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How will Trump leave office? just a poll

Poll: How will Trump leave office? (27 member(s) have cast votes)

How will Trump leave the presidency?

  1. Serves two full terms, new president takes over in 2025 (6 votes [22.22%])

    Percentage of vote: 22.22%

  2. Loses re-election bid in 2020 (13 votes [48.15%])

    Percentage of vote: 48.15%

  3. Impeached and removed from office by congress (1 votes [3.70%])

    Percentage of vote: 3.70%

  4. Removed by his cabinet via the 25th amendment (0 votes [0.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 0.00%

  5. Resigns (4 votes [14.81%])

    Percentage of vote: 14.81%

  6. Dies in office (2 votes [7.41%])

    Percentage of vote: 7.41%

  7. Some other way (1 votes [3.70%])

    Percentage of vote: 3.70%

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#21 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2018-January-08, 09:50

View Postkenberg, on 2018-January-07, 14:01, said:

When? If I could accurately predict the future I would be rich. But I do not expect him to be re-elected. David Brooks observed that there is considerable support for populism, but not all that much support for narcissistic billionaires. People may have thought they were voting for the former, but they got the latter. They might re-think in 2020.

The problem is that it seemed to be clear what he was during the campaign, yet he was still elected. Then again, the competition will be different in 2020. But ever since Trump got into the campaign it seems like the rules have changed, so I've given up on predicting anything (I didn't vote in the poll).

I wonder if the GOP will get so fed up with him that there's actually a competition during the Republican primary.

If the midterm election changes control of Congress, which seems like a distinct possibility, and Mueller turns up really incriminating evidence, impeachment is also possible.

#22 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2018-January-08, 09:54

View PostFelicityR, on 2018-January-08, 07:00, said:

Today's press indicates that Trump is going to have a health check soon. So what happens if he is found not fit for office?

I already mentioned the physical exam above (triggering ldrews's over-reaction).

While the suggestions about his impaired mental state seem possible, it doesn't seem like he has any physical impairments that would make him unable to serve. His eating habits don't sound very healthy, but that just makes him a typical American.

#23 User is offline   y66 

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Posted 2018-January-08, 10:28

Guest post from Ross Douthat at NYT:

Quote

Incapacity in the chief executive is not a new thing in American history. James Garfield spent half of his short presidency dying slowly from a gunshot wound. Richard Nixon’s condition in his final days was dire enough that his secretary of defense effectively cut him out of the nuclear chain of command. Woodrow Wilson’s stroke and his wife’s influence thereafter produced the immortal — if, of course, highly #problematic — complaint from one of Wilson’s senatorial critics that “we have a petticoat government! … Mrs. Wilson is president!”

What’s different about Donald Trump is that his inability to handle the weight and responsibility of his office is not something that crept up gradually, not something imposed by an assassin’s bullet or a stroke or a late-in-the-presidency crisis. Instead it’s been a defining feature of his administration from Day 1 — and indeed was obvious during the campaign that elected him.

This means that the president’s unfitness is not really a Harvey Weinstein-style “open secret,” an awful reality known to insiders but kept from hoi polloi, as The Atlantic’s James Fallows suggested this week amid the mania over Michael Wolff’s gonzo inside-the-White-House book. Indeed, it’s not any kind of secret: Even if it’s considered politically unwise for prominent Republicans to mention it, anyone who reads the papers (this one especially) knows that some combination of Trump’s personality and temperament and advancing age leave him constantly undone by the obligations of the presidency.

In a column early in his tempestuous first year, I suggested that this obvious fact potentially justified the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which permits a president’s cabinet in consultation with the legislative branch to remove him from the White House.

The material in Wolff’s book provides more grist for that argument; the book may be dubious in some particulars but as the consummate insiders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote on Thursday, the parts about Trump’s capabilities and mental state “ring unambiguously true.” (And again, one does not need to be a well-sourced insider to recognize this fact; one need only have access to the president’s own Twitter feed.)

But op-ed provocations notwithstanding, the 25th Amendment option isn’t happening — not without some major presidential deterioration in the midst of a major crisis, and probably not even then. And while I blame Republicans for a thousand things that brought us to this pass, it’s too extreme to blame them for not pursuing an option that’s never been tried before, against a president who was recently and (yes) legitimately elected, especially when that option requires extraordinary coordination across the legislative and executive branches and could easily fail … with God-only-knows what kind of consequences.

