The Hill ran a headline predicting the demise of President Trump this week, citing MSNBC legal expert Jonathan Turley. “Cohen flipping puts Trump ‘one witness away’ from catastrophe,” the headline read. Turley is a serious legal mind not prone to the hyperbole of his liberal brothers. But his latest prediction of the end of Trump’s presidency invokes a whiff of déjà vu.
Where have we heard before that Donald Trump’s downfall is imminent? Well, for more than three years, predictions of Trump’s demise as a candidate or as president have averaged about one a month.
Let’s review. Here’s a very abbreviated and non-exhaustive list of these predictions, from the top.
In 2015 …
— Politics Columnist Tim Skubick wrote in July that, “Donald Trump’s immigration remarks were the beginning of his end.”
— Conservative pundit Bill Kristol declared in July that Trump’s attack on Republican Sen. John McCain for being a POW was the “beginning of [the] end.”
— Nate Cohn of The New York Times predicted the “beginning of the end of the Donald Trump surge” that same month.
— September 11, U.S. News and World Report contributor Cary Gibson noted that Trump’s comments about candidate Carly Fiorina were so offensive that she too asked whether this was the “beginning of the end of Donald Trump?”
— NBC’s Chuck Todd told his viewers in September that “this is the week we’re going to look back on and say maybe this was the beginning of the end of Trump.”
— Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post spotted Trump’s “Sarah Palin moment” in September, declaring that this was again the beginning of the end for Trump.
In 2016 …
— Elise Jordan of Time magazine wrote in April about the “Beginning of the End of Donald Trump,” when an incident between his campaign manager and a female reporter cemented the “basic fact holds: almost three-quarters of women voters dislike Trump.”
— Chuck Todd said on Meet the Press in October: “This one does feel different. There have been so many times we’ve said Trump can’t survive this or can’t survive that crisis. But the 2005 hot mic recording of Trump’s conversation with Billy Bush of Access Hollywood may well prove to be the type of October surprise — that even Donald Trump can’t survive.”
— In November, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman predicted predicted “global recession” as a result of Trump’s presidential victory. “Now comes the mother of all adverse effects — and what it brings with it is a regime that will be ignorant of economic policy and hostile to any effort to make it work,” he wrote.
In 2017 …
— The Washington Post reported in January that on the same day Trump took the oath of office, the efforts to impeach him from office were already underway.
— Politico explained in February how New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman might bring down Trump.
— Nash Riggins of the Independent wrote in March: “In the White House things are looking bad. This could be the beginning of the end for Trump.”
— Morning Joe predicted the beginning of the end for Trump in May.
— David Ferguson wrote in June that after a “devastating day,” the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey would lead to the “end of Trump.”
— In October, Tony Schwartz predicted that Trump would resign by the end of the year.
— Larry Donnelly joined the chorus of writers speculating that the Mueller investigation would soon lead to the end of the Trump presidency in November.
— Newsweek’s Robert Dallek predicted in December that the invocation of the 25th Amendment could remove Trump from office for incompetence.
— Also in December, it was reported the “Flipping of [Michael] Flynn,” could be what brings down Trump’s “House of Cards.”
And in 2018 …
— The New York Post reported in January on the widespread sentiment among elites that Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” would “bring an end to Trump’s time in the White House.”
— Think Progress predicted in March that Karen McDougal had the best chance of bringing down Trump.
— Tina Nguyen of Vanity Fair told her readers in February that Hope Hicks could be “the one to bring down Trump.”
— Writing in the Huffington Post, Emily Peck told us in April to “Forget Russia,” because, “it’s these women who could ultimately bring down Trump.”
— Rebecca Gordon of the Nation suggested in May that Trump would be brought down by “an Army of Accountants,” although she never really explains how the accountants would actually lay “bare thieves of state like Donald Trump.”
— Rolling Stone wrote in May that the Stormy Daniels Scandal could “Bring Down Trump.”
— The Guardian speculated in June that Trump’s inner circle could bring him down.
— Michael Moore predicted in June that his release of “Fahrenheit 11/9” would “Bring Trump Down.”
— The Daily Beast informed us July 25 that Trump might soon be brought down by the Michael Cohen tape in which candidate Trump discussed buying exclusive rights to a sex story about Trump (probably to keep it quiet).
Perhaps it is because Trump’s critics compete so vigorously with each other to be heard that the hysteria is turning into white noise. We’ve heard “wolf!” so many times, yet the world hasn’t collapsed and America hasn’t turned into a dictatorship.
I’m going to swim against the tide and predict that this latest prediction of Trump’s demise might be premature.