My opinion: I don’t think President Trump gets impeached, he makes it to 2020 and worst-case decides not to run like LBJ.
President Trump has lied almost continuously through his campaign until now – demonstrably about minor and major things in abundance. He has failed to deliver or reversed himself on more than 80% of his promises. The deliveries he’s made so far are much more on tone than substance. He was elected on a populist economic and national-security message, a nationalist view of government power, an appeal to white-identity politics, and an outsider’s promise to combat corruption and bring technocratic competence from the business sector into government management and leadership. So far, in 120+ days he has reversed himself to making traditional conservative noises and positions on the economy, national security, and government power. He has been startlingly ineffective in leadership/management/technical competence and has set a new low in 100+ years for corruption. He’s maintained the façade of white identity politics but other than justice department sentencing guideline changes and the failed muslim ban it’s mostly been talk.
After all that President Trump’s approval rating has never fallen below 38% in even the lowest polling – and isn’t hanging out that low now. President Nixon dropped to 24% at the nadir of Watergate. President Trump faces an incredibly hostile media and opposition party that will not give him the benefit of the doubt on anything. Yet, he’s still only suffering minor shifts in support – which were not high to begin with, but were still enough to get him elected. If you disagree with my first paragraph it in many ways proves the point. There is a significant internet and alternative/conservative media counter-narrative to the mainstream one and it has as much traction as it had during the campaign. Though not as prevalent ‘fake news’ is still a significant part of the narrative – just look to the murdered DNC staffer who according to the alternative media was definitely the wikileaks source (not the Russians) and was clearly murdered by HRC/DNC/Elizabeth Warren in Native American garb.
President Trump’s supporters are not going to budge. The Republican party has masterfully managed the electoral map since 2010 with gerrymandering, voter suppression, and very effective local rule-setting. That means Republicans in districts or states President Trump won by more than 5 points get nothing but a primary challenger for siding with Democrats or opposing President Trump – period. Short basketball players get weeded out in college – politicians who don’t know how to keep getting elected get weeded out shortly after. It doesn’t matter how egregious the sins of the administration – the majority of Republican elected officials aren’t going to turn on the President until their electorate does. We’ll see continued criticism from states and districts with closer votes from 2016 but the majority of the red state jokers are going to hold their nose and toe the line.
But, to your hypotheticals:
- How do the Republicans recover? Pence is in office, can he rebuild confidence in the GOP?
I think the damage to the Republican brand will last a generation – but I’m not sure how bad the damage is, I think it depends on the voting block. I think we’re seeing Christian Conservatives, Financial sector (Wallstreet), Energy Industry, and Chamber of Commerce voting blocks pretty lined up on their core concerns. Christian Conservatives will vote for anyone who puts anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-Muslim policies and judges on the docket. Wallstreet and chamber of commerce cares about deregulation and tax cuts. Energy cares about deregulation. Each of those groups talked about a bunch of stuff before the election – but we’re seeing them line up without the rest of it, with just those policies.
So, I don’t see the Republican brand losing those folks. I think what they’re losing are college-educated and young people across the board. Not all of them, just cutting significantly into their margins. The reason is the necessity of buying a totally alternative narrative in order to get behind President Trump. You’ve got to sign off on a shit ton of lying, anti-science BS, and casual bigotry. That’s going to bug a lot of people for a long time. Still, most people are pretty apathetic. More people will just get turned off to politics in general than will really become anti-Republican.
VP Pence doesn’t rebuild. He just doubles down on turn-out from existing supporters. And that’s been enough to win – especially if there is no successful effort to combat gerrymandering and voter suppression. It’s been good enough to get Republicans in control of every chamber of national government and 30+ statehouses and governorships.
- You have to find a candidate for 2020. Who? Democrats can sit back and position themselves now, but the GOP can't "build" presidential hopefuls with Trump around. Not fully at least so that brings us back to the above: what can Pence do to fix things?
You’ve got to run VP Pence. The worst crime for a Republican to their base is to try to admit mistakes, missteps, or weakness. President Trump, even when polling abysmally for competence and honesty, always polls well as a ‘strong leader.’ The Republican base likes bluster and fighting words – you tell them how everyone is against you, nothing is fair, and you’re mad and aren’t going to take it. Rick Perlstein talked in his book Nixonland at how President Nixon was a master, back to his days in high school, of giving voice to priviledged people who felt oppressed. He called his group ‘orthogonians’ and it’s been a great strategy (across the spectrum) ever since.
- I figured the Clinton machine wouldn't return, but will she? Third time's the charm or does her own party tell her to sit the rest of them out? This is the same group that sank Sanders' chances for Hillary's and lost the farm. Will the DNC treat her like they treated Sanders in '16?
I don’t know, but the Democratic field is very weak. The DNC, and the Democratic apparatus, was clearly against SEN Sanders – as the RNC was against President Trump – the difference being a single alternative vs over a dozen, and not having your dirty laundry published. But, that shouldn’t override the reality that HRC beat SEN Sanders almost everywhere most people voted. Sanders had the most devoted following – but it was a minority of Democratic voters. Sanders does not represent the majority of the party, only the most enthusiastic minority. Sanders will lose in the general in my opinion, I’m a liberal and I would struggle to vote for him vs anyone but President Trump. If the Democrats can’t field a decent generalist candidate (and HRC is not it) they are fucked in 2020.
Impeaching a president is a horrific proposition, but might prove to be necessary in this case. Is the GOP ready to go there and how will they recover?
I think the only way the GOP impeaches President Trump is if they think President Pence can navigate through to success. That works if Democrats impeach the President and Pence gets all of President Trump’s support. If the GOP participates a lot of Trump partisans are going to punish the GOP – as an example look at what happened to Paul Ryan’s popularity in the party.
If I were a smart Democratic strategist I would say put all your energy into playing up what a great President Pence would be publicly, about how he could do so much better than President Trump, and how he secretly thinks President Trump is a buffoon – and false flag it to be coming from Republicans and independents. President Trump will go jihad on VP Pence if enough of that gets him spun up and the Republicans won’t have any options in impeachment.
But, nobody every accused the DNC of having smart strategist – at least not since 1992.
