WASHINGTON (AP) — For Donald Trump, his party’s resounding midterm losses pave the way for investigations and potential impeachments that will put the Republican president on the defensive in his final two years in office.

The results shift the center of gravity closer to Capitol Hill, where Democrats will be angling to check Trump’s power after two years of acquiescence from congressional Republicans. It not only resurfaces a dynamic from his first term in office, when House Democrats took power in Trump’s first midterms and ultimately impeached him twice, but with control as well of the Senate, Democrats can now stymie Trump’s nominations to Cabinet posts and lifetime federal judgeships.

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[–] 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 child)

Trump had all but guaranteed the results would be seen as a referendum on himself by repeatedly urging voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot” as he went into primarily conservative states to shore up Republican candidates and warned of a Washington where Democrats were in power.

That was going to happen anyway—I was watching election coverage a few weeks back, and they were talking about how one of the very few overall factors that matters a lot in midterms is the approval rating of the incumbent president.

But Trump kept trying to make himself more the center of the thing even after a lot of Republican candidates and Republican-leaning media stopped, as they saw him as a liability.

I was reading discussion of how Fox News slashed coverage of him, which subsequently had him complaining about Fox News.

Another data point I saw: Democratic campaigning spent fifteen times as much on advertisements that mentioned Trump as Republican campaigning.

What Republican candidates did not need this midterm was "more Trump on people's mind".

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  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago

    He'll nuke someone before Christmas.

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  • 11 comments in c/politics@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 49 points 3 days ago (5 children)

    “I don’t view it as a hit on me,” he said.

    lol, narcissists gonna narcissist I guess.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 days ago (3 children)

    Dude's huffed so much of his own farts he can't smell the coffee.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 days ago

    He went on the road to personally stump for all of them and those ungrateful bastards squandered it by... Nominating people that absolutely reflected his narcissism and inability to govern in any. How could they?

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  • [–] 13 points 3 days ago (3 children)

    So lame duck president and lots of investigations?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    That's how I read the phrase spectre of probes, but lame duck implies that the sitting president would be restrained in some way. But so far, nothing in his adult life has stopped him from breaking the law; certainly not the Democratic Party. I wanna believe they will this time, but that's a sucker bet if ever there was one.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago

    lame duck implies that the sitting president would be restrained in some way.

    Mainly restrained by the fact that they're running low on time remaining in office. No matter how you slice it, time keeps marching forward, and people who want to continue to have careers after January 20, 2029 will start making moves to move up after Trump moves out.

    For the unique dynamic in the Trump administration of requiring absolute loyalty to a particular man, that means that the expiration date will cause significantly more turmoil and turnover in his inner circle, as they position for the 2028 campaigns, where they maneuver to inherit Trump's power he's never been keen on sharing anyway.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    There will be no talk of martial law now. He wouldn't have the support.

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