Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[The_Doctor]

I'm getting a feeling there will be an attempt at a national stop and frisk law (Bannon's love child) which will cause outrage

Would there be outrage?

[The_Doctor]

So, we're going to slow down a bit. I need to do the following this week.

01. Cover the economy from 2017 to 2018
02. Cover foreign policy too dating to 2018
03. Media Law
04. Voting Rights Law / Race in America \ Immigration Law
05. Opiod Addiction in America
06. Health Care Reform with Tom Price (Pence)

I anticipate finishing these articles these weeks then we conclude the 2017-2021 term next week.  

Then we'll get back on the Trump Train. "Believe me, what's coming next will be AMAZING and will be YUUUGE," as our President would say.

[The_Doctor]

The Trump Economy: 2017 to 2018

July 2018 - (New York, New York) President Trump, in his first year, has moved cautiously on his anti-globalist agenda. To be sure, the President, elected on a platform of protectionism and renegotiating trade deals, was a clear opponent of free trade and open market (and borders) policies. But equally clear, President Trump did not want to alarm world markets suddenly and lose all support for his anti-globalist agenda.

To that end, the Republican majority in Congress passed a massive tax cut that slashed rates across the board and simplified the tax brackets to 3 rates. They also cut the corporate tax rate to an effective tax rate of 20%, hoping to spur on domestic investment and growth.

In tandem with that, the President renegotiated NAFTA with Canada and Mexico. Changes to the deal were not substantive in the context that there were no major changes. (Though the President made it appear that major changes had been made. There weren't. Congress duly ratified the changes anyway)

For obvious reasons, TPP was dead in the water as the President killed it on his first day in office, withdrawing the United States from it. Since other nations had lodged objections, the deal was already considered dead before President Trump entered the White House. The Trump White House, importantly, refused to partake in other trade deals that were evolving around the globe to replace TPP.

As far as China went, after much posturing, the White House didn't actually do a thing after they labeled China a currency manipulator. There was talk of revoking China's MFN status in Congress and slapping heavy tariffs but the inexperience of the Trump Administration along with the heavy agenda already on the decks made this a difficult lift. Business backers of the White House made it clear in plain language that if the President sparked a trade war, they would revolt. At that, the White House backed down. Had President Trump had a keener grasp of economics, and less reliant on his policy advisors, he might have initiated a series of policy proposals that pushed his anti-free trade initiatives further.

The White House settled for subsidies of domestic manufacturing interests in a bid to stimulate manufacturing growth. In a sense, this wasn't really that different from the Obama bailout of the car manufacturers in 2009, where the U.S. government basically helped out the car industry.

The most far reaching initiative the White House undertook was the elimination of the HB-1 visa. This was spearheaded by Steve Bannon, who had voiced suspicion of Silicon Valley being full of foreign talent. This was loudly protested by the IT industry, but since they weren't integral to the Trump coalition, it was killed. This would have consequences for the United States, down the road.  

The wall was of course built and millions of illegal migrants deported. The Trump Administration was careful to focus on those with criminal records and not to go beyond that. The reason? Illegal immigrants were important for the fruit and vegetable industries, which relied on them to cheaply pick fruit and vegetables (jobs Americans didn't want to do). That created inflationary pressure, which didn't quite help the economy.

In effect, the United States was leaning slightly protectionist but they weren't full bore Smoot-Hawley people. There effectively existed a grey area where the United States was both a free trader and protectionist nation.

As the midterms drew near, the economy began to contract, a symptom of the business cycle. Inflation was slowly rising as Trump's inflationary policies took hold. It was nothing like the Great Recession of 2007-2009, or the inflationary recession of 1979-1981. The thing about this recession was that the economy had expanded from 2009 to 2018, and growth had averaged 2.1%. It was slow growth, so the recession bit a little harder than it would have otherwise.

The oil glut had remained, meaning that the energy markets were weak going into 2019. Likewise, the housing market was recovering but Americans were not quite as prosperous on balance as they were at the turn of the millenium.

Growth began contracting in Q3 2018, and continued contracting in Q4 2018; and the economic expansion wouldn't really resume until 2020. But of course, given President Trump's political and ethical woes, the recession came at a particularly stinging time for him. It would deepen his political problems and voters would be far less forgiving of his scandals, given the recession going on.

[The_Doctor]

State of the World: 2017 to late 2018

September 2018 - (London, United Kingdom) On the world stage, the Trump Administration was neither as risky as its detractors bet or as far reaching as the supporters hoped. Like the President himself, it was a cautious blend of soft power and strategic retreat. If there was one area where Donald Trump refused to risk things, it was foreign policy. A serious miscalculation could plunge the United States into war and risk the Administration looking foolish at a time where it couldn't afford to.

The President had been rather clear on his foreign policy inclinations. He looked askance at the Muslim world, praised Russia's Putin, and raised concerns about global treaties of almost any kind. The Trump foreign policy was a throwback, in a sense, to the Harding-Coolidge isolationist years, where the United States was limited in engagement and fearful of powerful enemies around it.

The muscular foreign policy of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush was gone, replaced by a more cautious United States. The memories of Iraq had cut deep into the Republicans and their hesitance stemmed from a fear that a quagmire could sink their political fortunes. In a real sense, the Republicans had gone from being a muscular party willing to challenge those who would question America to being a more hesitant, risk averse party, on the global stage.

When the President took power, he labeled China a currency manipulator. But beyond advancing President Obama's Asian pivot and positioning more naval assets in the Pacific Ocean, the President chose not to rattle the Chinese dragon too much. The reason was simple. The Republican business backers of the President didn't want to risk their investments in Beijing and risk a trade war that could wipe out precious gains being made. In that context, the President was very limited in what he could do without huge blowback.

The President also angrily rattled the saber at Iran. He threatened to rip up the treaty, but in the end, quietly abided by it. The reason? The instability in the region would have been too much for the new Administration and the strategic advantages afforded by Iran being in compliance was too strong. Additionally, neither France, Russia, or China seemed eager to resume sanctions. Facing a losing battle, the White House stuck by the deal. There was no real point in pushing Netanyahu's wars.  

Syria became a vassal state of Russia, as President Bashir Assad held onto power. He owed his power to Vladimir Putin's strategic maneuvers. The United States had no appetite for joining in the civil war or even aiding the rebels, and the President preferred to focus on ISIS. So in that calculus, Bashir Assad was allowed to retain power, in return for the Syrian regime's promising to focus on ISIS. The Trump Administration allowed this to happen, given that the White House did not want to handle a civil war.

