The endless stream of bad news

[_MeDotOrg]

The GOP is about to learn that leaving Trump is like tearing off a band-aid. If you do it slowly it's going to hurt more. Do it quickly and there will be less pain in the long run.

Just shocking this was done on a Friday night, huh? Friday night is Swamp night. I can't until Monday to see the Senators sprinting down the corridors so they won't have to answer questions about the pardon.

This is the was Trump is behaving now. Imagine how he'll behave as a lame duck. The wheels are coming off. There is no more pretense about government by the people, for the people. At its most charitable, this is a cronyocracy.

[_EAllusion]

The GOP is about to learn that leaving Trump is like tearing off a band-aid. If you do it slowly it's going to hurt more. Do it quickly and there will be less pain in the long run.

Just shocking this was done on a Friday night, huh? Friday night is Swamp night. I can't until Monday to see the Senators sprinting down the corridors so they won't have to answer questions about the pardon.

This is the was Trump is behaving now. Imagine how he'll behave as a lame duck. The wheels are coming off. There is no more pretense about government by the people, for the people. At its most charitable, this is a cronyocracy.

Or the GOP is about to learn if you grit your teeth and try to ride out the storm, you can institute semi-permanent rule by you and do away with pesky threats to your authority.

A lame duck Trump seems like it has potential to be a nightmare - like a gremlin sabotaging your airplane mid flight. And that's by far the better alternative. Really not looking forward to the post-election environment here. When scientists kept discussing the 21st century as a century of managed, relative American decline, I was in the optimist camp of thinking, "Like Great Britain? Let's ride it out." It's not supposed to be like this.

It is absolute vital that Democrats use their leverage - or rather what remains of their leverage - over economic relief prior to the election to secure some kind of on-going governance after the election. If they don't, there's a chance Biden wins the presidency, but they don't take the Senate. In that universe, Republicans are going to plunge the nation into darkness and try to make Biden/Democrats reap the consequences in the next two federal elections. Any macroeconomic tools that need to run through Congress will be shut off. And we're in the middle of a multiple crises. People can't be treated as grist for the election mill.

[_MeDotOrg]

I'd agree, the prospect of a Senate majority composed of Trump loyalists could be willing co-conspirators. But even if the GOP holds on to the Senate, A Biden Presidency means bye-bye Bill Barr, and hopefully a Justice Department that will follow the evidence wherever it leads. No more pressure on SDNY. Trump's taxes will come out sometime in the next 2 years, and the documentary evidence of the disasterous Covid-19 response will continue to mount. Yes, the GOP could join Trump in lighting a nihilistic bonfire if they lose, but there will be life after Trump and they will have to answer for that. It will be interesting to see the fight for the control of the GOP Party infrastructure in the event of a Trump defeat. So yes, I think some GOP members will be tempted to join a Steve Bannon-esque letsblowupitup.org, but as soon as Trump is in the rear view mirror the political landscape will begin to change.

[_EAllusion]

If and when Trump leaves office, he's going to leave behind a federal government that has installed morally compromised partisan hacks all over the place. The Trump administration has been a machine at purging competent civil servants and replacing them with bad actors. He's gutted the bureaucracy at the leadership level. Much of Trumpworld's conspiracy mongering can be read as projection, and this will be a "deep state" of sorts until they are effectively removed. That will take some time even in the best of circumstances. If a Republican controlled Senate slow-walks or obstructs reasonable Senate confirmed appointments, that's going to make it even harder to get the ball rolling. And it's probably going to face headwinds in the forms of media coverage eager to say "both sides do it" if and when a Biden government tries to clean up the admin.

These are the problems of regime change in flawed quasi-democracies we used to poke fun of.

I think the solution here is to hit the ground running with a truth and reconciliation narrative to explain what needs to be done and why. "Looking forward, not back" was one of the more catastrophic mistakes of the Obama era, and it's polar opposite will need to be done from day 1. In a world where Biden wins, there's going to be enough people irate with the Trump era to buy a little bit of time to do an awful lot with the tools available. Eventually sour conditions will hang like an albatross around Biden's neck, though.

Regarding the rest of the GOP having to answer in a post-Trump world, I think the strategy will simply be Obama 2.0. Try to obstruct the country into as bad of conditions as possible, then reap the benefits of a fickle public who tends to blame the incumbent Whitehouse party for the country's state of affairs. It's sound electioneering, if morally abominable. This is why you subvert that right now by agreeing to only pass macroeconomic relief bills tied to conditions that would persist in a Biden presidency, etc.

I'm very pessimistic that the GOP fundamentally changes, because the forces driving their authoritarian turn are accelerated by Trump, but not caused by it. Those forces aren't going away even if Trump does. I'm not sure what the path out of that is. If bad luck puts them in the wilderness for a decade of elections, there might be a major party shift that provides a new party system. But that doesn't happen often. Major party shifts are infrequent and hard to predict.

[_Jersey Girl]

What happens if Biden passes away before the election?

[_EAllusion]

Elizabeth Warren is the only Democrat with a large platform who has articulated a competent vision for cleaning up corruption in a post-Trump world, which is why her being VP would be a nice signal. If she's not VP, the way forward still might be to defer to her leadership in this area. Time to call on the student who keeps raising her hand.

[_EAllusion]

What happens if Biden passes away before the election?

The Democratic convention chooses the nominee. If it's before the convention, they choose someone else. If it's after, then the Democratic party's leaders have a platform decided at the convention that determines who decides replaces him. In both cases, it will almost certainly be his VP choice if his VP choice is known and campaigning. If it is before his VP choice is widely known (so in the next few weeks) then we have a contested convention on our hands. My Jay Inslee plan is then back on the table :p. Warren should be the Kwisatz Haderach if there ever was one in that scenario. It's hard to know who would emerge, though. Sanders supporters would be out for blood. There's no way they don't think the nomination should be his by right for having finished in second.

[_EAllusion]

So in, other words, if Biden dies, you're in for watching people explain to Doubting Thomas that most Democrats didn't vote for Sanders and might have preferences other than him and Doubting Thomas reacting by threatening to protest vote for Elon Musk or something.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

[quote="Jersey Girl" post_id=1231556 time=1594443634 user_id=16]What happens if Biden passes away before the election?[/quote]

https://ibb.co/vmhdmRv

Can you please not give the man in my link any ideas?

- Doc

[_Jersey Girl]

What happens if Biden passes away before the election?

https://ibb.co/vmhdmRv

Can you please not give the man in my link any ideas?

- Doc

Hey I'm just tryin' ta live over here, ya know? It's either ask the hard worst case scenario questions now or smother myself with my own bed pillow later when the unexpected happens and bites me in the ass.