Is there any way out for "INDIVIDUAL-1"?

[Elixir]

All of the predictions and views so far expressed have matched some of my own. I see SH's point that he's too irrational to resign, as well as Koy's treatise that he definitely will resign. Tom S posits that he has choices... and yeah, they question is whether he can create enough bullshit fast enough to get away with say, a coup. I don't think the military likes him one bit, so that's probably out.

OTOH...there may be little or no chance that the public is going to see any part of a "Mueller Report". Some time after 1/21/19 the House will subpoenas the report. They will not release it, but you know how things tend to get out? If they can drive down Republicans' approval measurably with a nice juicy leak or few, they will be encouraged to keep it up. If they ever get Cheato's approval down around 60%, then they would launch an impeachment. I am still really unsure about what it would take for that to happen, but it would have to be damning. Trump will lie, right up to the end, and deny facts that are in plain evidence, just as he has done with climate change, the Saudi MbS murderer and a host of other things. Some will believe him over their own ears and eyes (as instructed). The Dems may need to offer the Reps some way out of their trumpster fire, let them save some face somehow - maybe even take credit for bringing trump down. But it's going to first take some strong and verifiable claims against Cheato, plus a lot of time to wreak a the massive change in public opinion, which will be required prior to that even being an option. So it's going to run up toward the 2020 cycle, and then -

I'd think that Cheato is delusional enough to think he's going to run and win in 2020 because of the tremendous job he says he's doing. But his congressional enablers see this referendum month, and the increasing danger of overtly supporting him. They won't want to drag a dead horse into the 2020 presidential race or have one land on top of them in their own races. And at this rate, that's what would happen, as things look to get a whole lot worse for Cheato over time. Would the Republicans suddenly become true patriotic heroes, and turn on their idiot-savant? Would FFvC make a pardon deal with Pence and resign - even if there were enough votes to impeach him? If impeached, would he hole up in the White House and refuse to leave? Call Uncle Vlad and beg him pretty please to invade Estonia today?

I think he'll do some batshit crazy stuff in the next few months, continuing to try to poison the well with the judiciary, law enforcement and any other establishment he views as a threat. As his stuff gets more and more out there, do his cheatobots simply readjust their realities to accommodate new levels of fantasy required to continue to subscribe to his newest claims? Do they try to not even hear about it? Many people have been surprised to learn how stupid the 50% of the population with below average intelligence really are, but it's the pervasive ignorance of what is really happening that scares me. If the numbers of his followers can't be driven down by the truth, we're fucked. But I hold out hope that some number of previously devoted followers will turn on him, and others become more ambivalent if the noise is loud enough and persistent enough.

It is still the case though, that the ultimate disposal of Trump is still in the hands of the Republicans. I'm sure they'll make responsible choices.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

No chance at all. He's going to be investigated so much over the next two years he'll probably not run for re-election, or run and wash out early in the primaries. If he isn't in prison by that time, he will leave the US for Scotland and hide near his Scottish golf course. Of course he could up and die from a heart attack at any time. Die in bed with a half eaten cheeseburger and his I-phone.

 

[ZiprHead]

I prefer he go out like the warden in The Shawshank Redemption, with federal marshalls beating on his door.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No chance at all. He's going to be investigated so much over the next two years he'll probably not run for re-election, or run and wash out early in the primaries. If he isn't in prison by that time, he will leave the US for Scotland and hide near his Scottish golf course. Of course he could up and die from a heart attack at any time. Die in bed with a half eaten cheeseburger and his I-phone.

...or on the toilet in the middle of a tweet: "America is burning because of lib-"

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I mean that the case will be laid out in such a manner as to leave him no option but to resign. Or kill himself.

Yes, this is the vagueness and lack of detail which I'm asking about. I just don't see how irrelevant things like "facts" and "detailed evidence" are going to influence him.

As I've stated, I don't think it will come down to him; it will come down to his family (Ivanka, in particular) influencing him. Plus, he does not yet have a knife at his throat (figuratively speaking).

No matter what else he is, he is a coward. A narcissistic coward, no less. Until he is facing a figurative cold, hard blade, he'll deny, deny, deny. Mueller's report is the cold, hard blade. Or, rather, Mueller understands that his report must be a cold, hard blade and everything he has been doing (and the manner by which he's been doing it) demonstrates this understanding.

He can just call them fake news and ignore them while having a primary opponent for a GOP Senator up on stage with him at a rally in their state.