So unless Robert Mueller has more goods than I expect, we are going to live for the next few years in the way that America lived during the waning days of Nixon, the end of the Wilson administration, and perhaps at other moments known only to presidential inner circles — with our own equivalent of the petticoat government, which in this case includes military uniforms, dress suits and whatever outfits Ivanka and Kellyanne Conway favor (but not, any longer, the layering of collared shirts perfected by Steve Bannon).

Which means the central question of these years is not a normal policy question, or even the abnormal sort that the Resistance and other fascism-fearers expect to face. The idea of a right-populist agenda died with Bannon’s exit from the White House, the standard-issue G.O.P. agenda has little left after the tax cuts, and Trump’s authoritarian impulses, while genuine, seem unlikely to produce even aggrandizement on the scale of past presidents from F.D.R. to Nixon, because he has no competence to execute on them.

Rather, the big question is organizational, managerial, and psychological: Can the people who surround Donald Trump work around his incapacity successfully enough to keep his unfitness from producing a historic calamity?

They have done so for a year, with some debacles (Puerto Rico) but also some genuine successes (the defeat of the Islamic State). People may laugh at Wolff’s assertion that “the men and women of the West Wing, for all that the media was ridiculing them, actually felt they had a responsibility to the country,” and for some figures (perhaps especially in the press office) the laughter will be justified. But for others the work has been necessary and important, and the achievement of relative stability a genuine service to the United States.

Can it continue in the face of some greater crisis than Trump has yet confronted? Can it continue if the Democrats take a share of power or if the president’s own family faces legal jeopardy? Is the American system more able to correct for presidential incapacity than some of us have feared?

The last year has given us some reason to think the answer to the last question might be “yes.” May the new year give us more, because our president’s chaotic mind isn’t going anywhere.

If you lose all hope, you can always find it again -- Richard Ford in The Sportswriter
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#24 User is offline   ldrews 

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Posted 2018-January-08, 10:47

View Posthrothgar, on 2018-January-07, 23:01, said:

You do understand that you just publicly accused barmar of commiting a felony, right?
Because threatening the life of the President is criminal act under US code Title 18, Section 871.

So, you really want to make sure that you're accurately portraying what Barmar said...
Where in the three lines of text that Barry wrote is anything resembling a call to action or any kind of advocacy?

Here... I'll make things convenient for you and repost what Barry said.



Seriously, learn to ***** read jackass.


Did you read the question mark? I made no accusation, you did.
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#25 User is offline   PassedOut 

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Posted 2018-January-08, 11:23

View Postkenberg, on 2018-January-08, 08:17, said:

Back in the 60s a guy was arrested, or at least taken in and questioned, by the Secret Service after saying "President Johnson's war makes me want to puke". When pressed they explained that if a lot of people puked on the president it could kill him. Of course the explanation was ridiculous and, my guess, was probably intended facetiously but the point is that people take jokes, comments, allusions etc about killing the president seriously. Sort of like joking about bombs as you are boarding a plane, it's a bad idea.

Back in the 60s, I had to testify at 2 federal trials because I witnessed a guy say something like, "I want to wring LBJs neck!" He was acquitted at the second trial after an 11-1 hung jury at the first. That whole episode wasted a whole lot of time and money.
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#26 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2018-January-08, 11:26

View Postldrews, on 2018-January-08, 10:47, said:

Did you read the question mark? I made no accusation, you did.


Have you stopped raping 12 year girls?
Alderaan delenda est
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#27 User is offline   ldrews 

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Posted 2018-January-08, 12:22

View Posthrothgar, on 2018-January-08, 11:26, said:

Have you stopped raping 12 year girls?


Why would I want to emulate you?
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#28 User is offline   blackshoe 

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Posted 2018-January-08, 19:32

View Postggwhiz, on 2018-January-07, 17:21, said:

I voted other as in handcuffs.

When the GOP loses control of Congress and possibly the Senate and their partisan protection of him evaporates the truth may well come out and I'm betting on money laundering and mob ties (both Russian and Mafia) taking the lead role.

Whatever happens, I don't expect to see much truth coming out of Washington.
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#29 User is offline   cherdano 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 05:28

View Postblackshoe, on 2018-January-08, 19:32, said:

Whatever happens, I don't expect to see much truth coming out of Washington.

You should try reading newspapers or news sites.
The easiest way to count losers is to line up the people who talk about loser count, and count them. -Kieran Dyke
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#30 User is offline   cherdano 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 05:29

How will Trump leave office? With all the grace and class that we have come to expect of him.
The easiest way to count losers is to line up the people who talk about loser count, and count them. -Kieran Dyke
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#31 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 10:43

View Postldrews, on 2018-January-08, 10:47, said:

Did you read the question mark? I made no accusation, you did.

