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I can't think of a President who has had so many investigations in their first 2 years in office. Here is a partial list of the potential avenues of trouble for Trump:

• The emoluments clause
• Obstruction of justice in the firing of James Comey
• Obstruction of justice in the Russia Investigation
• Unreported campaign donations in the form of hush money to both Daniels and McDougal
• Michael Cohen
• Allen Weisselberg
• Rick Gates
• Paul Manafort
• MIchael Flynn
• Roger Stone
• Everything we don't know about in Mueller's safe

We are always living through history, but in the last year I've become really aware of how in tumultuous times the future seems much more cloudy and unpredictable. Who knew what the future held in 1917, or 1943?

And we are not only living through tumultuous times, but that tumult is amplified and blasted into our consciousness everyday by the nerve endings of the information age, where all things are now known instantaneously around the globe. One of the challenges is to be able to climb above the ambient noise of the day-to-day news cycle and get perspective on where we are going. And there are additional difficulties when prognosticating about Trump. There are large unknown variables that will become known, many of them before December. And there is always, and Donald Rumsfeld observed, the things we don't know that we don't know.

So approach this as an exercise in trying to pierce the fog of the future as an historian. Give me a ballpark figure. 100% sure he will survive? Okay, why? 0% chance he will survive? Okay, why? If you are not sure, what are the things that make you not sure? But again, approach it as dispassionately as you can.

Hard to say.

I haven't seen anyone on the board discussing the GDP numbers or Trump's self-congratulatory brief yesterday. But that number could be much more significant to the results in the midterm election than almost any of the things in the list above. There are plenty of people in America who look at the Russia investigation and see a knotty, partisan bitch-fest that would take fairly serious substantial results to move the political dial significantly to seriously affect House and Senate races. But people who feel like the economy is finally freeing up are far more likely to vote for the status quo or not vote at all, both of which are not in the favor of Democrats. And let's be real, it will require the House being taken by the Democrats for Trump to be impeached. On the flip side, if the trade conflicts aren't resolved come October, and small businesses and manufacturing is hurting, then again that could end up being far more important than any of the things in the list in the OP.

It's all political. If the Democrats gain control of Congress, he'll be impeached. If not, he'll win again in 2020.

I'm surprised Obama wasn't impeached when the Republicans regained control of Congress. Impeachment will become the new election recall method in the US.

ajax18 wrote:If not, he'll win again in 2020.

I do think this is wrong. We're peaking economically. Come 2020 we'll have come down from the high water mark of 4.1 GDP that was artificially juiced with tax cuts and Chinese soybean purchases ahead of their retaliatory tariffs. Even optimistic economists are assuming we'll be closer to the same GDP numbers typical of the Obama admin in the 2% range. That said, this could also become political if the Democrats take the House in 2018, begin opposing him and he blames them for the inevitable reality that you can't expect a fire to keep burning as hot as it does right after you toss gasoline on it.

honorentheos wrote:Hard to say.

I haven't seen anyone on the board discussing the GDP numbers or Trump's self-congratulatory brief yesterday. But that number could be much more significant to the results in the midterm election than almost any of the things in the list above. There are plenty of people in America who look at the Russia investigation and see a knotty, partisan bitch-fest that would take fairly serious substantial results to move the political dial significantly to seriously affect House and Senate races. But people who feel like the economy is finally freeing up are far more likely to vote for the status quo or not vote at all, both of which are not in the favor of Democrats. And let's be real, it will require the House being taken by the Democrats for Trump to be impeached. On the flip side, if the trade conflicts aren't resolved come October, and small businesses and manufacturing is hurting, then again that could end up being far more important than any of the things in the list in the OP.

The economic numbers are undeniably good news for Trump. And you are right, the economy is another variable that will affect his popularity and his support. The trick is to stimulate an economy without running trillion dollar deficits. And one of the difficult points of prognostication is how people react when the other shoe drops, and massive cuts in social programs are discussed. This is one of the reasons why you hear Republicans talking about making these tax cuts permanent so quickly, before we start talking about paying the piper.

The trade wars are another big variable. Recently it seems like Trump is beginning to recognize the political liabilities of what he is doing. How all of his base feels about this in November will be a factor. And the argument that corporate tax cuts would precipitate wage hikes has been shown to be at best, a misguided belief, and at worst a ruse. Wages have actually fallen. (If, as Mitt Romney said, "Corporations are people, too", then it is also true that corporations do not like sharing the wealth with those people who don't happen to be corporations.)