As far as Russia went, given Europe's appetite for Russian business, and the White House's overt friendliness, the President sought to repair relations with America's erstwhile rival. By no means did the United States "submit" to Moscow, but the Obama era hostility was gone. The President's focus - as stated in the campaign - was fighting ISIS and "radical Islam."

To that end, the United States and Russia cooperated on a series of bombing runs and drone strikes around the Middle East. Most notably, the President struck at ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, in a bid to destroy the emerging caliphate.

As far as Crimea went, it existed in a grey area. The United States neither recognized nor disavowed Russia's territorial conquest. The American interests. Sanctions on Russia were quietly lifted in return for the Russian help on ISIS and terrorism. Europe, as tied to Russia in business as it was, went along with this Faustian bargain.""

Of course, Vladimir Putin remained in power in Russia. Russia had become an autocratic state, ruled by Putin and his cronies. They were at a political relevance not seen since the dying days of the Cold War. Washington was more friendly to them and so was London and Brussels. Putin's party remained with 80% of the seats in the Duma.

Turkey remained a statist dictatorship. "Sultan" Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruled the nation with an iron fist, relying on radicalized Muslims and nationalist Turks as a power base. A purge of anti-Erdogan forces was undertaken and the nation increasingly turned from a peaceful democracy to an armed autocracy. The European Union, alarmed at this and dealing with its own rising Islamophobia, refused to allow Turkey to join the European Union.

The Paris Accords were ripped up, given the President's personal inclinations on global warming ("A hoax by the Chinese!"). Democrats howled, the world was aghast, but in the end, the rest of the world patched up and decided to go on with global warming talks and negotiations without involving the United States.

Meanwhile, the crackup of the United Kingdom continued apace. Scotland and North Ireland pushed for independence referendums, as the May Government struggled to deliver on Cameron's promises of devolution. Experts expected Scotland to succeed this time, given the impact of Brexit. The May Government hoped to delay any such referendum but it increasingly looked like Scotland would walk out. Brexit was finalized in March 2017, with the British people retaining a few EU rights, but ceding much of their abilities to participate within the EU.

In France, Marie LePen eked out a 51-49% second round victory over Francois Fillon for the Presidency of France. The alt-right's spread through the Western world - on the backs of an increasingly fearful European population -  continued apace. The Trump Administration hailed LePen's victory as a great one for "sovereignty." Brussels grimaced and bemoaned, but the European Union, increasingly powerless was unable to stop the nationalistic fever.

As 2019 approached, the world remained a dark place, fevered by nationalistic politicians. The rosy post-Cold War World of 1995 that had looked so optimistic now looked increasingly fragile and dangerous, as Great Powers vied to be the helm on the wheel. Russia was aggressive, Europe accommodating, and the United States withdrawing (except to strategically combat radical Islam).

Finally, at home, the United States slammed the door shut on Cuba. Why? Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) led the GOP foreign policy brigade against the Castro regime and the Trump Administration went along. Cuba was an easy nation to pick on; with the Administration giving in on Iran, they had to hold the line elsewhere. Cuba was that line. It was a small island nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida and easy to antagonize without a lot of consequences. Thus, the White House rolled back the Obama Administration's opening up of relations, to satisfy the Republican Senate.

The international system was slowly crumbling and the legitimacy that held it together bleeding away. Decades later, many would say the seeds of World War III were begun in the 2008 crisis and the surly decade that followed. The struggle that was coming into view was to determine who would be king and who would run the international system that had ruled the world since 1945.

[The_Doctor]

Note: An edit has been made to situate the scandal after the midterms.

The Media and Donald Trump

September 2018 - (Washington, D.C.) Donald Trump had a long and extensive history with the press corps, dating to the 1970s and 1980s. It was no surprise that as President, he would make media relations and story management a major part of his White House.  What ratings were to him on the Apprentice show, polls were to him as president. Consequently, controlling the media narrative was important. This was the same man who had posed as “John Barron,” a fake publicist, in the 1990s to manipulate the New York tabloids.  Now in the White House, he abided by the principle that the media should be talking about him at all times.  To him, all publicity was good publicity.  

Tweets and outrageous statements were the hallmark of the Trump Presidency. The President would tweet or make an outrageous statement in an interview early in the morning to drive the day. This was in keeping with his behavior in New York's media and gossip circles. Every day, or nearly every week, the President would tweet some sensational story that would dominate the morning, afternoon, and evening shows.

His aides would participate in an elaborate media side show, where there would be leaks (sometimes from the President himself), and intrigue around whatever was dominating the news that day, cycle, or week. The media would be used as a pawn in Trump's own political games, to either humiliate rivals, would be rivals, or to assert domination - or to distract from a bad story. Trump's one unparalleled talent - one of two, really - was to dominate the media and the news story. His other talent and genius lay in spurring on outrage and reading his audiences extremely well, to the point of being able to articulate their grievances and channel their frustrations for his own end.

However, growing media hostility and the ancient grudge between the Republicans and the media led to something more dangerous. Trump had led campaign rallies with the media penned up while past Republican White Houses bashed the media as a "fifth column" and part of a liberal conspiracy. Coupled with the President's authoritarian tendencies, and the Gawker scandal involving Hulk Hogan in 2015-2016, the crackdown on the media came in early 2018. And nobody could say they were surprised, given that candidate Trump had said he would make it easier for aggrieved parties to sue the media.

The President, of course, was facing blowback on his Azerbaijan deal and the Republican Congress didn't want to deal with it. So, what the Republican Congress decided to do was simple. It decided to broaden the libel statutes and make it easier for aggrieved parties (like the president of the United States) to sue the media for "defamation" and "libel." By curtailing the First Amendment, the Republicans argued that they were protecting victims of the "drive by media."

The howls of outrage from the Fourth Estate did little to stop the GOP. Their constituency lay in fly over country, and the era was more on the "moralistic" side than the permissive side. The ensuing storm had the GOP modify the bill to give the media some latitude, but the damage was done.

The lawsuit would go all the way to the Supreme Court - a Supreme Court that saw two Trump appointees (one replacing Scalia, one replacing Anthony Kennedy) - in New York Times v. United States (2018). In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court struck down some of the provisions of the law, but left others in place. The most damaging section left in place allowed the media to be sued by private actors like Hulk Hogan, if they published something defamatory.