The midterms, however, have proven how toxic that can be for any such GOP senator and that's now; before Mueller's report and the subsequent months (if not years) of very public and very detailed House inquiries.

He's poisoned the water so much amongst his base that everything said can be dismissed out of hand.

By the 10-15% core supporters, but they're irrelevant. It's the 85-90% that matter and, again, none of them have seen the report or watched the endless hours of House testimony that will be taking up the entirety of 2019 at the very least.

Recall he only won in the first place because of a .07% voting differential in just three states and then only because of a host of specific, unique conditions that won't be in place in 2020. Those key states--Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan--have already corrected that anomaly and returned to solidly blue states.

And, again, that's before Mueller's report and the House's subsequent investigations.

Some on the GOP may find it politically expedient enough to turn against him as a result, but you'll need 19 or 20 of them to directly vote to fire the guy

Again, you're thinking in pre-Mueller terms. Plus, in 2020, the Republican Senators will be the ones facing a midterm challenge. By then the idea of backing Trump will be a thousand times more toxic than it was in the recent midterms (when they weren't the ones on the defensive the way the Dem seats were).

there's zero chance of him doing the honorable thing for his country and party and stepping aside willingly.

Possibly. Again, as I said, it's possible that he pulls a Nixon and somehow makes it into another term, but the chances are exponentially less probable than the already improbable chances he had of being President in the first place and all of the conditions that combined to put him there in 2016 don't exist anymore. Quite the opposite in fact and again that's before Mueller and the House publicly and relentlessly eviscerate him.

but there aren't going to be enough GOP Senators willing to kick him out of office before that.

His crimes will be so well documented that they will have no choice, other than career suicide, but why would they risk that once it's all fully revealed in the run up to defending their own jobs? Plus there is no doubt that a lot of ancillary corruption among the Republicans in the Senate that will also be revealed (though probably not publicly) that will indicate to them that if they do not chum Trump, they will hang with him. While that might not work on all of the corrupt ones, it will work on some.

Maybe not enough, but then, again, it's like us saying, "No bomb could destroy a whole city" before Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. Mueller knows he needs to be preparing his own Little Boy and there is every indication that this is precisely what he is doing.

 

[Elixir]

His crimes will be so well documented that they will have no choice, other than career suicide...

I think you are overestimating the value of facts. In this case, facts are only as powerful as their ability to sway public opinion. As I said earlier in the thread, there will not be sufficient pressure on Republican incumbent lawmakers to go with impeachment until Cheato's approval among republicans goes south of 60%. Nixon wasn't in real peril until his public opinion rating in his own party was around 50%.

 

[AdamWho]

I wake up every morning hoping that reality finally caught up with him and he committed suicide in the night.

Seriously.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I think you are overestimating the value of facts. In this case, facts are only as powerful as their ability to sway public opinion.

And if Trump's spy in the AG office is giving Trump's team a heads-up on the report's contents, they'll probably publish their response as close to simultaneously as they can. Exactly to shape the narrative in the public's opinion.

Doesn't have to be any more in depth than any creationist dismissal of inconvenient facts, as long as the Republicans can say, "Yeah, well, that was dealt with/rebutted/disproven." Just like the last investigation of Kavenaugh. They just need an excuse to dismiss the contents.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

His crimes will be so well documented that they will have no choice, other than career suicide...

I think you are overestimating the value of facts.

I think you are underestimating the impact that Mueller's report (and the subsequent months of open House investigations) will have.

There are two categories at play here; one is what members of Congress will have to do in order to sidestep the facts. Again, Mueller knows this, so his report must be so well detailed and contain so many facts that they cannot just easily be sidestepped.

The other is what impact both the Mueller report and the subsequent months of public floggins that will result in the House will have on moderate and intelligent Republican voters (yes, there actually are both), not to mention what effects it will have on the turncoat white Dem voters that apparently are the ones who tipped the scales in Trump's favor in 2016.

Again, we have already seen them revert back to blue dominance, and that's before either Mueller or the House.

In this case, facts are only as powerful as their ability to sway public opinion.

Again, as we have seen in the midterms, public opinion has already been swayed.

As I said earlier in the thread, there will not be sufficient pressure on Republican incumbent lawmakers to go with impeachment until Cheato's approval among republicans goes south of 60%.

Considering it's currently at about 70% (if you factor in the impact of independents, which are necessary for Republican wins) and neither Mueller nor the House have even really begun to expose the hundreds of criminal acts we all know Trump has committed over the years--let alone what he's committed in the two years he's been in office--that shouldn't be too difficult to obtain.

