Anyone besides me believe Trump won't last 4 years?

[Shannon]

No matter what one thinks of President Trump, I am pretty confident that he will not occupy the presidency for his full term. The two most likely scenarios, in my opinion:

1. He is impeached. Eventually, the contents of his tax returns will become known, and I wouldn't be surprised that there will be some bad stuff there. If not, just his management of his businesses will likely turn out to be unconstitutional. Then, there's the possibility that further investigation will confirm really troublesome relationships with Russia. If any of these things happen, does anyone believe that he has enough friends in Congress to protect him from impeachment? I suspect that most of the Republicans would love to have an excuse to drop him like a hot rock.

2. He gets sick of the job and quits. I wouldn't put it past him. I suspect he is going to get more and more push-back from his party (which he doesn't really represent anyway), and his narcissism won't allow him to put up with losing so many battles.

I give him two years, maximum.

Am I nuts, or do you think it is possible?

[Rob Hanesworth]

Much of what you said makes sense and would comfort me more were it not for the Pence factor.

Yet, though I disagree with Pence a lot, I think he has an underlying decency that would be a step up from Donald.

[Doug]

You are most likely less nuts than the rest of us. 

I think it's unlikely that he won't do 4 yrs.  But I do think he will be 1 term and not try to run again.  He's a been there done that type of person and he will be 74 next time around. I do think that he may kick back and glide after the first year or two.  

I can't see a congress critter going home and telling the people who voted for him to do just what he's doing that you voted to impeach. They voted for him to build the wall and repeal Obamacare and they think the ban is a good idea. And according to Rasmussen Reports his approval rate is going from low 50s to high 50s. 

[Deleted]

He will easily go eight if the meltdown and TDS continues apace. This is what got him elected in the first place.

[james]

He's filed notice of his intent to run in 2020. Gives him a nice election fund-raising stream I suppose.

[frazer]

Hi, Shannon!

It was interesting that you didn't include third option based on quitting due to (genuine) ill health.

[AlanC]

I would be very surprised if a group of congresscritters don't attempt to file articles of impeachment. Probably sooner rather than later. I have no clue whether they will be successful or not. My dos centavos.

[Doug]

Jan 30, 2017 12:23:53 GMT -5 frazer said:

Hi, Shannon!

It was interesting that you didn't include third option based on quitting due to (genuine) ill health.

Given his age that is a possibility. 

[epaul]

I just want to get the final couple hundred feet of that pipeline built so that North Dakota can get its oil to market safely and at a competitive price. After that, I don't care what happens to Trump.

(shipping oil by rail is more dangerous and is snail slow, and it adds about $8 a barrel to the terminal price of ND oil, and in this competitive oil market, that extra $8 matters a lot. And the rail system up here is now so overwhelmed it is screwing up grain deliveries, it cost so much to ship wheat and corn by train this winter our local elevators had a hell of a time to moving anything to market. And the up to twenty-minute waits at many small town and rural RR crossings are a problem, a life and death one if an ambulance is stuck on the wrong side of the track. Railroads have never been more profitable, but everyone else up here is getting screwed. Getting that oil to market by pipeline instead of rail and truck would be a godsend.)

[Deleted]

Jan 30, 2017 12:23:53 GMT -5 frazer said:

Hi, Shannon!

It was interesting that you didn't include third option based on quitting due to (genuine) ill health.

That applies to everyone.  

[fauxmaha]

Jan 30, 2017 11:51:04 GMT -5 Shannon said:

No matter what one thinks of President Trump, I am pretty confident that he will not occupy the presidency for his full term. The two most likely scenarios, in my opinion:

1. He is impeached. Eventually, the contents of his tax returns will become known, and I wouldn't be surprised that there will be some bad stuff there. If not, just his management of his businesses will likely turn out to be unconstitutional. Then, there's the possibility that further investigation will confirm really troublesome relationships with Russia. If any of these things happen, does anyone believe that he has enough friends in Congress to protect him from impeachment? I suspect that most of the Republicans would love to have an excuse to drop him like a hot rock.

