5 ms·

I think only Congress can push Trump out of office before the end of his term. This will happen only if he gets extremely unpopular even with his base, or the R

I think only Congress can push Trump out of office before the end of his term. This will happen only if he gets extremely unpopular even with his base, or the Republicans will chicken out. Barring that, there are elections in two and four years.

ixtli 10y ago
There appears to still be enough base support that they're too afraid to cross him. Today, however, i've seen CATO and some of the other traditionally conservative thinktanks turning against him so perhaps the tides are shifting. My theory is that he's trying to jam the most egregiously illegal things through first so that he can take a conciliatory tone later to keep people from fleeing, though by the looks of it the ACA repeal is a gigantic mess so I doubt this will pan out.
- nerfhammer 10y ago
  Conservative intellectuals never supported Trump. It would be more encouraging if mouthpieces to the rank and file like Fox News or talk radio turned against him.
- georgemcbay 10y ago
  I too used to be of the opinion that Trump's actions were calculated with an end-goal in mind, but I've started to believe he might actually be legitimately mentally unstable and/or naive enough to think being elected President makes him the "boss" of everyone. There are lots of reasons to suspect he really doesn't understand the scope of the job and such a misunderstanding would only be reinforced by the Republican Party's complete inaction on standing up to him.
- nandemo 10y ago
  Wait, what? Cato Institute is libertarian not conservative; they're generally pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, etc. While I haven't been following them recently I'd be very much surprised if they ever supported Trump.
  - nerfhammer 10y ago
    No, they never supported Trump.
  - ixtli 10y ago
    While it is true that they are libertarian, a think tank would never "support" a candidate in that way. The reason I lump them in with the ideological right in america is that their thought has been precursor to legislation championed by the right.
empath75 10y ago
Democrats control the cities, which means they control the economy. If you shut down the economic activity in the cities, you can bring a lot of pressure to bear, regardless of how popular trump is with his 'base'.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Moreover they control most of the public-facing tech companies. Shut down Google search or Facebook for a week and it will have a bigger impact than shutting an airport down. There are 0 Trump supporting search engines or Facebook equivalents.
  - anarazel 10y ago
    > There are 0 Trump supporting search engines or Facebook equivalents. Given that I, a not very well networked person, know of people supporting Trump at both google and facebook, I'm afraid that that's wishful thinking. It's not a large percentage, but they're there. But even if so, what'd be the way to use that fact? I don't think the way to deal with Trump is to go blow-by-blow with Trump (he'll drag you down to his level, and beat you with experience, and all that).
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      It was really just a crazy idea I had based on seeing calls to block airports blocks and seeing some tech CEOs come in support of immigrants and thought, what could they do really, and naturally thought --- well shut down their service...
      - georgemcbay 10y ago
        The greatest action a tech company could make that would really sting would be twitter shutting down his account. I don't expect they will do this, but ultimately they can shut down anyone's account for any reason and unsuitability of their platform for what he is using it for sounds like a good enough reason to me. It is kind of insane to me that nobody in the general mainstream media is making a bigger deal out of the fact that the POTUS is generally signalling public policy and overall decision making via twitter (not exactly the securest of platforms) to both the media and apparently his own party. And he accesses this account over what is reportedly a completely unsecured Samsung Galaxy S3 (too old for security updates). If his twitter account were hacked the results could be literally catastrophic in terms of the damage that might be caused to the subject of the tweet before it came to light that the tweet was not legitimate.

ixtli 10y ago

There appears to still be enough base support that they're too afraid to cross him. Today, however, i've seen CATO and some of the other traditionally conservative thinktanks turning against him so perhaps the tides are shifting. My theory is that he's trying to jam the most egregiously illegal things through first so that he can take a conciliatory tone later to keep people from fleeing, though by the looks of it the ACA repeal is a gigantic mess so I doubt this will pan out.

nerfhammer 10y ago
Conservative intellectuals never supported Trump. It would be more encouraging if mouthpieces to the rank and file like Fox News or talk radio turned against him.
georgemcbay 10y ago
I too used to be of the opinion that Trump's actions were calculated with an end-goal in mind, but I've started to believe he might actually be legitimately mentally unstable and/or naive enough to think being elected President makes him the "boss" of everyone. There are lots of reasons to suspect he really doesn't understand the scope of the job and such a misunderstanding would only be reinforced by the Republican Party's complete inaction on standing up to him.
nandemo 10y ago
Wait, what? Cato Institute is libertarian not conservative; they're generally pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, etc. While I haven't been following them recently I'd be very much surprised if they ever supported Trump.
- nerfhammer 10y ago
  No, they never supported Trump.
- ixtli 10y ago
  While it is true that they are libertarian, a think tank would never "support" a candidate in that way. The reason I lump them in with the ideological right in america is that their thought has been precursor to legislation championed by the right.

empath75 10y ago

Democrats control the cities, which means they control the economy. If you shut down the economic activity in the cities, you can bring a lot of pressure to bear, regardless of how popular trump is with his 'base'.

rdtsc 10y ago
Moreover they control most of the public-facing tech companies. Shut down Google search or Facebook for a week and it will have a bigger impact than shutting an airport down. There are 0 Trump supporting search engines or Facebook equivalents.
- anarazel 10y ago
  > There are 0 Trump supporting search engines or Facebook equivalents. Given that I, a not very well networked person, know of people supporting Trump at both google and facebook, I'm afraid that that's wishful thinking. It's not a large percentage, but they're there. But even if so, what'd be the way to use that fact? I don't think the way to deal with Trump is to go blow-by-blow with Trump (he'll drag you down to his level, and beat you with experience, and all that).
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    It was really just a crazy idea I had based on seeing calls to block airports blocks and seeing some tech CEOs come in support of immigrants and thought, what could they do really, and naturally thought --- well shut down their service...
    - georgemcbay 10y ago
      The greatest action a tech company could make that would really sting would be twitter shutting down his account. I don't expect they will do this, but ultimately they can shut down anyone's account for any reason and unsuitability of their platform for what he is using it for sounds like a good enough reason to me. It is kind of insane to me that nobody in the general mainstream media is making a bigger deal out of the fact that the POTUS is generally signalling public policy and overall decision making via twitter (not exactly the securest of platforms) to both the media and apparently his own party. And he accesses this account over what is reportedly a completely unsecured Samsung Galaxy S3 (too old for security updates). If his twitter account were hacked the results could be literally catastrophic in terms of the damage that might be caused to the subject of the tweet before it came to light that the tweet was not legitimate.