Well, time to hit ctrl-shift-F5, for the old Private Eye thing. “With phrases like ‘Watergate — come off it’, ‘Trump is fine’ we may have given the impression … this was an error in sub-editing … the story should gave read …”
Yeah well OK, now it’s like Watergate. Now it’s Watergate on speed. President Donald Trump’s deputy attorney-general Rod Rosenstein has appointed a special prosecutor, former FBI director Robert Mueller, to investigate links between Donald Trump’s election campaign and the Russian government. The move comes days after a Washington Post report suggesting that Trump had asked other former FBI director James Comey to “let go” the earlier investigation into Russian influence on the US election. “Flynn’s a good guy, let it go.”
The story relies on notes kept by Comey leaked to a source who rang them into the Post, so it remains yet-to-be-confirmed. Comey will be testifying before Congress next week, and is said to have taken meticulous notes of all conversations with Trump. Such notes would have the status of evidence; it would be up to opponents to discredit them.
Now the Watergate rhythm is taking over. What had been revelations every two, three days, or every week, are now tumbling out hourly. Following the appointment of Mueller, a new story emerged: 18 new pieces of evidence of connection between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump helped the process along by tweeting that no special “councel” (sic) had been appointed during the Obama years, a point his enemies were also willing to make. A New York Times headline said it all: “Trump contradicts White House.”
Two elements have kicked the process to a new level: the possibility that Trump had made a bald attempt to obstruct justice through a direct request to an FBI director, and the fact that an deputy attorney-general – at one remove from actual executive power – had commissioned the special prosecutor. Attorney-general and vengeful pro-Trump geek Jeff Sessions has recused himself from any involvement, and so it fell to the assistant. The A-G is a curious role; part of the executive, which also has a judicial role, and gives the lie to the notion of a clean division between the powers (as does the very existence of an FBI).
Hours later, Trump was separating himself from his team at the standard bizarre press conference saying that he could only speak for himself as regards no wrongdoing.
The problem for Trump is not whether he’s actually done anything that constitutes a “high crime and misdemeanour”. The problem is that he has created a dual-pincered force — Comey outside the state, Mueller in — bearing down on him. That may well trap him in a multiple net of wrongdoing. That, in turn, traps the Republican Congress. At some stage they would have to be seen to act, in front of moderate voters.
Added to Trump’s troubles is a White House believed to be melting down in conflict and incompetence, an executive in which thousands of positions remain unfilled, and a President so bored with the job that his staff are inserting his name into documents, in order to keep him reading. What is occurring now is not merely a crisis of action and execution, but a crisis of legitimacy in the US system. Trump is testing it to destruction. The question for many is what sort of outlandish action he would take as a distraction and delay of such procedures. We’re not the only ones to hit the button on this.
Somebody on Twitter suggested that the standard ‘-gate’ suffix denoting a scandal should now be replaced with ‘-a-lago’. Fully concur, but I don’t even know what you would put before the suffix for this omnishambles.
‘mal-a-lago’ is an apt generalisation.
Rush-a-go? [As in speed and that big, bad country east of Europe]
D’oh! I meant Rush-a-lago.
The Hugo A-gogo-a-lago. Not that it’s even remotely relevant. That fiend from the Batfink cartoon was always such a good name for a villain, and adding another a-lago at the end just makes such a nice sound, mellifluous, even!
First thing I thought of, anyways. Carry on.
If you keep -gate, I want it to be Ritzgate. Because at least the Ritz is a hotel as well, and well,
“Putin on The Ritz”
Trump-a-lago has a ring to it.
I propose “Naco-a-lago”; “naco” is the Mexican word for “bogan”
That old American mantra that “anyone can be president” suddenly doesn’t sound like such a great idea anymore.
Everyone in Washington sees Trump as a liability now. The Russians are openly laughing. This government is cringeworthy and embarrassing apart from appalling. Why does not this ‘core’ group of poor white folk out in the sticks of America abandon this guy? They would have been creamed under the Trumpocare Act, had it not been for the Washington Republicans to water it down. Don’t this group realise that Trump doesn’t give a rats for them other than to use them for support when he goes on his weekly rallies? What an unbelievable farce.
They will eventually drop him. Once they realise that they were used, that those mid-western jobs are not magically coming back, that Trump was only ever in it for himself, once that happens they will turn against him. And they will turn on him hard!
It’s easy to write those people off as a bunch of rednecks and bigots, partially because many of them are, but a large part truly held out hope that things would change for them and that a President Trump would make a difference to their miserable lifes. When you’re desperate, easy answers always sound good. Trump gave them all those easy answers but either had no interest in following through or what he promised was just flat-out impossible.
Give it a year or two and his voters will lose patience and will no longer be satisfied with empty showmanship and promises.
This is why I truly hope Trump will not be impeached. Impeachment lets him off easy. I want him to be around when people turn against him. I want people to realise that populism and demagoguery does not work. If Trump were impeached, those same people who voted for Trump will vote for a similar idiot next time around.
Besides, if Trump was gone, the US would end up with an Pence administration. Pence is as vile as Trump, but more competent. He’d have a much better chance to push through some of the vile policies he has in store.
Pence will be worse. But if you impeach Trump, why should Pence get the job? Pence is part of the same administration that you’re impeaching. They should both go.
Pence is a vile, but he’s not dumb. He’s one of the few people in the administration who has so far not had any suspicions about links to Russia or done anything improper that could be used to impeach him. I suspect that’s quite likely his plan anyway. Get Trump impeached and stay clean enough to become president.
Pence will automatically become president if Trump goes. There is absolutely zero chance that both, Pence and Trump, will go at the same time. But if that were to happen then the speaker of the house (Paul Ryan) would be third in line. But this is simply not going to happen.
Maybe.
Nobody’s ever tried the Succession Act out; and its constitutionality is no sure thing.
Nor does it have any provision for WHEN (not IF) the incumbent does this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UUjJysUMTw
I totally agree. Trump’s a disaster for the US but Pence would be so much worse. Hopefully the Democrats come to the same conclusion and save him.
His core isn’t poor white folks out in the sticks, Karen. The poor don’t vote in America: in many states they can’t, they were disenfranchised; in most cases, they don’t bother, they’ve been sold out too often by too many- first W Clinton, then B Obama .
The breakdown of Trump voters after the election proved them to be the relatively affluent middle class- even college educated ones. Those with a little more to lose will vote for the status quo while ever it works for them ( or they can be convinced it does or will, which is why they supported Neoliberalism for more than 30 years) – and when it plainly doesn’t, they will turn against it hard – hence Trump, and here in Australia, Hansen.
How do you reach the affluent middle class, who are actually oing pretty well, but are convinced they are going to lose the lot because they have been told so? Debt and deficit disaster; budget emergency; we spend more than we earn and must cut spending. They’ve also been told who’s to blame: immigrants taking their jobs/sponging of welfare; single mothers and “dole bludgers”; the “inefficient, non-competitive” public service and lazy, too powerful public servants .
Thirty years of propaganda aimed at justifying deregulation, privatisation and austerity has caught up, because the anxious middle classes were listening and absorbed the message. How do you go about telling them it was all self-serving lies without admitting the lies if you are business or politicians? In short, you don’t: you just blame populists and the poor white trash you can claim voted for them.
Very interesting take.
Trump thought “letting Flynn go” would be an end to all this?
Must be nice for Presidential staff to know that Trump will cut them adrift over the Russian or likely any other issue to save his own skin.