But the law and media storm could not protect the President from the intensifying scandal that erupted after the midterms. New information trickled out every day about how other business deals had been secretly conducted by the White House. Azerbaijan had been the tip of the iceberg. While not illegal ("The President cannot have a conflict of interest") the scandal intensified amidst the recession.  Deals had been struck in India, Brazil, Indonesia, and quid pro quos were coming to light. It increasingly appeared that the gate that Trump had established between himself and his empire was a very flimsy gate indeed.

Democrats intensified their calls for a congressional oversight committee - and Republicans were looking to the 2020 elections, which now promised to be a lot more challenging than what had been the outlook in early 2018. Slowly, but surely, events were spiraling out of President Trump's control.

[The_Doctor]

Note: I'm going to try to wrap up the Trump years by the end of the year. After this will be a midterm election article and then we'll return to the widening gyre of raging dumpster fire that is the Trump Administration.

Race in the Age of Trump

September 2018 -- (Washington, D.C.) Race in the age of Trump was a volatile subject. It underlined the President's Administration and surrounded his political persona. The President had begun his foray into presidential politics by questioning his predecessor's birthplace and would ride a white working class - fueled backlash against the new multicultural Democratic Party. The reality was that race and where white America lay within that context was a dominant subtext of the Trump Administration. And where the Trump Administration lay was that it was in the throes of figuring out the transition, like the country itself.

To begin with, the definition of "white" was an ever expanding definition that had originally begun with Protestant Western Europeans in the United States. It had expanded to integrate Ireland, and later then, Eastern Europeans. The definition of who was white in America had always been malleable. Arguably, in later years, in the 2050s and 2060s, Asians and Latinos would be considered part of the white majority in America. Race, then, was not a genealogical construct but a social construct.

With that dispensed with, race in early 21st century America was freighted with anxiety about what threats the cultural newcomers posed to the existing definition of white America. Not unlike the Irish, then the Eastern Europeans redefining the concept of what it meant to be American, the Latinos and Asian migrations threatened to redefine America in powerful ways.

Ergo, the desire for a wall, the desire for deportation of immigrants, and the desire to "reclaim" an America that never was. White America yearned for these for both economic and cultural reasons; deaf and blind to the idea that these would really solve their woes. In a sense, it was a grab at the idea of feeling superior by evicting unwanted newcomers.

But this wasn't a lasting political strategy. Unlike the Democrats in Dixie in the 1870s, there were three forces pushing against a resumption of a Jim Crow era. The future of the country lay in the minority population, that was creating more voters than the white population. (which was dying off faster, too). Secondly, whites in major urban states were not uncomfortable with this state of affairs, given their either strong or relatively strong support of Democrats. Thirdly, minority politicians were being elected by both parties in increasing strength.

Experts indicated that white deaths exceeded white births in 1/3 of the states in their seminal report, "White Deaths Exceed Birth Rates in One-Third of U.S. States," by the University of New Hampshire. The researchers indicated that white deaths were increasing as the older population skewed white and the younger population skewed Latino, thus accelerating the demographic turnover. Younger voters aged 18-29 voted 56-37% for Hillary Clinton in 2016, a hefty 19 point margin (down from 33% in 2008 but still).

Second, whites in major urban states that voted Democratic were unlikely to shift their political allegiances to the GOP. For example, in Illinois, whites voted 52-41% Trump; in California 50-45% Clinton. In New York, whites voted 51-46% Trump. In Oregon and Washington, whites voted for Clinton. Even in Minnesota, which almost went Trump, whites voted by just 7 points (50-43%) Trump. Urbanization was a major deterrent for many whites to voting Republican; a party rooted in the suburban and rural areas. Even in Pennsylvania, 40% of whites voted Clinton. Unlike in the antebellum South, and the later South, the number of whites simply willing to become Republicans in the numbers needed to support the GOP majority was not simply there.

Third, minority politicians were winning support across the aisle and in different states. Massachusetts' black governor, Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) had won two terms. Republicans Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal, Indian Americans, won in southern states twice (against white opponents). Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) joined Mel Martinez as the second Cuban American Republican Senator while Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was the first Latino senator from that state. In California, Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) won the U.S. Senate seat.
The point being; the whites-only strategy was deeply out of touch with an America that was no longer as white or interested in electing only white politicians. It might have been enough for Donald Trump in 2016 but it didn't represent a viable Republican Party in the 2020s and 2030s. 

For this reason, from the start, the Republicans were deeply uncomfortable with the Trumpian strategy even as they adopted it. President George W. Bush had sought to pass immigration reform. The President himself, despite his vicious campaign against Latinos, clearly favored immigration reform. And ultimately, Republican strategists in the White House wanted a pan-cultural coalition that transcended race.

Why?

The arithmetic was simple. They could not rely on an ever increasing portion of white Americans to back them in each election with regularity. The white vote had consistently awarded Democrats around 35-43% of their votes from 1968 onwards (with the plausible exception of 1972). These whites were in urban areas and on the coast, and were highly uninterested in voting Republican.

After the deportations came the Administration's immigration reform plan. The political strategists knew why. The white vote wasn't going to drastically change. They needed to up their minority vote. Ergo, by 2018, the plans were in place to submit immigration reform to legalize millions of illegal migrants to secure their relatives' support for 2020. The Trump coalition needed that support and badly, to win 2020.

But this plan ran into headwinds from the hardliners in Congress, much like President George W. Bush's had. Trump had campaigned explicitly on rejecting amnesty and the weak hold he had over the country meant he could not easily challenge his white working class base. His popularity had never exceeded 55% and with the scandals looming, the Administration had no political support to pass its plan. The strategy of replicating Nixon-in-China and Reagan-in-Moscow failed because Trump simply didn't have the political capital or political support to spare. Quietly, with the midterms looming, the Administration shelved immigration reform.

As for race in America? It continued to be a violent, messy, and thorny issue. Republicans in the states continued to expand "voter ID" requirements and to cut early voting hours in a bid to limit minority voters. The Trump Administration joined them in a national voter ID law and in a bid to force the states to adopt the restrictive laws that would help the Republican advantage. But in the end, these laws amounted to a flimsy gate against the dam of destiny.

[The_Doctor]

GOP Gains in Senate; Loses in House and Governorships

November 2018 -- (Washington, D.C.) Republicans gained 4 U.S. Senate seats in the midterms while losing 4 House seats and 10 governorships, along with a raft of state legislatures. The demography and geography of the midterms dictated that the Trump Administration would be able to count on expanded Senate majorities but lose political support elsewhere. It was, in the lexicography of the pundits,  a "mixed midterm."

