If we had a parliamentary system and could call a snap election instead of waiting for 2020 or impeachment, who’d win the race for President? Anyone but Trump, finds Public Policy Polling:
Trump is already in a very bad position when it comes to hypothetical match ups for reelection in 2020. He trails Joe Biden by 18 at 56/38, Bernie Sanders by 15 at 53/38, Cory Booker by 11 at 49/38, Elizabeth Warren by 10 at 50/40, Kirsten Gillibrand by 10 at 48/38, Kamala Harris by 6 at 45/39, and Frederica Wilson by 3 at 42/39. While the support level for the possible Democrats fluctuates likely based on name recognition Trump polls consistently in the 38-40% range no matter who he’s pitted against. It’s also interesting that the hierarchy of Democratic performance goes white men->black man->white women->women of color [“Support for Impeachment at Record High,” Public Policy Polling, 2017.10.31].
Biden/Sanders 2020? I’m ready for that train, but I’ll take pretty much any other ticket permutation of any palette or private parts that starts with D and doesn’t end with rump.
PPP does find Trump winning on one metric: respondents in their Hallowe’en poll say that, head-to-head, Trump beats ghosts, vampires, mummies, witches, zombies, and werewolves for scariness. The only figment of our imagination beating Trump for terror? The Devil himself.
Trump has been hovering around a 33% approval rating for sometime now and now with the recent arrests in the Russian probe it is likely to sink even further.
Trump has put his own party in jeopardy for 2018 and 2020. The question should be who in the republican party can save it should Trump be forced out either by impeachment or resignation before 2020?
Democrats need to move with care and unity as the Russian investigation moves in to 2018 and possibly 2019.
But these poll scenarios assumed that Trump will not resign or be impeached before 2020; and if you accept that premise, then you have to take the position that the Republicans will hold onto Congress after 2018 and politically protect Trump, even with Trump’s unpopularity, or if the Democrats regain control of Congress after 2018, that they will not impeach Trump. So the real questions, in relation to this polling data, are whether the Democrats will take control of Congress after the 2018 elections, and once in control, will they impeach Trump prior to 2020?
Keep in mind, absence Nixon, the Democrats really do not have a very good track record of using the impeachment card when it is quite justified. Both Iran/Contra and the Iraq War at least justified articles of impeachment, but in both cases it never happened.
Now many might think that with Trump, that the Democrats will not be so politically cautious when it comes to the politics of impeachment given the insanity of our current West Wing leadership; but if Trump is still in power in January of 2019, I assume he will try to politically seduce the Democrats with any policy options that they want. And I would not be surprised if the Democrats and Trump gave us universal health care by 2020, because like Nixon, who was the only one who could go China, the Democrats will probably only be able to give us universal health care with the help of a Republican President, like Trump. And Trump is the only Republican president who would do it and would be in a unique position to do it.
If Trump politically survives until January of 2019, it will be interesting to watch how Trump plays the Democrats from then on, assuming that the Dems take control of Congress in 2018; and his recent budget deal with Democrats, this past September, is a window into that reality and Trump’s strongest political card, I believe. And such a Trump/Democrat relationship completely changes any 2020 scenarios…. (But then again, there is the Mr. Papadopoulos factor, isn’t there? Was he wired these past three months? Who knows? ;-) )
Biden a draft dodger to with all the milatary mess its time to put a man with some milatary experience in the White house IKE or a Kennedy with experience except in women.
Let’s face it. The two major presidential candidates in 2016 were both horrible, terrible, no good. Hillary would have been traditional, arrogant, completely uninspiring, and would have been impeached and removed from office by now with a majority of the country happy with that result. On the off chance that the GOP had not removed her from office by now, her approval rating would be hovering right about where Trump’s approval rating stands.
The Democratic Party needs new leadership. Hillary should get off the stage along with Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. Thank you for your service – now go.
While Democrats in the House were approving Articles of Impeachment against Nixon, it was a delegation of republican senators that forced Nixon’s hand and caused his resignation.
As Mueller’s investigation expands to include more of Trump’s associates, hopefully there will be another group of republican senators that will tell Trump they will no longer stand with him.
Remember that Nixon said for months that he would not resign.
When the republican party is weakened by the Russian investigation they will be seriously hampered in getting any legislation passed. This is the fear republicans will come to realize as time goes on.
Cory writes:
If the devil is a figment of our imagination, why do people constantly abuse words like Christ, God, holy, Jesus and Lord?
