I’m seeing it all over the social media. People insisting that Trump is “too proud” or “too stubborn” to ever resign the Presidency. And to this, I just shake my head and say, “really?” Have these people actually studied the way this guy has lived his entire life? Trump’s entire adult life has been a series of walk-offs, right after he’d squeezed every dime he could get out of whatever failed venture he was involved in at the time. All he’s ever done, in fact, is walk away. From his wives. From his businesses. From his supposed “University.” Trump’s MO is to squeeze it and then run from it.
Yes, this is a bit different, because this time the scale of his potential legal trouble is much greater. Yes, he might do horrid things to try to deflect from what’s coming to hit him in the face. That’s certainly a worry. The checks on him have been tepid to nothing at all up to this point, and we’re all wary and worried. But the cracks are showing now. First it was McCain. Then Corker,who has been getting more strident by the day. And now Jeff Flake, who I’m sure can look forward to a tweetstorm beginning around 4 in the morning. While it is true that only a few GOP Senators are openly hostile to him now, it’s also true that it only takes a few of them. If McConnell wasn’t a worm, he’d be with them. But of course, he’ll never be anything but a worm, as Paul Ryan will always be a worm. Ultimately, it probably won’t matter what McConnell or Ryan do, because I think that the peeling off will continue. Trump is easily the most hated figure in the Oval Office since Nixon, and the most hated man worldwide since Hitler was still alive. To oppose him isn’t nearly as dangerous as it is to appease him, from a political perspective. His cult is only, at best, around 1 in 5 adults. That leaves 4 out of 5 somewhere on a scale that ranges from perturbed at his stupidity to absolute loathing of the man. There isn’t a lot of capital to lose by opposing him. John Kasich has seen this all along. Others are coming around. And more are going to come around with every new revelation. The Nunes silliness on Clinton isn’t going to stop it, nor will the Breitbart repetition of Russian disinformation.
The rest of this is speculation, but I think it will play out more or less in the following way. First, enough of Congress becomes hostile to make his impeachment/removal via the 25th Amendment a real possibility. At that time, I think we’ll see that he’s always had an escape clause of sorts, as he suddenly resigns and heads to Russia with most of his brood. The State of New York will probably indict him, but he will never be extradited. Will he live out the remainder of his life in peace and luxury in the Moscow suburbs, or will Putin double-cross him? I don’t know the answer to that. But I think that you and I are going to find out all of this sooner than we might think. Trump’s hysterical tweets and Breitbart’s headlines tell me that something very, very bad is coming down the pipeline. Congress, being servants of the rich, are going to try to ram that horrid tax bill through while they still can, so they’ll tolerate Trump until the heat gets really hot. But it is going to get really hot.
And when it gets hot, Trump walks away. Always.