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20 Sep 2018, 10:34 pm
Quote:
What if, after having moved into the White House and gotten comfortable, Donald Trump refuses to check out when his term ends?
Preposterous, you say. No president, not even Trump, would dare to defy 200-plus years of political tradition — not to mention the constitution — to illegally overstay. But how sure can we be that our norm-busting president won’t attempt to shatter this inviolable standard, too? He and his lawyers have already advanced the specious legal idea that the chief executive can’t be charged with obstruction of justice, thereby placing him above the law. Who’s to say that Trump’s legal advisers might construct some pretext — a national security crisis or charges of election fraud — that would place him above the constitution and cement his place in the Oval Office? ...
Compare Trump to Nixon. Like Nixon, Trump has sought to curry favor with the military, stacking his Cabinet with generals. Former CIA Director John Brennan has called him “unstable, inept, inexperienced, and unethical,” and temper tantrums in public and on Twitter have caused him to be branded as a hothead. Trump’s current chief of staff, John F. Kelly, has described him as “off the rails,” according to Bob Woodward’s book “Fear: Trump in the White House.” Woodward, who reported on Nixon’s ouster in “The Final Days,” compares Trump’s paranoia to Nixon’s in his new book.
Trump has repeatedly bruised the rule of law with his words and actions, so why not the constitution? Earlier this year, when a lawful search warrant was served on his attorney, Michael Cohen, Trump said, “I just heard they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys.” This week, he claimed hyperbolically that he doesn’t have an attorney general because his AG won’t run the Department of Justice like a windup toy for him, and he called the Federal Bureau of Investigation a “cancer in our country.” This is strong meat! He claims that the special prosecutor’s investigation, which has returned eight guilty pleas and one conviction, is a “witch hunt.” He has used the presidential pardon to reward political allies such as Joe Arpaio and Dinesh D’Souza. L’Etat, C’est Moi could be incorporated into the Trump coat of arms.
Trump laid the groundwork for contesting the legitimacy of the 2020 election during the 2016 campaign, blaring his distrust of the election process nonstop. “They even want to try and rig the election at the polling booths, where so many cities are corrupt and voter fraud is all too common,” he said. In the final debate with Hillary Clinton, he declined to say whether he would accept the results of the election, a position he was still voicing on Election Day. “I want to see what happens, you know, how it goes,” Trump said. Even after winning, Trump repeatedly asserted — with no proof — that 3 million to 5 million noncitizens had voted in the 2016 election, and that their illegal ballots cost him the popular vote. Once inaugurated, he impaneled his now-abandoned Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to investigate his bogus allegations.
Trump appears to have conveyed his disparaging views about voting integrity to his political base. According to one 2017 poll, half of all Republicans surveyed favored postponing the 2020 election until new standards made it certain that only eligible American citizens could vote. Respondents who agreed with Trump’s untruths that he won the popular election and that millions of ballots were cast illegally were the most likely to support the idea of postponing the election...
The president’s cheerleading for anti-democratic authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, Xi Jinping and Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and the mutual admiration pact he’s signed with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un does not bode well for an orderly transition of power in 2020 or 2024 or whenever his eviction notice is served. Because nothing is off the table when Trump’s operating, let’s hope current Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has read deeply from the Nixon histories and has issued the appropriate order to the joint chiefs of staff.
Preposterous, you say. No president, not even Trump, would dare to defy 200-plus years of political tradition — not to mention the constitution — to illegally overstay. But how sure can we be that our norm-busting president won’t attempt to shatter this inviolable standard, too? He and his lawyers have already advanced the specious legal idea that the chief executive can’t be charged with obstruction of justice, thereby placing him above the law. Who’s to say that Trump’s legal advisers might construct some pretext — a national security crisis or charges of election fraud — that would place him above the constitution and cement his place in the Oval Office? ...
Compare Trump to Nixon. Like Nixon, Trump has sought to curry favor with the military, stacking his Cabinet with generals. Former CIA Director John Brennan has called him “unstable, inept, inexperienced, and unethical,” and temper tantrums in public and on Twitter have caused him to be branded as a hothead. Trump’s current chief of staff, John F. Kelly, has described him as “off the rails,” according to Bob Woodward’s book “Fear: Trump in the White House.” Woodward, who reported on Nixon’s ouster in “The Final Days,” compares Trump’s paranoia to Nixon’s in his new book.
Trump has repeatedly bruised the rule of law with his words and actions, so why not the constitution? Earlier this year, when a lawful search warrant was served on his attorney, Michael Cohen, Trump said, “I just heard they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys.” This week, he claimed hyperbolically that he doesn’t have an attorney general because his AG won’t run the Department of Justice like a windup toy for him, and he called the Federal Bureau of Investigation a “cancer in our country.” This is strong meat! He claims that the special prosecutor’s investigation, which has returned eight guilty pleas and one conviction, is a “witch hunt.” He has used the presidential pardon to reward political allies such as Joe Arpaio and Dinesh D’Souza. L’Etat, C’est Moi could be incorporated into the Trump coat of arms.
Trump laid the groundwork for contesting the legitimacy of the 2020 election during the 2016 campaign, blaring his distrust of the election process nonstop. “They even want to try and rig the election at the polling booths, where so many cities are corrupt and voter fraud is all too common,” he said. In the final debate with Hillary Clinton, he declined to say whether he would accept the results of the election, a position he was still voicing on Election Day. “I want to see what happens, you know, how it goes,” Trump said. Even after winning, Trump repeatedly asserted — with no proof — that 3 million to 5 million noncitizens had voted in the 2016 election, and that their illegal ballots cost him the popular vote. Once inaugurated, he impaneled his now-abandoned Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to investigate his bogus allegations.
