In yet another sign of the apocalypse, I actually agree with E. J. Dionne’s assessment in his recent Washington Post column:
If Trump wasn’t ready to put his business life behind him, he should not have run for president. And if Republicans — after all of their ethical sermons about Clinton — do not now demand that the incoming president unequivocally cut all of his and his family’s ties to his companies, they will be fully implicated in any Trump scandal that results from a shameful and partisan double standard.
I’m still not sure how this issue will be resolved. My guess is that Mr. Trump will attempt to brazen it out. It would be a serious departure from the practices of presidents of the recent past but Trump himself is a serious departure from the presidents of the past let alone the recent past.
Another outside possible alternative is that, faced with the alternatives of becoming president and facing potential financial ruin (from his lofty vantage point) or refusing the presidency and maintaining his business empire, he’ll choose the latter. As I’ve said before that would be a fine kettle of fish.
Trump haters (skeptics, if you like) are like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. At the last second, they pull it away from him, and every time, they end up on their back wondering how Trump was the one holding the football all the time.
Here are a few predictions:
(1) Trump will not resign
(2) Trump will not be impeached
(3) the number of scandals will be average
(4) whatever Trump does with his businesses, people will cry “wolf”
(5) whatever is predicted by the “wolf” criers will not occur
(6) the “wolf” criers will again cry “wolf”, and they will all agree that this is really a wolf and this is the end of Donald J. Trump
(7) again, the “wolf” criers will be crying real tears as they shuffle out of the auditorium they booked for the celebration of the downfall of the much hated Trump
(8) the economy will flourish from the manufacture of toupee/wigs, false teeth, garments, and surgical sutures for those pulling their hair, gnashing their teeth, rending their garments, and splitting their sides laughing at the foolishness of grown ass men and women acting like two year old children.
I concur with 1-7.
Turn on any news channel, read any leftist or purist conservative blog, or visit any college campus, and you will be convinced of #8.
Trump won’t resign. The GOP won’t care if he uses the presidency to make him and the family richer. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think that are real clear cut ethics rules for the president like there are for Congress. He will just do whatever he wants. He will do quite a bit of stuff that many of us would view as scandalous, but nothing will happen.
Steve