David Frum: The First Great Crisis of a Trump Second Term

Even if “Our Democracy” chooses to reelect Donald Trump as president in 2024 (a very real possibility in light of the RCP average), David Frum believes it “would settle nothing.” Democrats intend to move forward with taking out a sitting president through the legal process.

The Atlantic:

Both his supporters and and his opponents assume that former President Donald Trump’s legal jeopardy will go away if he can win the 2024 presidential election. That’s a big mistake. A Trump election in 2024 would settle nothing. It would generate a nation-shaking crisis of presidential legitimacy. Trump in 2024 means chaos—and almost certainly another impeachment.

Trump’s proliferating criminal exposures have arisen in two different federal jurisdictions—Florida and the District of Columbia—and in two different state jurisdictions, New York and Georgia. More may follow.

As president, Trump would have no power of his own to quash directly any of these proceedings. He would have to act through others. For example, the most nearly unilateral thing that Trump could try would be a presidential self-pardon. Is that legal? Trump has asserted that it is. Only the Supreme Court can deliver a final verdict, which presents a significant risk to Trump, because the Court might say no. Self-pardon defies the history and logic of the presidential-pardon power. Would a Supreme Court struggling with legitimacy issues of its own take such a serious risk with its reputation to protect Trump from justice? …

A Trump bid for self-pardon would not be the equivalent of President Gerald Ford pardoning former President Richard Nixon, a decision unpopular at the time but ultimately accepted by many of its fiercest critics as well as a majority of the public. A self-pardon attempt would convulse the country. It would never gain acceptance as a legitimate act undertaken for public-spirited, bipartisan ends. The furor would not subside; the constitutional injury would not heal. …

In the 2016 election, we had the chance to shake up our politics and blow up the conservative establishment by voting for Trump. In this sense, we were successful.

In the 2020 election, we had the chance to deliver a verdict on Trump’s presidency and the direction he wanted to go in his second term. I wasn’t inspired. I chose to sit out the election.

In the 2024 election, a vote for Trump has essentially become a self destruct button. A vote for Trump is a vote to blow up the country by igniting a constitutional crisis. It is a vote to bring the unfolding crisis to a climax. After 1/6, the Democrats will never accept the legitimacy of a Trump victory and presidency. The Deep State will never accept a Trump presidency in light of his threats. Trump supporters will never accept the legitimacy of his incarceration or removal from office as a result of the witch hunt.

Policy has nothing to do with this election. This isn’t going to be a normal election or a normal presidential term. No one is going to vote for Mike Pence or Tim Scott. No one is going to take the off ramp. All of the polarization and animosity that has been building up for decades is about to boil over.

Resolution is what this election is about.

25 Comments

  1. There are only two eventualities…

    #1. The Federal Government is largely dissolved and reformed, to the general satisfaction of The American People.

    #2. The country is broken up into different confederacies, and states may be, as well.

    No matter who does what, when, there is no escaping this burgeoning reality, because the government is lawless and The Blue States and Red States can no longer agree on what is reality.

    • #3. “A self-pardon attempt would convulse the country. ”
      Oh really, mr. know-it-all (((Frumm))) ?

      The country could slide past that with the greatest of ease, given Republican control. Just a bunch of demos wetting themselves.

      Here again, we have some jw attempting to tell us which directions we are allowed to go.

      F U Frumm !

      (Just watch, every media mouthy jw will be pushing this theme, in unison.)

      • @Arrian…

        Yes, Mr. Frumm is trying to direct folks, as per usual.

        That said, he is right – this election will settle nothing, this because elections are no longer widely accepted, either by The People or The Authorities.

        As to the media’s not so subtle admonition to NOT vote for Trump, and thus vote for a government-approved candidate, it’s not going to work.

        If anyone ever did let these people decide their vote, they surely are not now.

  2. “All of the polarization and animosity that has been building up for decades is going to come to a head.”

    Or they will just put him in jail and nobody will do anything. This is where my money currently sits.

    They hold all institutional power. Whitey holds nothing but a mortgage that has to get paid.