Republicans gained the Senate seats in West Virginia, Indiana, North Dakota, and Missouri while Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) hung on by a 51-48% margin. These were all in heavy Trump states, and incumbents Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Donnelly, Claire McCaskill, and surprisingly, Joe Manchin all went down to defeat. However, every other Democratic incumbent hung on, including Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Penn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Relatively, the Senate GOP's hopes of breaching 60 votes was dashed. After the midterms, only Sen. Jon Tester and Sen. Brown resided in heavily Trump states (Montana and Ohio). In terms of what the GOP had hoped for, the 56-44 Republican majority was a disappointment for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Senate Democrats, expecting much worse, rejoiced.  For that matter, Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) sighed in relief as they won re-election. (Heller was the one Senate Republican who kept McConnell up at night).

In the House, the 239 Republican majority dropped to 235 as Democrats made marginal gains under Minority Leader Tim Ryan (D-Ohio).  There wasn't much to report on this front, except that the House Democrats went to 200, breaching that watershed mark for the first time since 2012. Democrats and Republicans held their regions and no real breakthrough was seen. Gerrymandering and geographic domination meant the House Republicans were somewhat insulated against political forces.

President Donald Trump's approval rating held at 48% on Election Day 2018. The scandals hadn't generated enough momentum to topple him - yet.

The real story lay among the states.

The Midwestern Democrats, lacking for so long, roared back with victories in Ohio (Democrat Richard Cordray won the governorship 51-48%), Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolfe won a second term (56-43%), Michigan elected Democrat Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) governor over GOP Lt. Governor Brian Calley 53-45%. Stunningly, in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker fell to Democrat Kathleen Vinehout 51-48%. In Iowa, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds lost re-election to Democrat Tyler Olson. Rounding out the Midwest, 2010 Illinois Democratic Senate nominee Alex Giannoulias won the governorship over incumbent Bruce Rauner (R-Ill.). In Florida, Gwen Graham wrested the governorship from the Republicans for the first time in 20 years. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.) defeated Attorney General Brian Frosh in a razor tight 49-48% win and Gov. Charlie Baker (R-Mass.) won against Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III. Altogether, the Democrats picked up the governorships of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Florida, Nevada, Kansas, Colorado, Maine, and New Mexico.  With the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey in Democratic hands, that brought the Democratic totals to 20 Republicans, 29 Democrats, and 1 independent.

The legislatures of various states shifted.  Start with the lower House. Democrats gained in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa (flipping the chamber), Michigan (flipping it), Minnesota (flipping it), New Hampshire (flipping it), New Mexico (again, flipping it), and gained in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and narrowed the margin in Wisconsin. In the State Senate, Democrats flipped the Senate in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maine, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin. They also made gains in Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wyoming. In 2017, the Virginia State Senate had gone Democratic, meaning the Democrats held vastly more power than they did in the beginning of 2017.

All of this led to two points. One, the Congressional Republicans were doing somewhat fine  but the State Republicans were beginning to feel the Trump Administration hit them hard. Two, with redistricting coming up, the Democrats would be in the strongest position to influence redistricting since the early 1990s. And three, the Midwest was not the GOP stronghold so many had imagined.

EDIT July 15, 2017: Maryland and Massachusetts have been changed to be Republican. The number is 28 D, 21 R instead of 31-18 R. To note, these governorships went Democratic in 2022 post-crisis. The number of Democrats did not shift in Congress in either state delegation.  

EDIT August 4, 2017: With West Virginia's Governor switching parties, I have adjusted the post-2018 figures. It's 28 Democratic, 21 R. So a gain of 13 governorships for the Democratic Party.

[MAINEiac4434]

This is really, really good. And scary.

[The_Doctor]

New Revelations about Trump Scandals ... and Russia

January 2019 -- (Washington, D.C.)  President Trump saw new revelations about his business dealings and empire as the scandals deepened. Despite Republican majorities in Congress, the President's political fortunes have dipped as his approval ratings now hover around 40% in the face of these revelations.

Despite the Republicans tamping down the news until after the midterms, the news trickled out in steady increments. At first, these seemed smoke and not fire, as Trump fought back and dominated each news cycle. But on December 6, 2018, a former Trump CEO came forward to announce a bombshell.

The CEO, Patty Gevalt* announced that President Trump himself had been negotiating deals while President of the United States.

It was a brain dead move, but it was a move that made perfect sense given that Trump remained nominal Chairman of the Trump Organization, a post he had held since 1971.  The Trump White House had not kept the two separate as they had pledged to do so. Donald Trump had never been in a public office before his election to the Presidency. The rigors of public life had never been imposed on him to this level. The ethics needed to be a public official, in other words, had been pushed onto Trump without him ever learning how to do it.

Specifically, Trump had negotiated deals in Moscow, in Azerbaijan, in India, and Costa Rico, Brazil, and other places. He had cut deals for himself and his business empire, believing that these deals would not affect his Presidency. He had however covered it up from the White House staff, having intermediaries negotiate on his behalf and represent the company in formal negotiations.

The revelations shook Washington, and in light of the economic recession, threatened the GOP majority in Congress. Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell had scraped through 2018, and now with the scandals breaking fresh, they looked like men caught in a vise between the President and the 2020 elections.

In other revelations, the intelligence report unveiled after the '16 elections about Russian interference was found to have left out important information. Now that Trump was an embattled president, the work that had gone into keeping the intelligence agencies in line began to unravel.

The Trump Administration had kept from the public information about the extent of the Russian hacking in 2016. Evidence uncovered after Obama's departure from the White House revealed that certain Trump ex-campaign figures that weren't formally involved with the campaign had reached out to old Russian contacts about the election and were notified about the hacking - and their intent before the election.

The bombshell revelations swirling around President Trump reached a crescendo in March 2019, as the White House mounted a vigorous counterattack. The embattled President denied any wrongdoing and said that his election had been a free and fair election, attacking the Left for sour grapes. Trump also launched a vigorous attack on Patty Gevalt, calling her a "liar" and "terrible executive."

But inside the corridors of Capitol Hill, a dreaded word was beginning to make the rounds. Desperate Republicans were beginning to look at the 2020 elections as a potential wave election against them if Trump remained atop the ticket. Senators like John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) were also beginning to signal increased dismay with the White House. Rumblings began about a primary challenge in 2020.

The word, however, that was making the rounds?

Impeachment.

* Made up name.

[The_Doctor]

Notes: First, see the article above about Trump's scandals. Then read this.