2. He gets sick of the job and quits. I wouldn't put it past him. I suspect he is going to get more and more push-back from his party (which he doesn't really represent anyway), and his narcissism won't allow him to put up with losing so many battles.

I give him two years, maximum.

Am I nuts, or do you think it is possible?

Unconstitutional business management? No such thing, at least on a backward-looking basis. Nothing from past tax returns is relevant. On a forward basis, there will be countless suits filed by political opponents of his regarding the structure Trump has put in place for his existing business holdings. Whether any of them get any traction is anyone's guess.

Republicans drop him like a hot rock? They'd certainly like to, even now. I can't imagine many Republicans in Congress not preferring Pence to Trump.

Sick of the job? At the moment, I think he is loving it. But then, at the moment, "the job" consists of issuing executive orders, which he loves. When the hard work of romancing bills through Congress kicks in, who knows. Still, I think the best recent example of a President like Trump is probably Johnson. Both relish deal making, arm twisting, cajoling, etc. Trump may very well love that part of the job.

I don't see him resigning. About the only possibility I see of him not completing a four year term would be his health. 

[TKennedy]

I'm thinking die in office before anyone gets the chance to impeach him. (Natural causes of course) He looks terrible.

[kenlarsson]

I believe he won't do four years. I think impeachment is the most likely scenario, either he'll do something in office or something about his business dealings, taxes, etc. will come out and lead to impeachment. Ill health is another possibility. I don't think he'll quit unless he can conjure up some excuse for him to quit that will place the blame for his failures on someone else.

[Russell Letson]

There are those who think that Trump is already impeachable based on his refusal to disentangle himself from his financial interests, and I personally think that his hubris will lead him to do something so seriously stupid or destructive that he will be abandoned by all but the most delusional of his supporters. But as long as he can provide support and cover for the GOP's policies and programs, Congress will put up with him, even if most of the rest of the nation rises up in continual sign-waving protest. Absent a monumental fuckup, he's probably safe at least until the mid-terms, and if the Dems can't get some electoral traction by then, we're stuck with him (and his merry band of Bannons) for the duration. (And if he gets the right kind of Supreme Court appointment and can keep the rest of the conservatives onside there, he can tell the judiciary to kiss his ass in Macy's window--no more upstarty Federal judges to second-guess Bannon's executive orders.)

[Dub]

From Clinton era Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on Jan. 21.

I had breakfast recently with a friend who's a former Republican member of Congress. Here's what he said:
Him: Trump is no Republican. He’s just a big fat ego.
Me: Then why didn’t you speak out against him during the campaign?
Him: You kidding? I was surrounded by Trump voters. I’d have been shot.
Me: So what now? What are your former Republican colleagues going to do?
Him (smirking): They’ll play along for a while.
Me: A while?
Him: They’ll get as much as they want – tax cuts galore, deregulation, military buildup, slash all those poverty programs, and then get to work on Social Security and Medicare – and blame him. And he’s such a fool he’ll want to take credit for everything.
Me: And then what?
Him (laughing): They like Pence.
Me: What do you mean?
Him: Pence is their guy. They all think Trump is out of his mind.
Me: So what?
Him: So the moment Trump does something really dumb – steps over the line – violates the law in a big stupid clumsy way … and you know he will ...
Me: They impeach him?
Him: You bet. They pull the trigger.

[Deleted]

A friend of mine used to say, "Wishful thinking, ain't fit for drinking." Time will tell.

[aquaduct]

He's doing exactly what he said he would do and he's doing a masterful job. Once he gets rolling and the economy begins to emerge from the Obama torpor he's almost a lock for 8 years. Particularly since Democrats show no sign of being able to pull thier heads out of their asses.

And if there's a health issue, Pence rocks.

[Dub]

Jan 30, 2017 13:56:11 GMT -5 aquaduct said:

…Democrats show no sign of being able to pull thier heads out of their asses.

Hard to argue with that.

[epaul]

Hard to hear it, as well. What did he say about those dem ole cats?

[dradtke]

We can only hope.