It’s strategically more important to destroy Donald Trump than it is to oust him
Hurry, everyone in the Resistance seems to keep saying. Hurry up and oust Donald Trump as quickly as possible, before he does anymore damage. Hurry up, Robert Mueller, and find a way to get rid of him before he embarrasses us anymore. I’m tempted to share in that sentiment, but I’m not entirely sure that it’s the correct one. Bear with me here, because I’m going to make the case that it’s more important to destroy Donald Trump than it is to oust him.
Let me be clear: I don’t care that much whether Trump goes to prison, or just goes home and sits miserably in his apartment for the rest of what will probably be a fairly brief natural lifespan, considering his age and poor health. So when I say he must be destroyed, I’m not talking about punishing him for his crimes. Instead, he needs to be destroyed before he leaves office for the sake of what comes after he leaves office. As I’ve said from the very start of this, no matter what happens to Trump, this will be almost certainly be a four year fight.
Let’s say Trump announces tomorrow that he’s tired of this and he’s resigning. Then what? Mike Pence takes over, and while we know him to be an extremist bigoted monster, the people in the middle – the ones who always decide if a president sinks or swims – just see him as a mild mannered doofus. Pence could hit the ground running, team up with the Republican majority in Congress, and enact sweeping monstrous legislation that could transform America into no longer being America. And yeah, they could pull that off before the Democrats can retake Congress in the midterms.
What we really need is for Donald Trump’s standing and reputation to be completely destroyed by his scandal before he leaves office. That way, by the time Mike Pence takes over, the Trump scandal will be such an uncontrollable firestorm that Pence never can find his footing as he finishes out the term. So in addition to the fact that there is no way for us to magically oust Trump tomorrow, we may actually be better off in the long term if he sticks it out a little longer and allows his scandal to become so toxic that it sinks the entire four years, rather than just sinking him personally. If you’re a regular reader, feel free to support Palmer Report
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report