Trump resigns/is impeeched... then what?

[Jimmie Higgins]

This is speculative, so I posted in non-political (so realistic or fantastic responses are equally welcome).

A lot of liberals at my job and in my social media feeds talk a lot about this. So just curious about arguments other people here may have had. I generally try and argue that Trump the individual is not the main threat, it's what he represents and the people who have interpreted the election as a mandate for the far right that are the longer-term domestic threat.

[willowtooth]

It would just make mike pence president so look at where he stands on most issues, and you'll see he's far to the right of trump https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/us/politics/mike-pence-issues.html?_r=0

He supported every anti-LGBT law short of stoning them, he's against every pro choice law, he actually de funded clinics on the grounds that they simply provided abortions, despite none of them ever having performed one, they mainly performed STD testing and the closings actually caused an AIDS outbreak in Indiana. He cuts taxes for the rich whenever he gets the chance including the inheritance tax, which is exclusively paid by the top 1%. While simultaneously cutting funding to public schools in his state. He's a climate change denying immigrant hating vote suppressor with an A+ rating from the NRA who is against everything from section 8, to food stamps, to the healthcare mandate and never saw a brown country he wouldn't bomb

We would just be trading one right wing shill for another, a reality TV star for a radio talk show host

YNacuFLFSvc

the only difference is we would have a voting record to judge him on, rather than just a collection of random brainfarts like we have with Trump.

[Jimmie Higgins]

We would just be trading one right wing shill for another, a reality TV star for a radio talk show host sure, pence or Paul Ryan or any number of other middle-age versions of snobby kids from the wealthy summer camp in an 80s movie, would be a reprieve for working class and most other people, but I don't know if there'd be no effect.

I think it would still be down on the list of options available to political figures, state burocrats. I read an article (I can't find it now) that argued, from a left perspective, against the idea that there would be a neutral effect if trump was removed or pressured to resign. The argued that it would have a chilling or disorienting effect for the political class and make resistance easier somehow. I'm not at all convinced by that argument (not to mention I'm skeptical that Trump would be removed by politicians or beurocrats at this point) but I think it would have an impact of some kind. I just don't think we can know because the effect would be due to circumstances surrounding the event.

If various revolts and sustained protests convinced the ruling class through government officials and state actors to push trump out because he's too much trouble--and it was seen in this light, then it probably would encourage more organizing against pence and any attempts at enacting policies associated with Trump. If Trump leaves due to scadel, political pressure or bureaucratic maneuvering, then it might not slow some of the new interest in the left, but it could just as easily lead to contentment ("see, our institutions work... for fixing the disorder cause by our undemocratic institutions... oh look, Rachel Maddow is on!") for the more numerous moderate liberals. It could also confirm the paranoid persecution fantasies of the right and would be a convincing argument to the radicalizing middle-class "alt-right" to pivot from rhetorical fascism, to the marching kind.

i think that it speaks to the weakness many people feel (and experience due to a generation of loosing the little power and reforms that had existed) and the low-expectations of liberalism, that my co-workers fantasize about some kind of Deus ex-burocracy to get rid of Trump. Oops, gotta leave it there.

[TomLeftist]

You are right, Donald Trump is not the main enemy, in fact even the left-wing organizations of the USA are also to blame for this painful and sad state of affair for the 60% to 70% percent of the population, who do not benefit at all from capitalism and who live a hell of work, work and work and almost no entertainments and almost no pleasures.

The left parties of USA are so failed, because from my own personal experience, I have noticed that the leaders and owners of most marxist political parties of US think that they own the ideology of Karl Marx, and have a system of hierarchies, in which the top leaders, exercise a control over the new members. I used to be part of the debates of the news website of The Socialist Equality Party of USA, but I've noticed that most of the owners of their news website http://www.wsws.org are elitists, and exercise an anti-freedom of speech policy not only against right-wingers, but also against people who are new to marxism. I think that's why most US citizens still keep trusting right-wing parties a lot more than leftist parties, because the social skills, the social ethics and the behaviour patterns of the owners of most marxist parties of not being friendly with the masses is a big problem, and the real enemy against the possibility of a socialist labor party rising to the US government



This is speculative, so I posted in non-political (so realistic or fantastic responses are equally welcome).

A lot of liberals at my job and in my social media feeds talk a lot about this. So just curious about arguments other people here may have had. I generally try and argue that Trump the individual is not the main threat, it's what he represents and the people who have interpreted the election as a mandate for the far right that are the longer-term domestic threat.

[Le Libérer]

This is speculative, so I posted in non-political (so realistic or fantastic responses are equally welcome).

