Speculation that President Trump may pull a Lyndon Johnson and decline to seek a second term is beginning to percolate. To understand why, let’s turn to a guy best known for making drunk cable news appearances:
“Under the current trajectory, President Trump is on the precipice of one of the worst electoral defeats in modern presidential elections and the worst historically for an incumbent president,” said former Trump political adviser Sam Nunberg, who remains a supporter.
Nunberg pointed to national polls released by CNBC and New York Times/Siena over the past week showing Trump receiving below 40 percent against Biden. If Trump’s numbers erode to 35 percentage points over the next two weeks, Nunberg added, “He’s going to be facing realistically a 400-plus electoral vote loss and the president would need to strongly reconsider whether he wants to continue to run as the Republican presidential nominee.”
Recent surveys have Joe Biden leading by one point in Texas and pulling ahead in Georgia, so Nunberg isn’t just raving in his usual way. He spoke of the “trajectory,” and if Trump can’t bend the current curve, his polls are going to look devastatingly bad in a couple of weeks, and certainly before he is supposed to accept the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in Jacksonville.
Actually, the Republican convention is looking increasingly like a fate worse than death for the president. As Dave Brooks writes for Billboard, the venue management company ASG Global that handled Trump’s Tulsa rally is also responsible for running events at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville. They are furious with Trump’s campaign.
The company asked the White House for a detailed security and social distancing plan for Tulsa and received nothing. When they put stickers on alternating chairs telling people not to sit there, campaign staffers went around and peeled those stickers off. Several of those staffers actually had COVID-19 and they were not following basic protocols about maintaining six feet of distance or wearing masks. After the event, the Tulsa mayor had the temerity to say that he would have been okay with it if ASG Global simply refused to serve as the host. There’s a real chance that they will refuse to put their employees at risk again in Jacksonville. At a minimum, they’re going to make demands that will undermine the whole point of moving the convention from Charlotte, North Carolina. Trump isn’t getting a normal looking crowd.
In any case, the coronavirus has now erupted throughout the South, and particularly in Florida, making it unlikely that a bunch of septuagenarian and octogenarian delegates will want to travel there by plane. Most residents don’t want them to come anyway, and it’s unclear if the hotels will be welcoming.
Why would Trump want to be humiliated in this fashion? Why would anyone want to show up and sing his praises after he’s begun supporting “white power” and shooting peaceful protesters on Twitter?
Wouldn’t it be best to just call the whole thing off?
It’s not as crazy of an idea as it sounds, but there’s plenty of preparation going on in the other direction, with William Barr working overtime to use the Justice Department as an organ of Trump’s reelection effort. We’ve seen dry runs on limiting urban polling stations in Georgia and Kentucky, and Trump’s clearly still banking on covert Russian assistance. If he stays in, he’s going to fight dirty on every front.
What’s clear is that under Trump’s leadership, nothing is going to get better between now and November. Schools won’t reopen or will quickly regret their decision to do so, the economy is going to get worse, and America will continue to stick out like a sore thumb as having the absolute worst response in the world to the viral pandemic. Certainly, Trump isn’t going to become some kind of stable genius. He will continue to outrage and offend in ways that don’t fit the current moment.
He might just call it quits. He certainly should.
Assuming he did quit (and he is a known quitter), what do you think Pence’s chances would be to claw back the votes of “Independents” who Trump seems to have lost (if the election were held today)?
He’ll ride this down like that general in Dr. Strangelove. With all the shady stuff he has going on, any chance at avoiding people poking around his affairs is worth taking.
Man, you never know what weirdness is going to happen. (Like, what happens if Joe Biden’s ticker just stops ticking?) I had a nightmare the other day of headlines: “Trump pulls off the comeback of the millennium” and such. I wouldn’t quit if I were in Trump’s position, but he is pretty dumb and crazy so who knows what he’ll do? Hell, he might take asylum in Moscow. But most likely, he’ll ride it out and drop dead in the relatively near future such that he never faces any real consequences for his crimes.
I don’t think it’s likely but who knows? His extensive experience with business bankruptcies shows that he’ll happily bail out and leave others holding the bag.
But damn, just consider the complications. Who’s the candidate? Not everyone would be happy anointing Pence, and you still have to pick a veep, with no primaries and no convention. Ballot access depends on 50 separate state rules, what is the deadline for replacing Trump on all those ballots? Will the new candidate have any money? I’ve read that the RNC has nothing and it’s all in the campaign’s accounts. Do you think the Trump campaign is giving it back? [that one, I’m comfortable answering: no fucking chance.]
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Sure enough, Jacksonville just mandated face masks.
I would very much like him to quit and go play golf or visit his beloved in Moscow. That said, I can’t count on that. He doesn’t understand logic. Even now when he is being seen as treasonous for no retaliation to Russia’s killing of American soldiers. All he seems capable of doing is saying no one told him. Poor baby, and if true so what ? Nothing? Surely you must be capable of firing a few of your so called advisors and telling Putin to stop it. But thus far? We may have to drag this dreg out of the WH.
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My guess is that he’ll continue through the election and then quit after he loses so that Pence can grant him some sort of blanket pardon to try to stave off future prosecutions. A half wit would know to quit before the nomination, but Trump would have to be twice as smart as he is to obtain that status.
If you believe that Trump is an active Putin asset (and the evidence is pretty compelling), then the moment he ceases to be a Putin asset, he becomes a Putin liability.
People who are a liability to Vladimir Putin don’t really need to bother with long-term plans.
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The more I listen to this the more incensed I become. This treasonous bastard is still hiding behind the excuse no one told me. This happened months ago. Fuck you.Why don’t we impeach him again?
For better than three years now I’ve said Trump’s best end game is to: 1) Get a promise of a pardon from Pence. 2) Resign and be pardoned by Pence. 3) Flee the country ahead of a tsunami of state charges and civil suits. Pardon, Resign, Flee.
Trump knows the only thing standing between him and his family, and well deserved justice, is the presidency and Barr’s DOJ.
If Trump resigns before the election, and Pence assumes the presidency, Pence can pardon him and he can waddle off to his golf courses. He avoids justice and saves face by avoiding a humiliating loss.
If he hangs in there and loses, and then resigns, Pence can pardon him and he avoids justice but suffers a humiliating loss. Given Trump’s ego and his Obama obsession that might be even worse.
The unthinkable is if he wins.
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