 I am trying to be broad and concise. We're going to wrap up the Trump Presidency with this article and maybe 1-2 others reviewing the DJT era. Given the topics we're dealing with are so huge and vast - no less trying to project an entire decade worth's of information - I'm trying to stay broad and try to give you the lay of the land. I'm not going to even try to get into too many details of what a Trump impeachment showdown would look like, because this is kind of unprecedented territory. Especially with what we're hearing about Russia, the unexpected has become ... routine. Anyway.

The Trump Administration Ends; Pence Prepares to Become 46th President

July 2019 -- (New York, New York at Trump Tower). The mood at Trump Tower over the last few months have been grim, to say the least. The revelations about the self-dealing and the Russian backdoor channeling between the Trump campaign and the Putin Administration created a storm that many thought had been left behind in the tumult of the '16 campaign. It also brought down a President.

Donald John Trump, 45th President of the United States would resign 45 years after Richard M. Nixon - the nation's 37th President - did. The road from inauguration to resignation - from a high nobody imagined to a fall few suspected - the Trump era was marked by turbulent changes and far reaching choices that would change the course of the nation. Now huddled in Trump Tower, staring at a paper that simply announced his resignation, the 73 year old media magnate faced his fate. No Silvio Berlusconi was he, to reprise the great Italian drama. With a stroke of a pen - a Sharpie pen - he signed the resignation letter.

Impeachment talk had begun in March, as worried Republicans fled the President. The President had never been particularly popular among the Congressional Republicans. An interloper in 2016, he had never forged the deep connections with Congress that could have allowed him to escape impeachment. Success had been forged with Speaker Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in the first year, but by year two, the Trump Administration had gone off the rails, especially after the departure of Reince Priebus.  By year three, the White House had become embroiled in scandal and quagmire.

With the implosion and the swirling scandals around Donald Trump, the White House went into bunker mode. The President lashed out in increasingly vitriolic rallies and vicious Twitter asides against his enemies, real and imagined. The Trump White House would see demons in every corner and the infighting only grew more bitter. Bannon wanted the President to hang on, to defy the critics and win a second term "against the Washington establishment." Bannon wanted war; the children pleaded for peace.

The President chose war, at first, going on a rampage against Washington's establishment. He called out "disloyal Republicans" in increasingly angry and erratic terms, pursuing day long battles with members of the GOP conference. The Democrats, too, came under fire, but less so.

Secretly, President Trump pressured the Justice Department to investigate his critics and enemies. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, appalled and knowing that history would record his response, tried to resist as long as possible. Secretary of Defense James Matthis attempted to steer American foreign policy with Secretary of State Rudy Giuliani as long as possible, as the President became consumed with the scandal that threatened his impeachment.

The inner circle was bitterly divided between Trump's family and the alt right. The establishment Republicans had been sidelined with the departure of Priebus. The Bannon forces were fighting against the family, who wanted their father to be spared further pain. Bannon viewed the resignation as the ultimate betrayal of the establishment, vowing to fight holy war against the "traitors."

By July 2019, it appeared that Donald Trump would almost certainly be impeached in the House of Representatives. The President struggled to fight the impeachment, vowing to "go all the way to the Senate," and launched even more rallies. But days before the impeachment vote, Trump delivered a message to the Congressional leadership. He would resign in return for a pardon by President Pence. Same deal as Nixon and Ford did. The Congressional leadership agreed, in private. They had weathered two years of Trump's storms and did not want to suffer more.

On July 19, 2019, Donald John Trump announced his resignation to the nation. Fighting back tears, in the Oval Office, the President said he had "fought for the American people every step of the way." He had fought the "Washington establishment" and delivered results for "hard working families." He acknowledged that he had a combative streak but talked about how Washington needed to be reformed. After twenty minutes of passionate self-defense as was his style, Trump announced that Vice President Pence would become President at noon.

At noon, with Air Force One flying to Trump Tower for the last time, Michael Richard Pence was in the Oval Office, taking the oath of office. As he repeated the oath, before Chief Justice John Roberts, the call sign for Air Force One was changed to indicate the President was no longer Trump but Pence.

As Pence put his hand down on the Bible, becoming the 46th President of the United States, the Trump era ended and the curtain rose on the Pence era. As a sign of this new era, Bannon was packing his boxes and preparing to return to Breitbart News. For the rest of his life, he would harbor a sense of grievance against the establishment, who he believed had brought down Trump rather than take his lead.

Historians, looking back at the doomed Trump Presidency, would cast it as act one of a story that would culminate five years later. The populist revolt that Trump had led had turned to consume the President himself. It had been an unsteady hand that had guided the nation from 2017 to 2019, with an agenda that remained unfulfilled. Donald Trump had come to Washington the great reformer, but left Washington broken. The challenges had become too deep, too hard, and too difficult for him to reform. It had consumed the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and now it claimed his Presidency.

His election had hardened the rifts, and in many ways, he had been set up to fail long before he set foot in the White House. The people had elected outsiders in a desperate bid to shake up the system that they no longer believed was working for them. And they had turned to him, in an effort to tell Washington to clean up its act. Trump had believed he would be able to reform Washington and become a legendary figure in the mold of Andrew Jackson. Instead he exited as a failed Warren G. Harding figure. Washington's partisan wars had not been soothed by his election. The 46% he won had seen to that, and so had the fact he had lost the popular vote by close to three million votes. The division that had begun with Mitch McConnell's obstruction of Barack Obama's agenda would continue unabated into the Trump years, and the division in the country only hardened. And in the end the Washington system had eaten his Administration alive. It had been the reason he had appointed outsiders, to resist Washington. But as Reagan and W. Bush had learned, the system could not be resisted.

Only two Presidents in the last hundred years had dramatically overhauled the system and reformed it. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan had done it, but they had been realigning Presidents who had broken the system and reassembled it. Trump had hoped to be the second great New Yorker who would change the system. But in the end, there would be only one New Yorker who would be able to do that.

The country had not been healed by the Trump era. The divisions were wide and gaping and the hardening battle lines between the Left and the Right only meant that things were about to get much worse, not better.
  

[The_Doctor]

How much interest is there to continuing this? I'm torn, because I don't know how many people are reading this and we're 3 years out into 2019.

[Frodo]

I can actually see this happening. 

And please, do continue with this timeline.  It is one of those underappreciated Atlas jewels. 

[HenryVIII]

Trump is doing a decent job so far

[Mike Thick]

Trump is doing a decent job so far

lmao

I have been closely following this, and kind of feel bad for not heaping on all the praise it deserved. Keep going!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I can actually see this happening. 

