The democrats would have to sweep every senate seat, and then every elected democrat would have to agree unanimously to impeach. If anything the lottery win has better odds.
Maybe so, but there’s one aspect you may be overlooking. The man is completely unhinged and recklessly issuing executive orders left and right that are blatantly unconstitutional. If he goes far enough at some point even this spineless Congress – including even some Republicans – might recognize that democracy is slipping away.
The thing is, they don’t seem to care about democracy. Well, unless it means they lose their seat in congress.
I’m debating from both sides of the table here. Just hoping that we can get that asshole traitor removed. EVERY congress critter that does not vote for his removal also needs to be removed.
They need to know that ‘They are next’.
If the midterms go our way, we’ll take the House and the Senate, and there’ll be a shitload of things we can do, and definitely a need to hold the Democrats’ feet to the fire to make sure they do them.
Impeaching Trump all the way through conviction is not one of them; because even if mathematically possible there is absolutely no way in practice that we’ll get 67 votes in the Senate. Therefore going on about it is a waste of time and energy that Congress will have much better use for; and, worse, plays into MAGA claims that we just hate Trump personally and it’s not really about his actions.
Then you can call me back into this thread and I will publicly admit to having been wrong and I’ll yell for impeachment as loudly as anybody. Yes, even if those 67 solid votes include a handful of Republicans. But in the meantime, I strongly advise shutting up about it. Arguing for it between now and seating the new Congress (or after that, without those 67 votes) won’t help a bit and is very likely to do harm.
As I’ve said a couple of times, the only thing that can stop Trump, MAGA, and the Republicans is MAGA (which ain’t gonna happen until the destruction of the country is too much to repair) and the Republicans.
Impeachment, and conviction, is something the Democrats should keep in their back pocket until the Republicans are ready to, finally, grow spines and remember who is granted to power to govern according to the Constitution.
Exactly. It’s going to take collapse.
Oh, would you look at that, it’s Trump being stopped.
That’s great news, but it’s also like hitting a home run when you are down by 23 runs and thinking “we might win this!”
Every war is won one battle at a time and every battle we win proves that he is not unstoppable and we can and should continue to fight instead of surrendering to doomerism.
Concur.
How to say you do not understand how wars are fought and won in a single sentence.
Of course he’s not unstoppable. It’s just that those who CAN stop him are by and large not doing so. The odd court victory notwithstanding.
At the moment, we are winning quite a few battles, but with a guerrilla warfare strategy. They can’t beat us and we can’t beat them: stalemate, but the destruction proceeds apace.
IMHO, it’s generally pointless to argue with committed optimists about positive versus negative attitudes.
Optimists tend to exhort others against “doomerism” and other negative viewpoints that they call “counterproductive”, not because they actually have a more effective strategy for successful resistance, but because other people’s negativity makes them personally feel more stressed and depressed.
I know this because I’m the committed-optimist type myself and I feel the same way. Yes, on an emotional level I just don’t understand how anybody can ever bear to be voluntarily pessimistic and say “democracy is dying” and similar gloomy stuff, no matter how factually realistic it may be. It’s a significant emotional-labor lift for me even to read the darkly foreboding posts of Dopers with a higher pessimism tolerance than I have.
But I don’t automatically chide people for giving vent to pessimism and negativity, because I’m aware that just because I personally find it emotionally difficult to process doesn’t mean that it’s somehow objectively wrong or counterproductive or traitorous for somebody else to express it.
Having a realistic view of the situation does not equal doomerism. But I’m certainly not going to proclaim we are winning while the Republican party continues to, and remains committed to, successfully dismantling the country’s every foundation. Until you’ve won the minds of the other side, they aren’t stopping. And we haven’t come close to doing that. If anything, they are more entrenched than ever. Figure out a way to make them see Trump as a horrible person and you’ll finally make some progress, but so far, even Trump being a sexual predator doesn’t sway them at all. That’s just fake news.
I recall this statement made about the Vietnam war “The United States did not lose a battle of any consequence in the war.” the Vietnamese might agree, also, the Vietnamese would argue that that assertion, factual or not, did not matter to their eventual victory.
I know at least one Democrat who will not move to convince trump in impeachment proceedings:john fetterman. He is at the least brain damaged, and flipped to the extreme right; he may also have been a kiersten sinema from the get go. I would bet there are more Senate Dems that would refuse to convict for what ever f’d up reason.
The party is broken and weak. We need a Senate and house leadersnwho can whip the votes the way the people want; we need Senators and reps that care what their constituents want, and what’s good for the country. We just don’t have those pieces. I don’t know if we can get those pieces. Right now I just hope we can squeek out a majority in both houses, have a legitimate election in 28, and someone gets enough spine to put teeth into laws that now appear to be more traditions than laws. I think Banquet Bear has the right idea. I just wish I could see those things happening.
If the ACLU had the mindset of the “realistic” people around here, they couldn’t have brought this lawsuit and won it. "Why bother when Trump can just ignore the courts anyway?"is the mantra I hear around here every single time I talk about fighting Trump in the courts. You can’t win a fight if you go around telling people that fighting won’t accomplish anything.
Which we are doing and will continue to do. Trump’s approval rating is in freefall, “abolish ICE” is now the mainstream position, and the midterms are likely going to be a bloodbath for Republicans.
Another straw man. Nobody said “fighting won’t accomplish anything.”
No, you really aren’t. You are swaying the fence sitters, the ones who didn’t really like Trump but thought he would be good for their portfolio. What you aren’t winning over are the corporations and billionaires who are funding this shit, the Republican party who is happily taking those funds, or the MAGA-faithful who will support Trump until their dying day.
That does not follow. You are equating pessimism with apathy, and they are not the same.
I don’t think voting for a Democrat will do any good. But I will do it anyway, because it might, and not voting is certainly not going to help.
I want a realistic assessment of the situation because I have limited energy and I want to make sure the actions I take are the most effective, even if futile.
Please understand that other people can and will act even if all seems doomed.
The existence of this thread implies otherwise. The law don’t do anything to stop Trump, and the courts will let him do whatever he wants, and if they don’t he’ll just ignore them, and he’ll rig the election if he doesn’t just cancel it, and if we complain he’ll send the military to kill us all.
It’s been a nonstop avalanche of gloom and doom from the “realists” for 15 months now.
Which is how you win elections.