Forget morality, philosophy and the Democrats for a minute. Focus on politics and, more specifically, how it works behind closed doors. Politically, Trump might not be president for long – or at all.

Donald Trump remains a wild card, but it’s unlikely he’ll play nice with his fellow Republicans in the House and Senate. If he tells Congress that he’ll veto every bill sent his way until they pass a multi-billion dollar package to build a wall near the Rio Grande, for example, battle lines are drawn. In this scenario, there would be no winners, and the entire party would have “unclean” written on their foreheads heading into the next election.

Because Republicans (and Democrats), work under a bizarre we’ll-scratch-each-others-backs theory, Trump’s White House run has the potential to destroy the Republican party from within, at least for many years. That’s the risk, and everything that follows here is based on the amount of risk traditional Republicans are willing to accept with Trump in the White House.

Never popular with many peeps in his party, the Republican elite surely understand the Trump threat and could already be drawing up plans to send him packing – but there’s a danger in trying to say: “Don’t let the door kick you in the ass on the way out.”

For one thing, almost half of U.S. voters want Trump in office, and a small percentage of them are a bit uppity. The liberal repercussions today might be duplicated and magnified if irate conservatives think Trump’s ouster is unfair – and the mostly rural Trump supporters probably own 90 percent of America’s guns.

If the perceived risk of a Trump presidency is simply too great, however, it leaves Republicans with two choices: They could do nothing and hope for the best, or they can find a way to remove Trump from office.

If they go with the second choice, they have two sub-choices: impeachment or directing voters in the Electoral College to pick Clinton instead. While each sub-choice seems off the wall, the election itself proves that off-the-wall not only works, it may be the new normal.

This may not happen, but you have to admit that it’s possible:

Impeachment

Trump has a lot of skeletons in his closet – hell, he has a lot of skeletons outside his closet. It wouldn’t be hard to find something worthy of impeachment, especially if it’s spun, blown bigger and reported over and over again. It could happen quickly too, perhaps by the spring based on issues already percolating, such as the Trump University scam or his sexual harassment claims.

Pros and cons of impeachment

• The big pro: VP Mike Pence would step into the presidential spot, giving Republicans a loyal supporter in the top position.
• Pro: It would be easier to justify to a wary public. An impeachment trial includes charges, and if those charges are strong enough, there would be time to convince loyal Trump supporters that they were wrong.
• Con: A public trial, however, takes time. A lot of dirty Republican laundry would be aired, perhaps for months, and the Trump Twitter threat of day-by-day criticism at specific Republicans, say Paul Ryan or John McCain, could do irreparable damage to lawmakers caught in the crossfire.
• Con: The effort might fail. If it comes down to individual votes, some lawmakers in districts with a lot of righter right-wing voters could chicken out. And if it fails, it empowers Trump more and gives Congress a black eye.

Electoral College shenanigans

The Electoral College (EC) actually elects a U.S. president, with the votes in individual states merely a preamble to tell the EC voters what they should do. There are enough states without a law mandating that an EC voter follow the state’s vote that the EC could, in theory, put Hillary Clinton in the White House.

This option, however, would have to “be done delicately,” to quote the Wicked Witch of the West. A single EC voter could not simply change his or her vote because “I felt like it.” To pull this admittedly long shot off, two things would have to occur:
1) Republicans would have to drive the effort
2) A specific fact about Donald Trump would have to be so onerous that it justifies the move

The first condition might not be hard to accomplish. Many Republicans don’t want a Trump in the White House.

The second condition would be harder to justify, but certain issues come close enough to count. If the House or Senate can prove – or almost prove, or pretend they have facts that prove even if they must lie – that Russia tinkered with the U.S. election, they could take the high road: “This isn’t a partisan issue. We simply can’t stand here and allow a foreign nation to interfere in our election process.”

If they add onto that argument a few extenuating facts, such as the one where Clinton won the popular election by more than a million votes, it would help. They could even throw in some criticism of the Electoral College system itself just to sell it.

Pros and cons of EC changes

• Con: The move would shock. Pragmatically, it would be hard to defend even for a justifiable reason.
• Con: More than a few EC members would have to change their vote – like 21 of them.
• Con: Experts agree that it can’t be done. However, experts also believed Clinton would win and Trump’s bombastic style would cause him to fail. Experts aren’t as expert as they think they are.
• Con: Republicans would have to push for the EC vote change. If Democrats did it, there would be blood on the streets. Democrats can’t even help much.
• Pro: On the other hand, Republicans would be criticized, but the scandal would fade into distant memory by the next election – the equivalent of pulling a Band-Aid off quickly rather than slowly.
• Con but a little Pro: Republicans would have to accept a Democrat in the White House, but they retained control of the House and the Senate, so it’s unlikely Clinton would be able to get much done. Before the general election they feared losing the Senate; now it’s not an issue.
• Con but a little Pro: Republicans would have to accept a moderate on the Supreme Court – but not a liberal. If handed the election, Clinton would probably appoint someone smack in the philosophical middle because she has to get approval from Republican lawmakers, and they’re not going to sign off on anyone who leans even a tad to the left. However, Republicans wouldn’t get their hoped-for replacement for the conservative Justice Scalia.
• Con: Politicians like the Electoral College system because it helps them manipulate elections. Right now they focus on four or five swing states. What would they do if they actually had to travel the entire country?

What will actually happen? Everyone’s gut says nothing, but with so much to lose, a shocking Republican move, should it occur, shouldn’t be shocking at all.

© 2016 SmithTakes.com