Grumblesaur wrote:Fortunately there are still a handful of remaining "gotchas" in the American political system that could potentially circumvent a Trump presidency.
I endorse the sentiment, with a couple of exceptions:
1. "Circumvent" is a tricky term here. If you actually mean "ignore Constitutionally-assigned powers," then to the extent that this happens, it would only further corrupt a troubled system. That's not desirable.
But if you just mean "blocked," then that's conceivable. So let's examine the likelihood of that happening.
To take just one example, consider the blocking of nominations by Trump to various Cabinet and Supreme Court positions. When he was Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid -- a Democrat -- invoked the "nuclear option": from the four-decades-old rule of requiring a supermajority vote to break a filibuster for most presidential nominations, Reid changed the rule to require a simple majority vote. So Democrats have only themselves to blame when a Senate controlled by 51 or 52 Republicans (depending on the result of Louisiana's runoff vote on December 10) can end any minority filibuster attempt against a Trump nominee.
Furthermore, Republicans will control the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Combine this with the fact that the GOP establishment backed Trump, and it becomes very unlikely that any reasonably responsible action by Trump will be blocked.
2. It won't just be "fortunately" if the House, Senate, or Supreme Court actually do block anything Trump tries to do (or not do). It'll be because the Framers deliberately designed the U.S. government such that each branch has power to check another.
Yes, it's true that in 2017 the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate will all be controlled by one of the two major parties. In the 100 years prior, Democrats had this advantage for 35 years, compared to 16 for Republicans. Also, Republicans aren't called "The Stupid Party" for nothing; it's entirely possible that they will allow a mass media that hates them to talk them out of taking advantage of this rare (for them) opportunity to alter the U.S. federal government to satisfy conservative principles.
3. (Bonus third point) There actually is some chance that the House in particular might have a few fights with President Trump. That's because Donald Trump is a RINO: a Republican In Name Only. He was registered as a Democrat from 2001-2008, and some of his long-time positions (e.g., protectionist tariffs and isolationist foreign policy) are in direct conflict with what passes these days for conservative principles in Republican members of Congress. (Note that I'm not expressing here a view for or against any of those positions. I'm just pointing out that these views that Trump appears to hold are counter to generally Republican positions, regardless of what any of us might think about those positions.)
So overall, my guess is that the House and Senate will be just barely competent to rein in the craziest excesses of President Trump, but will otherwise be so uselessly timid and lousy at PR that the Senate goes over to the Democrats in the 2018 mid-term elections.
Meanwhile, the country itself -- the people who thought Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were acceptable candidates for the U.S. presidency -- will continue to self-destruct. It will be a miracle if the U.S. survives long enough to elect President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.