Again, forget the core supporters. They are no more than 20% tops (and more like 10-15%). The rest are entirely up for grabs, but even if we're talking 30% who just are going to die on Mount Cheato, that would still mean 40% are open to be persuaded by Mueller and/or the House.

But that threshold won't matter, because as soon as it gets anywhere near 65% (Repugs and Indies) disapproval (which would be the effect of the ones easiest to sway), that's too close for all of the Republican Senators up for re-election in 2020. They would have to start hedging their own bets and start actively joining in the attack--or at the very least not join in the defensive noise--or risk their own jobs.

As for the Nixon analogy in general, remember that was in the technological ice age, when news travelled very slowly. Technology has spead up that process by about a hundred fold since then.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Just like the last investigation of Kavenaugh.

There was no investigation of Kavanaugh. That's how they did it. But Mueller is not likewise confined. At least not yet, in spite of Trump's obvious attempts at doing so.

Which are yet other indications as to the fact that most Republicans in the Senate--in spite of the rhetoric of the few--already know where this is all headed and have not taken any of the opportunities floated their way by either their fellow Republicans or the White House to stop it. If they had, we would have already seen Mueller fired. It certainly isn't the Democrats in Congress all on their own that are keeping Mueller's investigation intact.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I wake up every morning hoping that reality finally caught up with him and he committed suicide in the night.

Seriously.

And you think he could actually accomplish that?!

 

[Keith&Co.]

Just like the last investigation of Kavenaugh.

There was no investigation of Kavanaugh. That's how they did it.

Exactly. But a report was produced. And the people up at the bench looked at a piece of paper and said, "Oh! Well, that's good enough for me."

But Mueller is not likewise confined. At least not yet, in spite of Trump's obvious attempts at doing so.

But I wasn't talking about Mueller.
People will have Mueller's report in one hand, and Trump's Lawyers' rebuttal in the other and they will say, "Well, looks good to me. They addressed all MY concerns."

How much that sways public opinion is yet to be seen, but they will attempt to form their own take.
And Trump's people will yell much louder in front of more cameras than Mueller will.

 

[Elixir]

I think you are underestimating the impact that Mueller's report (and the subsequent months of open House investigations) will have.

I certainly hope so, but have seen how adept the Cheato cabal is at muddying waters, diverting, deflecting denying and attacking messengers.

In this case, facts are only as powerful as their ability to sway public opinion.
Again, as we have seen in the midterms, public opinion has already been swayed.

No, that's where you are falling victim to false hope IMHO. Public opinion counts for shit in this case. What matters is approval among REPUBLICANS. As long as 60+ percent of REPUBLICANS are okay with Cheato, so are the REPUBLICAN congresscritters whose votes would be required to remove him from office. Republicans might constitute only 28% of the electorate, and 60 percent of them might only be around 17% of the electorate, but the brutal fact is that we are saddled with Cheato and all the damage he can do as long as that 17% of American voters will stick with him.

As I said earlier in the thread, there will not be sufficient pressure on Republican incumbent lawmakers to go with impeachment until Cheato's approval among republicans goes south of 60%.

Considering it's currently at 80% and neither Mueller nor the House have even really begun to expose the hundreds of criminal acts we all know Trump has committed over the years--let alone what he's committed in the two years he's been in office--that shouldn't be too difficult to obtain.

We'll see, won't we? I'm pretty sure that one reason that Team Cheato is slow-playing the whole thing is to give them sufficient time to effectively undermine, and if possible, destroy the Mueller investigation. Even assuming that they are unsuccessful in that effort, they will definitely be able to hide any "Mueller Report" from the public for quite a while as they prevaricate, refuse to abide by House subpoenas etc.
The only think that I can see scaring them off will be a looming 2020 blowout - think of what that election will look like if Trump is running (unlikely IMO) and SCOTUS orders the report turned over to a Democratic House in, say, September 2020.

Again, forget the core supporters. They are no more than 20% tops (and more like 10-15%). The rest are entirely up for grabs, but even if we're talking 30% who just are going to die on Mount Cheato, that would still mean 50% are persuadable by Mueller and/or the House.

It would be a mistake to forget the committed trumpsuckers. THEY are the ones who control the decisions of Republican lawmakers, who feel that they cannot be re-elected without total support from that quarter.

But that threshold won't matter, because as soon as it gets anywhere near 65-70% disapproval (which would be the ones easiest to sway), that's too close for all of the Republican Senators up for re-election in 2020. They would have to start hedging their own bets and start actively joining in the attack or risk their own jobs.