  3. ” All of the polarization and animosity t,hat has been building up for decades is going to come too a head ” yes, that is a good thing, when two are unequally yoked, their is no way to move forward, with harmony…….that being said, when the smoke clears and the dust settles, you blue state metrophiles will be allowed too live with n your area’s of ruin, you will not be allowed weapon’s nor a standing Army of any kind, ABSOLUTELY no foreign troops of any kind, will be allowed on the former state and territories of thee olde united States, we , thee SOUTHERN REPUBLIC,play legal claim too all lands of the former united States, we lay claim too all ASSETS of the former united States, all military and Space hardware etc,etc…..all debt of the former u s.a. is the responsibility of the blue state losers, all underground installations are under the command of the SOUTHERN REPUBLIC, yes and one more thing, SOUTHERN ENGLISH is the official language of the SOUTHERN REPUBLIC…

  4. Beijing Brandon has stated on record that any means necessary will be used to stop Trump.
    Even if it means the JFK/MLK/RFK treatment.

  5. He should not have been driven out of Office by rioting blacks and a compliant medical & pharmacological industry. I don’t see how a civil war is going to be avoided. Trump 2024 in essence is beside the point. Did Spanish Flu have an instrumental role in the various civil wars that occurred in Europe?

    • He was driven out of office due to the inability of the ever so vaunted American system to stop the cultural subversion and immigration invasion unleashed five decades before his election. That razor thin margin was easily overcome by a system that was caught sleeping in 2016. A 75 year old Trump voter in 2016 is now an 82 year old corpse in the cemetery, their spot on the voter roles replaced by some kid of 3rd world immigrants who recently came of age, fatherless white bastards who smoke pot all day long, and welfare babies from section 8 black baby mamas. I have no love for all that constitution fetish crap you hear from the patriotards, the verdict is in, the American Experiment was just another failure for the dust bin of history. The American system lacked a proper immune system, it tolerated it’s own destruction, an important lesson for the history books.

    • “…Trump will be a wrecking ball again. He did little else for us while in office….”

      I have said over and over that I’ve never been 100% convinced Trump was on our side. I could see the Jews seeing the trajectory of the country, putting him in office as a “fake Hitler”. The Jews gave money to and tried to control the actual Hitler. Didn’t work. Because what we need is a sort of Hitler type guy who will dig his heels in and no matter what, straighten this mess out. Whatever you think about the real Hitler there’s no doubt he let no one stop him. If you got in his way he would run your down. We need that. Trump could have cleaned out all the intelligence agencies, the military, the FBI, all this pozz. He could have started rounding up all these people involved in blackmail of our Representatives. He could have wrecked them, “IF” he were a real Hitler type, but as you said…he didn’t.

      Now he does have the excuse of Javanka hovering over him and him not wanting to take on the Hitler role. It’s a tough job, and I don’t think he was really prepared for the sort of serious conflict he would have needed to do what needed to be done. It’s not hard to believe that a bunch of people betrayed him, advised him to put in place people who were not on our or his side. Cause they did.

      So if he gets elected we will see. I would vote for him just for that alone. Either he will go full Hitler or…there is possibility that he will pardon himself, a poor idea, ON PURPOSE to spark conflict.

      I don’t trust Trump but…right now he’s all we have and with his election there will be some sort of resolution good or bad.

      • Never going to happen, 2023 America is completely different from Germany in 1933 where the elderly had been born into a bunch of principalities ruled by various autocratic Duke’s and Princes. The middle aged under a brand new nation controlled by a Spartan military monarchy with a very autocratic parliament more reminiscent of what we see in East Asia today than here. Everyone, even the 90 year olds in contemporary America believe in the Enlightenment drivel and Rousseauean fantasies the culture hammers into everyone’s heads. Nothing short of no food on the table will cause them to change course.

        Everything is just going to slowly get worse and poorer. I don’t know why the elites didn’t just keep the Obama course and slowly push their dystopia along waiting for the old generation to die off before doing something that would have seemed insane a few decades back. Trump overly spooked him and now they basically outlawed Reagan-Nixonism. That kind of silent majority mainstream culture we were so familiar with just a few decades back is now treated the same way they treated the far right. Evidently some typically selfish, aging boomers rushed in their leftist Utopia because they didn’t want to die before it happened and just trust things to come to fruition afterwards. That or simply the foisting of all these middling 90 IQ black intellectuals into the power structure as their response after the 2016 election. When you put blacks in charge, everything falls to shit.

