6 October 2019 — 2027 mdt

Would Trump resign to avoid the stigma of being impeached?

A former employee of his, Barbara Res, thinks so, according to CNN. She believes “He does a lot of things to save face:”

Perhaps. But I doubt he’ll consider resigning as long as he believes that sycophantic Republican senators provide a firewall against conviction in the Senate no matter how damning the evidence presented by prosecutors from the House.

And there’s no shortage of Republican senators with jellyfish spines. At this point, I cannot imagine Lindsay Graham, Mitch McConnell, and Tom Cotton, marching down to the White House to tell Trump the jig is up, let along Trump’s believing them.

Even if he were to believe them, he still might choose to fight on in the hope that somehow he might win. Being President protects Trump from federal, state, and local, prosecution.

Therefore, he’ll not resign — he’d say he was resigning because of poor health — unless he’s convinced that after If Mike Pence replaces Trump as President, Pence could pardon Trump for all his sins, past, present, and future. But that wouldn’t be enough. Pence can protect Trump only from federal prosecution. Trump knows that once he’s an ex-President, state prosecutors, New York prosecutors in particular, will pursue him like ravening hyenas.

Would Pence make such a deal? He’s certainly capable of it. But in making it he would remember that Jerry Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon led to Ford’s losing to Jimmy Carter in 1976. Would be be capable of promising to pardon Trump, then double-crossing Trump after becoming President? I think so. I suspect Trump thinks so, too, another reason he might choose fighting to the death.

But even if Pence honored his promise to pardon, the odds that similar deals could be cut to protect Trump from states prosecuting him are perishingly small. There’s no protection from that other than the decision of state prosecutors to decline to prosecute. That provides a powerful incentive for fighting impeachment and winning a second term to delay the inevitable as long as possible (or for resigning from Mar-a-Lago, then declaring Mar-a-Lago has seceded from the nation and has no extradition treaty with the U.S.; not precisely Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.’s Bimini strategy, but close).

Pence could serve as President longer than anyone but FDR

Amendment XXII puts Pence in a pretty good position should be become President between now and 2 November 2019:

If he cut a deal to pardon Trump as the price of ascending to the Oval Office, but escaped the punishment the voters inflicted on Gerald Ford, Pence could serve approximately nine years as President by winning the 2020 election and being re-elected in 2024. FDR, inaugurated in March, 1933, died in April, 1945, a short stretch into his fourth term.

I think Pence would lose the 2020 election, but there’s no guarantee he would.

I think Pence will be on the 2020 ballot as Trump’s Vice President. I don’t think Trump will resign, either to escape being impeached, or to avoid being convicted. He has few incentives to resign, and many to stay President as long as possible.

If he’s impeached, a genuine possibility, I doubt he would be convicted. There are too many Republican senators with bungee-cord backbones (does GOP now stand for Gelatin-vertebraed Old Poltroons?).

The impeachment inquiry now underway may unearth damning evidence that Trump has abused power, dishonored his oath of office, violated the spirit and perhaps the letter of our nation’s laws, and generally conducted himself such that his continued tenure as President will seriously harm our nation. That evidence could support impeachment and conviction. It could also convince the voters that Trump should not be elected to a second term.

Given the intense loyalty of his supporters, who love who and what he is as much as what he had done or tried to do, tens of millions would consider giving him the heave-ho through impeachment and conviction a constitutionally illegitimate overturning of an election. That might provoke 2nd Amendment protests that destabilize our political system and jeopardize our freedom and prosperity.

Therefore, in my judgment, the best way to remove Trump from office and get our nation back on track is to defeat his bid for re-election. That outcome would have the greatest political legitimacy, for the people would have fired the person they hired by mistake in 2016.

My prediction: he won’t resign, commit suicide, die of a heart attack or stroke, be impeached and convicted, or be killed by an assassin’s bullet. He could lose the election, and that’s where Democrats should put their money and energy. Remove him from office the old-fashion way — convince the American people to vote him out.