Yes, Trump Can Be Stopped

His present course is dangerous for the republic - but also for his presidency.

Monday started in punditland, at least from what I could see, with heated debates about the proper deportment of anti-Trump protesters. Should, for example, peaceful protesters in Los Angeles wave Mexican flags?

And there’s a place for that discussion, to be sure.¹ But it seems a bit beside the point to me. Or perhaps just a lot less than the questions that should be asked about Donald Trump and his allies.

Because if there’s some question of whether the ordinary citizens showing up to protests are acting in ways to maximize their goals, there’s much greater question about how much damage Trump is risking by his continued haphazard attack on the Constitution and the rule of law.

Political scientist Jonathan Ladd:

Protests across the country are a sign of weakness. Attempting to turn the military against the American people 6 months into your term is a sign of weakness. Don’t believe the anti-anti-Trump people in both parties who have always been in awe of Trump. They’re still wrong.

Political scientist Mark Copelovitch:

These are not strategic, sophisticated people who have thought their way all the way down the game tree. We know this from observing literally every interaction of Trump & his kakistocrats on trade policy, foreign policy, & every other kind of policy. It's why really bad outcomes keep happening.

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie:

i simply do not understand those of you who look at the white house and say to yourselves, “these are hyper competent people who are executing a sophisticated plan with high odds for success”…what i see is a white house whose ambitions outstrip its resources, who did not count on facing mass resistance, and which is scrambling to escalate the situation in hopes that a display of force will make people shut up

I’m not — and I’m pretty sure they are not — trying to reassure people. The present situation is extremely dangerous, and a lot of very bad things are extremely possible. Including some very grim outcomes. The good outcomes may not be all that good, and they may go through a lot of damage to the nation in general, and to a lot of individual people as well.

And yet the idea that it is simply a given that Trump will inevitably succeed in what he’s doing is flat-out wrong. He’s defeated all the time. He chooses battles badly, doesn’t prepare for them at all, hires unqualified incompetents to run things and then interferes without bothering to learn anything about the situation. He believes that he’s best served by people who will go along with whatever he wants — unlike his first-term White House staff and executive branch choices, many of whom turned back his excesses. He is not.

At best, he’s embarked on an incredibly high-risk strategy of attempting to rule like a dictator without anything like the kinds of popular policies and competent administration that might make people accept it. But in reality calling it a strategy is a vast overstatement. He follows his impulses, and whatever happens, happens.

Are there contingency plans? What happens if the courts tell him he can’t seize control of National Guard troops over the objection of the governor? Or that he can’t use Marines the way he wants to? Trump has flirted with resisting court orders in some cases already, but nothing as potentially cut-and-dried and high-profile as this might be — and for what it’s worth, the idea of outright defiance of the courts polls extremely badly.²

What happens if troops or ICE agents or even local police kill people, in a Kent State/Jackson State style massacre or worse? Or if troops are asked to fire on protesters and refuse?

For that matter, what if public opinion winds up simply siding with the protesters? We don’t have new polling yet on the events over the weekend, but the (over?) simplified summary of public opinion to date is that most people support the idea of deporting criminals and “controlling the border” (whatever that means to them), but are much less eager to see the kinds of mass, indiscriminate deportations that Trump is promising. Political scientist Laura Seay may be correct: “I think Miller, Trump, etc. believe that deep down, all white Americans hate immigrants & want the country to be rid of them like they do. They simply do not comprehend that so many of us not only value immigrants & the cultural diversity they bring to our communities, but will protect them.”

Has Trump considered any of this? Has the Attorney General, the secretarys of Defense and Homeland Security, or anyone else? Or is it all Trump’s impulses, perhaps manipulated by various White House staffers and GOP-aligned media talking heads with a variety of agendas, while the rest of the administration competes to salute quickest and jump highest? Evidence that it’s the latter and they’re just making it up as the go along: reported failure to even figure out where National Guard troops would sleep in LA. Or: Deploying troops without first putting together rules of engagement and fully coordinating with law enforement.

For all of the pundit obsession with what the Democrats and the protesters should be saying and doing, the far more important questions are the president’s choices. Such as: Is he capable of focusing on the portions of his policy goals that are broadly popular and split Democrats? Perhaps because we all know: He isn’t. He’s going to bully his way forward, and all of us — himself very much included — will have to live with the consequences. But we shouldn’t act as if he and his administration have no choice but to do so. They very much do.

Oh, and you know who else matters, and can choose what they want to do? High-profile Republicans. Including those in Congress, those in other elective officers, and others. Even, as unlikely as it seems, those in the administration who actually know better. While plenty of Republicans clearly can’t wait to endorse autocracy, that doesn’t describe all of them. We simply don’t know whether any of that latter group have lines they will not cross after all. They might not know yet, either. I suspect a lot of Republicans have fooled themselves into thinking that Trump is mostly just bluster so there’s no need to choose between Trump and the Constitution.³

It’s becoming a lot harder to keep up that fiction.

Again, nothing here is intended to convince anyone that the threat isn’t real, or that Trump hasn’t already done more than enough to deserve the impeachment and removal that still seems impossible to imagine ever happening. Or that he won’t damage the nation badly even if he fails to achieve what he wants.

But there’s absolutely no guarantee that he’ll succeed. He’s attempting something extremely difficult to do, and he’s inept. If people fight for the republic, they may well win.

1. Short framework for an answer: People should think about whether they are simply interested in expressing themselves or if they want to effect change. If they latter, they should assess the likely consequences of their choices. That’s the framework, but the exact answers are harder to come by. What should protesters do, for example, if using a set of symbols might alienate observers — but could also fire up potential allies? If one is interested in effective political action, those are the kind of questions worth asking and taking seriously.

2. Don’t count too much on those polls, because we all tend to be very bad at predicting our own reactions to hypothetical events. But of course that cuts both ways; it’s possible that even the lopsided polls could understate actual reactions.

3. I know people don’t believe that anyone could sincerely believe Trump isn’t dangerous, but I strongly suspect it’s true. And it’s not all that hard to put together a long string of things that other presidents have done that are reasonable-sounding comps for most of what Trump has done, especially if one is inclined to give one’s own party the benefit of the doubt (which most of us are).