thebuzzardman wrote:Clyde_Style wrote:Jeff Van Gully wrote:the house of cards is definitely vulnerable right now. this is nixon-level rough.
Yes, it is getting fragile already. And a resignation is never out of the question if Trump can be convinced he'll receive some form of leniency if he vacates. If Nixon had lingered, he would have been impeached and possibly have faced time. He got his get of out jail card and took it.
Nixon also tried to hack his election, but Trump did that with the help of a foreign adversary. Once you get past their common obstruction of justice, Trump is a whole other stratosphere criminally speaking considering the treason and massive financial corruption prior to politics and during his tenure.
Trump may never be able to deal his way out of some form of penalty, but he may be facing a choice of:
Stay two more years if you can and potentially spend the rest of your life in litigation and imprisonment or leave voluntarily and perhaps do better.
He's not a rational guy though, so that kind of decision will still probably be made emotionally. Not very predictable.
And I could be wrong about any deal being made available to him. There might be no escape hatch for Trump.
Trump isn't going quietly. His entire business is built on branding. How is the brand going to do if he is sent packing in disgrace? If the businesses get hit by criminal investigations and lose all sorts of money?
He's in an all or nothing end game and knows it. That's dangerous.
You may be right simply from a psych profile POV.
Trump's persona doesn't exist without ridiculous bluster and this is the biggest stage on the planet. Hard for a sociopathic narcissist to willingly let that go even if the building is burning down around him.
But we know there is no soft landing for him so whatever goes on in his mind about the future, i.e. protecting the brand, protecting assets and a career post-WH is already so disconnected from reality that he cannot be expected to make decisions based on realistic outcomes.
The realistic outcome post-WH is:
1) Putin calls in his bank loans
2) State AG's batter away with fraud cases
3) His assets are seized as his financial house of cards collapse
and that is not even considering every criminal act he may be held accountable for
His brand in terms of licensing the Trump name is finished though Buzz. No licensees will embrace his brand again. His sole brand left is crazy time for the faithful hour stuff.
so if post-WH he is somehow not put on trial that can put him in prison, his career opportunities will be fringe at best and amount to babbling like an idiot about the Clintons to that 11% of crazy white Americans who think he is their god
but since Trump's security clearances + his big mouth make him a threat to the functioning of the country post-presidency I still expect the objective is to put him behind bars where he cannot mouth off and do any more harm
How Trump plays this is another matter and you may be right that he will go down swinging. Like I said, I think it will partly be a mood-based decision to resign or not. And lordy he's gonna be moody AF from now on if he stays
