@stereoplex Sadly, No he won't. When Trump inevitably flames out (through quitting, impeachment or some other sad bullshit) and Pence takes over, we'll have someone who actually knows how government works in charge of a full-GOP government that wants to work together and can steamroll EVERYTHING that progressives have ever fought for.
Just look at how the cabinet picks are going and imagine what they'll do if confirmed and empowered by a unified exec and leg branch. I'm not saying we're fucked, but I don't see any lube or condoms by the bedside right now, let alone a glass of scotch, and ... I'll just abandon that metaphor to your imagination.
@MackReed I'd say we're pretty fucked either way. Mostly I'm just arguing that an impeached or dishonorably discharged Trump and the resulting invalidation of the regime is preferably to saying "Pence is even worse, we can't go after Trump."
We can't know for sure how it would all go down, but seeing the Trump administration crash and burn must have a chilling effect on the Republican majority of some kind. Or maybe it won't. But a fear of Pence shouldn't stop us from pursuing a removal of Trump.
I fear that we are in for some serious record-breaking here, or worse, that the electorate – especially the Trumpist quarter, obviously – is so inured to all the authoritarian newspeak hand-wave mind-fuckery that's already been Trump/Tea Party/Freedom Caucus m.o. that there won't be enough popular support to throw him/them out even after the most blatant and egregious offenses. Even besides the burn-it-all-down Cabinet appointments, it's already begun (to your point, @MackReed): https://www.theguardian.com/environm...
Remember all the demonstrably terrible decisions made and actions taken under Bush II? Thanks to the post-9/11 undercurrent of collective booga-booga and lunacy – due to that administration's first and greatest act of lassez-faire governance – resistance and blowback were too weak to have any real timely effect (@cow 's comment at https://mltshp.com/p/1ATL2 nails this). You would think by late 2004, as both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had clearly become quagmires, the American public would have little tolerance for the bastards who created them, let alone law-breaking officials. Not a chance – those morasses continued to have *plenty* of public support thanks to how they were sold to us. (First, we were made to feel good that we were able to dickslap two countries with our huge American public-private military cock, because FREEDOM! and also fuck brown Muslims. Second, the awful optics of the war costs – in American lives and far, far more Iraqi/Afghan lives, and the *actual*, unbelievably huge dollar amounts wasted – were kept to a minimum by a combination of Bush/Cheney/Rummy/the Imperial Fleet carefully staying on message, and by the media's shrinking balls as they came up against v1.0 of Facts Don't Matter.) Many people thought what was going on was A Good Thing. And lo, come November, they voted the war-mongers right back in for another four years of double-speak, profiteering and corruption.
I thought folks began to wake up after the debacle of Katrina in 2005, but even then there was so much brown-skin/poor blaming to deflect from the cronyist mismanagement I couldn't believe it. Jump to mid/late-2008, when the shit-filled Financial Crisis *really* started to hit the fan in a way that was finally palpable enough to rile up a really large swath, but still – STILL – voters by the tens of millions went for the status quo by attempting to put a flummoxed, angry old man and his batshit, low-info, no-experience running mate in the White House. (Obama's subsequent mishandling of the crisis by deferring to the markets over people even once things had stabilized by 2010, and never once prosecuting the finance crowd is a rant for another time.)
There's no longer a Nixon-era public in 2017, backing an opposition party House and Senate ready to move against corruption. There's just a back-slap/circle-jerk duopoly in the Capitol and the White House, looking to "finally" unburden America (read: American business) from the terrible laws and regulations they've suffered under for so long, and a public full of people who think "damn right!". And if a few of the remaining laws get broken by a bunch of C-levels, Randians, or fundies in gummint posts, so be it. "Come at us, bro."
Just look at how the cabinet picks are going and imagine what they'll do if confirmed and empowered by a unified exec and leg branch. I'm not saying we're fucked, but I don't see any lube or condoms by the bedside right now, let alone a glass of scotch, and ... I'll just abandon that metaphor to your imagination.
We can't know for sure how it would all go down, but seeing the Trump administration crash and burn must have a chilling effect on the Republican majority of some kind. Or maybe it won't. But a fear of Pence shouldn't stop us from pursuing a removal of Trump.
http://www.dailykos.com/story...
Remember all the demonstrably terrible decisions made and actions taken under Bush II? Thanks to the post-9/11 undercurrent of collective booga-booga and lunacy – due to that administration's first and greatest act of lassez-faire governance – resistance and blowback were too weak to have any real timely effect (@cow 's comment at https://mltshp.com/p/1ATL2 nails this). You would think by late 2004, as both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had clearly become quagmires, the American public would have little tolerance for the bastards who created them, let alone law-breaking officials. Not a chance – those morasses continued to have *plenty* of public support thanks to how they were sold to us. (First, we were made to feel good that we were able to dickslap two countries with our huge American public-private military cock, because FREEDOM! and also fuck brown Muslims. Second, the awful optics of the war costs – in American lives and far, far more Iraqi/Afghan lives, and the *actual*, unbelievably huge dollar amounts wasted – were kept to a minimum by a combination of Bush/Cheney/Rummy/the Imperial Fleet carefully staying on message, and by the media's shrinking balls as they came up against v1.0 of Facts Don't Matter.) Many people thought what was going on was A Good Thing. And lo, come November, they voted the war-mongers right back in for another four years of double-speak, profiteering and corruption.
I thought folks began to wake up after the debacle of Katrina in 2005, but even then there was so much brown-skin/poor blaming to deflect from the cronyist mismanagement I couldn't believe it. Jump to mid/late-2008, when the shit-filled Financial Crisis *really* started to hit the fan in a way that was finally palpable enough to rile up a really large swath, but still – STILL – voters by the tens of millions went for the status quo by attempting to put a flummoxed, angry old man and his batshit, low-info, no-experience running mate in the White House. (Obama's subsequent mishandling of the crisis by deferring to the markets over people even once things had stabilized by 2010, and never once prosecuting the finance crowd is a rant for another time.)
There's no longer a Nixon-era public in 2017, backing an opposition party House and Senate ready to move against corruption. There's just a back-slap/circle-jerk duopoly in the Capitol and the White House, looking to "finally" unburden America (read: American business) from the terrible laws and regulations they've suffered under for so long, and a public full of people who think "damn right!". And if a few of the remaining laws get broken by a bunch of C-levels, Randians, or fundies in gummint posts, so be it. "Come at us, bro."