Don't rhetorical questions normally end with a question mark?

See what I did there? (And there, too).

#32 User is offline   ldrews 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 11:50

View Postbarmar, on 2018-January-09, 10:43, said:

Don't rhetorical questions normally end with a question mark?

See what I did there? (And there, too).


So, you don't consider rhetorical questions as questions?
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#33 User is offline   kenberg 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 12:17

View Postldrews, on 2018-January-09, 11:50, said:

So, you don't consider rhetorical questions as questions?


I will probably regret getting into this but your post was

Quote

Really! You are calling for the assassination of the President?


This has the grammatical form of a question. I, and I believe the entire world, sees this as a statement. Changing a period to a question mark does not really change the meaning. I could give many examples of this, but I believe you could also, as could anyone. So I am suggesting that you give up this line of defense.

I try to put periods after each of my assertions. Question marks are used when I am asking a question.
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#34 User is offline   ldrews 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 13:10

View Postkenberg, on 2018-January-09, 12:17, said:

I will probably regret getting into this but your post was



This has the grammatical form of a question. I, and I believe the entire world, sees this as a statement. Changing a period to a question mark does not really change the meaning. I could give many examples of this, but I believe you could also, as could anyone. So I am suggesting that you give up this line of defense.

I try to put periods after each of my assertions. Question marks are used when I am asking a question.


OK, let me reword that.

Are you really asking for the assassination of the President?
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#35 User is offline   MrAce 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 13:19

View Postldrews, on 2018-January-09, 13:10, said:

OK, let me reword that.

Are you really asking for the assassination of the President?

In another topic you asked me a question and I answered

View PostMrAce, on 2018-January-07, 01:21, said:

No, I do not support the idea of suppressing your postings.

I changed my mind.
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"It's only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realize there is always a way to solve problems without using violence!"

"Well to be perfectly honest, in my humble opinion, of course without offending anyone who thinks differently from my point of view, but also by looking into this matter in a different perspective and without being condemning of one's view's and by trying to make it objectified, and by considering each and every one's valid opinion, I honestly believe that I completely forgot what I was going to say."





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#36 User is offline   ldrews 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 15:53

View PostMrAce, on 2018-January-09, 13:19, said:

In another topic you asked me a question and I answered


I changed my mind.


Sorry to hear that. The OP made a statement that could be construed as asking for the President to be assassinated. I was simply asking if that was his intent. He may have thought it was just a joke, but as has been pointed out, some things are dangerous to joke about.

But I would be interested in hearing what about the interchange here caused you to change your mind.
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#37 User is offline   MrAce 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 20:11

View Postldrews, on 2018-January-09, 15:53, said:

Sorry to hear that. The OP made a statement that could be construed as asking for the President to be assassinated. I was simply asking if that was his intent. He may have thought it was just a joke, but as has been pointed out, some things are dangerous to joke about.

But I would be interested in hearing what about the interchange here caused you to change your mind.


Barmar wrote something. Everyone except than you got it right.
You wrote something and added a question mark at the end. And pretended as if you asked a simple question. So you are either

A-Trolling

or

B-Having hard time to understand and/or express yourself due to your language skills.

From what I have read so far, particularly this last interchange you had, convinced me that (a) is the reason. (in fact I believe your behavior is a textbook example for the word "troll" in option A)
"Genius has its own limitations, however stupidity has no such boundaries!"
"It's only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realize there is always a way to solve problems without using violence!"

"Well to be perfectly honest, in my humble opinion, of course without offending anyone who thinks differently from my point of view, but also by looking into this matter in a different perspective and without being condemning of one's view's and by trying to make it objectified, and by considering each and every one's valid opinion, I honestly believe that I completely forgot what I was going to say."





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#38 User is offline   ldrews 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 20:32

View PostMrAce, on 2018-January-09, 20:11, said:

Barmar wrote something. Everyone except than you got it right.
You wrote something and added a question mark at the end. And pretended as if you asked a simple question. So you are either

A-Trolling

or

B-Having hard time to understand and/or express yourself due to your language skills.

From what I have read so far, particularly this last interchange you had, convinced me that (a) is the reason. (in fact I believe you are a textbook example for the word in option A)


oK, peace be with you.
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#39 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2018-January-09, 23:44

Good summary of the transcript that Feinstein dumped yesterday

https://twitter.com/...884746082562048
Alderaan delenda est
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#40 User is offline   y66 

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Posted 2018-January-11, 10:21

From NYT Editorial Board:

Quote

Is Donald Trump mentally fit to be president of the United States? It’s an understandable question, and it’s also beside the point.

