Trump Thread

[spmetla]

The closest thing to a dissenting opinion I have seen in months think's he's merely an asshat, you may believe it is justified but over the last few months this thread has hosted the diversity of opinion of a momentumn rally.

That's largely because most people that were on the fence or supported him because of the Republican brand have seen him for what he's worth.

He was largely elected because he was supposed to be a no nonsense business man that would use that savvy to help the economy, help the standing of the US via diplomacy and also because he was not the Clinton witch.
He's instead undermined NATO by reducing his understanding and support to simple transnational accounting. Left the TPP which was supposed to help us check China's economic clout. He openly sides with every autocrat around, has yet to criticize Putin for anything. Looking at how his trip to Asia has gone he's made it obvious he's no negotiator or deal maker, he just wants to be courted and feel important.

He's made it plain for all to see that he's actually not used to having to do anything. If any legislation requires more than his vocal support he doesn't seem to do anything to push for it's being passed.

His threat to democracy is evident in his on going war with the press. Yes, they don't like him. He is however a compulsive liar and his constant contradictions, statements in the realm of fantasy, and undermining of the very people he picked to do his work for him undermine our democracy. He as a key negotiator should know how to schmooze people, instead he feuds with Mitch and Ryan, insults respectable people like Mccain making our system of checks and balances a deadlock instead.
Additionally, his complete and utter lack of understanding of how the rule of law works in this country undermines peoples faith in that branch as well. How dare his criticize the federal courts and suggest Gitmo and a military tribunal for a terror suspect instead when the last 15 years of war have shown how ineffective Gitmo and tribunals are.

Believe me, I'd love the POTUS to make the economy grow, use a mix of hard and soft power to ensure the stability of the world order. I actually support several of the policies he supposedly is pushing but I've yet to see infrastructure pushed, I've yet to see him be tough of China, I've yet to see sensible immigration that isn't based on religion.

He's made it evident that the Trump brand is the most important thing to him which is terrible to me because the most important thing should be the brand of the United States which he drags through the mud almost every time he opens his mouth.

Hope is one thing, desperate as it may be after a year of empty grasping, gross hyperbole is another. This thread is turning into a shrine to peer pressure and confirmation bias, it is frankly a miracle noone has been so insipid as to start declaring Dubya preferable. Yet anyway.

Well if he starts two endless wars and takes a growing economy and puts it into recession then he'd get to take a seat with Dubya as well. This tax plan has me worried because it seems to hinge on rosy economic forecasts which if aren't even close to attain will massively skyrocket the debt even more (to think that George W. inherited an economy with a budget surplus and ruined it still pisses me off).

By the standards of 1455 to 1836 Trump thus far would be in the league of Henry VIII; 3/3/4

I think his stats are more in the realm of 2/1/1. I've seen nothing that shown him having any military or diplomatic competence, undermining our military alliance and trade agreements wouldn't point to diplomatic skill. The two is really only there from his business experience which would transfer over to EU4's administrative though looking at the amount of unfilled vacancies perhaps that should be a 1 as well. What makes you think he's got military competency? He doesn't even know where his fleets (or should I say Armadas) are sailing though that would be the diplomatic side in EU4.
At least he's got Mattis boosting the Military (level 3), Tillerson isn't allowed to do much so he's base 1 level and Gary Cohn is competent though I personally don't like the tax plan (level 2 advisor).

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think little of his leadership so far. He was elected to 'drain the swamp' and get things done for American business and the working class.

So far, unlike Reagan, unlike Bush41, unlike Newt and the GOP House of 1995, Trump cannot get any meaningful legislation furthering his agenda through Congress. This INCLUDES an infrastructure improvement bill that everybody wants, nobody opposes, the country needs, and which will have enough bits of pork included to make it stall-proof. Not even in committee yet. We have one relatively conservative judge added to the SCOTUS. That's it.

The one thing Washington seems to agree on right now is the key thing is to sabotage anything useful to Trump's agenda. The GOP establishment will gladly trade lost seats in Nov18 in both houses in order to hang the loss on Trump's reputation and make it unlikely for him to repeat in 2020. The Dems agree with this whole-heartedly as well, since they have nada for meaningful national candidates at the moment and it helps them regain strength in Congress and ramp up for 2020. Trump has managed to bring bipartisanship back to DC by uniting them with the one common goal they can all believe in -- dumping Trump.