And please, do continue with this timeline.  It is one of those underappreciated Atlas jewels. 

[The_Doctor]

Notes: I think I'll finish this then. Thank you all for the kind wishes.

Vice President Michael R. Pence Becomes 46th President; Restores Stability to White House

July 2019 -- (Washington, D.C). As Donald Trump left the White House in disgrace, a new presence entered on the national stage. The quiet underappreciated Michael Richard Pence, now the 46th President of the United States, was sworn in at noon.

The Pence Presidency - as it began - would be an implicit rebuke to the Trump Presidency in style. Much as Harding's rambunctious and controversial presidency was followed by the New England iciness of the Coolidge years, so did Trump's rollicking New York style give way to Pence's Midwestern understated charm. The new President was sworn in at noon as the nation sighed in relief, having borne the Trump antics and drama for too long.

The Pences graciously agreed to stay in the Naval Observatory as the Trumps departed the White House. The children left the White House, to repair back to Trump Tower in New York. Donald Trump himself was already in New York, watching the new President take office.

The White House was quickly reoriented; from outsider populism to establishment Republicanism.  The new President quickly appointed an establishment figure as Chief of Staff, Katie Walsh, as Steve Bannon left the White House. Congressional Republicans quickly rallied behind the new president, with Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell urging the nation to unite behind the new President. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) offered cautious notes of support.

The White House twitter feed - formerly Trump's - fell silent as the new President sought to calm the nation. Political strategists, looking to 2020, wondered how the new President would retain the Trump loyalists and expand the Republican coalition. "A lot of people are wondering if he can hold the Trumpists, who voted solely for Donald Trump," worried one top Hill GOP aide. Quiet rumblings under the transfer of power were heard inside the halls of power as Republicans wondered if the failed Trump presidency would presage a Democratic wave in 2020.

Michael R. Pence - long seen as an ideological conservative - had been in the State House, then U.S. House, before seeking successfully the governorship of Indiana. Now as the President of the United States, he had achieved a pinnacle of political power to which he had aspired since age 18.  

The next night, on the night of the 20th, President Pence announced to the nation that he would pardon former President Donald Trump and would clear the way for the nation to be healed. It was a striking parallel to another Midwesterner's pardon, that of Gerald R. Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon.

The new President also announced the Cabinet would stay in place until the duration of the term had expired, meaning the Pence Cabinet would not take place until 2021 (if he won a full term in his own right)  

[The_Doctor]

Note: See Pence taking power above. You'll want to read that. Then this.

Trump: Doomed from the Start?

The national wounds that had been ripped wide open by the Trump years had been decades in the making. Long before the Administration was even sworn in, the animal forces that circled American politics and culture had been closing in to create the Trump White House.

Start in 1980. Ronald Reagan's 10 point victory brought to a close the turbulent and tumultuous times of the 1960s. The cultural revolution and counter-culture both came to a close with the Reagan victory. An uneasy peace was forged; the gains of the 1960s and 1970s would be maintained but there would be no more dramatic changes. Reagan's presidency would seek to preserve the balance no matter what. The President did not want to relitigate the wars of the 1960s - 1970s that had killed John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby King and brought down Richard Nixon. These years had also brought stagflation, worries about the Cold War, and so on.

The election and Presidency of Ronald Reagan was a hugely consequential one. It would be a Presidency that would cement new status quo's, cementing a conservative economic orthodoxy and cultural center-right ideology (even if sometimes, they were never quite lived up to). The rapid changes of the 1960s gave way to the calm seas of the 1980s as the nation readjusted to a whole new world order. The Vietnam War faded into the distant mirror as Ronald Reagan carefully navigated American involvement overseas. As the Berlin Wall and Cold War both came down, the nation entered the 1990s generally prosperous and at peace, unchallenged around the world. Thus the genius, gift, and legacy of Ronald Reagan.

In 1992, the first signs of the coming new tumult came in a primary challenge to the incumbent Republican President, George H.W. Bush. Pat Buchanan blasted the President for the tax hikes of 1990 and various other heresies. While the stability built by Reagan did not allow Buchanan to win, he won 30% of Republicans in that nomination contest.

Ultimately, with the election of Democrat Bill Clinton as a confirmation of the Reagan era's dominance, the nation (after the hiccup of 1994) settled into the status quo that dominated the 1980s. Conservative economics, center-right social orthodoxy (outside abortion), and a general understanding the safety net would be protected. Reagan, albeit with some noises, had generally abided by this orthodoxy and it continued into the 1990s.

The Right became a little reactionary during this period (but nothing like what they became later). They challenged the Clinton presidency and launched investigation after investigation, ultimately impeaching the President. Their anger and vitriol, however, was a harbinger of what would come.

The election of 2000 did not change much. Despite George W. Bush's razor thin victory, Bush had been a second confirming President of the Reagan orthodoxy. W. had campaigned on No Child Left Behind, tax cuts, no nation building (ironic in light of his later reputation), and most importantly "restoring dignity to the Oval Office." These promises allowed him to regain the South and lower Midwestern states, along with several Sunbelt states, that had gone Clinton. The nation had collectively shrugged its shoulders after the recount and let W. take the Presidency. It would also be the first Republican - led government since the 1950s and the first sustained GOP government since the 1920s.

The tragedy came on 9/11. In more than one way, it ripped apart the Presidency George W. Bush had been trying to build - a moderate conservative Presidency focused on domestic accomplishments. He had been hoping to end up a more conservative re-run of George H.W. Bush and indeed, that's how he campaigned in 2000. 9/11 ripped apart that Presidency and began a war presidency - but also ugly divisions that would only widen.

After 9/11, the war hawks took charge, leading the invasion of Iraq. The war in Iraq was another tragedy, as it ripped open the fragile peace that Reagan had forged after the destructive Vietnam War. Now another generation protested a war fought in the name of some abstract ideal. And as the Bush Presidency came to an end, the worst came.

The economic crash of 2008 would presage the darker forces of American culture coming to light, a dark set of forces that the 40th to 43rd Presidents had kept under control. But the economic crisis reopened the fears of Americans and widened the gulf between the "two Americas."

The election of a black President only heightened the fears of the forgotten America. As the aging Baby Boomer Republican coalition glimpsed at the future, two coalitions came into conflict, engineered by the Great Recession.

