Theme: Governance

by Chris Novalis I don’t think anyone realizes what losing the House means: The Trump agenda is dead in its tracks and the probability of Civil War just increased exponentially. The traitors in the swamp will operate without impunity. This is the nightmare scenario we have to look forward to: First, on the domestic political front, while Democrats and their MSM echo chamber have cooled down talk of impeaching Trump, it will return with a vengeance on November 7 (coincidentally, Great October Socialist Revolution Day) if the House changes hands. In contrast to the GOP’s dithering in the area of investigations and hearings relevant to the US-UK Deep State conspiracy to overturn the 2016 election (which will be buried forever), the Democrats will be utterly ruthless in using their power with the single-minded purpose of getting Trump out of office before 2020. They won’t waste much time on the phony Russian “collusion” story (Robert Mueller’s report will be an obscenely expensive dud), they’ll focus like a laser on getting Trump’s tax returns and dredging up anything they can from his long involvement in the sharp-elbowed, dog-eat-dog world of New York property development and construction, confident they can find something that qualifies as a high crime or misdemeanor. (Some racist language couldn’t hurt, either.) The model will be Richard Nixon’s Vice President Spiro Agnew, who was forced out of office on charges relating to his time in Maryland politics years earlier. Even the GOP’s retention of the Senate would be far from a guarantee that Trump won’t be removed. It’s easily foreseeable that a dozen-plus Republican Senators would be thrilled to get rid of Trump and restore the party’s status quo ante with Mike Pence in the Oval Office. As with Nixon, Republicans will panic at whatever dirt the Democrats dig up and demand Trump resign for the “good of the country and the party,” as opposed to the way Democrats formed a protective phalanx around Bill Clinton. Unlike Nixon, Trump might choose to fight it out in the Senate and might even prevail. In any case, a change in control of just one chamber means an extended political crisis that will keep Trump boxed in and perpetually on the defensive. Second, for Trump’s supporters and other dissenters from the Regime of Certified Victims, the walls will continue to close in. The digital ghettoization of alternative views to “protect our democracy” from supposed outside meddling conflated with “hate online” will accelerate, with social media a particular target for censorship. The Deep State’s intelligence and law enforcement organs will step up actions to penalize any resistance to Leftwing violence, while perpetrators of such violence will rampage with impunity. Trump has done nothing to protect free speech online or in public places while his enemies continue to contract the space for both – but things can and likely will get much, much worse if the Democrats feel the wind at their back after next week. Such vestigial protections of religion, free speech, right to bears arms, and others that we still possess – for now – aren’t likely to survive much longer as the edifice of the old America continues to crumble under the malfeasance of the very Executive, Legislative, and Judicial officials who pretend to be its custodians. Third and most ominously, chances of a major war could increase exponentially. If Trump is fighting for his life, chances of purging his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad national security team will go from slim to none. Any hope of a national interest-based policy along the lines Trump promised in 2016 – and which still seems to be his personal preference – will be gone. Thankfully, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has run with the ball through last year’s opening and hopefully the momentum for peace in Northeast Asia will be self-sustaining. With any luck, the Khashoggi imbroglio between Washington and Riyadh will lead to America’s “downplaying and eventually abandoning the anti-Iranian obsession that has so far overshadowed our regional policy” and to an end the carnage in Yemen, even as the Syria war lurches toward resolution. Still, the US remains addicted to ever-increasing sanctions, and despite warnings from both Russia and China that they are prepared for war – warnings virtually ignored by the US media and political class – the US keeps pressing on all fronts: outer space, the Arctic, Europe (withdrawal from the INF treaty), Ukraine, the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, Xinjiang, and elsewhere. Trump is expected to meet with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping following the US election, but they may have to conclude that he is not capable of restraining the war machine nominally under his command and will plan accordingly.