To a point you may well be right - but given that the fear many people have is “dismantling western democracy and NATO, handing Ukraine to Putin and Gaza plus Lebanon to Netanyahu and wrecking the US economy” turning out to not be that bad is a pretty low bar.
I think he will be pretty bad, especially with both Senate and the House on his side.
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I think you may have rather missed the point of the article
No doesnt change anything. Once the votes are in he becomes president elect Vance is the replacement etc.
No new elections the Republicans will just go down the list.
Just looked it up - VP has taken over only 9 times in 250years.
Trump won the popular vote by a little over 2.5 million votes out of a total of a little over 150 million votes. Exactly 49.92% to 48.18%. Close enough to say approx. 50/50.
This slim margin is enough to give hope to the Democrats, and other oppositions, of which I’m sure are many, to make life as difficult as possible for Trump & co to put the worst aspects of the 2024 agenda into practise.
The battle is already being prepared.
I take relief in that he will be gone in 4 years, if not sooner, which is possible. And I’m sure enough common sense & public vigilance & public dissent exists in the USA to prevent attempts by him or others to turn the USA into an authoritarian state.
But that’s only my opinion unfortunately. But a hopeful one.
*Lots of critical cartoons about….but on YouTube.
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If he doesn’t last his 4 years he will be replaced by Vance.
Not good news.
I agree, but there’s republican opposition in the background against Trump Vance & co, at least 5 very senior senators in key positions, and enough other republicans I’m sure, who will be a thorn in their sides.
Mitch McConnell is not running for re-election, and because of that he will do and say what he wants for the next two years I think, and influence other republicans when it comes to voting in the senate. Mitch McConnell is not a MAGA, so, I’m cautiously optimistic.
Also in two years there are the midterms, when (if they get their act together) the Democrats might regain control of the House and possibly the Senate, allowing them to nullify a lot of Trump’s little schemes.
The Supreme Court is possibly more of a worry, since they have no official expiry date except death.
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Or impeachment, which has zero chance of happening. The one & only impeachment was in 1805!
The 1805 impeachment was of Samuel Chase, a Supreme Court Justice. He was impeached by the House, but not convicted by the Senate. He remained on the court until his death in 1811. IIRC his face is on one of our larger US dollar bills, FWIW.
No US President has ever been convicted after an impeachment and removed from office. Impeachment is akin to an indictment by a grand jury. Impeachment only requires a simple majority in the House, which may not be so hard to do, particularly when the opposing party to POTUS controls the House. In order to convict, and thereby remove the guilty party, a 2/3 majority vote in the Senate is required. That’s a pretty high bar to cross.
Only one US President has been impeached more than once.
I don’t share your optimism. McConnell is personally responsible for where the US is now. It started in 2008 when he declared he was going to make Obama a one-term President. He failed in that but did everything possible to grab power for the Republican party. He stole at least one, possibly 2 Supreme Court Justice seats based on blowing up the established rules of appointments by POTUS. He failed to get Trump removed during the second impeachment after Jan 6. During the 2024 election, he supported Trump as the Republican nominee. He is too old and sick to do anything about Trump, even if he wants to, and I’m not convinced he wants to.
I agree with most of what you say, but, and it’s a matter of opinion clearly, I think that McConnell, along with many others, may well want to help prevent an ultimate catastrophe.
At this point there are very, very few people left who can prevent a catastrophy, if there really is, objectively, a catastrophy.
Those people will become targets of the extremists. It has already happened to people like Romney, who has become much more subdued in his criticism of Trump. He’s spent a fair amount of his personal fortune on bodt\yguards and protection. There aren’t many dissidents with deep pockets.
The USA under authoritarian Trump could echo Turkey under Erdoğan, and McConnell has expressed his distain for Erdogan’s rule. Let’s hope that he hasn’t lost that distain, and do what he can to help others younger and fitter than he, to slow Trump down. Sorry, but I’m an optimist…
I’m an optimist, too. But McConnell doesn’t necessarily define castatrophe the way we might. What he doesn’t like in Turkey isn’t necessarily what he doesn’t like in the US. He wants the Republican party to have ultimate power.
I agree that McConnell wants republican power FOREVER, but that’s not what he’s going to get under a MAGA Trump, is it…
Mitch McConnell has expressed concerns about Erdogan’s authoritarian practices, the undermining of democratic norms, secularism, erosion of press freedom and human rights in Turkey.
I can’t believe he’d support similar from Trump. But we shall have to wait and see…!
In Turkey. He has never expressed any concerns with it happening in the US.
When the owners of the Washington Post and LA Times both overruled their editorial boards and declined to endorse Harris (fearing retribution), what did Mitch say about it?
McConnell singlehandedly could have restored America and the old Republican party to approximately what it had been before, had he just announced to his caucus that he was going to vote to convict Trump during the second impeachment , after the Jan 6 insurrection, or whatever you want to call it. Had he done that , Thune, who is joined to him at the hip would have switched and probably a few other Republican Senators. Mitch was at the height of his power then and that would have been the end of Trump as a political candidate.
He’s not interested in America, except as a vessel for Republican power.
The Republicans know that in the long run, demographics are against them - rather like the Tories in the UK - apart from the current blip with Trump, Latino and Black voters tend to vote Democrat and are an increasing percentage of the US population.
Today, 67% of registered voters are White, 13% are Hispanic, 11% are Black and 4% are Asian. In 1996, when President Bill Clinton was running for reelection, 85% of voters were White, 4% were Hispanic, 9% were Black and about 1% were Asian.
Republican voters also tend to be older than Democrat voters (again, as with the Tories in the UK).
Hence the Republican party doing its best to gerrymander electoral districts and appoint as many right-leaning judges as possible.
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Sure, that’s the theory, but if they can get enough stupid people to vote against their own interests, then the numbers don’t matter much.
How many latinos are voting for their own families friends and co-workers to be deported?
How many idiots are against Obamacare but for the ACA (Affordable Care Act) because they have insurance under it - same thing?
How many lower and middle class people are voting for more tax cuts for the rich?
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There’s a sucker born every minute. (not) P. T. Barnum.