History shows that the tipping number is closer to 50%

As for the Nixon analogy in general, remember that was in the technological ice age, when news travelled very slowly. Technology has spead up that process by about a hundred fold since then.

It was also an age where news was harder to suppress, deny, misrepresent, spin and subject to "alternative facts". There was no State TV network and no Golden Boy President telling people not to believe their eyes and ears, and there was no significant fraction of the electorate who would have been happy to submit to such a demand.

I hope you're right, but suspect you're being a bit naive about the whole thing.

 

[Opoponax]

...I hope you're right, but suspect you're being a bit naive about the whole thing.

I agree with everything you said. Until the GOP feels like it's going to lose the Senate, nothing is going to change.

However, it's a decision they're going to be forced to make well before the 2020 election. Mueller's report is going to come out before then, and seems likely to come out in the first quarter of 2019. If that's the case, then the GOP will have to either go down with Trump, or dump him ASAP and go to work on repairing the damage before the election.

It isn't hard to envision McConnel et al saying things like, "We had no idea, and we did the patriotic thing and supported the President, which we should all do" or some other bullshit that's just as provably wrong. But it won't matter that he's lying unless he's directly implicated. If Trump were to get impeached and removed by April, that gives the GOP ~19 months to rehab themselves, and that can certainly be accomplished within that time frame.

If, OTOH, the GOP Senate refuses to remove him from office, they have to endure another 19 months, lose the Presidency, and then have to defend a relatively large number of Senate seats. And by then, nearly every Senator with an (R) next to their name is going to be swimming in Trump's toxic sludge.

One way or another, Trump is going to drag the GOP down. The question is what the GOP will do about it.

 

[Patooka]

...I hope you're right, but suspect you're being a bit naive about the whole thing.

I agree with everything you said. Until the GOP feels like it's going to lose the Senate, nothing is going to change.

However, it's a decision they're going to be forced to make well before the 2020 election. Mueller's report is going to come out before then, and seems likely to come out in the first quarter of 2019. If that's the case, then the GOP will have to either go down with Trump, or dump him ASAP and go to work on repairing the damage before the election.

Are we certain of that? I suspect Meuller's report won't be available for public review. National security and all that.

If, OTOH, the GOP Senate refuses to remove him from office, they have to endure another 19 months, lose the Presidency, and then have to defend a relatively large number of Senate seats. And by then, nearly every Senator with an (R) next to their name is going to be swimming in Trump's toxic sludge.

One way or another, Trump is going to drag the GOP down. The question is what the GOP will do about it.

That's easy, gerrymader the shit out of electorates and disenfranchise the shit out of non-Republican voters. And it can probably work.

 

[Elixir]

Are we certain of that? I suspect Meuller's report won't be available for public review. National security and all that.

The House can and will subpoena the report if one ever exists. And it WILL leak. The republicans can suppress the text but not the nature of the contents.

One way or another, Trump is going to drag the GOP down. The question is what the GOP will do about it.

That's easy, gerrymader the shit out of electorates and disenfranchise the shit out of non-Republican voters. And it can probably work.

I think that's overly cynical. They can create a number of strongholds, but from all appearances that number is steadily dropping. Margin of Dem vs Rep total votes in the midterms would be difficult to erase by gerrymandering - if that ratio maintains or increases. Remember that despite all of the shitgibbon's Russian money and foreign help, trolls, bots and paid agitators, all of the precision targeting applied to social media, despite the FBI, and despite even God's own gift to them - HILLARY! - the margin was razor thin in their electoral "victory". I don't see any of the major factors in 2016 operating in 2020.

 

[Opoponax]

Are we certain of that? I suspect Meuller's report won't be available for public review. National security and all that.

That's speculation at this point. While something unpredictable can always happen, such as Trump finding a way to quash the report, it will only be temporary. And if he does that, then the consequences in 2020 will be the same. Also, the House will be able to subpoena the report anyway. One way or another, the report will be made public (barring e.g. actual tyranny).

That's easy, gerrymader the shit out of electorates and disenfranchise the shit out of non-Republican voters. And it can probably work.

It's not easy. It can depend on the state, but by and large, the sudden redrawing of districts on a mass scale is highly unlikely, and most redrawing occurs only every 10 years. Also, even if a state does redraw its districts now, that won't help with the Senate or the Presidency, and is unlikely to result in a Republican majority in the House anyway.

