Thursday, January 19, 2017

How will the Trump presidency end?

I haven't seen any poll numbers but my impression is that an unusual large number of people expect Trump to be impeached, and he hasn't even taken office yet. Has anyone polled that question? Did anyone ever poll that question with prior presidents?

So today, the last day before Trump becomes President, I thought I would state, for the record and my possible embarrassment later, what I think the chances are of the various ways that the Trump presidency can end. To do this, I tried to make a list of every  conceivable way that Trump's presidency could end, no matter how fanciful, and then I tried to put them in the order that I think they are likely to happen, with #1 being the most likely, and #10 being least likely. (I was going to try to assign percentages, but then I decided that they would just be meaningless guesses. The order of likelihood seems more solid to me for some reason, although I really can't explain why.)

Trump's presidency will end when:
1. He loses his bid for reelection after his first term.
2. He is impeached.
3. He is assassinated.
4. He dies in office (but is not assassinated)
5. He is declared incapacitated under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.
6. He resigns.
7. He finishes his second term.
8. He is overthrown in a coup.
9. He loses his bid for reelection after his second or later term and after the 22nd Amendment is repealed or amended.
10. U.S. President ceases to be an office (either because the U.S. ceases to be a country, or the U.S. changes who gets to be its head of state).
 Yes, I think it is more likely that Trump will either be impeached,will die in office (by assassination or otherwise), be declared incapacitated, or resign than that he will win a second term. But I didn't think he would win a first term, so what do I know?