Trump 'going crazy over' impeachment legacy

[babylonsister]

Trump 'going crazy over' impeachment legacy
Years from now, impeachment will be one of the first things students are taught about the 45th president.
By MERIDITH MCGRAW and DANIEL LIPPMAN
12/18/2019 05:10 AM EST


Real estate mogul, billionaire, reality show host, late-night show punch line, populist rabble rouser, norm-busting leader — impeached president.

Beyond the immediate ramifications of the all-but-certain outcome of this week’s vote, impeachment will always be attached to President Donald Trump. Years from now, it will be one of the first things students are taught about the 45th president.

It’s a reality that has tormented past presidents who faced the prospect of impeachment. In the days before his resignation, President Richard Nixon confessed to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger his fears that Watergate would define his legacy. President Bill Clinton fretted behind closed doors about how history books would paint him, even as he projected a dismissive attitude in public.

“For Trump, now impeachment will appear in the opening paragraph of his life,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

Outwardly, Trump characteristically swats away any suggestion that such questions weigh on his mind. “No, not at all,” Trump said earlier this month, shaking his head when asked if he was worried about the potential stain impeachment will have on his legacy. “It’s a hoax, it’s a hoax, it’s a big fat hoax.”

But Trump’s pugilistic insistence belies a longstanding fixation on his personal image and the legitimacy of his presidency.

From the day he sent Sean Spicer out to harangue journalists over the crowd size at his inauguration, Trump has waged a three-year campaign to wear down any doubts about his right to occupy the Oval Office. He set up — and then quietly abandoned — a panel to investigate his specious claims that only voter fraud kept him from winning the popular vote in 2016. He publicly sowed doubts about Russia’s election-year meddling. For White House visitors, reporters — anyone really — he constantly pulled out the red-saturated map detailing how districts voted in 2016.

The common theme: I deserve to be here. I earned this.

more...

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/18/trump-tainted-impeachment-086749

[Dennis Donovan]

1. His impeachment will be but a footnote once the true scope of his crimes becomes known

"Impeached" will be the kindest things historians will label him.

[LastDemocratInSC]

12. I think you're right.

The scope and magnitude of his crimes will be stunning.

[Cosmocat]

21. If we have any hope of remaining a functioning democracy we had better hope this is the case

I not particularly hopeful ...

[PatrickforO]

25. Yes. And these crimes go wide and deep.

Perhaps if the truth is ever really allowed to come out, we will change the way we do things. Because the poison trail leads straight to the billionaires - Russian, American, it doesn't matter. For decades, since Reagan's cuts, more and more money is being routed into fewer and fewer hands.

Indeed, the very rich have been waging class warfare quite successfully against the rest of us for nearly 40 years. Nearly 50 if you go back to the 1971 Powell Manifesto.

This corruption has tainted an entire political party - a party which at one time may have cared about the American people, but now cares only for its rich donors. What was once the Grand Old Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower is now the party of Trump. And Putin pulls Trump's strings.

New voices have joined the House, and new generations are growing to adulthood in this country. It may be they will turn things around. I hope so.

But, then, I thought we boomers would turn things around, didn't I? We had the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, and the feminist and LBGTQ movements. We had the Summer of Love.

Sigh. In spite of all that, we've somehow allowed it to become far worse. Oh, a bunch of us are still fighting the good fight, but big money has lined up some pretty powerful adversaries - Citizens United, Super Pacs, corporate owned media, a right-wing packed judiciary, the shareholder primacy doctrine, and the merchants of doubt. Bottom line, we get attacked on a thousand fronts 24/7/365, and when we win one battle, several more spring up, just like new heads on a Hydra.

No matter how dark it looks, though, we must never give up. We must continue to fight the good fight with the confidence that the arc of history moves toward justice, even if ever so slowly.

[bdamomma]

32. We must never

give up, this is our country. We need to eradicate this disease which has infected us all, or Russian TV will be mocking us forever.