And how much the economy influences the election is somewhat at the mercy of what information is revealed through Mueller, the Manafort trial, and all of the information that is revealed between now and November.

But I think we may actually be getting ahead of ourselves if we believe that if the Republicans control the House, the President has no danger of impeachment. Again, I have no idea of when Mueller completes the investigation, but if some particularly egregious charge develops after November, it could sway public opinion enough to make his political survival a question mark. Undoubtedly the bar will be much higher with a GOP majority (and I imagine the majority will be far more slender), but it not necessarily insurmountable. There are civil actions as well. And there's the nomination of Trump's Get Out of Jail Free card Supreme Court Justice.

But that's what makes thinking about this so interesting: there are so many variables, and all of those variables can greatly amplify or diminish the effect of other variables.

And of course...the ever present shadow in the background...Benghazi ;-)

PostScript: It strikes me that I never did my own prognostication: Based of a percentage, what are Trump's chances of survival until 2020?

It's still a big crap shoot, but I think his odds of survival of less than 50%. My reasoning is basically fuzzy math. If you give each of the scandals brewing odds of being true 30% for and 70% against, there is still going to be some pasta that sticks to the wall. And finally, there is the man himself. Don't preclude the possibility of Trump doing something else between now and 2020 that precipitates his own demise. And it is not impossible that the rigors and pressures of the Presidency could test the physical constitution of an overweight, sedentary septuagenarian. Trump has a fantastically loyal base, and the GOP ihas abandoned the idea of sticking to their principles in lieu of not biting the hand that feeds it. One can make the Irresistible Force versus Immovable Object argument. But ultimately I don't think Trump will be channeling Gloria Gaynor.

How much less than 50% do I think his chances are? That gets really difficult to prognosticate, but I would put the odds at somewhere in the 35-45% area. So I certainly think it's possible that he would survive 35 to 45 times out of 100. But given one chance, I go with the odds.

I had Clinton winning the electoral college by about 20 over Trump, so of course I'm always right.

I think people have been too quick to forget how woefully wrong almost everyone was regarding the 2016 election results. Was there a single pundit who didn't like Trump but predicted his win?

That being the case, I think any prediction for what might happen in the future with Trump should be prefaced with "I was totally wrong about what happened in 2016, but here is my opinion about what might happen in 2020..."

cinepro wrote:I think people have been too quick to forget how woefully wrong almost everyone was regarding the 2016 election results. Was there a single pundit who didn't like Trump but predicted his win?

Yes, Michael Moore predicted that Trump would win Michigan and the election. Link

However, I thought that Hillary would win Michigan. But I have never been to Michigan, and Michael Moore was much more informed about Michigan than I was and a lot of other people were.

Wisconsin also was won by Trump, but that could have been mainly due to voter suppression there. Link

cinepro wrote:I think people have been too quick to forget how woefully wrong almost everyone was regarding the 2016 election results. Was there a single pundit who didn't like Trump but predicted his win?

That being the case, I think any prediction for what might happen in the future with Trump should be prefaced with "I was totally wrong about what happened in 2016, but here is my opinion about what might happen in 2020..."

The Comey letter changed things dramatically in the last week, but Hillary still won the popular vote within the margin of error for what the polls were saying. Are you expecting Trump to get more help with another black swan event this time around? The best thing he has going for him is that Hillary won't be running and the Democrats aren't sure who they have to go against him.

MeDotOrg wrote:The economic numbers are undeniably good news for Trump. And you are right, the economy is another variable that will affect his popularity and his support.

But it hasn't. The Obama recovery is doing extremely well and Trump's numbers are still horrible considering the economy. I think it was EA who said Trump's numbers are the worst for any President in history given the economic conditions in his first term.

Even 18 months into his Presidency and the economy doing well, Trump still can't get above 46% approval even with a Republican leaning poll like Rasmussen.

Trump knows he's in trouble which is why he's buying votes with his bailout of the farmers.

ajax18 wrote:It's all political. If the Democrats gain control of Congress, he'll be impeached. If not, he'll win again in 2020.

Yes, Hannity over the radio has been telling his listeners that this is the most important mid-term elections in their lifetime, and that they need to vote Republican for Congress and Senate mainly because Democrats want to impeach Trump. But there would need to be a two-thirds vote in the Senate to remove Trump as President. And Democrats are Not going to end up with a two-thirds majority in the Senate after the mid-term elections.