The recession had propelled Barack Obama to the Presidency. Had there been no recession, had there been peace and prosperity, Hillary Clinton (or John McCain) would have become the 44th President. Instead, as the economic crisis gathered force in late 2007 and early 2008 (undetected by all except those suffering and the Federal Reserve), the Democrats embraced a young black senator from Illinois. The Republicans ran a moderate standard bearer in John McCain, but of course, he had no chance by October 2008.

By this time, the peace and stability that Ronald Reagan had forged was completely ripped apart. The election of a black President only inflamed the torn national consensus as angry middle and lower class whites worried about their cultural and economic future in a world that no longer seemed to respect them. They yearned for an America that never was.  

To his credit, like W., President Obama tried hard to unite the nation. He tried to reach out to these constituents but like W. after 9/11, forces overtook his presidency and remade them. The partisan gulf only widened as House Republicans triumphed in 2010.

Later, much later, the Republican strategy of complete and utter obstruction would be remembered as destructive and misguided. But at the time, it launched a House majority and brought the GOP back to relevance. Rooted in the Clinton wars of the 1990s, the GOP thought it was a winning strategy. It was. But it was also a strategy that ripped apart the national political fabric. The Clinton era could take these political wars since the economy was relatively stable and the boom just beginning. But in these hard times, the national consensus collapsed.

Obama had been the foreshadowing Presidency, a president who desperately tried to rechart the course of the nation, as it hurtled towards the rocky shores. He had promulgated a new liberalism, a new technocratic liberalism that would restore prosperity and respect the old conservative traditions but forge new ones. But he had no real political coalition that would listen to him and back up his pleas.

The election of 2012 held everything in place. It was only in 2016 that everything began to come apart. "Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold" was the lines of the famous poem. And 2016 was the year that things began to fall apart, indescribably so.

Donald Trump had never intended to win the Presidency, in a sense. He expected to lose and return to private business, his reputation enhanced. But instead, he won. A nation propelled by desperate times, anxiety, and anger at the political system - fermented by the Great Recession - upset the political applecart and seated him in the center of power.

But President Trump was a victim as much as anyone else. Like the two Presidents before him, he came into office intending to unite the country behind a common agenda. Like these presidents, he valued himself as a deal maker who could bridge the divide. But Trump had campaigned viciously and widened the divide, and his (relatively) large popular vote loss doomed him to gridlock in the Capital. The forces that had brought him to power were - not to be graphic - ravenous and not satisfied. Yes, the Republicans relied on him. But the Democrats did not and they would fight him.

Trump would try, in the beginning, and be successful for a time. But these forces would not be denied. The ripped apart consensus would demand a new consensus. A consensus that Donald Trump could not really forge, had no political power to forge, and really, no capability or experience to build. The forces that Trump encountered had been a generation in building and the fragile peace had been shattered by his own campaign.

The country was moving past reconciliation. The cultural consensus of the 1980s, the political peace of the 1990s, and the national security consensus of the 2000 had split apart. The nation was bleeding, and suffered profound damage. Trump himself had contributed to the bleeding, instead of the healing. And his aggressive, warlike Presidency, without a popular vote victory or the kind of resounding mandate to lead - had brutally widened the gap.

The Trump Administration had hoped to spur on an economic boom that would heal the divide. But it was too late. The divides were too great, the economic pain too deep, and the polarizing forces too intense now. There would be no turning back after the election of Donald Trump. The country had been committed to a "rendezvous with destiny."

The Trump presidency itself had been chaotic, but in a sense, it was preordained. The nation needed the political elite to hear the pain and to see the ripped fabric that held it together. The Trump Presidency was an ongoing demonstration of that. The time for putting back things together the way they used to be was long gone.

The nation was committed, as much as it had been in 1854, after the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, as much as it had been committed in 1929, after the Great Depression, and after stagflation in 1974, to a turning point, where everything would come to a point of reckoning.  

And much worse was coming.
 

[Deblano]

Very scary. A bleak future awaits for the United States in this timeline.

[The_Doctor]

Note: Next is a recap on the economy and the world in 2018-2019

President Pence And the New Age of Stability

(November 2019) -- (Indianapolis, Indiana) Months after the Pence Presidency began, Americans are getting an idea of what their 46th President is about. Substantially, the Pence Presidency is not that different from the Trump Presidency. Stylistically, New York bombast gave way to Midwestern genteel charm - but the same ideology underneath reigned.

President Pence did however signal change on a major issue: Russia. After the Trump years, it was President Pence who signaled that the hawks in the GOP had regained the upper hand in the battle to define the relationship with Moscow. Beginning in September, the President had signaled through the media and elsewhere that the United States intended to begin challenging Russia anew on Ukraine and other territories.

The President also picked UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, a former Governor of South Carolina, as his Vice President. A minority and a female, analysts believed it was a foreshadowing of Pence's intention to bolster his numbers among minorities and female voters. "A gentler face on the same ideology, trying to win back the #NeverTrump voters," said Pat McChristopher, noted analyst.

The President's approval rating - and calm demeanor - scored well with a public weary of the infighting. 54% approved of President Pence and only 32% disapproved. This was in studied contrast to President Trump, who's approval rating stood at 14% to 81%. (And who had chosen to lay low since his resignation).

Pence, following Coolidge's lead a century earlier, refused to replace the Cabinet at this late juncture, choosing to wait until the election results. That meant Trump Cabinet members remained on hand - but many were, at this point, capable enough to carry out their jobs. General Flynn was replaced as NSA, of course, and Secretary Ben Carson stepped down but the rest of the Trump Cabinet stayed in place.

Senate and House Republicans were hopeful about the Pence Presidency, and hopeful that the economic upswing would salvage the 2020 elections. The economy, which had been sluggish in 2018 and the first half of 2019, now promised robust growth (although nowhere near 4%).

Trump's exile served as a cathartic moment for liberals who had wanted his removal from the White House. While many were unhappy with Pence, the end to the antics and the drama was welcomed by many. Among moderates and conservatives, they chose to give the new President a chance.

Democrats, recalibrating from planning a race against the Donald, are now split on how to take on Mike Pence for 2020. The Clinton v. Sanders wing is poised to take another run at each other, for the upcoming 2020 primaries.

[Thunderbird is the word]

This is really well-writen. Enjoying it immensely. Keep it up!

[KingSweden]

Good stuff. Thanks for writing it

[The_Doctor]

Note: Yes, I harp on this theme a lot. It's instrumental. This is one of the major themes of this timeline - the breaking down of the old order, presidents trying and failing to unite the country, and the political breakdown of this country.

Obama and Donald Trump: Political Twins as Outsiders

(December 2019) -- Chicago, Illinois. Historians writing about the Obama and Trump Presidencies noted striking similarities in both men - and noted how they had destabilized the established system through their candidacies and Presidencies.

