The model for understanding today’s events is not an authoritarian with a plan, it’s an increasingly desperate house of cards falling apart.
There is no ideology, beyond a casual racism. It’s the Faustian deal with the South made by the Democrats after the civil war, running through LBJ, finally collapsing after Clinton and Obama. There is no effective national Republican party without the South.
So, that card gets played hard. There is no plan beyond throwing bombs. It was supposed to be a play for creating a media empire that backfired horribly.
If Trump lost, he would be able to claim that any investigations into his dealing was a matter of political payback. He won, and now we all have to deal with the mess.
The question today is how far will a desperate man go to protect himself, and how far will the Republican party let things slide until they are willing to take action?
There is no organization dedicated to violence — no brownshirts — for Trump. Which is why, I think, he’s just sort of, kind of, mulling violence as a matter of wishing. He wishes he had the power of the true dictator, which is pretty much the only way he can think of to get rid of all of the slow encirclement.
We actually kind of are seeing this in the form of a few random whackos attacking journalists. But there is no organization, no plan, no night of long knives, because there is nothing there but the fever dreams of an old man. There is no real ideology other than dissolution.
Could he fire Sessions, Rosenstein, and Mueller? Sure. It’s looking increasingly like that is the only option he may have.
It’s very likely that if Mueller seeks to interview Kushner, Ivanka, or other family members Trump will immediately move to dismiss him.
Would the Mueller report leak within the hour? Probably.
The next few months will prove very interesting. If Mueller has compelling evidence that Trump has committed treason or other high crimes, but does not reveal that information before the 2018 election, it would be very legitimate to argue that he is interfering in the election by delaying that report any further.
He hasn’t yet interviewed Trump — which makes the timing even stranger. Does Mueller put out a report without an interview? Does he wait until after the election?
So many things we don’t know yet. It’s stressful for those watching… one can only imagine the pressure the man in the White House is feeling.
