We Are a Third, to a Half, to Completely Surviving Trump
Under reasonable scenarios, we are a third to a half way to surviving Trump, and possibly even at the end of his effectiveness. This is cause for celebration, oddly, also on Melania’s birthday, the primal Trump survivor.
In less than a month, we will be one-third through Trump’s term. Except for a $1.5 trillion tax cut and an expanded military budget, the government is fairly well funded, including science. In environmentalism, the EPA is a disaster, but every rule change is being challenged in court as replacing a required careful scientific ruling with a rather arbitrary weakening or cancellation. The US cannot actually withdraw from the Paris Accord, until after Trump can be defeated in 2020. Even if the US withdraws from the Iran denuclearization agreement, we have little trade with Iran, and the Europeans can still trade with Iran without sanctions.
This may be half-way through Trump’s legislative career, since there is a belief that Congress does not struggle with legislation during election years. That means that the rest of 2018 will be quiet, and so also will be 2020. Thus, Trump will only have one more legislative year, namely 2019. So we are half way through Trump’s legislation. It may also be that since Trump has taken full charge, and has weird advisors, that his disciplined and knowledgable legislative career is over. His daily flip-flopping will also continue to hamper any trust that Republicans may have once had. Certainly, the strong house leader Paul Ryan is now a lame duck, and may not be replaced by someone so influential.
Finally, there is a small chance that Republicans may lose one house of Congress. In that case, Trump will be lame, just like Obama was for six years. In that case, Trump’s only chance will be if the Supreme Court turns in his favor, of if he gets to replace a liberal justice with a loyal servant.
Things are bad, but we have Trump’s incompetence to help us through.
