If Trump goes down, everyone wins

Yes, even the politicians who supported him

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

President Trump has a lot of political enemies. And the conventional wisdom in Washington has long and very obviously been that any pain for the president — be it a midterm shellacking, a 2020 electoral ouster, or a damning series of indictments from Special Counsel Robert Mueller — would benefit those who have long opposed him. This is obviously true.

But none of that means that Trump's friends (or frenemies) wouldn't also potentially benefit by the president's loss of power. Indeed, if Trump goes down, everyone might profit. Let's roll through the list.

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James Poulos

James Poulos is a contributing editor at National Affairs and the author of The Art of Being Free, out January 17 from St. Martin's Press. He has written on freedom and the politics of the future for publications ranging from The Federalist to Foreign Policy and from Good to Vice. He fronts the band Night Years in Los Angeles, where he lives with his son.