Of course, this is based on the idea that we remain, or are at least a somewhat legitimate democracy. If that ceases to be the case, then dark dystopian predictions are more accurate. But short of that, Trump's going down and the GOP is gonna take some serious lumps. At least in 2020.

By 2022 though, who knows. Americans have catastrophically short memories, and many will no longer associate Trump with the GOP (see Bush/Cheney), and some will remember him fondly (see Bush/Cheney).

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

There are two issues involved in all of this. One is the court of public opinion. The other is the actual court made up of lawyers and congresspeople and judges and professionals, etc.

Yes, the public court matters to politicians, but it doesn't matter to anyone else. Which means, of course, that only the Republicans in the Senate are in any way influenced by the public court.

Elixir notes the 50% historical threshold and while that's not really a benchmark, just what happened in regard to Nixon, let's go with that.

I had actually edited my post in between Elixir's--because I forgot to include the impact of Independents and probably didn't do proper math as is the bane of my existence--so I'll repeat my edited comments here for reference and dig a little deeper subsequently:

Considering it's currently at about 70% (if you factor in the impact of independents, which are necessary for Republican wins) and neither Mueller nor the House have even really begun to expose the hundreds of criminal acts we all know Trump has committed over the years--let alone what he's committed in the two years he's been in office--that shouldn't be too difficult to obtain.

Again, forget the core supporters. They are no more than 20% tops (and more like 10-15%). The rest are entirely up for grabs, but even if we're talking 30% who just are going to die on Mount Cheato, that would still mean 40% are open to be persuaded by Mueller and/or the House.

But that threshold won't matter, because as soon as it gets anywhere near 65% (Repugs and Indies) disapproval (which would be the effect of the ones easiest to sway), that's too close for all of the Republican Senators up for re-election in 2020. They would have to start hedging their own bets and start actively joining in the attack--or at the very least not join in the defensive noise--or risk their own jobs.

Remember that Republicans now only make up 26% of registered voters:

In Pew Research Center surveys conducted in 2017, 37% of registered voters identified as independents, 33% as Democrats and 26% as Republicans. When the partisan leanings of independents are taken into account, 50% either identify as Democrats or lean Democratic; 42% identify as Republicans or lean Republican.

The Gallup poll I linked to previously to pull the approval percentage from actually shows that among Republicans, Trump's approval as of last week (Nov. 19-25) is at 86% and among Indies it's at 34% (and, horrifyingly, among Dems it's at 9%).

So, who wants to do the math on 86% of 26% plus 34% of 37% to give us a percentage of the total 42% right leaning registered voters who approve of Trump (and, thereby, disapprove) right now (before the Mueller report/House investigations)? My calculations are that a total of 13% Indies and 22% of Repugs (plus the 9% Dems that I can't believe support Trump) for a total of only 44% of right-leaning registered voters approving of Trump right now.

Then consider this also from Pew:

Turnout in this year’s U.S. House primaries rose sharply, especially on the Democratic side. Nearly a fifth (19.6%) of registered voters – about 37 million – cast ballots in House primary elections, a sizable increase from 13.7% (23.7 million) in 2014. While turnout rates rose this year in both Democratic and Republican House primaries, the increase was greater on the Democratic side – up 4.6 percentage points versus a 1.2-point increase on the Republican side. Turnout rates were also substantially higher in this year’s Senate and gubernatorial primaries than in 2014.

And, as Nate Silver recently noted:

[T]he 2018 wave was indisputably unlike any other in recent midterm history: It came with exceptionally high turnout. Turnout is currently estimated at 116 million voters, or 49.4 percent of the voting-eligible population. That’s an astounding number; only 83 million people voted in 2014, by contrast.
...
This high turnout makes for some rather unusual accomplishments. For instance, Democratic candidates for the House will receive almost as many votes this year as the 63 million that President Trump received in 2016, when he won the Electoral College (but lost the popular vote). ... There isn’t really any precedent for the opposition party at the midterm coming so close to the president’s vote total....Even in wave elections, the opposition party usually comes nowhere near to replicating the president’s vote from two years earlier.
...
This year’s results do serve as a warning to Trump in one important sense, however: His base alone will not be enough to win a second term. Throughout the stretch run of the 2018 midterm campaign, Trump and Republicans highlighted highly charged partisan issues, from the Central American migrant caravan to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. And Republican voters did indeed turn out in very high numbers: GOP candidates for the House received more than 50 million votes, more than the roughly 45 million they got in 2010.

