The Trump presidency

[Excited Penguin]

What is the best case scenario with a Trump presidency,  realistically speaking, such as you can imagine it? Let's discuss both the good and the bad that might happen and why. 

Best outcome that I can think of is that he maintains his independent attitude and fights with the Republicans as much as with the Democrats, all the while getting brilliant advice and help from the people that will end up in his administration. 

What I'd like to see is an apolitical presidency that is ingenious enough to play both sides and push forward its own agendas, hopefully rational ones. 

Of course this is a very long shot and this is merely a symptom of my idealistic mindset coming to grips with reality. But what if. . . ? And what else ?

[Homeless Nutter]

Best scenario? Trump and Pence will choke on each other's d*cks and die...

[Excited Penguin]

Best realistic scenario

[Faith No More]

Best case scenario: his administration is as much a clusterfuck as his campaign, and he is so disorganized and preoccupied with Twitter wars that he can't accomplish anything he or his cabinet wants.

Worst case scenario:

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[Mister Agenda]

Obama wanted to invest in infrastructure, but was blocked by congress. Trump wants to invest in infrastructure, and congress will give him what he wants. It would have been wiser to do it when we were in recession to shorten the recovery, and I have some concerns about overspending when we should be building our reserves back up, but at least we'll have something for the money we spend.

[Tiberius]

Trump also wants term limits for Congress, something I very much agree with.

The major worry I have is that the Republicans in the last years of the Obama administration set a new standard for Congress: obstructionism. Throwing tantrums, refusing to do their job r.e. the Supreme Court, and shutting down the government, just because they disagree with the President. Now, what happens in 2 years if the Democrats retake the Senate? Anyone honestly believe the Democrats won't seek to take revenge and do the same things?

[Edwardo Piet]

Best scenario? Trump and Pence will choke on each other's d*cks and die...

Best realistic scenario

My bolding on Homeless Nutter's Asterisk.

The best realistic scenario is the following.

Trump and Pence will choke on each other's dicks and die.

I mean, without the Asterisk.... I mean seriously what's the chance he's going to show up?

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Although if he does I hope he chops their nobs off.

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[Cecelia]

Brilliant advice? From guys like Ben Carson, Rudy Guliani, and Chris Christie?

Best case scenario?

-No supreme court justices die over the next 4 years. Especially not Ginsburg.
-Democrats take back the senate in 2 years
-Companies take a stand against FADA, refuse to do business with people who discriminate against gays and transgender
-States don't implement a voucher system because of protests from parents
-Republicans start seeing the Iran Deal as 'good' once Obama is out of office.
-Congress doesn't let Trump start his trade-war with China

[Excited Penguin]

Sherman's thoughts on the matter, from an article in Scientific American. 


https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...quo-s-win/

When it appeared Trump would win, the Dow plunged 800 points in after-hours trading, and pundits predicted [Wednesday] would be the worst economic collapse since 9/11 and the 2008 meltdown. As I write this, the Dow is up 265 points, the NASDAQ up 43 points. Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future, particularly in elections and economics. With that caveat I predict:
Markets will be fine and economic growth will continue steady and may even improve one half to 1 percent in 2017.
No wall will be built on the Mexican border (and Canadians will not build a wall blocking us!).
We will not change our nuclear policies, we will not adopt “no first use” policy (as Obama did not either), and we will go another four years without using nuclear weapons.
North Korea ... oh who the hell knows what that wingnut will do, but very likely nothing will change and eventually the country will go out of business with their failing economy, and North and South Korea will reunite just like East and West Germany did.
Putin will hesitate to challenge NATO or take further territory in eastern Europe.
ISIS will be completely eradicated before the end of 2017, but global terrorism will not be, as no president or government can reduce it to zero, but it will continue to fail as a means of bringing about political change.
Tensions in the Middle East will continue as they have since I was in college and voted for the first time in 1972. Some things never change.
Stay calm everyone. We have a strong republic that will continue growing stronger. We have lots of checks and balances in place to prevent any extreme actions taken by anyone, and as Pres. Obama has been reiterating this past year to those pessimists who think things are bad and getting worse, this is and will continue to be the best time there has ever been to be alive.
—Michael Shermer, publisher, Skeptic magazine; monthly columnist,Scientific American; Presidential Fellow, Chapman University; author ofThe Moral Arc

[TheRealJoeFish]

I think Cecelia's pretty close. I would also add:

- Improvements to our health care system. Yes, I think it's possible, though I'm not counting on it. I do not believe it would be politically feasible to pass a system taking health care away from the ~25 million people who now have it but didn't have it before the ACA. The mandate that pre-existing conditions not be a bar to coverage remains (I do believe this will be the case)
- Dramatic reduction in foreign interventionism. The "free world" now looks to Merkel and Trudeau for guidance; I actually think it will be nice to be out of the spotlight. As long as we don't demand it by doing increasingly dumb things on an international scale.
- Deportations don't dramatically increase (they've been at historically high rates recently, if I understand correctly)
- Money isn't wasted on things like drug testing for welfare recipients and such
- Trump's tax plan (projected to create a deficit of 6 trillion) is tempered and combined with the current system, and changes are made gradually (Trump's idea to make up deficits from decreased income tax has been to "cut fraud" and "reduce inefficiency" and such. I don't think any democrat or any fiscally-minded republican will let him get away with tax cuts without articulating in a far more concrete manner where the money (or reduced spending) is going to come from)
- There is a sudden infusion of money from companies (especially in the energy sector; manufacturing isn't coming back) that see Trump as an opportunity to expand. Best-case scenario, of course, involves an ever-increasing, galvanized majority of the populace demanding that some of this new energy money be redirected to environmental causes. (BTW, best case scenario for the environment is that it's not... that much... worse off than before. Maybe Scandinavia can cover for us for 4 years)
- The end of the war on drugs
- The new generation of Berniecrats and Warrenites is born. Increased push back from the millennial demographic, which is finally becoming politically powerful. A galvanized "new democratic party."