With all the chaos around the Trump presidency, it may be amusing to predict the future and, if the internet still exists in a few months to a few years, check back and compare what happened with what was predicted.
Less than a year into the average Presidency, there are a few generic predictions that one can reasonably guess at:
- He’ll lose the next election.
- He’ll win the next election.
- Assassination.
- Death by accident/natural causes.
Those would seem to be about it… normally. But with Trump, some other options seem not unreasonable.
- Removed from office
- Resigns
- Decides not to run in 2020
- The Republicans replace him in 2020
- Starts World War V, and it doesn’t matter anymore.
The way things are going, with a historic turnover of his staff, his supporters fleeing, the opposition party salivating over the chance to prosecute him and his own party turning their backs on him, it just doesn’t seem that unlikely to me that he’ll be out of office well before the end of his first term. So far I haven’t seen anything that would merit forced removal from office, though his business dealings are worrisome and who knows what the investigations will turn up (keep in mind that both Bill Clinton and Martha Stewart were eventually punished over things that were *not* what the original investigations were looking for). As for resigning, I’m of two minds:
- He seems like the kind who’ll stick around out of spite if nothing else
- On the other hand, he’s bailed out of things before.
So if he calls it quits, I imagine he’ll *somehow* do so while declaring victory. It won’t make a lick of sense, but it’ll be entirely in character.
So we got this:
‘Art of the Deal’ Ghostwriter Thinks President Trump Will Resign Before the End of the Year
So… I dunno. I have serious doubts about him bailing before the end of the year, but I’m coming around to the idea of him quitting before 2020. At the very least, I just don’t see him winning in 2020. Unless something important changes, he’ll continue to gaffe his way forward.
If Trumps resigns, Pence becomes President. The Dems won’t hate Pence more than they hate Trump; conservatives and mainstream republican will probably like him more. So if Trump resigns *soon,* Pence should have a reasonable shot in 2020. And if he actually manages to win and does an ok job, he can run *again* in 2024. If he wins that (note: to be able to run in 2024, Trump would have to resign *after* Jan 20, 2018), he’ll be in office until 2029, the longest Presidency since FDR. He’d be 69 at the time… younger than Trump and Hillary are *now.*
So… my *guess* is that Trump will bail sometime in the next few years.
Feel free to comment with your own predictions. Keep the Nazi-calling to a dull roar, please…