation and the recommendation to come out of that investigation would basically be where she took her cue from, and then she only responded cagily when asked if she'd consider overruling the FBI's recommendations.

DoJ never signed off on Comey's press conferences, but reportedly were afraid to try and stop him because they thought he'd just go ahead and talk to the press anyway, or even leak to the press if they tried to stop him.

So Trump has a lot of actual cover for firing Comey, frankly Obama should've fired Comey. That makes it different from Nixon firing Archibald Cox, whose only real wrong was investigating a guilty President. It's also different because Cox was a special prosecutor, whose sole job it was to investigate a specific set of circumstances. Comey wasn't personally running any investigation, he was running the whole FBI. It'd be silly to say the FBI director should be immune from dismissal for doing a bad job because one of the thousands of active FBI investigations has political implications.

All that being said, no one thinks Trump fired Comey over the Clinton email scandal, at least not for the reasons he's publicly stated. I see only really two reasons he may have actually fired Comey:

1. To try and derail the Russia investigation
2. Basically because Comey did in fact go rogue before, and Trump hates the thought of that because he hates disloyalty, and a loose cannon FBI director is a vague threat to Trump

If it's Option 1, I think Trump is in trouble because to make that scheme work he has to do a lot more than just fire Comey. He has to then hire a true crony type, get that person through Senate confirmation, then that person has to basically shut down the investigation. Considering there are four active congressional investigations into the Russian election shenanigans, lead by guys like Lindsey Graham, they're going to be asking the FBI a lot of hard questions about the status of the FBI Russia probe going forward. If it looks like Trump is actually moving to shut it down, that's the real "Watergate moment", and to be honest I think there's a chance you'd start to see major Republican defections from Trump in both Houses of Congress.

[garbon]

Option 1 is the only one that really makes sense. Why wait till right now for Option 2? If he is a threat as a loose cannon, he was so when Trump started up.

[Tamas]

I have a limited view on things, obviously, but I can't see any consequential number of Republicans defecting Trump. Where do they have to defect to? Their electorate is now made of people who prefer Trump over a handful of other people, all at least slightly less insane. If there is a post-Trump GOP, it's a GOP led by somebody at least as insane and inane as Trump, not somebody less so.

[CountDeMoney]

Being fired out of town by the President's bouncer during a high-profile counter-intelligence investigation on members of the Oval Office is not exactly the best optics.  But Trump has never been about optics, has he?

And how the fuck are you even posting, Otto?  I didn't think they had Wi-Fi in Tijuana.  Aren't you rounding up Hondurans and shit?

[CountDeMoney]

I have a limited view on things, obviously, but I can't see any consequential number of Republicans defecting Trump. Where do they have to defect to? Their electorate is now made of people who prefer Trump over a handful of other people, all at least slightly less insane. If there is a post-Trump GOP, it's a GOP led by somebody at least as insane and inane as Trump, not somebody less so.

[Grey Fox]

I read Viper's entire post.

I had to mention that, took a long time.

[DontSayBanana]

- snip crazy quote trying to defend Trump -

Dude, if it was about loyalty, why'd he wait 3 1/2 months to clean that house?  Now we know the White House knew not only about Flynn, but that it went so far as the possibility of criminal prosecution was discussed.  18 days until he was fired.  Comey is a loose cannon, sure, and I'm not one who'll be shedding too many tears over his departure.  But it was so pressing that he be fired for it... over 100 days later?

Meanwhile, we know Donnie Boy is incredibly impulsive.  The day Sally Yates delivered on evidence that proved Flynn was a liability?  Fired.  The day Sally Yates and James Clapper all but glomar'ed the country that the FBI is running a criminal investigation over all this?  Comey's fired.

[DGuller]

I have a limited view on things, obviously, but I can't see any consequential number of Republicans defecting Trump. Where do they have to defect to? Their electorate is now made of people who prefer Trump over a handful of other people, all at least slightly less insane. If there is a post-Trump GOP, it's a GOP led by somebody at least as insane and inane as Trump, not somebody less so.

I still keep dreaming that maybe Trump will make some people stop and think:  "What the fuck did this come to?"  It's obviously not a rational dream, the events of the last couple of decades make hardened cynicism the only rational outcome.

[HVC]

I have a limited view on things, obviously, but I can't see any consequential number of Republicans defecting Trump. Where do they have to defect to? Their electorate is now made of people who prefer Trump over a handful of other people, all at least slightly less insane. If there is a post-Trump GOP, it's a GOP led by somebody at least as insane and inane as Trump, not somebody less so.

