For the gentle reader’s edification, a Harvard professor named Lawrence Lessig has offered a path for Hillary Clinton to become president, not in 2021 after she wins an election but, perhaps, early next year, presuming a series of unlikely events. The scenario is the sort of thing that might work in a satirical cable TV series like “Veep.” However, as a real-world proposal, it reads like the ravings of a madman.
First, we impeach Donald Trump
Naturally for Hillary Clinton to become president, we need to remove the one who was actually elected in 2016.
Lessig believes that Trump stole the election in a conspiracy with the Russians, so then he needs to be impeached and removed from office.
The problem is that more evidence exists that Hillary Clinton, through her family’s foundation, was bribed by Russian officials in exchange for the Uranium One deal. Newsweek points out that there is a conspiracy between Team Trump and Putin to steal the election. However, let us leave aside the inconvenient impediment of the president of the imagination being a felon.
Next, we get rid of Mike Pence
Of course, if Trump engaged in a conspiracy with Russia to steal the election, Mike Pence benefited because he was the current president’s running mate. Whether or not he was in on the plot is immaterial.
He has to go as well, perhaps as part of a double impeachment proceeding, probably by being shamed into resigning.
Finally, Paul Ryan ‘does the right thing’
The next step is how to deal with Paul Ryan, currently the speaker of the House, now president of the United States in this narrative. Apparently, he would feel so ashamed of the monstrous theft of the election that he would name Hillary Clinton as his vice president and then would resign, making her president.
A more believable scenario
If one really wants to set up a situation in which Hillary Clinton becomes president, we offer the following much more plausible plan, It involves time travel and changing history.
Someone needs to go back in time to the mid-1960s and contact Hillary Rodham when she was still a Goldwater girl before she was corrupted by the likes of Saul Alinsky.
The time traveler will reveal himself (or more likely herself) as being from the future, and that young Hillary Rodham has been chosen to save the world. Then, using the knowledge of future history, young Miss Rodham’s life and career would be guided so that she would not make the morally questionable choices that made her unelectable in 2016.
Of course, she would not marry Bill Clinton. She would not destroy Kathy Shelton’s life after she had been raped as a 12-year-old. Hillary would marry a wealthy but pliable Republican businessman who would help to finance her campaigns. She would get elected to a series of offices, as a conventional politician, so that by 1980 or so she is a United States senator.
The time traveler will manipulate things to get George H. W. Bush to choose her as his running mate in 1988 instead of Dan Quayle. Then, after guiding the Bush administration through two successful terms, Hillary runs for president in 1996 and wins, as a conservative Republican.