The Comey firing won't bring down Trump

The Comey "Scandal" won't hurt Trump

Not much, anyway.   Why?  Because firing people he doesn't like and trust is his brand.

Thad Guyer gives a careful analysis of the false hopes of the Trump firing of James Comey.   The mainstream news is full of it.  They think they have rediscovered Watergate.

They are wrong.   As with many things about Trump the best way to think about it is the simple way to think about it.  Trump firing Comey does not reveal a contradiction.  It reveals a known and accepted characteristic.   Trump saying, "You're fired!" is his brand.  That is what he does.

But isn't it a dangerous signal of abuse of power to fire someone who is investigating you?   In the case of Trump, no.  It is just fine.  Trump's brand is that he bulls his way to get what he wants.  Comey cannot be trusted, so he fires him.  No dithering.  No legal niceties.  No respect for traditions of FBI independence.  That is all part of the Washington DC gridlock Trump said he would cut through.

Trump made clear that his brand is to demand loyalty, not independence and fealty to duty and the institution.   Trump is sending a signal through the White House, to GOP officeholders, and to the federal workforce that Trump demands people be loyal to him. 

Trump's supporters love the fact that the Democrats and the media are all upset, all talking about process and procedure.  Trump said they were all hypocrites because they hated Comey when he sabotaged Hillary and now they love him when his is investigating Trump.  It is all politics, not principle, he says, and Fox and Breitbart share that view with Trump's supporters.  Comey was good when he was going after Hillary and bad when he targets Trump, simple as that, and since the issue is politics, not principle, Trump acted accordingly.  Trump has the political power to fire Comey so he did. 

Bottom line, Trump confirmed his brand by firing Comey.  All in all, it probably helped him.

Guest Comment by Thad Guyer:

Guyer

"The False Hope of Trump Scandals”

With the Comey firing, Democratic pundits are jubilant in thinking Trump impeachment comes ever closer. It’s worse than false hope. The data show that without bipartisan certainty of impeachment or impending indictment, no amount of media effort will depose Trump. As UpClose fans know, this blog forecast a Trump presidency as soon as he was nominated. (See, “Liberal Media Suppresses Trump Victory Statistical Model” http://goo.gl/P8MrAO, and “Political Climate Change Deniers”, http://goo.gl/jFc39N). Peter did it applying his political acumen and voter gut test. I did it mimicking political science data from university predictive models at Stony Brook, Emory, Yale and American. All agreed that policy debate, anti-Trump media drumbeat, and his low approval ratings would not be determinative. The economy and voter confidence in the country’s direction and candidates are. Consider these three data and historical sets:

1. Nixon and Watergate: With the daily hammering Nixon got from the news media, his approval rating plunged to historic lows, with only 15% of Americans believing in his innocence. Yet, just 26% thought he should be impeached. Even after Nixon fired Archibald Cox and other prosecutors, only 38% thought he should be forced from office. By “the spring of 1974, despite the indictment of top former White House aides, ... only 44% in the Gallup Poll thought he should be removed from office”. Not until a united bipartisan Congress was resolved to impeach him with criminal charges pending was Nixon forced to resign. See, “How the Watergate crisis eroded public support for Richard Nixon”, Pew Research Center, Aug. 8, 2014 (https://goo.gl/Ci6OyW).

2. Reagan and Iran-Contra. Even after a majority of Americans thought he had broken the law in paying Central American death squads with secret Iran arms money, Americans did not want Reagan impeached. In fact, his approval ratings soon “rebounded” to 52% once the news cycles were exhausted. Instead, trust in the media suffered the most. See, “A Survey of Public Attitudes Toward the Press in Light of the Iran-Contra Affair”, Pew Research Center, Jan 15, 1987(https://goo.gl/8E9VqT). As the media attacks Trump, trust in the media falls. He remains “more trusted than the national political media”, 37% trust Trump, only 29% trust the media. See, “Political Media Earns Poor Marks From Americans”, Morning Consult Polling, Apr. 28, 2017 (https://goo.gl/k5QeJN).

3. Media Influence Has Declined in Compressed News Cycles: Watergate and Iran Contra occurred in a pre-modern media world with 24-72 hours news cycles. However, since 2009, research data shows news cycles were reduced to 4 to 8 hours. Mainstream “breaking news” is instantly migrated to Twitter and Facebook, which then “own” it in diluted sound bite form before it rapidly “degrades”. "Clicks" on mainstream websites consequently dry-up within hours and are replaced by abbreviated social media versions. Thereafter, for a short time the scandal survives in blogs, and in cable “talking heads” (egs. Maddow, Colbert, Hannity and Carlson) who reprocess it in “news entertainment format”. The public loses interest and moves on. See, “Structure and Dynamics of Information Pathways in Online Media”, Stanford https://goo.gl/Rrq0rJ(2013), and “Meme-tracking and the Dynamics of the News Cycle”, Stanford and Cornell, https://goo.gl/iepFVs (2009).

Scandals and attack pieces like firing Comey, Sessions’ conflicts of interest, Flynn cashing in with foreign entities, and Putin election interference all make us feel good, but are unsustainable without criminal indictments. Even then, without proof of direct presidential criminality, the scandals don’t result in impeachment, resignation or electoral loss. Instead, our media scandal obsession does little more than distract Democrats from coalescing around centrist leaders whom the majority of voters will like in their gut. That's how a party wins federal elections.