The GOP will Impeach Trump!

After Trump has assumed the presidency, the long knives will come out.  Many of his ideas, insofar as they can be discerned and distinguished from mere posturing and off-the-cuff remarks, run contrary to long-standing GOP positions.  He has personally insulted almost every Republican stalwart. They suffered the indignities because they are not as skilled at schoolyard bullying.  They had little choice but to allow Trump to become their nominee and then back him, albeit half-(or less)-heartedly.  However, once they have seized the presidency, Trump becomes largely a liability to their usual program: free trade, deficit reduction, counterbalance to Russia.  They can impeach Trump secure in the knowledge that Pence, a toadying conventional conservative, is next in succession.  A palace coup by legal means.

Trump is trying to appease enough Republican constituencies to avoid this fate.  Nominating Goldman Sachs bankers to financial posts, an anti-union CEO to labor, an anti-school crusader to education, an anti-Palestinian to Israel, a fossil-fuel enthusiast to energy, are just a few examples of currying favor.

If Trump follows-through on his promises of massive spending – he tossed off a figure of $1Trillion for infrastructure and defense – and cuts taxes, the deficit will explode. Such spending might well have been beneficial in 2009, when it was proposed by Obama in the depths of the Great Recession but vociferously opposed by the Republicans, because unemployment was soaring above 10% and interest rates were threatening to go sub-zero.  Now, however, with unemployment very low and inflation/interest rates stabilized, such a fiscal stimulus will dramatically increase inflation and create an enormous debt with a relative high interest payments, constricting future leverage.  What will Speaker Paul Ryan and other opponents of deficit spending do?

If he follows-through on promises of stopping illegal immigration and deporting illegal immigrants, many businesses will suffer labor shortages and wage increases.  This will be opposed by many business owners, a group that is a mainstay of the GOP.

If he follows-through on closer relationship with Russia, and reduces our ties to our NATO allies, countries in eastern Europe will be pressured into a functional new Russian Empire.  This will be opposed by inter-nationalists and small-d-democrats, including many Republicans, who believe the US must counterbalance such ambitions.  

If it were just the deficit, no problem because Republicans in the past have ignored their ‘principles’ in similar circumstances, going along with Reagan’s and George W. Bush’s spend-don’t-tax programs and the deficit doubled each time.  But they were ‘real’ Republicans.  And it is not just the deficit but several key Republican positions.

But nobody knows whether Trump will even try to keep any of the promises he made.  Many are contradictory and early signs are many will simply be ignored. He just now appointed a serious deficit hawk to lead his own budget office, suggesting that he does not intend to follow-through with significant infrastructure spending, or tax cuts, or both.  We must become accustomed to a President who evidently cannot formulate coherent or even consistent thoughts.