What will Mueller discover?

Reply to Baden I had thought that, but I've changed my mind. As Trump said long ago, he could shoot someone dead on Fifth Ave, and his supporters would applaud. Evidence of Trump's unfitness, ineptitude, and mendacity pile up all around him, but Fox and Friends continue to provide cover. It can't go on like this. I think the facts of the case are such as to demand impeachment. If the GOP won't go along, well it's on their heads. The facts are in the public domain.

Reply to Wayfarer

More stuff will come out. It's not getting any better for him. Although it's probably not getting all that worse either considering what we already know. In any case, the Dem leadership will be thinking strategy not morality. Expect it to drag on a while.

Reply to Baden But it's indisputable that Trump is lying about the Mueller report. The whole report was about whether Trump lied, and when it came out, he lied about it, saying it had totally exonerated him, when it had not. It's a straight-out lie. So it's got to the point where the whole country, the whole world, now says 'oh well, Trump lies, we all know that, let's move on.' But that can't be allowed to happen. The fact that the man elected to the Presidency is a congenital liar has to matter. Just allowing him to carry on exonerates that behaviour, degrades the office and the public discourse. As I said yesterday, whatever doesn't kill his presidency makes it stronger, by lowering the standards further, by lowering the bar of what can be considered acceptable. The American political system has to act against this cancer, even if the odds favour him. Justice and decency demands it.

Reply to Wayfarer

Trump's lies are a satirical mirror to the nature of politics itself. He's showing us what we already are and we're relieved to find nothing new. That's why we don't, on the whole, care. There's a cathartic moment to be found there, but not a renaissance of what never was. If you don't like strawberry cancer, you just go back to vanilla.

Reply to Baden I wouldn't underestimate catharsis, but could we in the nascent throes of something completely different?

Since before Trump was elected I've been hoping for his impeachment because of what it would symbolize (not just for America, but for the democratic world at large, and beyond). As a spanner in the works, Trump seems to have ground American political progress to a halt (or reversed it in terms of policy), but he is also causing us to take a harder look at the works themselves. How and why did the spanner get in there? What has it broken. what needs fixing, and what needs to be redesigned completely?

If Trump gets impeached, wealthy elites in America and around the world will understand not only that the people do still have power, but also that democracy itself yields more effective leadership than a rigged or authoritarian craps shoot; it's us they ought placate. Average people will come away with more faith in the ability of democratic systems to represent their interests, and they'll be invigorated to see that they can still participate in what is not yet a dead system.

I'm probably more optimistic than most... Since the world is now facing a series of impending crises that threaten to end contemporary prosperity entirely, I think sound and energized politics and political participation which can facilitate sweeping reforms is our only option. The concentration of wealth and the effect we're having on the environment cannot continue as it has done (a pattern established well before Trump), where we either embrace somewhat radical change, or face decline. Either way we're about to enter a new era of civilization, but we're not at all prepared.

Pelosi dragging her feet about impeachment disturbs me to no end, as if for expediency she wants to keep him in office to use as a shoehorn for a democratic candidate in 2020. I see it as a necessary catalyst to trigger reform.

Quoting Baden

If you don't like strawberry cancer, you just go back to vanilla.

Maybe it’s already metastasised.

One thing Mueller said today: ‘the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.‘ Basically he’s saying - begging - for Congress to pick up the ball. Justin Amash is so far the only one listening. Where the hell is Romney??

On reflection - Mueller held the press conference to say one thing. And that was, that his report did not exonerate Trump. He was setting the record straight after Barr’s incorrect assertion that this is what the report had done, on his last day in office.

It seems to me that Trump doesn’t understand what the Mueller report is about, or what’s in it. The kind of invective he is tweeting indicates no real comprehension of the details. As far as he’s concerned, it’s just bad people who hate him. So his response was basically that Mueller is a bad guy who is acting because of some petty peeve about not getting a posting. It shows no comprehension of Mueller’s character or work.

And there’s an article in Vox, about Justin Amash, the sole Republican who supports impeachment proceedings. It says one of his Town Hall audience members said she had no idea there were adverse findings. about Trump in the report, because, according to Trump and Fox News, it completely cleared him of any wrong-doing - and that’s all she heard. And I’m sure that’s how it’s seen by many Trump supporters.

So there’s two worlds now - one in which Trump is indeed the greatest president in history, and the world that NY Times readers live in. And if you were trying to interfere with the US political system, you couldn’t hope for a much better outcome.

Quoting Wayfarer

It seems to me that Trump doesn’t understand what the Mueller report is about, or what’s in it.

