There Is Precedent For Trying A Former Government Official Established 145 Years Ago
Assuming Trump is not convicted on his impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection before the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, he will not face a ban on future campaigns.
Some believe Trump might still be kept out of federal office by an invocation of the 14th Amendment. That part of the Constitution, added after the Civil War with former Confederate officers in mind, banned any who had “engaged in insurrection” against the government.
But that wording could well be read to require action against the government, not just incitement of others to action by incendiary speech. It could also require lengthy litigation in federal courts and a balancing of the 14th Amendment with the free speech protections of the First Amendment.
All that can be said at this point is that the former president will settle into a post-presidential routine far from his previous homes in Washington and New York City. And the greatest obstacle to his return to power would seem to be the pattern of history regarding the post-presidential careers of his predecessors.
For Trump Being President Is A Drastic And Degrading Lifestyle Downgrade
While we’re talking about Game Of Thrones characters, nothing says you’re down with the working class than living in a golden tower or appearing on 60 Minutes while sitting on golden thrones.
He may not be a good businessman or well-informed or particularly well-spoken or reserved in any way, but Donald Trump is quite rich. And I’m guessing that he thought none of his follies would matter if he became president, because the presidency is a job that would demand dignity the way money demands respect. Only Trump is now learning that Obama was just making the gig look cool, because the harsh reality is that leading the free world is a thankless and boring job that puts Trump at the mercy of the very same press he’s worked so hard to undermine and disregard. Now that he’s “made it,” his microphone is permanently hot, the camera shutters are constantly agape, and suddenly a quiet night out is now this hilarity:
That’s from a month back, when Trump attempted to ditch his press pool to eat dinner with his family — something they don’t appreciate, on account of the American people having the right to know every waking moment of the president’s life. Because as president, Trump no longer gets to have privacy. Nor do his trophy-hunting kids, who can’t even walk the streets without heckles about their cantaloupe elder.
Meanwhile, that really old house he’s expected to live in for the next four years is downright rustic in comparison.
‘treating This Like A Game’: Psaki Blasts Gop As Debt Ceiling Deadline Nears
The 2024 election is still 1,155 days away — I counted — but, according to one senior aide to Donald Trump, the former president is all-but-certain to run again.
“Trump is confiding in allies that he intends to run again in 2024 with one contingency: that he still has a good bill of health, according to two sources close to the former president. That means Trump is going to hang over the Republican Party despite its attempts to rebrand during his exile and its blockade of a Trump-centric investigation into January’s insurrection.”
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Trumpworld Is Already Weighing Veeps For 2024 Hint: It Aint Pence
The former president is keeping tabs on the field and hes all but decided to ditch the guy he ran with last time.
07/23/2021 04:30 AM EDT
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Donald Trump and his advisers are convinced that if he runs again for president in 2024, the Republican nomination will be his. Their confidence is so supreme that they view almost all of the emerging field not as competition but as possible vice presidential picks.
No formal vetting process is in place, and there is no expectation that Trump, should he run, will do so unopposed in a Republican primary. But allies of the former president are already keeping tabs on how GOP officials with presidential ambitions are addressing Trump himself and the legitimacy of Joe Bidens election.
You cant wait to run for president, said one Trump adviser. But those doing it now look like theyre dancing on the grave and the political bodys still warm.
As things stand now, Trump is extremely unlikely to run again with former Vice President Mike Pence as his number two, advisers say. Some Trump aides have also written off Pences political future, at least at the presidential level, privately arguing that he has failed to capture anything close to the same kind of enthusiasm as Trump. They point to anger among the most diehard Trump supporters over Pences decision to carry out his Constitutional duty in certifying Bidens election win.
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Trumpism Suffers Untold Damage In Its Collision With The Us Capitol
It is not an accident that Trump, following the advice of onetime adviser Steve Bannon, spoke approvingly of Jackson in 2016. When he entered the White House, Trump hung Jackson’s presidential portrait in the Oval Office overlooking the Resolute Desk.
