Just nine hours later, he had a jarringly different tone: The problem for Trump is second tweet doesn't just cancel out the first, like Trump and his aides may have hoped. The first is so factually inaccurate, so baffling incendiary and so frankly unpresidential that it's hard to see these two tweets as anything but Trump resorting to the defensive nature he assumed during much of the campaign — and then trying to clean it up. Bump offers some unsolicited advice to our new president: "It's stunningly petty for a person who was literally just elected president of the United States to call protests in several cities 'unfair.' You're about to become the most powerful person in the world. That is not a position that engenders blanket acquiescence." At least Republicans can have a kumbaya moment, right? As the map above shows, Republicans' dominance has rarely been so pronounced. Republicans control more governors' mansions, state legislatures and state executive offices than at any time in the modern era. To put this another way, Republicans fully control state government (the governorship and state legislature) in 25 states; Democrats control state government in just four. Roughly 85 percent of the population lives in states either all or partially controlled by Republicans. Republicans also have control of Congress, the White House and the chance to reshape the Supreme Court to be more conservative. In other words, they have reached the governing holy grail. Surely they'll at least get along, right? Maybe not. So says Washington, D.C.-based professor Allan Lichtman. If his name sounds familiar, it's because he's that professor, the one who called Trump's big win before anyone else did. As he was correctly predicting a Trump presidency, Lichtman predicted to The Fix' Peter Stevenson that if elected, Trump would eventually be impeached by a Republican Congress that would prefer a President Mike Pence — someone whom establishment Republicans know and trust. Click to watch Prof. Lichtman predict Trump's impeachment. Licthman explains: "This one is not based on a system; it's just my gut. They don't want Trump as president, because they can't control him. He's unpredictable. They'd love to have Pence — an absolutely down-the-line, conservative, controllable Republican. And I'm quite certain Trump will give someone grounds for impeachment, either by doing something that endangers national security or because it helps his pocketbook.” A president impeached by his own party? It might sound outlandish, but given Lichtman's street cred with predicting an election result that surprised 3/4 of Americans, far be it from us to rule this out. We'll leave you with those comforting thoughts for the weekend. Also a blissful baby panda. Good job getting through Election Week, everyone. |