        • “…Nothing short of no food on the table will cause them to change course…”

          No. They already had to steal an election to keep change from happening, so all this talk about no one doing anything is incorrect. That the politicians are not doing anything yet, and they they are starting to, is wrong. They don’t control everything and constant pozz and stealing is only driving everything to the more radical. At some point they have to start murdering people in very large numbers or be drownd by the tide. “If” they do start murdering people then the push back could also drown them. My belief is that we can have changes without civil war . It’s my belief that they see civil war as better for them than this continuous weakening of their power. They get civil war then they will blockade the heartland while bringing in hoards of supplies and people from the coast to crush the middle.

  6. We already have a Constitutional Crisis. LOL.

    Jack Smith’s mother must be an Italian Roman Catholic. What about his father, Irish Roman Catholic? Anyone want to dispute this.

    We know all about Trump’s Protestant parents. Mother a Presbyterian. Father a Lutheran.

  7. > In the 2024 election, a vote for Trump has essentially become a self destruct button. A vote for Trump is a vote to blow up the country by igniting a constitutional crisis. It is a vote to bring the unfolding crisis to a climax. After 1/6, the Democrats will never accept the legitimacy of a Trump victory and presidency. The Deep State will never accept a Trump presidency in light of his threats. Trump supporters will never accept the legitimacy of his incarceration or removal from office as a result of the witch hunt.

    The above almost makes me want to vote for Cheetohead just to have the pleasure of that shared by Gomez and Uncle Fester as they pushed the plunger down. I rather doubt there are enough whites left with the will to fight the evil ones in Murika, though I hope I’m wrong about that.

    As ISA notes above:

    > They hold all institutional power. Whitey holds nothing but a mortgage that has to get paid.

    YT doesn’t even have enough sense of self-preservation to walk away from Schlomo’s mortgage racket – just one of many debt-enslavement schemes about. In Illnoize, Guv. Jabba the Pritzkerhutt just signed a law passed by the uniparty legislature allowing non-citizens to be hired as police. They’ll be militarized and used as an NKVD-type force to take all of YT’s shit and kill anyone who breathes a word of resistance.

  8. The trajectory is clear. America will break apart, either through fire and blood, or in a reasonably peaceful way.

    History suggests it will probably be fire and blood.

    This 2024 election will probably be the final nail in the coffin of political legitimacy. The system is now well exposed.

    • At this point, I don’t know.

      Trump is going to win Alabama by a landslide anyway in the primary and general election. I’m not invested in the outcome of the primary. Emotionally, I can’t see myself voting for him again after how miserable I was in his first term. After everything that has happened though, I know a Trump victory in 2024 won’t play out like 2016 or 2020. My vote doesn’t matter and I am glad for that.

      • @Brad Griffin…

        Yes, absolutely if it is only Trump vs. Biden vs. West in Alabama, your vote will not matter.

        BUT … if Kennedy is on the General Election ballot, your vote will, indeed, matter.

        You ought be prepared for that.

        All the best to you and Miss Renee!

  9. “Both his supporters and and his opponents assume that former President Donald Trump’s legal jeopardy will go away if he can win the 2024 presidential election. That’s a big mistake. A Trump election in 2024 would settle nothing. It would generate a nation-shaking crisis of presidential legitimacy.”

    Yes, The Atlantic is totally right about this.

    The behavior of the United States’ Government indicates that it, alone, reserves the right to choose presidents, and, thus policy.

    They, The United States’ government has decided that it will not accept another Trump presidency.

    But, Trump will be elected, or, if not him, then Kennedy.

    The favouribi9lity and approval polls make that abundantly clear.

  10. “Policy has nothing to do with this election. This isn’t going to be a normal election or a normal presidential term. No one is going to vote for Mike Pence or Tim Scott. No one is going to take the off ramp. All of the polarization and animosity that has been building up for decades is about to boil over.

    Resolution is what this election is about. ”

    Yes, that’s a brilliant and pithy take on the situation.

    If the 2016 Election was 1st Manassas, then 2024 is Gettysburg.

  11. “…There are only two eventualities…”

    This is not even remotely true. With a few changes in the law, we could drive the whole country in a different direction. It might take more time in States but the direction would change immediately. There are lots of things we can. Defund their asses. It would put a huge crush on them superfast.

