Dear Nostradamus-- Official prediction thread (Apr 2018)

Let's predict what will happen over the next few months.

Here's what we know or can surmise:

The Republicans built a base over 40 years, ruled by propaganda, identity politics, and wedge social and race issues. The president took over that base by being explicitly racist and xenophobic. Now the base loves him, and he controls it via Tweet, and via Fox. The rest of right-wing propaganda machine covers for the president by catering to the base.

The Congressional GOP mostly hates the president, and would turn on him in a second if they could. But they have put power above country, and if they impeach him, he will work to turn the base on the GOP. And the GOP will lose horribly in November.

So the key dynamic is the president's marketing machine and tweets, controlling the GOP base, vs. the Congressional GOP who is deathly afraid of his control of the base. Impeachment will only come if the GOP can somehow sell it to the base.

Now, Mueller's moves. It's been reported today that the "next six weeks" will have lots of developments. And that Mueller is planning on writing a report on obstruction of justice and leaving it to Congress to impeach.

Here's my prediction.

Mueller writes a report on obstruction and releases it 4-8 weeks from now. Indictments of Jared and Don Jr. get delayed until after the report. Maybe there is an indictment of Roger Stone before the release of the obstruction, but probably not. Then the GOP gets the report and does nothing, while the president furiously spins that he didn't commit crimes before the FBI investigation. Then, more indictments on corruption and/or Russia treason and/or money laundering come down in weeks or months after the report. Stone, Jared, Don Jr., and probably people we do not know. Ultimately, the slow drip of worse and worse news eventually causes Fox and the right wing "media" to turn on the President. We get to 2018 midterms, which are a big blue wave (with Senate a toss-up depending on how well GOP social media strategy works), and impeachment happens in mid-2019.

Here's the alternative: The president knows now that his only option is to stop the investigation, the only question is if has the gumption to go all-out. If so, he removes Sessions and has Sessions' replacement oversee Mueller. Mueller and Rosenstein have a plan in place and drop a whole ton of indictments. In that case, I worry that Fox stays with the president and the GOP does nothing.

Indictments of GOP members (Ryan, McConnell, NRA, RNC officials) or of Fox/right-wing propagandist leaders could be the X factor and totally turn the situation on it's head.

What've you got? What do you think happens in next 6 months?