During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump had a favorite theme song he used at the end of his rallies, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” That could have been a very cynical joke he played on his voters because it accurately describes the betrayals and disappointments he has in store for those who unfortunately bought into his con.
Or it could end up prophetic about Trump’s presidency if it ends prematurely.
Going into this week’s inauguration with the lowest approvals and highest disapprovals of any incoming president in modern history (in a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 40% of Americans view Trump favorably while 54% view him unfavorably…compared to Obama in 2008 with 83% favorable and only 12% unfavorable) and having lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, Trump starts off in an unprecedented hole.
He has no mandate, no reservoir of good will as a buffer, he’s already upside-down as a president in popularity and it’s hard to see how this gets better instead of worse.
He’s already broken central promises that his voters are counting on. Repealing Obamacare on day one, making Mexico pay for a massive billion dollar border wall, draining the swamp in DC and prosecuting Hillary Clinton and putting her in jail. The minority supporting him has already been getting smaller just during the transition period. Some Trump voters are realizing that they will have to be singing to themselves, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” for four whole years…assuming Trump can last four years in office.
What will happen to his remaining support when his obviously corrupt cabinet are caught with their hands in the cookie jar or seen harming the best interests of the majority to benefit the 1%? When it becomes clear that Trump’s refusal to divest himself from his businesses brings him a windfall of wealth on the backs of the American people? And what will happen to his and Republicans’ support when their plainly unpopular positions on killing Obamacare, privatizing social programs, taking over women’s rights to their own bodies, suppressing the rights and voting of minorities, come to fruition?
Or when the economy tanks because massive tax cuts for the wealthy only put the country in much larger deficits and cuts to programs to reduce deficits bring greater poverty and job losses?
As Trump elevates a Russian dictator as America’s closest ally and Vladimir Putin is emboldened to act on this around the world, how will Trump be viewed?
And adding his harsh rejection of the 1st Amendment by vilifying, cutting out and manhandling the press from covering him openly with his continuing personal attacks on individual Americans via Twitter, how much farther could his approvals fall?
Is it possible that if Republicans are looking down the barrel of being crushed in 2018 and 2020 because they’ve tied their wagon to Trump, they may be open to impeaching him for the corruption that he’s inevitably headed towards? Though that would leave the dangerous Mike Pence in the presidency, might Trump not be able to last the full four years in the White House?
Some suggest that Trump never really intended to win the Presidency and will either get bored or annoyed with it and quit voluntarily. Others suggest Republicans might impeach him if things get as bad with Trump as President as they seem they will. The remaining argument is that Trump has too big of an ego and need for attention to ever abandon the spotlight of the presidency.
When you start off your presidency with a majority of the country already disapproving of you and that number has only grown during the transition period, before you even take office and make decisions that affect anyone, a smart businessman would be investing in the pitchforks and torches industries.
Continuing to use the con man tricks he used in the campaign will only backfire once he’s in office. Once you’re in a position to make things happen, you’re held responsible if you don’t. And those naive enough to have believed his obvious lies are already in the minority supporting him, he can only lose some of those voters, he can’t gain more.
In order of likelihood, it would seem that it’s more likely Trump will remain President all four years no matter how large a majority of voters disapprove of him because his narcissistic personality disorder would dictate that. However, what may be next most likely, due to all the built-in corruption Trump’s already installed into his presidency, impeachment might be the next most likely scenario. Then comes the legit possibility that Trump gives into being the coward that most bullies are and quits.
In any case, you may recall what has always happened once Republicans have this much power in Washington…corruption runs wild, the public gets fed up with it and Republicans are removed from power in populist/anti-incumbent elections.
How would Democrats winning back the Senate in 2018 and being staunchly adversarial to Trump, impact his desire to remain in the White House? Trump has always been the one with power in his life, how would he feel to have a co-equal branch of government deny him what he wants?
Trump voters may remain blindly faithful and foolishly optimistic that the greedy, selfish, lying, bigoted billionaire really just cares about helping the simple working people but the proof will be in the pudding a year from now, as the 2018 campaign gets into gear.
How would Trump respond to having a growing majority of Americans oppose and disapprove of him? Would he continue ahead or look into the mirror and sneer, “You’re fired!”?