I still keep dreaming that maybe Trump will make some people stop and think:  "What the fuck did this come to?"  It's obviously not a rational dream, the events of the last couple of decades make hardened cynicism the only rational outcome.

People don't care enough. He's GOP they'll vote GOP. You rarely make people vote against their party. Your bet is whether they vote or not, not which party the vote for. Come 2020 republicans will either vote for him, or not vote, but they won't vote democrat.

[HVC]

your president everybody

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/before-firing-comey-trump-was-reportedly-so-angry-about-the-russia-case-hed-scream-at-television-clips/ar-BBAYsBD?li=AAadgLE&ocid=spartanntp

[Trump] had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn't disappear and demanded they speak out for him. He would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe, one adviser said.

[OttoVonBismarck]

- snip crazy quote trying to defend Trump -

Dude, if it was about loyalty, why'd he wait 3 1/2 months to clean that house?  Now we know the White House knew not only about Flynn, but that it went so far as the possibility of criminal prosecution was discussed.  18 days until he was fired.  Comey is a loose cannon, sure, and I'm not one who'll be shedding too many tears over his departure.  But it was so pressing that he be fired for it... over 100 days later?

Meanwhile, we know Donnie Boy is incredibly impulsive.  The day Sally Yates delivered on evidence that proved Flynn was a liability?  Fired.  The day Sally Yates and James Clapper all but glomar'ed the country that the FBI is running a criminal investigation over all this?  Comey's fired.

Like I said, I saw two possible reasons. Option 1 is more straightforward for sure, but Option 2 reflects at least some of the broad brush "stupidity" I've seen out of this White House. As to why he would've waited:

-He wanted cover from the AG, he didn't have an AG for awhile
-AG wanted cover from a less partisan Deputy AG, Rosenstein has a pretty good resume and it'd be hard to call him a Trump crony, and he's only been on the job as Deputy for 2-3 weeks
-Rumors are Trump gave orders to "find reasons" to fire Comey, it may have taken awhile
-While we have seen leaks that the WH has been working on the firing for awhile, it could be Comey's "misstatements" before Congress presented a "strike while the iron is hot" mentality in the WH.

I don't think Option 2 is a fanciful scenario. Now, do I think it's more likely than Option 1 (fired Comey to meddle with the Russia probe), no, I don't. I only see two real possibilities with Trump's Russia's ties. The worst case scenario is the allegations about Trump basically being a criminal (involved in overseas money laundering, organized crime etc) are all true and he has direct, personal corrupt ties to Russia he leveraged to help win the election. The best case scenario is 4-5 of Trump's top aides had super-inappropriate relationships with Trump, and bumbling/blundering Trump was too stupid to address them and now has several of them in his administration (including one, potentially, in the AG spot depending on how you weigh Sessions' ties to Russia.) So even in the best case scenario Trump has a lot of good reasons to want to derail the Russia probe, since proving half his inner circle is dangerously corrupt and tied to Russia is a huge blow. In the worst case scenario Trump's motivation would be to avoid impeachment, and even potentially post-impeachment criminal charges. That to me seems like a more powerful reason to take the rare step of firing an FBI director, and the consequent backlash, than simply disliking Comey's rogue behaviors (especially since the worst of those happened under Obama's watch--I'll say again, Obama should've fired Comey.)

[OttoVonBismarck]

I have a limited view on things, obviously, but I can't see any consequential number of Republicans defecting Trump. Where do they have to defect to? Their electorate is now made of people who prefer Trump over a handful of other people, all at least slightly less insane. If there is a post-Trump GOP, it's a GOP led by somebody at least as insane and inane as Trump, not somebody less so.

I still keep dreaming that maybe Trump will make some people stop and think:  "What the fuck did this come to?"  It's obviously not a rational dream, the events of the last couple of decades make hardened cynicism the only rational outcome.

If it was unequivocal that Trump conspired with Putin to influence the election he would be impeached. It's not about the GOP behaving appropriately, it's that such a scandal would be so damaging a huge swathe of the congressional GOP would lose their jobs. It'd be a move to stop the bleeding as much as possible, this situation would be so bad for GOP the goal isn't even to salvage a win, it's to make the defeat less damaging. But they aren't going to do that until things are proven to a high degree.