There was some economic news last week which is important for the long term, and I'll try to post about it later today or tomorrow, but in the meantime ...

I'm as interested in the latest Trump-Russia tidbit as the next person, but really, don't we all already know the endgame? 

Remember during the campaign, no matter what devastating gaffes Trump made, he always rebounded into the low 40%'s? Well, about the same thing has been true for the last 5 months.  No matter what the news, Trump's approval rating is 38% +/-3%:

So here, as a public service, to save you all the sturm und drang of the next 3 years, I present you in narrative form with the endgame:

PUTIN: Do as I say or else!

TRUMP: So what? I'm the President!

PUTIN: If you don't carry out what I want, I will release my most devastating information on you.

TRUMP: Don't you know I always welch on the last payment?

PUTIN: [releases devastating information]

DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT: We're horrified! So horrified that now we can run on this, and we don't have to offer an actual program to help people.

PRESS [to GOP Congress]: Are you going to impeach Trump?

GOP CONGRESS: ...   ...  ...

GOP BASE: Attaboy!  What a guy!

FOX NEWS: It's Clinton and Obama's fault!

GOP CONGRESS: We think Trump is doing a wonderful job.

PUTIN: Wtf?!?

TRUMP: See, I told you so.

RYAN AND MCCONNELL: Hey, Donald, while everyone else is busy, here's some byootifull legislation for you to sign: 

repealing Obamacare

repealing Medicaid

repealing the Voting Rights Act

cutting Medicare

repealing the Civil Rights Act

cutting Social Security

repealing the 14th and 15th Amendments, and what the heck, everything after that.

RYAN: He can't repeal Constitutional Amendments!

MCCONNELL: Shaddup! He doesn't know that. Besides, now the Kennedy is retiring, we're going to have 5 Justices on the Supreme Court who will do whatever we want.

A reminder: the econometric election models actually performed very well in 2016, forecasting a very tight race, with most models showing Clinton winning *the popular vote* by a slim margin.

Don't forget that Trump actually came right out and invited the Russian government to collude with him to defeat Clinton. Why should he care if the collusion turns out to have actually happened? The most likely case is that Trump has been neck deep funnelling Russian money to his "Investments,"whether or not it was lawful or merely unsavory. His base does not care.   For Putin, he is the Mother of All Useful Idiots, nothing more.

What will defeat Trump and the GOP is either an unsuccessful major war, like Korea or Vietnam, and/or an economic downturn that hurts their base.  That's the bottom line. The rest is opera.