    “…The real problem has always been the power of White libtards in other regions of the country to interfere in our internal affairs…”

    Do you not see that if they can do this, we can do the same? How is it that you people keep missing this simple, basic fact? Why is it that you will suffer such abuse and not see that we can turn the tables on them?

    One of the biggest problems is the Supreme Court in an illegal ruling made it illegal for the States to have “regional” representation in the States Senates. This can be changed. There’s three or four laws that could be passed, and it would totally destroy the entirety of leftist Jew power and their power base would be crushed. Now would they fight? Maybe. They would try, but if we had Governors and Presidents that would call out the guard and shoot their asses for attacking people and burning down buildings this shit would end fairly quickly. Why is that the Jews can maneuver our country with all these little laws and placing their people in key positions that we can not…do the same? We can. This constant defeatism is silly and shows no imagination. Here’s several links on what can be done without shooting it out in the streets.

    https://occidentaldissent.com/2023/01/09/brion-mcclanahan-secession-in-the-21st-century/#comment-3651025

    https://occidentaldissent.com/2023/01/10/chuck-schumer-democrats-wont-let-republicans-defund-the-fbi/#comment-3651030

    https://occidentaldissent.com/2023/01/11/house-republicans-approves-new-select-committee-on-weaponization-of-government-agencies/#comment-3651032

    This guy Ivan Turgenev keeps saying the same shit over and over. I replied to the same thing earlier. Is he some sort of agent provocateur??? I don’t know, but there’s no doubt, even slightly, that he’s wrong, that there only exist his choices. This is the EXACT same sort of Jew gas-lighting that we’ve been seeing all our lives. The Jews,”this is a problem, that’s a problem, so you must do _______”. Well no, we don’t have to split the country up. I want the whole thing and have us run it as we damn well please instead of the Jews.

    https://occidentaldissent.com/2023/01/03/breitbart-rep-barry-moore-fbi-doj-think-they-know-better-than-the-voters/#comment-3650623

    You want to solve our problems I explain EXACTLY how to do it using our Constitution, our laws our techniques of government.

    The Constitution provides that…

    “…Article I, Section 5, which provides “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members …”

    I go over how we can use these provisions in exhausting detail in this comment and links, from it to take over the country here, (make sure and look at the links from this link to other comments I made there. They show in great detail the mechanics and the exact steps needed to make it work.),

    https://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/news-briefs-11-09-2022/#comment-410269

    This is not impossible nor all that difficult with representatives that will just do a few things in our interest.

    Frum is blowing smoke up our ass like he always does. If we started doing what I suggest he carth on fire and burn to a crisp in rage.

    • @Sam J….

      ““There are only two eventualities…

      This is not even remotely true. With a few changes in the law, we could drive the whole country in a different direction.”

      You’re not reading carefully, Dear Sam – for I covered what you have said with…

      “#1. The Federal Government is largely dissolved and reformed, to the general satisfaction of The American People.’

      As to defunding their asses’, yes, hypothetically it is as simple as that. In reality, however, you are going to have to replace most of what is currently serving in Congress, for they either would be against that or lacking the balls to do such.

      The United States’ Government, as currently constituted, is NOT going to let you give them a little clip, and then they are going to move out of the way.

      No, to know what this fight would be like you only have to read about Andrew Jackson’s 8 years in office, only this is going to be much much worse.

      Yes, to go from the government controlling us to serving us, you would have to erase more than a century of laws and habits.

      This will not be ‘a few changes’, but, a leviathan task like trying to get an old alcoholic to sober up – permanently.

      Usually death is the only thing that can do that.

      • “… In reality, however, you are going to have to replace most of what is currently serving in Congress, for they either would be against that or lacking the balls to do such…”

        So I say use the laws we have to change things and you say that’s hard. Ok well splitting the country up, a likely civil war, well are you saying that’s much easier? I never said it was easy but I did say when you gave only gave two paths to follow that you are wrong. Because you are. And,

        ““#1. The Federal Government is largely dissolved and reformed, to the general satisfaction of The American People.’”

        is wrong and doesn’t cover what I said because you do not need to dissolve the government to do what I said. The majority in the House could get the ball rolling. With Senate control, it would be a done deal if we could get them to vote for the provisions I put forth. The left would lose all power.

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