Although it is extremely unlikely that Trump read the report, what we are seeing is not a reflection of his ignorance of its content, but the lies he is feeding his followers. He knows full well that they have not read it either and rely on what Trump and his propaganda machine, a.k.a. Fox News. is telling them. In addition, since only one Republican in Congress has come out against him, it seems to them that the "case is closed".

One might hope that additional information might persuade them, but first they must be persuaded that legitimate news sources such as the New York Times is not fake news.

A downturn in the economy might turn some against him. This may happen as a result of his tariffs. Those in the agricultural and manufacturing sector have already been hurt. When they become uncertain of their future and are unwilling to make capital investments and be forced to trim payrolls then they will begin to question whether Trump has made America great again. Their animosity might then be directed against the rich and come to believe that Trump has not drained the swamp but filled it with his ultra-wealthy cronies. If politicians sense the tide is turning then they will turn with it against Trump and no longer hide his lies.

Reply to Fooloso4 I very much agree, but the complicating fact with Trump is not simply that he lies but that he’s got no conception of the truth. Facts only exist to be manipulated or concealed or disposed of. So, where a Nixon would have thought, well, I’m done for, there’s no use trying to avoid it, Trump has no such compunction - because the facts don’t matter, or really there are no facts, as such. There is only ‘what I say is the case’ facts be damned. The appalling thing is how many people have become enrolled in this fantasy. That is where the real threat is.

Reply to Wayfarer

I think he relishes the fight. His mentor, after all, was Roy Cohn. Right and wrong don't matter. It's win or lose.

Quoting Wayfarer

As Trump said long ago, he could shoot someone dead on Fifth Ave, and his supporters would applaud. Evidence of Trump's unfitness, ineptitude, and mendacity pile up all around him, but Fox and Friends continue to provide cover. It can't go on like this. I think the facts of the case are such as to demand impeachment. If the GOP won't go along, well it's on their heads. The facts are in the public domain.

Never underestimate the tribalism, the vitriol and utter hatred of the other side in American politics. The GOP won't go along. Above all, those people who hated Hillary so much simply won't go along either. Both sides can live very comfortably in their own echo chambers.

I've lost faith in Americans having any objectivity in these issues.

Quoting VagabondSpectre

Average people will come away with more faith in the ability of democratic systems to represent their interests, and they'll be invigorated to see that they can still participate in what is not yet a dead system.

Excuse the delayed (and brief) reply. Anyhow, I'm less optimistic. I guess about a third will take the view you outlined, about a third will consider it a witch-hunt, and about a third will shrug their shoulders. Hyper-polarisation in effect.

Quoting VagabondSpectre

Pelosi dragging her feet about impeachment disturbs me to no end, as if for expediency she wants to keep him in office to use as a shoehorn for a democratic candidate in 2020. I see it as a necessary catalyst to trigger reform.

And here she demonstrates why strategic interests will continue to dominate over all else and justifies some of the paranoia of the opposition.

Quoting Wayfarer

have to believe this will come to an end before Nov 2020. Basically I think it ought to be clear to everyone that Trump’s occupancy of the office is no longer tenable.

Im sorry this is a rare occasion I have to disagree. Currently Trump is deliberately repressing the stock market in the hope that removal of some of the strictures will cause a boom to coincide with his election, its an old trick.

It may not work. but if the Democrats are doing too well, he will just drop a bunch of the 'tactical nuclear devices' he is manufacturing, by converting old nuclear bombs into nuclear bunker busters, on N Korea. that will start a war again and he will win as a wartime president instead.

One may believe that the corruption he has caused is irreversible, but unless he is successful in declaring a permanent state of military dictatorship, which seems unlikely, the general disgust is likely to cause a reversal in USA policies again in 2024, especially when the winds start dropping nuclear radiation from his bombs on the USA, if he does use them.

Quoting Baden

Excuse the delayed (and brief) reply. Anyhow, I'm less optimisitc. I guess about a third will take the view you outlined, about a third will consider it a witch-hunt, and about a third will shrug their shoulders. Hyper-polarisation in effect.

It's sad, but this can be a likely outcome. Hyper-polarization, apt word to describe the situation.

It's only the historians later that will rip to Trump to pieces. But who reads history, anyway?

Time Magazine has a story on the 11 myths about the Mueller Report. 'Myths' is a euphemism: what they actually are, are ‘lies", and furthermore, lies principally concocted by Trump and his tame A G to discredit the findings of the investigation. Time has chosen to publish them, because it seems perilously obvious that "most Americans" are now prepared to accept these lies as fact. Like, 'move right along, nothing to see here'. And depressingly, the electorate seems to be swallowing it.