Occam's Razor

It’s one thing to hope that Trump will be booted from office. I’ve hoped for it of course and have written a number of posts why I think it’s going to happen. However, it’s another thing to feel that it will happen. Yesterday for the first time I felt it in my gut. Trump’s a goner. It’s just a matter of time now.

Stormy seas have been hitting the Trump presidency, mostly caused by his own relentless and largely inchoate fury and mismanagement. For nearly seven months they have been persistently eroding his own presidency, leading to almost daily incidents that were often scary, troubling, befuddling, confusing and amusing, sometimes all at the same time.

Trump has proven to be his own worst enemy. This suggests at least on some unconscious level that Trump doesn’t want to be president so he is taking actions to bring it about. There have been countless things Trump has done or said that should have brought its swift end. But Trump’s “news conference” on Tuesday at Trump Tower wherein he laid bare exactly what he thinks about the protests and counter-protests last weekend in Charlottesville sure feels like his jump-the-shark moment.

Americans have been exercising extreme patience with this president, but his overt racism and his complete inability to distinguish between the racist and violent actions of the Nazi and white supremacists versus the scattered violent though overwhelmingly peaceful reactions by counter-protesters seems to finally be that bridge too far for Americans. It’s that and the horrific videos of the car James Fields drove mowing down protestors, then backing up and at high speed and mowing down more. Trump can’t distinguish a meaningful difference between these sides. Nor does he understand that there is no such thing as a good racist, and all of the protestors were racists. If you believe that you should have special privileges because of your white skin, you are evil.

Even many of the protestors are appalled by what happened a week ago today. Many are suffering the consequences. There is a reason KKK members usually cover their faces: they are secretly ashamed of their actions but also they didn’t want to be identified. In the Internet age when hundreds of cameras are recording the faces and actions of people at this event it’s not too hard to identify these protestors by name.

The reactions have been swift. After these events, organizer Christopher Cantwell delivered a tearful “I’m being so unfairly treated” video on YouTube and is now facing multiple felony charges, including possible federal charges. Protestors have had their social media, Internet services and PayPal accounts closed. The white supremacist website The Daily Stormer lost its GoDaddy hosting. Many protesters have lost their jobs. While they have the right to protest, most live in Right to Work states. This empowers employers to fire them for any reason at all, at least for any reason not protected by federal or state law and being a racist is not one of them.

Businesses, whose profitability depends on attracting customers of all races, religions and ethnicities, quickly realized that further association with Trump could be toxic for them. Enough ditched two councils Trump had created that within days Trump had disbanded them. At his Tuesday news conference he discussed creating another council to advise him on his supposed theme of the week: fixing America’s crumbling infrastructure. By Thursday this council too was aborted in the womb. Trump’s Infrastructure Week turned out to be a joke.

Instead on Thursday Trump’s advisor Steve Bannon gave two unauthorized interviews wherein he deliberately contradicted Trump on some points. I think he did this to get fired, as he was already estranged and operating from an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Yesterday Trump formally fired Bannon, who was largely responsible for his election in the first place. Bannon’s real crime: contradicting Trump.

New chief of staff John Kelly’s actions to try to bring order to the White House seem to be flailing even while the worst of Trump’s advisers are slowly being thrown out. And that’s because Kelly learned Tuesday a painful but predictable lesson: Trump won’t let anyone control him. He’ll go rogue whenever he wants. Police will have more success getting guns away from NRA members than Kelly will have getting Trump’s hands off his smartphone and controlling his Twitter feed, something essential if his presidency is to survive.

So Trump has finally jumped the shark and thus it’s all downhill for him from now on. What’s new and telling in the last week is that his supposed advocates are estranging him. Moreover, this estrangement is having a snowball-rolling-downhill effect, picking up momentum everyday. Business interests have abandoned him. Republicans are becoming comfortable criticizing him, making it easier for other spineless Republicans to develop some spine. One minister finally left his prominent evangelical council. Let’s hope others soon follow. Trump deals with his shunning by canceling these councils and events. This morning we learn he won’t attend the Kennedy Center honors. It’s unclear how many would show up if they were held anyhow.

And Trump being Trump he’s accelerating his own decline. He’s pissing off the very people he needs to move his agenda, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. This makes it easier for them to not want to move his agenda too. Worse, should it come to impeachment and removal from office, it gives them animus to get rid of him. The math to rid him is not that hard to achieve. Aside from dealing with the wrath of Trump voters in many districts (voters who are becoming increasingly less supportive of Trump) there is little downside to removing Trump. For if Pence is put in, Republicans have some hope of accomplishing pieces of their agenda and making Republicans look sane again. With Trump it’s clear that it only gets worse and that Trump is facilitating his own end.

For me I have finally reached the point where I am more filled with a feeling of glorious schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the misery of someone else) than I am appalled and scared by our president. Granted, Trump still has the power to wreak nuclear havoc. His downfall to me now seems certain, not just intellectually but emotionally. I sense it. I think at some point rather than face the increasing scorn and legal tsunami heading his way he will just resign. He’ll find a fig leaf reason that he thinks will save his honor by finding something/someone to blame (“Who could have known that Washington was so corrupt?”) then hopefully go.

Real justice would be for him to be prosecuted for any crimes he committed, but also to be ignored and scorned. It seems that Steve Bannon has reached a post-Trump age, as has Fox News. I am hoping for the worst possible outcome for Trump after he is gone: he is imprisoned for crimes, reviled as our worst president ever, his businesses crumble from being toxic assets, and hardly anyone bothers to read his Twitter feed anymore. It would be poetic and real justice.