All this having been said, Trump simply isn't the ghastly horror story his critics make him out to be. He's just another "outsider" candidate who couldn't manage the Washington game well enough to achieve much. He won't be written of as one of our worst Presidents like Bucannnan or Harding or Grant, or our most ethically challenged like Nixon and he certainly won't join the pantheon of Presidential 'heroes."

This too shall pass.

[Montmorency]

This INCLUDES an infrastructure improvement bill that everybody wants, nobody opposes

The vague draft offered by the administration so far would have most functions or programs privatized, relies on the expectation that there are loads of private firms and entrepreneurs itching to build cheap and high-quality infrastructure all over the country, and holds little prospect for specific improvements or sustainable reforms. What no one opposes is the idea of an infrastructure bill - just like no one opposes the idea of a healthcare bill, or a tax reform bill, or a 'make all this awesome' bill...

The one thing Washington seems to agree on right now is the key thing is to sabotage anything useful to Trump's agenda.

Trump does not have a legislative agenda. It is rather Trump (and his base) who are hindering the GOP's agenda. Which is mainly a good thing, as the GOP's agenda is outrageous.

But no one is sabotaging Trump other than the man himself, and potentially Putin.

All this having been said, Trump simply isn't the ghastly horror story his critics make him out to be. He's just another "outsider" candidate who couldn't manage the Washington game well enough to achieve much. He won't be written of as one of our worst Presidents like Bucannnan or Harding or Grant, or our most ethically challenged like Nixon and he certainly won't join the pantheon of Presidential 'heroes."

The first part of the conclusion retains the fault of individualizing the Trump phenomenon to the man himself, and of ignoring his administration's effect on government, civil society, and people up to this day. The second part is just insulting.

Those you name could of course be condemned as men of their time, for abuse or diffidence towards abuse of the comman man, women, and minorities - and of course universally for ordering or continuing the destruction and rapine of indigenous peoples. But judging all against Trump without the weight of hindsight on their shoulders, we already know that they stand above Trump (I'll give you Buchanan for now, though we would need to re-assess if Trump serves a full term).

Grant was arguably the best POTUS between Lincoln and T. Roosevelt. He managed to be the most important proponent of civil rights in the White House before at least FDR, and the biggest flaw in his Reconstruction policy was that it could not continue without his leadership. Harding was a failure due to negligence and incapacity, foisted upon the country by party elites. He was feckless but not malicious. Harding was just a better, more sensitive and reflective human being than Trump, and you don't need to set either of them against Grant to place him in standing with Marcus Aurelius.

Virtually the whole Trump administration is built upon nepotism and the spoils system (a noted target of Grant's administration, I might add). Malgovernance in Trump's circle is not considered an acceptable side effect of corruption, but the goal in itself, and the impact is to reduce America's wealth and standing now as well as to bleed it into the future. (Whether they're on Putin's payroll or they have an intrinsic ideological stance against effective custodial government, that is what's up.) Trump's negligence and incapacity are on their face much greater than any heretofore 'standard' corruption - this is a man who couldn't be trusted to run a hotdog stand at the best of times, and his associates tend to be little better - with heaps of perfidy ladled on as well. The Trump admin may yet one-up its predecessors for brazen peculation, and if so it will be among the least of its offenses.

And when we say the problem does not begin or end with the man or his administration, it is because the GOP as well as a large swath of the electorate are complicit. If Trump were to order the arrest of the whole Congress, and key federal judges and bureaucrats, derogate civil rights on grounds of national emergency, and declare himself President for Life, perhaps a fifth of the population would cheer him on. Impeachment is only a formality, not a restoration; the collapse is in progress.

Don't be complacent:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You made some good points. Most of my grief with Grant is the corruption in his administration. He himself was not a part of that nor were those policies he personally directed poorly chosen, as your examples illustrate.

We agree that Trump has no legislative agenda. I am simply appalled that nobody on the administration can get something so inherently bipartisan as the infrastructure stuff off the ground. He could have had his admin steer some decent items out there -- items that would make opposition look bad if they blocked him -- and has not done so.

His foreign policy isn't all that coherent either. Very much reactive so far, and this despite a clear kernel of support for renegotiating trade deals which SHOULD be at least vaguely in his area of competence.


I just cannot see "high crimes and misdemeanors" here. We have not used impeachment to overturn a national election unless it has truly reached a clearly criminal level on matters pertaining to the conduct of the office. Nixon rose to that level by personally involving himself in a cover-up of a crime perpetrated against political opponents. I do not believe we should overturn an election for lesser grounds (and the articles of impeachment against Johnson and Clinton were rightly quashed for that reason). In fact, the House's vote to impeach Clinton was stupid if they were not willing to assert that he had harried political opponents or the like (and he had not, it was all over civil matters).

