a bonobo humanity?

Trump’s rating, from Gallup. Opinion polls differ on Trump’s precise rating, but all show a steady decline throughout the year

Canto: So let’s have fun talking about the craziest political administration in my long lifetime, and where it’s going.

Jacinta: Not fun for everyone, not fun for women, non-whites, the poor, scientists, the judiciary, sick people, intellectuals, the FBI, net start-ups…

Canto: But not so bad for people who don’t actually live in the USA…

Jacinta: Rubbish. The abandonment of net neutrality in the USA will affect access to net content in Australia and elsewhere, with much more control going to established providers, and this administration’s anti-science stupidity will affect Australian scientists working or wanting to work in the USA.

Canto: Okay, not so bad for me. Especially as I’m confident that Trump will be out on his arse within months.

Jacinta: So how do you think that will happen?

Canto: Well right now, Trump is being pressured by his base via Fox News to sack the head of the Special Enquiry, Robert Mueller. This is funny in itself because they don’t explain how this can be done and they don’t look at the consequences. So they seem to be unwittingly precipitating Trump’s downfall.

Jacinta: How so?

Canto: Well imagine Trump takes the advice of Fox – advice that he himself is urging them to provide. Trump apparently hasn’t the  capacity to sack Mueller directly, much to his chagrin. This must come from the Attorney-General, Jefferson Sessions, but he has recused himself from this whole issue, so the job falls to his deputy, Rob Rosenstein, who very recently made it clear that he wouldn’t sack Mueller without just cause. And he stated clearly only a week or so ago that he didn’t see any just cause at that time.

Jacinta: But since then members of the Trump transition team and GOP pro-Trumpers…

Canto: I prefer to call them Trumpets, very noisy ones.

Jacinta: Okay, a few Trumpets are making a big noise about Mueller’s team having obtained the transition team’s emails illegally, a claim strenuously denied by a spokesman for Mueller.

Canto: And other independent law experts have argued that the Trumpets are blowing hot air on this. And think about it, this enquiry is investigating collusion between the transition team and Russian officials, collusion to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. What would be the first evidence they’d want to look at? Communications of course. Emails. So if there was no collusion, why would the the transition team be complaining about a collecting and investigating of emails?

Jacinta: Yes, you’d think they’d be handing over their emails and texts voluntarily. Nothing to see here, see?

Canto: Right, so Rosenstein won’t agree to sack Mueller, so he’d have to be sidelined somehow, and Trump would have to go down the line to find someone to sack Mueller, which by the way wouldn’t stop the enquiry from proceeding. And I’ve heard from experts that there aren’t too many down the line who would have the authority to sack Mueller, so he might reach a dead end there, and imagine all the adverse publicity a mess like that would create.

Jacinta: For Mister 32%. But I’ve heard that Mueller could be sacked by Presidential privilege, and that it could happen sooner rather than later, which could be the real beginning of the end for Trump. If Congress doesn’t react to that, the general public might.

Canto: Right, if Trump manages to fire Trump directly – and we know how he loves doing that – he’ll want to shut down the whole enquiry, citing ‘there’s no collusion, no collusion, it’s obvious folks, so obvious’, and there’s no way he’ll carry the general public on that one. A recent survey says that 68% of them disapprove of his response to the probe already, and that percentage will jump if he takes direct action, surely.

Jacinta: Well I’ve also just heard, through the cable news networks we’ve been consuming like popcorn lately, that Trump is expecting a letter of exoneration from the Mueller team soon. Where he got this idea from nobody quite knows – lawyers are saying nobody gets letters of exoneration from these types of enquiries. they publish their final findings and that’s it. It’s possible though that he got the idea from his own lawyers, or more likely from a garbled self-serving interpretation of what they’ve been telling him. Trump’s private lawyers are due to meet with the Mueller team next week, and they may have suggested to him that this is a sign that the enquiry is winding up.

Canto: Fat chance of that. Or should I say, my god I hope not. But it’s unlikely for a number of reasons. First, his former national security advisor Michael Flynn, a very close associate and friend of Trump, has pled guilty to a number of relatively minor charges as part of a plea bargain he’s made with the Mueller probe, and most lawyers I’ve listened to are quite certain Mueller will have gotten valuable information on collusion from Flynn, and possibly also Papadopoulos. That would probably implicate Kushner as well as Trump himself. It’s also a well-known fact that Trump’s finances are tied up with Russia and have been for decades. He’s clearly beholden to Russian interests, which is why he’s so sensitive to the collusion issue.

Jacinta: I have one word to add. Deutschebank.

Canto: I think it’s two words actually, but yes Deutsche Bank has been subpoenaed to produce Trump’s financial records. I’m sure they’d be very revealing, especially considering Trump’s fawning attitude to Putin, one of the world’s most ruthless dictators. This is one of the least publicised points in the case, and it may well be the one point that crushes Trump.

Jacinta: And it could take the Department of Justice about a year just to sort through that mess. But can Trump himself be subpoenaed? I can’t imagine him testifying under oath without committing perjury after perjury.

Canto: I believe Trump can be subpoenaed, and he’s said he’s perfectly willing to testify under oath, without being subpoenaed, but of course that was just one of his lovely bubbles, and I suspect his head would explode if he really was forced to tell the truth. Not out of anger, but out of ‘that does not compute’ confusion. He doesn’t understand the meaning of the word.

Jacinta: Yes I don’t think he’d go willingly into that lion’s den. But this is one of the frustrations for me. The Trumpets want this enquiry to end soon, preferably with Mueller and his team going straight to jail, but most lawyers and independents believe it’s far from over and may stretch into 2019. So the frustration is that I want to see Trump meet his demise asap, but I know that an investigation that brings down a sitting President has to be more thorough than thorough. And if, say, charges are brought against Kushner or Trump junior in the near future, the Trumpets will blare out for the investigation to be investigated, and Trump’s rage will make him more unhinged and incoherent than ever. That itself may bring about a national crisis…

Canto: Yes, well that’s where the fun begins, for us in our faraway ivory tower…

Fox Trumpets