Ah, well. Today I saw a rather long list of possibilities for the demise of Trump's term in office. According to this armchair pundit, Trump has in the neighborhood of a 1-in-16 chance of finishing his first term. I say this because the other 15 options revolve around some ignominious removal from office by impeachment or resignation.
By the way, I'm 100% behind Richard Dreyfuss' non-partisan initiative to bring Civics education back into grade school curriculum.
If my left-leaning friends applied Civics to the issue, they'd remember that it is not illegal for the President of the United States, who happens to be the Chief Executive... top kahuna of the executive branch of government... to fire someone in his employ. That includes the FBI Director. Their dislike of the timing of it does not make it a high crime or misdemeanor. Their disagreement with his operational decisions do not constitute grounds for impeachment.
If my left-leaning friends applied Civics to the issue, they'd remember that it is not illegal for the President of the United States, who happens to be the countries chief diplomat, to talk to the leaders of other countries or maintain friendly relationships with them. Their fantasies of traitorous subterfuge does not make it illegal for world leaders to meet, talk, tell jokes, laugh, etc.. Even when those leaders have substantive differences of policy, they can still be cordial and civil. A joke shared between adversaries does not make the policy differences disappear.
Unfortunately, many (and by no means all) of my friends and acquaintances on the left have no comprehension of this, having lost the ability to disagree cordially themselves. They just can't do it. It has nothing to do with politics, really; if you're bad, everything about you must be bad. Whatever you sell is bad, whatever you like is bad, and your every purpose must be nefarious. All it takes is one opinion. Ask Laci Green. A die-hard feminist, all she said was that the other side had some valid points and that she'd continue to be open to conversations about opposing views, and she got lambasted for it by her leftist "friends". I've found that there is a large group of people on that side for whom "friendship" is a truly foreign concept. There are people who are useful to them, and there are enemies. And this is a lop-sided criticism, yes. I personally know many people on the left who are like that, specifically about interpersonal relationships. I personally know no one on the right who is. I disagree strongly on a number of the talking points of both sides, and that's my experience.
For the record, I strongly suspect Trump is acting the way he is because he has no intention of running for a second term. You're used to analyzing the actions of politicians, whereas this is not a politician. This is someone who thinks of himself as a great negotiator, and that's how you need to analyze his actions. Misdirection and manipulation. Put on a little circus over there so you can get some stuff done quietly over here. Over-ask so as to more readily "settle" for what you wanted in the first place. For instance, people forget all about whether there should be a Wall if they spend 100% of their time arguing over who's going to pay for it. See? It's a completely different conversation.
So at this point my thought is that Trump's going to finish his full term, and he'll do it without impeachment or resignation. Resignation will never even be on the table. And he will continue to operate in a way that completely baffles the left, even when he delivers many of the things they actually want. And the left will continue to oppose him on those items, even though they formerly wanted them. Go figure.
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