It is not hard to imagine Trump invoking the spirit of Jackson’s 1828 campaign against the “corrupt bargain,” if he runs in 2024 against “the steal” .
Jackson, the ultimate outsider in his own time, makes a far better template for Trump than either Cleveland or Teddy Roosevelt â even though the latter two were New Yorkers like Trump.
Two New York governors, two decades apart
For now, Cleveland remains the only two-term president who had a time out between terms. When he first won in 1884, he was the first Democratic president elected in 28 years, and he won by the micro-margin of just 25,000 votes nationwide. He won because he carried New York, where he was governor at the time, adding its electoral votes to those of Democratic-leaning states in the South â which preferred a Democratic Yankee to a Republican Yankee.
Potent as it was, that language backfired by alienating enough Catholics in New York to elect Cleveland, himself a Protestant. His margin in his home state was a mere thousand votes, but it was enough to deliver a majority in the Electoral College.
A statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York City. After leaving office, Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to return to the White House.hide caption
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Will Donald J Trump Be Americas Last President
An amazing thing happened in Israel recently. The hard right and the hard left aligned to kick Benjamin NetanYahoo to the curb. Similarly, the pro-corporate right and anti-corporate left came together in the United States to kick Donald J. Trump to the curb. When these aligned enemies realize they hate each other, they will open the door and let the dictators back in. Democracy is likely to be a casualty of a second Trump term.
There are only four possible outcomes for the 2022 U.S. midterm Congressional elections:
1. Democrats hold the House and the Senate.
2. Democrats hold the House but lose the Senate.
3. Democrats lose the House but hold the Senate
4. Democrats lose both the House and the Senate.
My thesis is that all four of these possible outcomes will lead to Donald J. Trump being elected President of the United States on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
Barring Trump being in prison or incapacitated, he will be President of the United States again if he runs in 2024. The barr for incapacitation is set pretty high, given that Reagan, Biden and Trump were all deemed fit to be Commanders in Chief. If Trump becomes President of the U.S. again and I believe this is now likely well, you know what happens then. Ten years from now, the United States will no longer be one country.
1. Democrats hold the House and hold the Senate.
2. Democrats hold the House but lose the Senate.
3. Democrats lose the House but hold the Senate
Trump Talked Out Of Announcing A 2024 Bid For Now Settles On A Wink
As turmoil in Afghanistan reached a crescendo in August, Donald Trump began talking again with advisers about whether he should announce his 2024 campaign for president right away.
They responded by urging patience, according to three people familiar with the discussions, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because theywere not authorized to speak publicly. An announcement would force a reshuffling of his newly formed fundraising apparatus,advisers argued, and could complicate his ability to appear on broadcast television without triggering equal time rules.
Some of his advisers were concerned that Democrats might use his announcement in their effortto frame the midterm elections around his candidacy, potentially boosting their own turnout and hampering his plans if Republicans fall shortnext year. Advisers also argued that he could be more effective electing like-minded Republicans next year if he was not an official candidate himself.
The biggest point we drove home was that he doesnt want to own the midterms if we dont win back the House or Senate, said one person familiar with the conversations.
The arguments won Trump over, for the time being at least. Instead of a presidential campaign announcement, Trump, 75, has settled on a strategy of winks and nods. As some in his party worry, he is acting like a candidate for public office, and making clear he intends to be one again, without actually declaring so himself.
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Emboldened ‘unchanged’ Trump Looks To Re
The set of advisers around Trump now is a familiar mix of his top 2020 campaign aides and others who have moved in and out of his orbit over time. They include Miller, Susie Wiles, Bill Stepien, Justin Clark, Corey Lewandowski and Brad Parscale.
