Posted on 02/18/2017 6:54:25 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The fantasies abound, don’t they? Visions of that day in some not-so-far-off future, where President Donald J. Trump finally pulls some outrageous, undeniably unconstitutional Easy-D, and gets his executive comeuppance.
In any number of imaginary, #NotMyPresident fan-fic plotlines, he’ll be charged, tried, and told “You’re fired!” by the required two-thirds majority of the Senate, then deported to Russia, living out his remaining years in a Twitter-less Siberian gulag.
(TWEET-AT-LINK)
Hey, your Trump impeachment fantasy may be different, of course (and the complicated process of how impeachment actually works can be found in far better detail here) but the outcome is the same: Trump is somehow disgraced and removed, and then...and then...and then...what? What happens next?
The “what happens next” question is important, particularly around the three-day President’s Day holiday weekend, where instead of celebrating our nation’s democracy by buying a mattress at 40 percent off like we usually do, thousands of people will be marching in various #NotMyPresident’s Day protests around the country carrying “Impeach Trump” signs. If they’re not doing that, they’re at home buying “Impeach Trump” shirts. Or perhaps signing “Impeach Trump Now” petitions. However it’s happening, there’s a lot of energy being spent on this impeachment fantasy, without a practical understanding of what happens next. So let’s play it out.
Trump somehow gets the boot. What happens next?
In the unlikely event that Trump is removed from office through impeachment (or Nixonian resignation), Vice President Mike Pence becomes our Commander in Chief. Most of us know that. But if that happens, who takes Pence’s spot?
Pence potentially nominates his VP pick, but let’s imagine Paul Ryan, GOP Speaker of the House. So instead of Trump/Pence, we now we have a Pence/Ryan administration. Between Pence’s hardcore Christian anti-choice stance and Ryan’s glinty, libertarian views (Ryan gives out copies of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged—as Christmas gifts), the future will look like a Republican turducken of a Handmaid’s Tale stuffed inside the Hunger Games stuffed inside Wall Street. Not good.
But for the heck of it, let’s take it a step further:
Somehow, Pence is involved with Trump’s shenanigans, and both are removed from office. What happens next?
Paul Ryan, only this time he’s the president. And he gets his VP pick.
But what happens next if he can’t serve?
According to the United States presidential line of succession, the next man up (sorry, the future is still male), is the President pro tempore of the Senate, a role currently held by Orrin Hatch, the 80-something arch-conservative leader from Utah. According to his recently released “Hatch Plan,” he’s like an old guy post-Cocoon pool. He’s cranky on some things but surprisingly flexible in allowing immigrants into the U.S. (provided they are highly skilled, STEM workers) and, if my understanding of his plan is correct, appears to be in support of net neutrality, unlike many of his Republican colleagues, including Trump’s proposed FCC chairman Ajit Pai. But let’s be honest, we’re cherry picking here.
The fact is, no matter how far down the impeachment hole we go, it’s a Mariana Trench of conservative leadership, with faces and policies you’d be hard pressed to tell apart. See, if the future President Hatch didn’t make it to his 82nd birthday, the draft picks now head over to Trump’s cabinet, starting with the Secretary of State. That would be President Rex Tillerson.
So let’s move away from this impeachment talk—or at least understand it’s merely fantasy—and focus on what has proven to work, when people actually do it: voting on a local and state level. If the number of people turned out for the March 7, 2017 primaries as they did for the Women’s March, then we’d be getting somewhere. There are mayoral races kicking off all over the country—fresh faces and new ideas that could bubble up progress, including this key opportunity in St. Louis, MO, which could potentially lead to adopting new policing policies that might prevent another Ferguson.
From a purely partisan view of Democrats vs. Republicans—a “taking a side” position most voters have been backed into—the 2018 Congressional midterms could prove essential, according to the Washington Post. But the midterm voter turnout in 2014 was a scant 36 percent—the lowest in 70 years. To quote our current leader: SAD!
So go ahead, go out and #NotMyPresident this President’s Day. But enough with the Impeach petitions. Look beyond it. And get to work on figuring out the who, what, and how you’re going to vote next month—and next year.
I give literary credit for the turducken analogy...see these millennials have greater depth than just knowing which essential oil is...most essential.
We had an election. Trump was elected.a
He committed no impeachable offense.
Just because someone may not like him personally or his policies, is NOT an impeachable offense.
The left needs a good two to three decades in the woodshed of impotency before another two to three decades in the retirement center of senility.
Not being Hillary or some leftover from the Soviet era useful idiot like Sanders is the only crime they are concerned with.
bubble up progress, including this key opportunity in St. Louis, MO, which could potentially lead to adopting new policing policies that might prevent another Ferguson.
Fk that.
Let’s keep them focused on their anger and riots.
Liberals....you keep poking the bear.
Someday, the bear will tear your head off.
Libturds are going crazy with their impeachment fantasies, they all need serious drugs to go with their other drugs.
LOL
Ryan hands of copies of Atlas Shrugged - perhaps he should read it as well
To THEM it's not personal, it's COSMIC.
To add my two bits, I don't see how this is going to be resolved. President Trump ( ... listen for it ) has a lot of power, but is by no means predominant. But then there is his populist base, unrepresented in the media that we all watch and listen to, so what is their mode of expression? I would say this forum is one example, but what does FR matter? Who else is there?
The whole thing worries me.
The liberal wet dream is that the entire Trump administration is replaced by Obama’s shadow government which is waiting in the wings. This is called a coupe where a duly elected government is replaced by an unelected one and is the stuff of banana republics and Communist dictatorships. It is scary enough to think there are many liberals who would welcome a coupe to overthrow Trump, but the stuff of nightmares to think Obama and Soros funded groups are actively engaged in planning, fomenting and coordinating such sedition. The continued existence of our Constitutional republic is under great threat. Fortunately our US military who swear to defend the Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, would act should this coupe actually be attempted. However, I could see that Obama and others pushing this agenda could eventually be arrested and tried for treason and sedition. Trump should quit his tweeting and start working to get George Soros extradited to one of the countries where is wanted for everything from sedition to war crimes.
Actually, it is called a coup. A coupe is a two-door hardtop automobile.
It’s correct and witty.
+2
Perhaps he could build a wall?
But would the wall be built to keep Ferguson out of StL or StL out of Ferguson?
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