One of Trump's favourite tactics, when some news goes against him, is to stir up more controversy. Say or do something so outrageous that the rest of the world looks at that, rather than at the oopsie he's just done.
Take, for example, the testimony of Clinton Watts, in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said that not only is Russia employing "active measures" to affect election cycles in other countries, but that the President himself has become a cog in such machinery and has used these measures against his opponents. Think about that. A sitting president is colluding with the US's principal enemy to get himself into office. That casts doubt not just on Trump, but on every single person voted in during this last election. How deep is this rabbit hole going to go? Okay, let's say that Trump leaves (the Republicans are already calculating what happens when he leaves, not if). Then we're stuck with Pence. This really isn't the guy we would have voted in...he's the only one who'd put up with Trump long enough to get into office. His record on a whole host of things makes him odious in the extreme. The only way he's palatable is in comparison to Trump himself. I think this is really why he's smiling in all his pictures of Trump...he knows he's next. But should we be stuck with Pence? he was elected in the same tainted election that Trump was. Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that we throw him out as well...who does that leave? According to wikipedia: 1 Vice President Mike Pence (R) 2 Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan (R) 3 President pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch (R) 4 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R) 5 Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin (R) 6 Secretary of Defense James Mattis (I) 7 Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R) 8 Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke (R) – Secretary of Agriculture Mike Young (D)[a] 9 Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross (R) – Secretary of Labor Ed Hugler (I)[a] 10 Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price (R) 11 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson (R) – Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao (R)[b] 12 Secretary of Energy Rick Perry (R) 13 Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (R) 14 Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin (I) 15 Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly (I) That doesn't even mention the National Security Council, or the shadow council Bannon has put into place. At this point, I'd say we're fairly well screwed here. There's not a person on that list I'd be happy to see as president. Bottom line, I suspect that pretty much any of these people will do a better job than Trump, that's simply axiomatic. We do still need to get rid of Trump. But how much better? I just can't be terribly optimistic for the course of the US over the next four years.
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AuthorEngineer, Dad, Concerned Citizen. Watching the America I love fading and eroding before my eyes. Archives
November 2018
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