Only time will tell what Trump will do when for the first time in his life, he won’t be able to escape the widespread contempt he earns. Will he stay or will he go, willingly or unwillingly? He’s dragged politics and the presidency into the reality show world he thrived in, perhaps that will be something he will soon live to regret.
After seeing the small inauguration turnout, Trump going nuts and Spicer lying to the press and threatening them at Trump’s urging…and yesterday’s record protest march against Trump…I wonder if Trump will even last four months!
His huuuge ego won’t. Breakdown time on the horizon. Chewing on the gold coloured curtains in the Oval Office? Eating his cheap toupee? Did they supply barf bags at the door for visitors?
Just left this link on Time Out. Read at your own risk. It’s bizzaro world redux, and my brain hurts.
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Kellyanne Conway says Donald Trump’s team has ‘alternative facts.’ Which pretty much says it all.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/22/kellyanne-conway-says-donald-trumps-team-has-alternate-facts-which-pretty-much-says-it-all/
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This one by Juan Cole is downright scary.
Translating Trump’s inaugural Speech into English from the original German
http://www.juancole.com/2017/01/translating-inaugural-original.html
20th of jan.2017,10:05 MST. ‘HELLO DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND’!The journey into BIZZARO LAND BEGINS.
You said it, gyp46!
But Bizarro Trump is about to find out that starting off with more than half of America against him is the best it’s going to get for him.
We will watch some awful things come out of DC but the price Trump and Repubs will pay for it will be massive.
You really think they will pay? My wish is for that very thing in ’18, but with the absolute refusal to see the reality of Trump I do wonder. Probably lost another friend just yesterday over the blindness of those followers. They hear different words I guess, or maybe different definitions of his words, fake definitions. They see his crooked ways as attributes and his lies as truths. What magnitude of disaster is it going to take to open blind eyes?
When their taxes go up and they lose their social safety nets, and abortion is outlawed, and they lose their healthcare, then, and probably only then will they re-examine their support for Trump.
Maybe! Expect the opposite and we may be closed to trumpers reality.
I can’t wait for the day that he attends a large gathering like a Superbowl and the boos overwhelm the cheers. That day WILL come, and I hope I catch it.
Then what will he do? Fire us all?. Hopefully he will scuttle down some rathole for the remainder of his term and not bother us with his presence.
PPO, his ego won’t let him avoid public appearances but I wonder if he’ll do what he did in the campaign and only appear publicly when they are assured of a friendly crowd? So maybe no Superbowl but plenty of NASCAR appearances?
A guest appearance on Duck Dynasty?
Like you and the other Planeteers who’ve commented on this fine article, AdLib, I have the feeling that Trump may not last 4 years either. He may be removed if — as you suggested — even the morally lax GOP can’t condone his lack of ethics any longer, or if they suspect (more likely) that he’s a millstone around their necks in the next election cycle.
Or — he may suffer a major health crisis. Either physical or mental. He does not — despite his fake doctor’s glowing assessment of his health — appear to be in good condition. And who knows what part of his paranoid mind may snap when a lifetime of delusion and self-indulgence runs full speed into reality itself. As President Obama said: “Reality has a tendency to bite back.”
Let’s just hope that he’s nowhere near the nuclear button if/when that breakdown happens.
Meant to add this link to an article that further validates the points you made in yours:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-presidency-is-doomed/2017/01/16/961763fc-dc1e-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html
Kes, so many folks are understandably still a bit in disbelief that Trump will be President but once you accept it, you see that there’s no way he can ever be anyone else or escape the doom that such a person makes inevitable if he became president.
Kes, you make a good, rarely discussed point that since Trump has hidden most of the facts about him, he could be in far worse health than anyone knows.
We know he has all the symptoms of a serious mental illness too so that or both physical and mental illnesses could be set off by the pressures of the office and the unavoidable permanent confrontation he is going to have with the majority of Americans.
The only way his presidency wouldn’t be a disaster would be if all of his lies weren’t lies. But they are.