Trump appears to have conveyed his disparaging views about voting integrity to his political base. According to one 2017 poll, half of all Republicans surveyed favored postponing the 2020 election until new standards made it certain that only eligible American citizens could vote. Respondents who agreed with Trump’s untruths that he won the popular election and that millions of ballots were cast illegally were the most likely to support the idea of postponing the election...
The president’s cheerleading for anti-democratic authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, Xi Jinping and Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and the mutual admiration pact he’s signed with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un does not bode well for an orderly transition of power in 2020 or 2024 or whenever his eviction notice is served. Because nothing is off the table when Trump’s operating, let’s hope current Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has read deeply from the Nixon histories and has issued the appropriate order to the joint chiefs of staff.
Richard Nixon at the White House with his family after his resignation as President, August 9, 1974 | Keystone/Hulton Archive via Getty Images
20 Sep 2018, 11:01 pm
I guess it's plausible given that most career government employees, departments, military leaders and those who make up the legislative and judicial branches, not to mention the media are supportive of any decision he makes. 
Just this week I made a prediction to my wife and told her: "Mark my words, whenever Trump does leave office, a large number of his "haters" and the media will continue to be obsessed with him and continue to be "triggered" by whatever post-presidency life he has." It will happen.
I was never an Obama "hater", but I've only probably thought of that guy involuntary a half dozen times since he left the Whitehouse. A distant memory. I feel the same way about W Bush. Bye bye.
20 Sep 2018, 11:36 pm
The problem with that is that president's decisions & their consequences don't disappear after 4 years.
_________________
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21 Sep 2018, 12:28 pm
21 Sep 2018, 12:32 pm
21 Sep 2018, 3:19 pm
21 Sep 2018, 3:22 pm
21 Sep 2018, 3:23 pm
Mythos wrote:
Magna wrote:
Spooky_Mulder wrote:
cberg wrote:
The problem with that is that president's decisions & their consequences don't disappear after 4 years.
Especially if -
Mark my words, this WILL happen -
TRUMP WILL START A CULT.
His followers ALREADY worship him as though he was sent from heaven.
They’ve eerily made a movie about GOD giving them Trump (I wish I was joking).
He’s gonna L. Ron Hubbard (scientology) this.
Won't happen.
I can't help but envision the following future scenario, however:
Scene: Nursing home in the year 2048.
A lone toothless Trump hater chews his gums as a janitor empties the waste basket:
TH: "Digjer hur?"
Janitor: "Huh?"
TH: "Didjer hur? Baron's kid got appendercitis. Prolly ruined his day. Heh, heh. It made mine!"
Janitor: "I don't know what you're talking about."
TH: "You know, Trump! Trump!"
Janitor: "Ok, calm down."
A nurse walks in, looks at the janitor with an eye roll and makes the "crazy" sign by twirling her index finger in circles at the side of her head.
TH: unintelligible mumbles....."Damn orange," mumble
But haven’t you heard? Trump is the greatest president ever and even more holy than Ghandi! Plus, God gave him to us.
Not to mention all those with the ogre complaining that the left talks about him lack basic common sense since they don’t realize that they elected him president which literally doesn’t give anyone a choice but to - unless they choose to stay out of politics and let the rabid right run wild (not the sane right who are also working to get rid of the blight on their party name). It’s you know, common sense. However, his supporters lack sense so it’s not surprising that they don’t realize that.
21 Sep 2018, 3:33 pm
21 Sep 2018, 3:36 pm
Spooky_Mulder wrote:
Mythos wrote:
Magna wrote:
Spooky_Mulder wrote:
cberg wrote:
The problem with that is that president's decisions & their consequences don't disappear after 4 years.
Especially if -
Mark my words, this WILL happen -
TRUMP WILL START A CULT.
His followers ALREADY worship him as though he was sent from heaven.
They’ve eerily made a movie about GOD giving them Trump (I wish I was joking).
He’s gonna L. Ron Hubbard (scientology) this.
Won't happen.
I can't help but envision the following future scenario, however:
Scene: Nursing home in the year 2048.
A lone toothless Trump hater chews his gums as a janitor empties the waste basket:
TH: "Digjer hur?"
Janitor: "Huh?"
TH: "Didjer hur? Baron's kid got appendercitis. Prolly ruined his day. Heh, heh. It made mine!"
Janitor: "I don't know what you're talking about."
TH: "You know, Trump! Trump!"
Janitor: "Ok, calm down."
A nurse walks in, looks at the janitor with an eye roll and makes the "crazy" sign by twirling her index finger in circles at the side of her head.
TH: unintelligible mumbles....."Damn orange," mumble
But haven’t you heard? Trump is the greatest president ever and even more holy than Ghandi! Plus, God gave him to us.
Not to mention all those with the ogre complaining that the left talks about him lack basic common sense since they don’t realize that they elected him president which literally doesn’t give anyone a choice but to - unless they choose to stay out of politics and let the rabid right run wild. It’s you know, common sense. However, his supporters lack sense so it’s not surprising that they don’t realize that.
Some of it is hyperbole, though. Like those images with Trump's face imposed over emperors and such. I think those are just there solely to rile up detractors. Though of course, if this is the case, there's an irony there that they then like to complain about the reactions they receive due to it.
If there were two circles on a Venn diagram ("trigger the liberals", "stop criticising Trump") then most supporters would fall within both categories I imagine.
21 Sep 2018, 3:38 pm
Meistersinger
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21 Sep 2018, 5:55 pm
ASPartOfMe
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21 Sep 2018, 7:09 pm
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