Understandable because Mr. Trump’s behavior in office — impulsive, erratic, dishonest, childish, crude — is so alarming, and so far from what Americans expect in their chief executive, that it cries out for a deeper explanation.

It’s beside the point not because a president’s mental capacity doesn’t matter, nor because we should blindly accept our leaders’ declarations of their own stability, let alone genius. Rather, we don’t need a medical degree or a psychiatric diagnosis to tell us what is wrong with Mr. Trump. It’s obvious to anyone who listens to him speak, reads his tweets and sees the effects of his behavior — on the presidency, on the nation and its most important institutions, and on the integrity of the global order.

Presidents should not, for instance, taunt the leaders of hostile nations with demeaning nicknames and boasts about the size of their “nuclear button.” They should not tweet out videos depicting them violently assaulting their political opponents. They should not fire the F.B.I. director to derail an investigation into their own campaign’s possible collusion with a foreign government to swing the election. And, of course, they shouldn’t have to find themselves talking to reporters to insist that they’re mentally stable.

This behavior may be evidence of some underlying disorder, or it may not. Who knows? Mr. Trump hasn’t undergone a mental-health evaluation, at least not one made public. But even if his behavior were diagnosed as an illness, what would that tell us that we don’t already know? Plenty of people with mental disorders or disabilities function at high levels of society. Conversely, if Mr. Trump were found to have no diagnosable illness, he would be no more fit for the office he holds than he is today.

The problem lies in trying to locate the essence of Mr. Trump’s unfitness in the unknowable reaches of his mind, as opposed to where we can all openly see it and address it in political terms. As the psychiatrist Allen Frances told The Times: “You can’t say enough about how incompetent and unqualified he is to be leader of the free world. But that does not make him mentally ill.”

Unfortunately, a number of psychiatrists, politicians and others who should know better have increasingly taken up the Trump-is-crazy line. In “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” released last October, more than two dozen contributors, most mental-health professionals, concluded that Mr. Trump presents a grave and immediate danger to the safety of America and the world. No argument there, but why do we need to hear it from psychiatrists relying on their professional credentials? Dr. Bandy Lee, one of the book’s editors, said the authors are “assessing dangerousness, not making a diagnosis.” Anyone with access to newspapers or Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed can do the same.

The psychiatrists say they have a duty to warn the public about what they see as a serious threat to the nation. That’s commendable, but they should consider how their comments will be taken by the vast majority of Americans, particularly in a highly politically polarized time. The language of mental health and illness is widely used yet poorly understood, and it comes loaded with unwarranted assumptions and harmful stereotypes. There’s a good reason the profession established an ethical guideline in 1973, known as the Goldwater Rule, that prohibits psychiatrists from offering professional judgment on public figures they have not personally examined.

In the future, it would be a good idea if presidential candidates voluntarily submitted to a mental-health evaluation, just as they often do a physical one — and in that case, psychiatrists would have a critical role to play. But you don’t need to put Mr. Trump on a couch now to discover who he is.

So what’s the right way to deal with Mr. Trump’s evident unfitness?

Not the 25th Amendment, despite the sudden fashion for it. Ratified in the wake of President John Kennedy’s assassination, the amendment authorizes the temporary removal of a president who is unable to do the job. Its final section, which has never been invoked, was meant to clarify what should happen if the president becomes clearly incapacitated. One of the amendment’s drafters, Jay Berman, a former congressional staff member who has said Mr. Trump “appears unhinged,” still doesn’t believe that the amendment applies to his case.

Even if invoking the amendment were the best approach, consider what would need to happen. First, the vice president, plus a majority of Mr. Trump’s cabinet, must declare to Congress that the president cannot do his job. If Mr. Trump disagreed, they would have to restate their case. Only then would both houses of Congress get involved, and each would have to agree by a two-thirds vote. The chances of any of these steps being taken in today’s political environment are less than zero.

Impeachment would be a more direct and fitting approach, if Mr. Trump’s actions rise to the level of high crimes or misdemeanors. But this path is similarly obstructed by Republicans in Congress, who are behaving less like members of a coequal branch with oversight power than like co-conspirators of a man they know is unfit to govern.

The best solution is the simplest: Vote, and organize others to register and to vote. If you believe Donald Trump represents a danger to the country and the world, you can take action to rein in his power. In November, you can help elect members of Congress who will fight Mr. Trump’s most dangerous behaviors. If that fails, there’s always 2020.

If you lose all hope, you can always find it again -- Richard Ford in The Sportswriter
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