And as far as delusions go and how they can lead to danger, here are two stories about Trump’s inauguration and North Korea:
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/01/19/trump-wanted-inauguration-celebration-resemble-north-korean-military-parade.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/19/will-north-koreatest-launch-icbm-coincide-donald-trumps-presidential/
Let’s face it, any smart dictator or terrorist group out there knows Trump has a hair-trigger reaction to being insulted or challenged and that it will only undermine him and the US. So wouldn’t it be logical to predict that many bad players in the world will be working to challenge and provoke Trump?
This could indeed be a very dangerous time for the world.
No, Ad. I doubt that trump will last very long at all. His GREED will be his undoing, in my opinion. He doesn’t want to divest himself of all his holdings. That right there is unconstitutional. Grounds for impeachment. Even some of the republicans think he should be held to the constitution.
Still, the republicans do hold both houses as well as the White House. So he may be sticking around longer than I would like.
Nirek, I do think that greed is behind most of what he does so it probably will be what destroys him. He’s a narcissist too so his ego could be what cuts him down too. Or both!
It is hard to imagine how he could continue as president with most of America against him, his criminal behavior as president destroying our democracy and principles and his continued hostility against the press and most Americans.
Repubs in The House won’t even think about impeachment even when it becomes clear he has committed crimes in office…until they see that sticking with him could make them lose their own elections. Then, just like the rats they are, they would quickly leave that sinking ship.
No, I don’t think he will last four years, maybe not even one. Usually it’s well into their term in office that accusations come to light and actions are taken leading to impeachment or arrests. This is someone going in as the President of the United States, who has lied his way through to a primary nomination; and has dealings with a country that without a doubt interfered with a GE of a sovreign country and made a mockery of the democratic process. How can this man be allowed to take the oath of office on Friday? It’s beyond me.
What after everything we already know about him and the Kremlin puppets he has nominated for his administration, is the “smoking gun” that will see him and his henchmen removed in handcuffs? Stay tuned!!
All those who didn’t vote in November, share equal blame with those who voted for him.
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The trump Intelligence Allegations Document
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984/Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.pdf
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Just when you thought the Trump ethics disaster couldn’t get worse, it did
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/just-when-you-thought-the-trump-ethics-disaster-couldnt-get-worse-it-did/2017/01/16/001db550-dc04-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html
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FBI, 5 Other Agencies Probing Possible Kremlin Cash to Aid Trump
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/01/18/fbi-5-other-agencies-probing-possible-kremlin-cash-to-trump.html
Kalima, it will take time for Repubs to back away from Trump even after all of the outrageous truths about him come out, look how brazen they are now about trying to destroy ethics standards that he and his cabinet are grossly violating.
The Repubs will have to see the public up in arms and the polls for the next election crashing around them…then I do think it will be possible for Repubs in the House to impeach him and in the Senate to throw him out of office.
If you bet on Repubs doing what’s most self-serving, you’ll rarely lose.
Trump’s being allowed to take the oath of office because both the Repub and Dem establishment don’t want to rock the boat even though a foreign dictator and a partisan FBI Director corrupted the election. They may be different parties but they are both the establishment pols who would rather have a nightmare for four years than do anything that changes the system they control.
If it does turn out that Trump took Kremlin Kash through Russian pawns in the US, Repubs will bail him out and claim he didn’t know.
I think that the way that Trump gets taken down is by himself, with the horrible, unethical things that he and those in his admin do and the realization of the morons who voted for him that they won’t be getting a unicorn on their birthday.
If there is proof, and I believe there already is and they’re stalling, why wouldn’t the FBI arrest those involved? I’m sure that it would be 2/3s of the people he has picked for his cabinet, and I would imagine, most involved in his campaign. They didn’t quibble about smearing Clinton during her campaign. In fact right up to the election.
Nobody is above the law. And what use are laws if they can’t be enforced?
Oh I’m also sure there will be no end of outrage and protests from the public, there already is, and as I mentioned before, recently, almost 3 months of street protests brought down Park Geun-hye of S. Korea.
For the last three nights, I dreamt that as he was about to take the oath, when FBI agents crowded around him and his goons, snapped on the handcuffs, and led them out for all the world to witness. Goes without saying that I woke up every morning with a huge smile on my face.
Very disappointing that not one D senator has joined the Inauguration boycott. Not one pair of ball between them, they claim to represent you.
I’ll be wearing black indefinitely from tomorrow.