(Pence 2018.)
Mr. Evans writes:
The devil and god do not exist, although it is Halloween, a pagan holiday upon which many small children are dressed as imaginary creatures.
Mr. grudznick, I think that you are getting very philosophical on many matters of late. I must correct one thing though, this is really New Years Eve for the Celts as their year began on November 1. These folks had it figured pretty good in that the celebration was during the time of the year when it was not so damn cold out that you could run around naked and drunk. Now it is spoiled with the kids and we have to wait until the end of December to do that new years eve thingy, this is not progress. I say back to the Celtic way of doing stuff. What say you?
As much as I admire and respect Biden, Sanders, and particularly Warren, I could not support any of them for a presidential bid. In 2020 Warren will be 71 years old and both Biden and Sanders near 80 and I feel that is much too old to be taking on the job. I don’t mean to be ageist but in my late sixties I can tell you that I am waning noticeably in both my mental and physical abilities, and I am not alone among my peers in this. I’m not ready for the home just yet but my dreams of being a Jeopardy champion or Ultimate Frisbee star are fading fast. I could see Booker or Gillibrand in the position; I’ll have to do some research on Harris. I think we should bear in mind that the last truly great president we had was a relatively unknown forty-something legal scholar with a background in social organization, and that’s the sort of person we should be looking at again.
Moses6: Excellent post, exquisitely posited to demonstrate a complete mastery of English as a 3rd or 4th language.
Bob, indeed, it is a doobie sort of dialogue. The last time you were tossed from the breakfasting meeting was because you started to wave that dirty hat of yours around and a doobie fell out. We can’t have that, Bob. We can’t have that, indeed.
Mr. jerry, I don’t understand a bit of your ramblings. Can you rephrase your question in the King’s English, please? Either you have had too many of my friend Bob’s funny cigarettes, or too few of my good friend Bill’s brownies.
Jerry writes:
Do most Americans even know that the first of November is All Hallows’ Day (a.k.a. All Saints’ Day)? The evening before All Hallows’ Day is All Hallows’ Evening (a.k.a. Hallowe’en).
The only Christian aspect of the holiday we’ve retained seems to be the name.
Sorry about the confusion. What I meant was that instead of a paegan holiday, Halloween was the equivalent of New Year’s Eve that we now celebrate across the world. In the Celtic calendar, November 1st was the beginning of the new year. No, I was not smoking any ganje or imbibing with some delightful brownies, just chillin like a villain.
Mr. Evans, no, most people don’t know anything about All Saint’s Day unless the New Orleans Saints win the Superbowl, then we know.
Jerry writes:
The New Year’s Eve holiday we now celebrate seems pretty pagan to me (ha ha).
Another good thread about Trump’s Russian scandal shot to hell!!
I’d written:
Roger Cornelius writes:
Also hell. If the devil is a figment of our imagination, why do people constantly misuse and trivialize the word hell?
HELL!!!
[Kurt, I “abuse” those words due to cultural inertia, growing up among others who use those words in that fashion. See also, Christian atheism.
I also make various literary references to Vulcans, Hamlet, Ferris Bueller, and Stranger Things without positing in any way that those characters exist.
Furthermore, on figments of the imagination in the vernacular, we regularly refer to sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and driving straight east, even though such terms get basic facts about the movement and curvature of the Earth wrong. Let’s not try to read fact in figurative but still useful language.]
JonD, I do share your concern with running another baby-boomer ticket. If Biden, Sanders, and any other septuagenarians or octogenarians feel up to the task, I won’t stand in their way, but a marked contrast in age to the sitting President could provide an electoral advantage.
Biden and Sanders are old, that is a fact, so the choice of vice president would be critical. There you could put the young star from California, Kamala Harris, in for an example. She is the real deal and would bring out the young vote as well.
I’d written:
Cory replies:
Your answer gives part of the reason, but it also raises the questions of why people ever would have started abusing divine names in the first place and why the influence of those people wouldn’t diminish over time.
I’m not sure this is especially relevant, but we don’t agree that those terms get basic facts wrong. The word straight rarely means perfectly straight, and within a given frame of reference on the earth’s surface the sun and the moon really do rise and set.
Kurt,
Is there a chance in hell that you can address the topic of this thread?
Roger Cornelius asks me:
No, Roger, in hell there isn’t.
I knew you couldn’t do it, Kurt.