According to the odds offered on British website betfair.com this morning there's a 7% chance that Trump won't be president at the end of the year. I think there's about a 15% chance that he won't be, so I took that bet. To put my mouth where my money is I thought I'd explain why I think that. Basically there's a bunch of premises I think are plausible and together they lead to my title. I'll list and justify them in this post.
(Premise 1) There will be no Trumpian equivalent of the enabling act.
At least as the story tends to be told (I'm no historian) Hitler pushed through the enabling act in order to, well, enable him to pass laws as a dictator untroubled by any democratic impediments. This is, I think, a big fear, implicitly or explicitly, among many observers: that Trump will do something similar to enable him to establish dictatorial power. His refusal to stand up for the FBI in the meeting with Putin yesterday stokes such fears, but I can't bring myself to believe it.
Why do I think this? Basically two reasons:
No matter what you think of Republicans and their plutocratic friends, they really don't want dictator Trump. I'm sure they all hate Trump and what he stands for: to know him, more or less, is to do so.
I think people are wont to overestimate the likelihood of this dictatorship-through-law-sowing up because of the famous example of Hitler. It's a familiar fact that we are prone to overestimate the likelihood of events if events of a similar type are salient in our minds, and I think—and I should say, this is very much a conjecture, in no way am I saying I'm completely confident in this and thus unworried about what's happening—it's plausible to think that's what's happening here. The parallels to Nazi Germany are brought out so frequently that we overestimate the probability that we're in another Nazi Germany situation.
(Premise 2) The Mueller investigation will turn something big up, and will do so soon.
One reason to think this is the obvious point that it explains Trump's behaviour around Putin. But I'm more moved by a less obvious thought, which turns on what I think of the GOP's character.
I think two things about the GOP: They really don't want dictator Trump, and they really don't want to piss off his base/Fox News, but
(Premise 3) They don't want dictator Trump more than they don't want to piss off his base.
This is basically a principle of not being completely contemptible. I don't understand politicians; their behaviour is very weird to me. But a—perhaps naive—faith in humanity leads me to think that even the GOP, whom I don't esteem, would rather stand up to Trump than to go along with it and keep their seat. But then it's weird—why hasn't there been any significant resistance? This is something that I think most calls out for explanation.
But now if (Premise 3) is true, we can explain it. The reason there hasn't is because (Premise 2) is true—if premise 2 is true, and the GOP know it's true, then it might be that Mueller will do their dirty work for them. They won't have to speak up, and attract the ire of Hannity, because Mueller will do bring forward charges that they can't ignore.
So here's what I think is a plausible continuation: Mueller turns up impeachable offenses, and the GOP go along with it. But that could take forever for the legal process to happen, yet I bet this morning that he'd be gone in about five months. However:
(Premise 4) Trump will resign.
The only thing Trump cares about is appearing good. If he realises he's toast, he'll resign and try to spin it in some way (and he'll probably come to believe the spin he'll tell) favourable to him. But the key thing about resignation is that it's quick: it doesn't require a slow court process. And so that's part of the reason I think it's plausible that the whole thing could be wrapped up by the end of the year.
So that's it. Some facts about history, about cognitive biases, about the character of most Republicans and that of Trump mean that my own degree of belief in the claim that Trump won't be president at year's end is somewhere between 1/10 and 1/5. In any event, it's greater than what the bookmakers think, and that's why I'm betting the way I am. Of course, if I'm wrong, that'll be embarrassing, and especially if I'm wrong about (Premise 1) it'll be horrifying. But I thought I'd put my mouth where my money is. If people can persuade me I'm wrong I will genuinely be interested to hear counterarguments.