Kalima, in the first place, the FBI interfered with the election to slant it towards Trump, I don’t see Comey wanting to lift a finger against the crimes circling around his boy Trump.
Hate to say it but don’t look for Dems to stand up bravely to Trump until his popularity crashes through the floor. Schumer is a Wall Street DLCer and I see plenty of Dems waving the white flag and thinking they will look good or smart in saying they’re willing to work with Trump.
Americans have to be willing to come down on Dems that give aid and comfort to Trump as well as Trump and his supporters. Anyone assisting Trump’s destruction of our society, democracy and economy need to go down with him and voters should make this crystal clear.
BTW, I saw a comment at WAPO with this quote, had to share it:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/whitehousemoron.asp
Wishful thinking I suppose, AdLib. With all the info about trump already out there, it would be a chance to redeem themselves and redo their image from abetting a criminal/criminals, to abiding by the law because no matter what trump thinks, they do apply to him too.
Agree, the cowards and trump enablers have to be voted out. They don’t speak for the majority of Dem voters. Last time I heard, about 40% for, does not beat out over 70% against.
Loved that comment/quote. How very true.
Kalima, as far as I’m concerned, the FBI has lost its moral standing and I have no expectation for it to deliver justice when it comes to their political allies.
Yep, polls show Trump with only 40% approval and 55% disapproval right now, numbers that have been on the decline since his transition began. Obama had 83% approval and 12% disapproval at the start of his first term.
Trump is a terribly damaged president from the start, he doesn’t have the traits to win over those who dislike him. In fact, his instincts will only increase his negatives and turn off many of his supporters.
As with nearly every venture he’s been involved with, Trump’s presidency is destined to go bankrupt.
Like that old Doris Day song, Que Sera Sera, “The future’s not ours to see……”
Good article Ad. You’ve made some astute observations and raised some good questions.
I think Trump’s conflicts of interest might just be his undoing. How he will be undone, exactly, I haven’t a clue.
I do think the Russians have some serious dirt on The Donald. I think Putin plans to play Trump like a cheap fiddle. That will not stand for long, even among staunch republicans. After all, Putin was the head of the frickin KGB! Let’s say they’re gone, but not forgotten.
I think a lot more nasty truths are going to be revealed in the coming year or so. Too many Americans just can’t accept him as their president, and it’s not because he’s of a certain political party. We accepted GW Bush, after all. I think Trump is a horse of a different color (orange, of course).
FD – It sure seems to be an obvious conclusion now, after Trump’s inexplicable and aggressive support of Russia that they have his hamster-sized balls in a vise and he’ll do whatever they ask. And Repubs will go right along with a Russia-influenced presidency because they can use it to pass the horrible bills they want passed.
Republicans embracing Russian control in the WH, Reagan is spinning in his grave as fast as Kellyanne on a talk show.
All of this will sicken and anger the public. As I mentioned, he starts with a majority of Americans against him, it can only get worse as he continues to spew hatred and contempt, flail and fail in the WH.
Bush was bailed out of stealing the WH by wrapping himself in the flag after 9/11 but he eventually burned through that goodwill with all his lies and disasters. Understanding how unhinged Trump is, even a national tragedy wouldn’t rally a majority of people to him, most Americans see him as a political terrorist already.
Even the more open minded people will get fed up with him quickly as his lies and cons are laid bare.
Trump is doomed and the GOP is for supporting him, they just don’t know it yet.
I think even those Trump supporters in the GOP will put up with only so much. They have to think about the future of their party, and their continued support of Trump, no matter what, doesn’t seem likely. They have to realize the damage he’s doing, and will continue to do.
They’re all still riding the crest of that election win wave. They think their party is stronger than ever….now. That could very well change, depending on how crazy Trump gets.
Well, that’s my opinion, anyway. Who knows for sure?
FD, yep, they’ll only turn on Trump out of self-interest, if their re-election is at risk. Which it will be.
The denial that Trump and his cronies are in is permanent. Even when 80% of the country is against them, they will just attack the polls and try to plow ahead.
But as mentioned above, Repub congressmen won’t be along for the ride.
Trump is doomed especially because he has no sense of how the majority fo Americans view him and because he is clueless about so much else.
If you judge all Americans based on the fools who bought his con and voted for him, as he does, he has a big surprise coming.