Both men had come to power upsetting the established candidates in their primaries and then defeated opposing party candidates that had established a presence in the nation's capital. (They also shared the dubious honor of having defeated the establishmentarian Hillary Clinton and styming her Presidential hopes) Both men had won on vague promises of reform and made central to their campaigns the need to reform the nation's capital and to throw out the insiders.

The most striking thing about both men was the "cargo cults" that accompanied them. The much derided Obama fans had been replaced by the equally derided Trump legions or "centipedes." Each group had powered their candidate to the White House in the firm belief that their man was the spear tip of a political revolution that would shake up Washington. They would brook no dissent about their man's revolutionary appeal and how they would be the one to finally fix Washington.

Their opposition was even more venomous. The Republicans had seen Obama as an existential threat to the Reagan era (which he was). The Democrats saw Trump as an existential threat to the consensus driven political norms and system that had prevailed since 1945 (which he was). Therefore, from the Right came howls of questions about Obama's birthplace, his faith, and his loyalty to the United States. The Left, even angrier after 2016, raised questions about Trump and Russia, his preparation for the office, and everything in between.

Both Trump and Obama had come to power without real experience in the nation's capital. Obama had been a Senator for all of four years (and a state legislator in Illinois). Trump came to power with even less connections and experience in Washington. Both Presidents needed more experienced and able vice presidents - the 30 year Senator in Biden, the longtime Congressman in Pence - to navigate the capital.

Most strikingly, the elections of Obama and Trump had signaled a deep dissatisfaction with the political system in the nation's capital. The voters had turned away from established politicians in the hopes that outsiders would reform the system - a sclerotic and dysfunctional system. Both Obama and Trump were deal makers at heart (though neither would admit that they were like each other in this regard) who represented their Americas. They personally were nowhere as ideological as their most fervent supporters were and were of the school of transactionalism. Witness Obama's openness to charter schools or Trump's desire for a $1 trillion infrastructure initiative. In private, had Obama and Trump been allowed to strike a deal, and see it become law, they would have probably been happy about doing that.

The era from 2009 to 2019 could have been easily called the "Failed Outsider Age." The political system ground to a halt in this decade and political gridlock hardened. Outsider presidents were sent to Washington (along with outsider senators and Congressmen) to fix the system - and found themselves mired in an ever escalating political war.

The best way to understand Obama and Trump was to locate them as deal makers who came to Washington with the bold hope of breaking through the partisan gridlock.

They left Washington unsatisfied because the gridlock required so much more than an outsider. They left Washington politically broken and dismayed at the lack of unity in a gridlocked town.

Washington, after their Presidencies, had not changed. Indeed, with each passing Presidency, the gridlock and the political polarization only became worse. The slow economic growth only persisted. A sense of a broken political system was in the air. And the nation grew more frustrated with each passing year.

Neither man was able to break through the noise and the gridlock to unite the country. Neither man had fashioned an answer to the political sclerosis. They left their own supporters disappointed and the opposition firmly convinced that their presidency was an unmitigated disaster for the country.

It required an insider with an outsider's perspective and an experienced political communicator who was trusted by voters on both sides of the political divide. FDR and Reagan had been these people, and now the political system asked once more for someone to enter the breach to unite the country anew.

The question, now, of course: was Pence up to that task?

[Thunderbird is the word]

I really enjoy the stylistic touch of writing from the perspective of a future history book.
I've recently been toying with the idea of doing a timeline but from having it open from the vantage point of just average people discussing politics fifty years or so in the future. I could very well see a generation or so in the future this current era being looked back on as the "failed outsider age" in the same way we look back on the early twentieth century as the progressive era and comparisons between Obama, Trump and they're respective movements being made and seen as similar since oftentimes the further away you get from an era the more the nuances of that era are missed. Like how people now would see TR and Wilson as both emblematic of the progressive era despite significant differences in there worldviews. But yeah, keep up the good work!

[The_Doctor]

I really enjoy the stylistic touch of writing from the perspective of a future history book.
I've recently been toying with the idea of doing a timeline but from having it open from the vantage point of just average people discussing politics fifty years or so in the future. I could very well see a generation or so in the future this current era being looked back on as the "failed outsider age" in the same way we look back on the early twentieth century as the progressive era and comparisons between Obama, Trump and they're respective movements being made and seen as similar since oftentimes the further away you get from an era the more the nuances of that era are missed. Like how people now would see TR and Wilson as both emblematic of the progressive era despite significant differences in there worldviews. But yeah, keep up the good work!

Exactly. Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt were similar people in terms of the ideology (although with important differences). As it would turn out the Populist era presaged the New Deal two decades later.

You should absolutely give your timeline a shot. I have a couple of notebooks here filled with notes, sketches of stories, ideas, and plain out writing my thoughts.

The timeline helps me articulate where we're going as a society and what that means for our future. For me I feel the next decade is going to be extremely consequential and will be a turning point. So I write and as you can tell I try to follow the trends of history.

I try to write in three voices. 1) Newspapers 2) History 3) TIME Magazine pieces. And occasionally I do meta to guide the reader.

Anyway, just some thoughts. I look forward to your timeline.

[The_Doctor]

Economy Slowly Recovers

January 2020 -- (New York, New York) As President Pence entered his first full year in the White House, the U.S. economy has been slowly pulling out of the mild recession and may be entering a sustained boom. GDP growth is up, while unemployment is ticking down.

Unemployment had reached 6.1% in the depths of 2018 and with the economic upswing, it has ticked down to 5.1%. GDP growth - anemic in 2017 and 2018 (1.4% and -0.5% in 2017 and 2018) - was back up to 2.8% in 2019. As the economy warmed up, the Republicans were preparing for the election of 2020.

Growth was broadly in the service sectors, with manufacturing continuing its long and steady slide that it had in the last 30 years. Manufacturers, in response to the Trump years, had slowed down the offshoring a bit - but they had also expedited automation, which was a bigger cause of the loss of manufacturing jobs. Union membership in the manufacturing sector had slipped to an all time low of 8.6%.

As the economy shifted to the retail and hospitality sectors, the President lauded the growth as the result of "the tax cuts" and infrastructure spending of 2017. The Republicans took credit for the growth and said that the deregulation of '17 had enabled the recovery to be much faster than it had been. The DOW Jones soared to 21,000 as Wall Street celebrated the recovery.

Time would tell how strong the recovery would be.