[CrispyQ]

37. An excellent post.

The shareholder primacy doctrine. Yes. We need a national conversation about the change in the corporate agenda since the founding father's day. A lot of people don't realize that corporations have Constitutional rights, just like living breathing human beings. No other non-living entity has that. We are competing with entities that don't need clean air or water, or safe food, or healthcare; entities that have huge wealth and longevity.

Introduction to Corporate Personhood

from Reclaim Democracy's Corporate Personhood page

Our Bill of Rights was the result of tremendous efforts to institutionalize and protect the rights of human beings. It strengthened the premise of our Constitution: that the people are the root of all power and authority for government. This vision has made our Constitution and government a model emulated in many nations.

But corporate lawyers (acting as both attorneys and judges) subverted our Bill of Rights in the late 1800’s by establishing the doctrine of “corporate personhood” — the claim that corporations were intended to fully enjoy the legal status and protections created for human beings.

We believe that corporations are not persons and possess only the privileges we willfully grant them. Granting corporations the status of legal “persons” effectively rewrites the Constitution to serve corporate interests as though they were human interests. Ultimately, the doctrine of granting constitutional rights to corporations gives a thing illegitimate privilege and power that undermines our freedom and authority as citizens. While corporations are setting the agenda on issues in our Congress and courts, We the People are not; for we can never speak as loudly with our own voices as corporations can with the unlimited amplification of money.

Read our draft constitutional amendment to revoke corporate constitutional “rights,” (published nearly a decade before the Citizens United v FEC ruling). See also Move to Amend’s proposed language.

Slavery is the fiction that people are property.
Corporate personhood is the fiction that corporations are people.

There's a ton of good reading on this page and links to other good pages: Reclaim Democracy's Corporate Personhood page

[Laura PourMeADrink]

29. You know, I have always thought having the "impeached" scar for history was the

worst thing. But, was just thinking what would be worst and more humiliating will be his hideous remarks about it.

Instead of a dignified rebuttal, a statement that he didn't believe he did anything wrong....it will be quotes about "witch hunt, teeth falling out, someone being shifty or sleepy."

[Turbineguy]

31. With his view of the world

how can anything he wants and does be a crime?

[brush]

36. His brand is mud too. The trump name is already being taken off...

condo towers and hotels. That will only accelerate now and will probably effect his golf courses now too.

His business of licensing his name for big bucks is dead and the future, once out of office looks bleak.

Same for the "princess", Jr. and Eric. They've all been living off of that name.

[Fullduplexxx]

2. Not "I earned this but "this is mine I deserve this "

[volstork]

9. Yes.

He's never thought he had to EARN anything in his whole sorry life. He thinks anything he wants-- money, women, power-- is there for the taking because, somehow in his feverish little brain he deserves it.

[dewsgirl]

3. I have no doubt when all is said and done, Treason will be

the word most used to define his presidency, impeachment will be merely a footnote.

[MFM008]

4. Poor maggot...

[FM123]

5. He will never get over this.

Even if the Senate does not kick him out, the fact that the House "kicked him to the curb like garbage" will eat him up inside forever. Every day. Just like losing the popular vote did.

[Perseus]

6. People should stop referring to trump as "billionaire", nobody knows the reality of his "fortune"

and whether he has any. We all know he has been bailed out by the Russians, but that doesn't mean he has billions in the bank, and the fact that he boasted to be worth 10 billion during the campaign means its not true, he is such a liar that I believe we can safely assume he has none of it.

The fact that only one bank would lend him money, and no USA bank would tells his story of money laundering and compromise with the Russians.

So please, until we see his tax returns, stop calling the creature a billionaire, because as far as we can tell, he is not.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Hollowed out billioinaire

with seed capital from Daddy and Deutsche Bank leftovers, which in my research is inadequately documented online.

[Scarsdale]

23. So true. HE proclaims

to be rich, but the bankruptcies and business failures say otherwise. He is a con man, a fraud in everything he does. Despicable excuse for a president, but obviously the gop are satisfied with crap. We democrats choose the best and brightest to be our presidents.

[2naSalit]

27. I've decided that I should just refer to him as "the wannabe"...nt

[duforsure]

7. Republicans should start to realize

His corrupt behavior will escalate very quickly until they do what's right for the country. They will be attacked and undermined no matter what they do eventually as his demands grow worse. Trump claims partisanship at his attackers, yet threatens his party members if they aren't loyal and partisan for him. By trump refusing subpoena's and turning over documents he's telling judges he can ignore their rulings, and he's telling Congress they too aren't an equal branch to him. Will republicans in our Congress actually vote against the rule of law, against the judicial branch, and give up their powers to trump, or any future president? That would be a very , very stupid thing to do now, especially knowing a lot more information exposing him and their being co-conspirators with him, and will be exposed and legally held responsible and complicit. Voting not to impeach will destroy their party, and end many of their careers.

[dchill]

10. History will not be on their side...

No matter who writes it.

[Historic NY]

17. He's becoming more unstable and emboldened

As of Dec. 10, Trump has made 7,725 false or misleading claims in 2019, according to the fact-checker. In 2017 that number was 1,999 and in 2018 it was 5,689, for a two-year total of 7,688.

The Washington Post fact-checker compiles a database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every claim Trump has made and it has found that the president has made on average of 32 false or misleading claims per day in 2019.

The two most recent full months of this year rank as Trump's second- and third-largest for false or misleading claims, according to the Post.

The only month that topped the previous two was October 2018 as Trump campaigned heavily ahead of the midterm elections in which Democrats rode a blue wave to take control of the House.








[link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/16/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days/|

[Captain Zero]

19. So true, as fascist regimes begin consolidating power they always

Weed out their own party first. If he continues unimpeded he will purge the Republican Party FIRST at some point, and I do mean purge. It will be through arrests, jailings, deportations, exiling, and murder.

[Farmer-Rick]

8. Poor, abused, mistreated, victimized, little world leader and President of the United States.

Geez, what a whiny little flaky baby. And he can't even get Shorty Putin to stop this impeachment.

[gordianot]

11. His greatest crime are the millions who support him and his delusions.

I see no reconciliation in one lifetime.

[usaf-vet]

13. The letter to Pelosi will be proof certain in the historical records that he DID NOT deserve......

...... to be POTUS.

He did not have the temperament to lead in a Democracy and he lacked the understanding of the very Constitution that he took an oath to support and defend to preserve the Democracy.

[moondust]

39. +1

Students of history will look at that unhinged letter and shudder. Not Presidential material by a long shot.

[llmart]

14. "going crazy"???

That ship sailed a long time ago.

[Historic NY]

16. The greatest witch hunt of all time......

[warmfeet]

18. I am certain that

his long term legacy will include being considered the worst, and least competent, POTUS in the history of this country. How could it be anything else?

[bucolic_frolic]

20. Republicans will be teaching their kids to "cheat like Trump!"

Dog eat dog, survival-of-the-fittest.

[B Stieg]

22. Ha! I think you coined one, here.

Cheat Like tRump: words to live by...if you're a crook.

[CaptainTruth]

24. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

[aggiesal]

26. I think Impeachment will be secondary to Tax Fraud ...

He not fighting his Tax disclosures for nothing.
Once those are out, everyone will realize that Impeachment was nothing
compared to the vast Tax scams Pendejo45 has pulled off.

Keep digging for those tax returns.

[blueinredohio]

28. Hope it drives him over the edge.

[bdamomma]

30. maybe he(tRump) will have

another episode and have to be taken to the hospital again, for head explosion.

[Owl]

33. I hope he is impeached on both articles.

And not just one.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

34. He doesn't have to be driven crazy; he's already there.

But I hope his distress causes him to binge on Big Macs and KFC.

[CrispyQ]

35. The only thing he's earned in his life is the nickname Don the Con. -nt

[cutroot]

38. The republicans continue to defend trump because he does their bidding

The evil emanates from the ground up. Once they begin to get burned by him, they will dispose of him like a used tissue.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

40. sick little whimpering trampled IMPEACHED trump

[BlueWI]

41. This president has fully earned this enduring indignity.

Let the record show that his corruption was resisted by the people's house!!