But it wasn’t enough, or even close to enough. Problem No. 1 is that Republicans lost among swing voters: Independent voters went for Democrats by a 12-point margin, and voters who voted for a third-party candidate in 2016 went to Democrats by 13 points.

Trump and Republicans also have Problem No. 2, however: Their base is smaller than the Democratic one. This isn’t quite as much of a disadvantage as it might seem; the Democratic base is less cohesive and therefore harder to govern. Democratic voters are sometimes less likely to turn out, although that wasn’t a problem this year. And because Republican voters are concentrated in rural, agrarian states, the GOP has a big advantage in the Senate.1
Nonetheless, it does mean that Republicans can’t win the presidency by turning out their base alone, a strategy that sometimes is available to Democrats.

And this from CNN:

Democrats start 2020 in a solid position, though they remain in the minority in the upper chamber of Congress. Of the 12 Democratic seats up for re-election, only two are from states President Donald Trump won in 2016 -- Alabama's Doug Jones and Michigan's Gary Peters. Republicans have more seats to defend, with 22 GOP seats on the line.

So, it's possible--unlikely at this point, but again that's before whatever is about to happen happens--that we could win majority control of the Senate. That's not enough for impeachment to succeed on its own--and chances are exceedingly good Trump will not win re-election, so it would be a moot point--but Trump would be firmly demonstrated to be a dead albatross around their necks long before the actual elections and there would be no reason NOT to impeach before the 2020 congressional races accordingly.

Iow, it's a risk they may not take, knowing he probably won't win re-election and supporting him will be toxic to their own challenges.

That states that gave him the swing have already turned back to blue by a resounding percentage and as Silver noted, swing voters (indies and third partiers) voted against Trumptopia by a combined total of 25 points and we had record turnouts to defeat Republicans all over the map will also give the Senators significant pause.

Iow, bashing Trump may be seen as their only means of keeping their seats in 2020.

And, again, ALL of this happened before what's about to go down.

 

[Elixir]

It's hard to assess the level of Cheato's delusion. He may be trying to re-play 2016 (the Greatest Moment of his life) in absolute certainty that his "winning formula" will get him another win in 2020. I doubt that he is quite that extremely deluded. More likely he is clinging to his base of violence-prone morons in the hope that he can scare the populace over what will happen if they dare reject him - getting him the win in 2020. I'd put his chances of holding office in 2021 at around 1%.
Koy's math above looks like it's in the ballpark as far as impeachment goes - not likely to happen. Remember; in 1973 Democrats held both houses of Congress and it STILL took a ~50% approval rate in his own party to scare Nixon enough to step down. It might have to go even lower than that for Cheato to get the message, since he is so immune to facts.
An attempted coup looks about as likely to me as an impeachment. And it looks more and more likely by the day - in fact the ground-softening part appears to already be in process. Cheato is praying that by the time it is out in the open he will have the upper hand with the military, DoJ, local law enforcement etc. He is a desperate criminal who is about to be caught; the only thing keeping him out of jail today is the the protection afforded to the office he holds. He absolutely CANNOT afford to lose that, or he loses everything - his freedom, his family, his fortune.
In the end, most likely outcome at the end of his term IMHO is that he will be dead or in jail for treason. Second most likely: He is the Emperor for Life of what was the USA.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

An attempted coup looks about as likely to me as an impeachment.

It's interesting that you note this--a coup--as that has allegedly already happened and we're all just riding out this bizarre sham of a presidency, but then that also actually gives hope in that, if the leaks are true and Trump isn't really calling any important shots, then it makes more sense that the Republicans haven't already shut down Mueller and they are just waiting to use him as their cover to finally get rid of the dead weight.

The scenario I see as well is that Republicans will let Mueller and the Dems fire all of the canon shots and the Republicans will all feign indignation and shout rhetorical bullshit far and wide about injustice and the like, but in the end they will bow their heads and say things like, "We are a nation of laws, and Trump broke them" or the like. Iow, oh-so-reluctantly agreeing with the Dems, but base on "principle" not on partisan-ship.

Yes, of course, there will also be several who will pretend to die with their captain and make a big show of how they would give their OWN lives to save the great man and blah blah blah, but enough Senators in the back rooms will finally agree to put a bullet (figuratively speaking) into the dead horse's skull.

That's the best case scenario and again the evidence for it is the fact that Mueller hasn't been shut down by Republicans. They could have easily done it or orchestrated it at ANY time and yet, he still continues.