Even impeachment will fail to bring down Teflon Don
JUST as Britain emerges from years of parliamentary paralysis, US politics has got a whole lot murkier. Donald Trump’s historic impeachment took his controversial Presidency to new levels of crisis yesterday.
He has now been accused of abuses of power, political extortion, nepotism, obstruction of justice and 43 sexual assaults.
He has abandoned Syria to the Russians, alienated many of America’s traditional global allies, has condemned the CIA as liars, branded Republicans who disagree with him “scum” and is appealing to the Supreme Court to stop his potentially incriminating tax returns being publicly exposed.
In the midst of the impeachment inquiry, his Democrat opponents won control of Virginia and Kentucky in what should be a huge double blow to Trump one year out from the 2020 election.
YET against all odds and rational logic, he is poised for an astonishing re-election victory when Americans go to the polls next November.
The beleaguered president, assaulted by an array of allegations – any one of which might end the career of a British politician – appears unassailable.
“He’s the new Teflon Don,” says a Washington DC insider, using a nickname previously bestowed on New York mob boss John Gotti. “Every accusation just slides right off him. He’s bulletproof.
“Accusations are dismissed by Trump as ‘fake news’ and his supporters believe him.”
A landslide victory for Trump is predicted by three electoral models run by Moody’s Analytics, which has accurately forecast the winner of every US election for the past 40 years, with the notable exception of Trump’s unexpected 2016 win.
A New York Times poll found Trump could lose the popular vote by an even larger margin than in 2016 and still win enough electoral college votes to remain in theWhite House.
Democrats, who initially expected a smooth ride to the Oval Office, now appear doomed, trapped in internecine fights while increasingly alienating moderate voters with the partisan impeachment process.
It appeared comically braggadocious when Trump claimed on the campaign trail in January 2016: “I could stand out in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
But he may have been right. It seems there is no scandal big enough to shake the faith of his devout supporters – or Trump’s faith in himself.
“Trump has apparently come to believe that he is so brilliant, so talented, so invincible, that he could get away with defying every norm, every practice, every institution of the democracy he is charged with leading,” says world affairs author Frida Ghitis.
Critics predicted an economic crash if he was elected in 2016, yet the stock market soared and unemployment hit historic lows. Tariffs failed to trigger the dire trade war experts forecast.
Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, and the world has not ended. Yet.
Fake news? By the time of his 1,000th day in office in October he had already told more than 13,435 lies, according to the Washington Post. He has called the impeachment inquiry “an attempted coup” despite the process being enshrined in the constitution.
Still his supporters venerate him, wait in line for 40 hours to see him at rallies, buy red Make America Great Again baseball caps and merchandise by the thousands, and his approval ratings soar. He has proven impervious to scandal and, despite damning evidence, the impeachment is likely to fail.
Party loyalty virtually assures that the Republican-controlled Senate will reject it. Instead of ousting Trump, the inquiry may enable him to boast that he was exonerated and was the victim of a Democrat witch-hunt.
Meanwhile, torn by infighting rather than attacking Trump, the 15 Democratic presidential contenders have been likened to a circular firing squad.
RECENT New York Times polls have found Trump is almost neckand-neck with leading Democratic contender Joe Biden in swing states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina andWisconsin.
Tellingly, they found almost two-thirds of voters who abandoned Trump to vote Democrat in 2018 plan to return to the Republican fold next year.
It begs the question: How big a scandal would it take for him to lose the election? Would murder push him over the edge? Possibly not. Being only the third President in US history to be impeached may not do it either.
‘Every accusation just slides right off him. He’s bulletproof’