A lot of liberals at my job and in my social media feeds talk a lot about this. So just curious about arguments other people here may have had. I generally try and argue that Trump the individual is not the main threat, it's what he represents and the people who have interpreted the election as a mandate for the far right that are the longer-term domestic threat.
Mike Pence would become president. If he was unable to, then Paul Ryan would be next up.
Here's the list of his successors:
1. Vice President Pence
2. House Speaker, Paul Ryan
3. President pro tempore of the Senate, Orrin Hatch
4. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson
5. Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin
6. Defense Secretary, James Mattis
7. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions
8. Acting Secretary of the Interior, Kevin Haugrud
9. Acting Agriculture Secretary, Michael Scuse
10. Commerce Secretary (vacant seat; nominee Wilbur Ross has not been confirmed)
11. Acting Labor Secretary, Ed Hugler
12. Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price
13. Acting Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Craig Clemmensen
14. Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao
15. Acting Energy Secretary, Grace Bochenek
16. Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos
17. Veteran Affairs Secretary, David Shulkin
18. Homeland Security Secretary, John Kelly

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Which is pretty much a list of assholes.

[Heretek]

Let's play a game and assume Trump 'resigns' after being run out of the country by revolution, and goes down in history as the last president of the United States.

Hurrah for revolution, vive la commune!

[Jimmie Higgins]

Mike Pence would become president. If he was unable to, then Paul Ryan would be next up.
Here's the list of his successors:
1. Vice President Pence
2. House Speaker, Paul Ryan
3. President pro tempore of the Senate, Orrin Hatch
4. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson
5. Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin
6. Defense Secretary, James Mattis
7. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions
8. Acting Secretary of the Interior, Kevin Haugrud
9. Acting Agriculture Secretary, Michael Scuse
10. Commerce Secretary (vacant seat; nominee Wilbur Ross has not been confirmed)
11. Acting Labor Secretary, Ed Hugler
12. Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price
13. Acting Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Craig Clemmensen
14. Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao
15. Acting Energy Secretary, Grace Bochenek
16. Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos
17. Veteran Affairs Secretary, David Shulkin
18. Homeland Security Secretary, John Kelly

Right, scandal or beurocratic maneuvers do nothing on their own to strengthen the position or potential for working class resistance. There's a whole layer of people and a whole other party that can step in to protect the status quo: of which trump is just the crude dull edge.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ckaihatsu]

---





[...]

Millions have marched against Trump’s witch hunt of immigrants, his attempts to suppress climate science, his rollback of environmental regulations, his attacks on democratic rights. They did not march to defend the FBI or demand war with Russia. But that is the ground on which the Democratic Party has chosen to take its stand, allying itself with the most powerful sections of the military-intelligence establishment. It fears a movement from below just as much as Trump. Its focus is to preempt the opposition from below and divert it into reactionary channels.

What happens next in the conflict within the ruling class is uncertain. But history shows that a crisis of class rule is a harbinger of social revolution.

For the working class to defend its interests, it must refuse to line up behind either faction of the political establishment. The Democrats and Republicans are the parties of the billionaires. The working class must oppose the Trump administration on the basis of its complete political independence from the two-party system and its own revolutionary socialist program directed against the profit system as a whole.

Patrick Martin




Trump’s firing of Comey: A new stage in the crisis of class rule

11 May 2017

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/05/11/pers-m11.html

[ckaihatsu]

---





ben franklin [pre death] • 3 hours ago

I'm already hearing chatter from my liberal contacts about their great coming "victory" against Trump and his possible removal from office. Very few are mentioning how Pence could likely be much worse than Trump. Very few recognize the damage that a false sense of victory could do to activism in the US especially after such a fatiguing political battle. Very few recognize the systemic problems that will be crudely painted over from this impeachment.

All this will do is falsely "prove" to the middle class that the bourgeois system is in perfect working order. That what they think of as an anomaly in Trump has been rectified. And this, I think, is the most dangerous and damaging thing that can happen. Especially with a Pence presidency on the horizon...




http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/05/18/trum-m18.html

[Radical Atom]

https://youtu.be/XJpznMaZ85c

[comrade-el-doggo]

19743and then he gets the chair instead

[BIXX]

Mike Pence would become president. If he was unable to, then Paul Ryan would be next up.
Here's the list of his successors:
1. Vice President Pence
2. House Speaker, Paul Ryan
3. President pro tempore of the Senate, Orrin Hatch
4. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson
5. Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin
6. Defense Secretary, James Mattis
7. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions
8. Acting Secretary of the Interior, Kevin Haugrud
9. Acting Agriculture Secretary, Michael Scuse
10. Commerce Secretary (vacant seat; nominee Wilbur Ross has not been confirmed)
11. Acting Labor Secretary, Ed Hugler
12. Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price
13. Acting Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Craig Clemmensen
14. Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao
15. Acting Energy Secretary, Grace Bochenek
16. Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos
17. Veteran Affairs Secretary, David Shulkin
18. Homeland Security Secretary, John Kelly

I am high and while scrolling up back to your list to make a joke reply about how John Kelly is gonna have a long busy 3 years ahead of him, I saw the "Huey P. Newton" in your signature and for a second I couldn't understand how Huey P. Newton ended up as one of Trump's successors. The fact that he's dead didn't even factor into my thought process proving to me that Newton couldn't have been one of Trump's successors.

[Jimmie Higgins]

So we're only 18 resignations or heart attacks away from the first black US president who actually cares about black folks? I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime.