Donald Trump has picked the hill he wants his presidency to die on
From the start, the path seemed fairly clear when it came to the inevitable demise of Donald Trump’s presidency: his various stunts and scandals and failures would gradually drive his approval rating down to untenable levels, and then in an effort at self preservation, the powers that be would use his Russia scandal to finish him off. This week, however, the landscape changed. Trump’s sexual predator scandal circled back to him in a big way, leaving him with a far more complex set of no-win choices.
Trump still managed to get elected (albeit in treasonously illegitimate fashion) even after America heard him confessing to serial sexual assault on tape. Even as sexual assault scandals began taking down one public figure after another, and even one politician after another, it was still unclear if Trump would be touched by it. Then this past week happened. Finally, a public mandate aligned itself behind the idea that Trump should be ousted from office for his long history of sexually assaulting women.
Suddenly Trump had to decide whether he wants his presidency to die in a criminal scandal involving treason with Russia, or if he wanted his presidency to die as a result of his sexual assault scandal. This morning he posted a tweet which sexually harassed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, which immediately pushed his sexual assault history into the forefront of the public consciousness. It was the equivalent of being on trial for murder, and trying to murder one of the jurors in front of the other jurors.
For the first time, it now appears that Donald Trump’s sexual predator scandal might actually oust him before his Russia scandal can. Trump’s base has never been more than 15% of the country. His 32% approval rating makes clear that he also has large swaths of tentative, passive supporters outside his base. That’s down more than ten points from when he took office, which proves that he can in fact lose supporters outside of his base. He’s about to lose a whole lot more of them, because he just made sure that his most tentative supporters will have to focus on his status as a sexual criminal.
There are pessimists on the left who have spent all year very loudly insisting that “Trump’s supporters won’t turn against him no matter what happens,” even as approval ratings polls have proven that he’s lost tens of millions of supporters since he took office. His tweet today, and the impact it’ll have on how the media and the public shape their discussions about it, will drive his approval rating incrementally lower.
As I’ve been explaining all year long, once Donald Trump finally falls into the twenties, the Republicans in Congress will hit the panic button. They have only ever cared about getting reelected themselves, and that will be the only factor they ever consider when it comes to ousting or not ousting Trump. Once they conclude that he has to go so they can keep their own jobs in the midterms, they’ll selfishly oust him without thinking twice. Trump helped that along greatly today with his tweet. He’d rather go down for sexual assault than for treason. He just told us so.