[Montmorency]

You made some good points. Most of my grief with Grant is the corruption in his administration. He himself was not a part of that nor were those policies he personally directed poorly chosen, as your examples illustrate.

We agree that Trump has no legislative agenda. I am simply appalled that nobody on the administration can get something so inherently bipartisan as the infrastructure stuff off the ground. He could have had his admin steer some decent items out there -- items that would make opposition look bad if they blocked him -- and has not done so.

His foreign policy isn't all that coherent either. Very much reactive so far, and this despite a clear kernel of support for renegotiating trade deals which SHOULD be at least vaguely in his area of competence.


I just cannot see "high crimes and misdemeanors" here. We have not used impeachment to overturn a national election unless it has truly reached a clearly criminal level on matters pertaining to the conduct of the office. Nixon rose to that level by personally involving himself in a cover-up of a crime perpetrated against political opponents. I do not believe we should overturn an election for lesser grounds (and the articles of impeachment against Johnson and Clinton were rightly quashed for that reason). In fact, the House's vote to impeach Clinton was stupid if they were not willing to assert that he had harried political opponents or the like (and he had not, it was all over civil matters).

Re. Grant: He made bad senior appointments in his first term and refused to directly control them, splitting the difference down the middle. Later he recognized his mistakes (admittedly he didn't quite get his White House in order) and began setting the stage for civil service reform, which finally began to reach fruition under the administration of Chester Arthur, one of Grant's allies. The opposing wing of the Republican Party made noises about reform and trumped up the corruption of Grant's administration (which pushed for affirmative action for blacks, Jews, and women in low-to-mid level appointments by the way), but these guys were plenty corrupt themselves and were more than anything interested in selling out Southern blacks to the Democrats in order to gain national prominence. I rely mostly on HW Brands' recent biography for my knowledge.


I think, used properly, impeachment (of the POTUS, not sure what the stats are for other offices) could stand to be more frequent than it has been. Clinton's missteps over Lewinsky were technically impeachable - it's just that they weren't (IMO) worth impeaching over.

I used the words "negligence, incapacity, perfidy" because these are the (dis)qualifying factors James Madison perceived during the Constitutional Convention.

Mr. MADISON thought it indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community agst. the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate. The limitation of the period of his service, was not a sufficient security. He might lose his capacity after his appointment. He might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers. The case of the Executive Magistracy was very distinguishable, from that of the Legislature or of any other public body, holding offices of limited duration. It could not be presumed that all or even a majority of the members of an Assembly would either lose their capacity for discharging, or be bribed to betray, their trust. Besides the restraints of their personal integrity & honor, the difficulty of acting in concert for purposes of corruption was a security to the public. And if one or a few members only should be seduced, the soundness of the remaining members, would maintain the integrity and fidelity of the body. In the case of the Executive Magistracy which was to be administered by a single man, loss of capacity or corruption was more within the compass of probable events, and either of them might be fatal to the Republic.

This goes beyond literal crimes, and aside from the natural susceptibility to impeachment Trump carries by virtue of being unfit the second he took his oath, specific actions taken in sum over the course of the term so far constitute impeachable offenses (by no means exhaustive or directly related to Russia): from the diffuse like constant uninhibited lying on matters large and small; verbal attacks on the press, courts and other institutions; potential self/family enrichment or emoluments clause violations; to the systematic like advancing unqualified candidates on basis of personal loyalty; withholding candidates from offices without justification or reorganization; (as of now wholly speculative, or at least nascent) use of federal powers in voting oversight, on false pretenses of widespread fraud, to suppress the votes of political enemies; to the singular and autocratic like (apparently) firing an FBI director with intent to obstruct investigations into himself and associates; pardoning (and making a public show of it) a political ally, convicted of both criminal and civil contempt of court, before sentencing, appeal for clemency, and review of appeal (Frank Bowman at the previously-linked site impeachableoffenses.net argues that in our history of executive pardons only Bill Clinton's last-minute pardon of Marc Rich comes even close in impropriety, and moreover the pardon of Marc Rich may also have been an impeachable offense); interfering with or indicating intent to interfere with the special counsel's investigation, such as publicly airing desire to fire the special counsel, or mooted replacement of the recused Attorney General to effect said firing, corroborated by other (now recent) statements expressing a desire to directly control the investigations of the Justice Department and FBI toward partisan ends.