While his schedule isn’t set yet, according to Trump’s camp, his coming stops are likely to include efforts to help Ohio congressional candidate Max Miller, a former White House aide looking to win a primary against Rep. Anthony Gonzales, who voted to impeach Trump this year Jody Hice, who is trying to unseat fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger as Georgia secretary of state after Raffensperger defied Trump and validated the state’s electoral votes and Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks, according to Trump’s camp.
Trump’s ongoing influence with Republican voters helps explain why most GOP officeholders stick so closely to him. Republicans spared him a conviction in the Senate after the House impeached him for stoking the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, House GOP leaders have made it clear that they view his engagement as essential to their hopes of retaking the chamber, and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., was deposed as Republican Conference Chair this year over her repeated rebukes of Trump.
Those numbers suggest that Trump could be in a strong position to win a Republican primary but lose the general election in 3½ years. A former Trump campaign operative made that case while discussing Trump’s ambitions.
How A Future President Can Hold The Trump Administration Accountable
The Trump administration has engaged in a wide-ranging pattern of actions that violate laws, agency regulations, and ethical requirements, repeatedly putting its own interests before the public interest. Administration officials and their allies have lied to federal investigators,1 lied to Congress,2 and sought to obstruct federal investigations,3 among other illegal actions. These efforts constitute a direct and sustained attack on the rule of law that effectively creates two justice systemsone for the Trump administration and its allies and one for everyone else.
As part of its attack on the rule of law, the administration has worked to subvert the very institutions that might hold it accountableincluding the U.S. Department of Justice ,4 inspectors general,5 and Congress6to eliminate even the possibility of oversight.
Whenever the Trump administration ends, there may be good-faith concerns that addressing the administrations misconduct will be too divisive, set a bad precedent, or lead to political pushback from the administrations supporters. But the lesson from the past four years is clear: The absence of accountability is treated as license to escalate abuses of power.
While Congress will have a role in seeking to prevent future abuses, there are immediate steps a future administration can take.
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Trumps Future: Nine Possibilities
As former President Donald Trumps second impeachment trial begins, it shines a light on a new reality: although its been nearly 100 days since Trump lost his re-election he is not going away, at least in the short term. What will become of Trump? Here are nine possible outcomes for Trumps futurethe first four possibilities keep him in the middle of national politics in the latter five, he would more likely fade away.
1. Leading the Trumpublican faction of the GOP
Over the course of four years as president, Trump masterfully consolidated Republican voters into a cult of personality. His hardcore supporters were willing to believe anything that left his lips, regardless of evidence to the contrary. They were willing to put their own lives at risk as he huddled them together at rallies and mocked those taking precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19. They were willing to commit insurrection against their own government, all in his name and to support his lies about election malfeasance.
That non-trivial group of Republican and Republican-leaning voters is not going away, and they remain loyal not to the party but to Donald Trump. It remains to be seen exactly how large this group is, how much power they will wield in Republican primaries and whether a non-Trumpublican candidate can consolidate the remainder of the party.
2. Uniting MAGA to form a third party
Trump Is Attacking Oversight At Every Turn
As part of its efforts to undermine the rule of law, the Trump administration has targeted institutions that might seek to provide accountability: law enforcement, inspectors general, and Congress. All of these bodies have traditionally acted as checks on executive overreach and abuse of power. But the Trump administration has attacked each of them, seeking to delegitimize them or corrupt them to its own ends. The weakening of these institutions has further emboldened the administration.
Politicizing law enforcement
The Department of Justice states that part of its mission is to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.29 As the Justice Manual makes clear:
The legal judgments of the Department of Justice must be impartial and insulated from political influence. It is imperative that the Departments investigatory and prosecutorial powers be exercised free from partisan consideration. It is a fundamental duty of every employee of the Department to ensure that these principles are upheld in all of the Departments legal endeavors.30
But Trump has been intent from his first day in office to turn the department into a political weapon to protect his friends and attack his enemies. He views the role of the attorney general as someone who protects the president from accountability.31 In Attorney General William Barr, Trump has found someone who fits that mold perfectly.
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