...

Importantly, these fall into the three categories of bad behavior Madison listed, not being mere political disagreements, mistakes, or even plain bad policy. It's at the level of, "so far not a single member of the Trump administration has been found to be secretly working for the United States".

Finally, if we argue that Trump cannot be guilty of or accountable for any of the above or anything else not listed because he is simply too mentally incompetent or impaired - in such a case we cannot permit a mental incompetent to remain in office, and either impeachment or the 25th Amendment's provisions must be applied. So I think this is cornered.


It's critical that, of the five articles of impeachment put forward in the House Judiciary Committee at eve of Nixon's tenure, three were passed (with some difficulty; contemporary Republicans will be much more recalcitrant), and the second concerned "Abuse of Power". One clause was as follows:

In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, of the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency, in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

@Montmorency:

Nice counter with the excerpt from Jemmy Madison.

I think it underscores, however, just how serious a breach of the trust of office is required for impeachment to be a valid option. Madison is indicating that there should be a mechanism for removal, but that reversing a decision of the electorate should only be done in the most grievous instances.

1. "Losing capacity after appointment." I think this would best be handled via the procedures outlined in the 25th. Despite the claims of his detractors, I have yet to see valid evidence that Trump is certifiably unstable or incapable of making a decision. A decision making style that emphasizes "going with your gut" is not a sign of incapacity.

2. "pervert [her or] his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression." First off, I just LOVE the phrasing on that. While I know that some of his detractors label him as racist etc. regarding Muslims and Latinos, I have not seen evidence of Trump's seeking to oppress any citizen's religious or civil rights. He has been adamant is his efforts to curtail illegal immigration which he views as an economic threat and he has been seeking ways to limit potential terrorists from entering the country. So far, his efforts have been ham-handed and have been blocked by the courts in many cases -- part of the reason we have the checks and balances in place -- but there is no evidence that the Trump administration is centered on graft or dedicated to racism and oppression.

3. "betray [her or] his trust to foreign powers." In the instance of the Trump campaign, it is becoming clear that the Russians were trying to play social media games and other influence strategies that would benefit Trump. In addition, members of the Trump campaign clearly met with persons who were connected to (and potentially in the indirect employ of) the Russians in order to obtain information that could be used to damage H. Clinton's campaign. I have yet to see evidence that Trump himself made any "deals" for support from Russia or encouraged his campaign staffers to do the same. Absent that direct participation, which would have given Putin leverage over him and met this Madisonian provision, I do not see anything impeachable here -- only evidence that calls into question the quality of the campaigns leadership staff. I note, however, that evidence that does meet this standard may exist. If that is found to be the case, it would rise to the level of impeachability in my eyes.

You go on to list a laundry list of the shortcomings and ethically challenged actions undertaken by Trump and/or his administration. You are, of course, well aware that other administrations from both parties have engaged in many of these same behaviors in the past without anyone suggesting they rose to the level of impeachability. Many of these political maneuverings -- hiring supporters who are less than ideally qualified for the position hired -- are almost legion and date to the founding of the republic. It's the less savory side of politics. I don't discount that these show poor leadership and weak ethics. I believe they constitute good reason to campaign against him and vote against him and his supporters in upcoming elections. I only question whether they rise to impeachability. I do not see an administration that has become the embodiment of "peculation or oppression," only a bad administration. As to the firing of Comey, that sort of thing tends to take care of itself. As Nixon found with his firing of Cox, the removal of someone leading an investigation at the President does NOT create a chilling effect on the investigation, but the reverse of same.



The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was blatant partisan politics. He was a Democrat heading a Republican-dominated government and they wanted him out. The articles under which he was impeached were laughably short of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" noted in the constitution itself or even the tripartite list you noted in Madison's explication.

The near impeachment of Richard Nixon started out somewhat partisan -- the liberal press corps had always loathed the man -- but evidence developed over time that clearly indicated that the President was aware of, and either authorized or participated in, cover up efforts and payoffs that were designed prevent the connection of his administration to crimes committed against Nixon's political opposition by persons affiliated with his re-election campaign. Partisanship faded in the face of evidence, and Nixon resigned in advance of what would have been his impeachment on AT LEAST one of the articles brought forward.

The impeachment of Bill Clinton was largely blatant partisan politics. Republicans had just regained power in the House after nearly 40 years and were almost immediately outmaneuvered politically by Clinton. Clinton got the HoR to shoulder the blame for a government shutdown. When the Starr investigation revealed evidence of perjury for the purpose of obstructing justice, the GOP pounced. While technically impeachable in that there was evidence that the President had very likely perjured himself before a grand jury -- only the most benign parsing of the language would suggest otherwise in the face of evidence uncovered thereafter -- NONE of Clinton's transgressions were connected with harming the political opposition or otherwise crossing the threshold of perverting the office. The GOP were idiots to push this and it was rightly quashed in the Senate.

You mention the Rich pardon as an impeachable offense. The timing of the pardon, of course, made this action 'unimpeachable' in a literal sense. I agree with you that that pardon was more of a breach of trust of the office than any of the crap with which they tried to officially impeach Bill Clinton. It was easily his most obvious abuse of power.

[Montmorency]

From the cautious perspective, Frank Bowman* above sees the Arpaio pardon (because of its nature, timing, and the way it was processed he argues it the most abusive POTUS pardon in history) as the "first verifiable impeachable offense". Also, precedent shows it is understood that a President acting from legitimate authority will not by that fact alone be acting unimpeachably (nor is it OK because "I'm the President"). The second he lists is related to Trump's (most?) recent flub, apparently "Mr. Trump’s efforts to induce federal law enforcement agencies to investigate his political enemies". If these are the most direct and discrete alleged (non-criminal) offenses in a legal construction, maybe we can focus our attention on them: are the charges correct on their face? Are they impeachable? Should any impeachment process ride on these alone?

For the rest you remain convinced an electoral remedy must be the appropriate one. You point to the historicity or prior manifestation of some of the charges, or in another form, but of course this raises the questions of, 'were indeed those instances (not) impeachable?' and 'have Trump administration analogs been more egregious, pernicious, or frequent?'

Part of the matter clearly has to do with different views of the necessary application or frequency of impeachment in politics, which we see the Founders were also divided on. That could be a subject for another thread: impeachment, what is it good for? It's a separate question from that of what can be argued in the existing framework.

The partisanship of the Clinton impeachment was demonstrated by the fact that they could find no other distinct charges to levy, and I'd be willing to own that some appropriate ones should have been conceivable under an expansive application of the impeachment power. The GOP Congress appeared more interested in posturing than genuinely removing a sitting President who had to be removed. If all this was impeachable conduct on Clinton's part, then it behooves the Congress to create a comprehensive case and not impeach on the basis of that single breach and fallout.

Upon the passage of H. Res. 611, Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the House of Representatives on grounds of perjury to a grand jury (by a 228–206 vote)[18] and obstruction of justice (by a 221–212 vote).[19] Two other articles of impeachment failed – a second count of perjury in the Jones case (by a 205–229 vote)[20] and one accusing Clinton of abuse of power (by a 148–285 vote)

On the other hand, if impeachment were more institutionally frequent it would in turn be more damaging for the party or the Congress to 'come at the king' in a non-serious way - negating one avenue of partisan abuse...


*Your writing styles are similar enough to be in the same family, but you're not a lawyer. What's up with that?

Absent that direct participation, which would have given Putin leverage over him and met this Madisonian provision, I do not see anything impeachable here -- only evidence that calls into question the quality of the campaigns leadership staff. I note, however, that evidence that does meet this standard may exist. If that is found to be the case, it would rise to the level of impeachability in my eyes.

We probably only get that once Mueller is offering his conclusions and recommendations. Meanwhile, the circumstantial evidence keeps piling up.

For instance, the whole new development with Trump Jr. receiving and responding to Twitter PMs from Wikileaks (who were apparently very interested in maintaining a public appearance of impartiality) - deniability is there for the father, right?

Yet there are a number of tweets Big Trump sent that in timing and content seem awfully, coincidentally, directly prompted by the Wikileaks messages...

It looks especially bad given that elements or allies of the campaign were discussing the leaked emails among each other and with Wikileaks long before they were actually leaked. Increasingly the only deniability may lie in a defense centered on Trump's mental incapacity and susceptibility to manipulation (in which case none of the past few years' events should have been allowed to happen.)

If any element of culpable collusion is demonstrated, in combination with a history of financial crimes, the ideal punishment would be to strip all offenders of American citizenship and expropriate their assets. The first at least won't happen, since aside from whether it's even available as a punishment in the legal system it would surely violate international laws to make a citizen a stateless person (i.e. refugee) without their consent.* On the second, New York City could desperately use new public housing...


*This consideration wouldn't apply to those with dual citizenship or more