Yes, the GOP Congress wants to get their cherished projects accomplished and will ignore all but the clearest of evidence, unless less-clear evidence has a strong enough anti-Trump effect on voters (as might be previewed in those special elections) to raise ouster-from-Congress fears among the party-before-country Republicans.
But we are forgetting that there is another player, here: a player who does possess the clearest of evidence that Trump has committed (probably) treason: Putin.
There are whispers that the Russians are taken aback by the erratic conduct of their puppet, and that the celebrations that took place in Moscow on November 8 have transitioned to anxiety about the way Russia remains the focus of attention in the USA and elsewhere:
The GOP Congress may be interested in keeping any investigations slow and ineffective. But Putin is perfectly capable of short-circuiting their plans to keep Trump a-signing those bills: Putin has the evidence that would bring down Trump. It’s his to use as he thinks best (for his own survival).
If he decides to spill it, the GOP will be caught short. They will have to impeach (or persuade Trump to resign), and hope that Pence can inherit some of Trump’s fans.
Many don’t share your faith in the current crop of Republican wingnuts consistently putting party before country. I’m not naive enough to suggest that they may suddenly acquire integrity – I’m just cynical enough to believe that there’s one thing they value more than party OR country, and that’s their own political future. If and when Trump starts becoming a clear liability, these self-serving paragons of avarice will turn on him like rabid dogs to save their own hides.
Also, you should study historical patterns of voting behavior before pontificating on “the dwindling number of elected Democrats in the U.S. Congress”.
You don’t think “simply turn out all Hillary voters in a mid-terms [sic]” is an actual strategy, do you? Of course both sides try furiously to get as many of their supporters to the polls in mid-terms as they can, and they always fall many millions of voters short of that goal. Hell, just look at 2016: HRC got 66 million votes, but Team Pelosi only got 61 million. Let that sink in: your side lost 5 million HRC voters. They were already in the booth, or filling out their absentee ballot. For purposes of GOTV efforts, your side had already succeeded here. They were already “turned out”. All they had to do was go down the list from where they checked the box for Clinton and also check the box for their Dem congressperson, and they didn’t. 5 million of them didn’t!
Everybody else in this thread has been talking about illegal Russian connections with Trump and his staff. And if Trump were impeached, Pence becomes President. This has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton and nobody had mentioned her.
After all the nasty shit that spews out of Trump’s mouth that Republicans are happily eating up by the bucketful, I’m not about to buy this “We might listen if you talk real purty to us” nonsense.
I don’t know what emotional point you’re trying to make, but it doesn’t seem related to my simple observation of numerical facts.
If you want you want to talk strategy, I think going after the 23 CDs with a GOP rep that Trump lost is a good one. And it counts on winning those Clinton votes for a Dem, not flipping Trump votes. Though, again (not sure how often I need to say this), it will be easier if Trump folks also come along.
The extreme dislike of, and deep concern about, Trump since he took office has little to nothing to do with the fact that he beat Clinton. And, I can guarantee you that every single Democrat realizes that if Trump were to leave office, he would almost certainly be replaced by Pence – and while they abhor some of Pence’s stances, he does come across as an adult, most of the time, when he isn’t trying to defend his boss.
This has nothing to do with the fact that Trump was elected as a Republican, and everything to do with the fact that our sitting President is an erratic, crazy-acting asshole, who may well be compromised by Russia.
FYI - I doubt anyone outside of the Democrat collective is going to intentionally digest repetitive courses of sour grapes and bitter cheese.
However, if you intend to CONVINCE others to buy what you’re selling, which is what you’re hoping to do isn’t it, you’re going to have to change tactics. But don’t do so on my account. I like things the way they are. Democrats on the outside, pleading to get back in.
Trump doesn’t have the power to break up the EU, though conservatives would support it because they hate Europe, welfare capitalism, and the idea of a burgeoning state or alliance of states that could threaten American hegemony. Russia fear-mongering also won’t be of much use, since conservatives admire Russia as a white, illiberal state that fights against homosexuals and feminist agitators.
It’s posts like this that convince me that your “advice” when it comes to how Democrats should proceed isn’t worth jack shit. It would be like taking the advice from the guy sitting across from you at the poker table while he was running off at the mouth about how much he was going to take you to the cleaners.
I think you’re obfuscating, or ignorant (which your original claim about “mid-term” vs “general” elections would suggest). Your first post on the subject said “because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a pretty decent margin, it follows that Democrats do not actually need any Trump voters in order to take back the House of Representatives.”
You’ve since fallen into this argument about these 23 Clinton-Republican Congressional districts. I assume that you got that number from the Daily Kos. Your argument is still ridiculous though. For starters, the 218 Trump-Republican districts are enough for Republicans to hold their majority. In other words, even if Dems managed to target and win all 23 of the HRC-Republican CDs, that still wouldn’t be enough to “take back the House of Representatives”. There’s also the issue of a dozen Trump-Democrat districts that will undoubtedly be high-priority targets for Republicans.
Furthermore, in discussing these 23 districts, in which Clinton won a plurality, but so did the Republican congressional candidate: We’re talking about districts with enough ticket-splitting for the end result to be a vote for President of one party and Congressman of the other party. What makes you think that just turning out more of the ticket-splitting Clinton-Republican voters would help Dems win the seat? It wasn’t enough for them to win the seat in 2016.
Now, if you’d like to withdraw your original claim in post #44, I’m sure we can all agree that, as a matter of strategy, the 23 Clinton-Republican CDs ought to be high on the Dems priority list.
I don’t think I misunderstood you. Whether I am mistaken will be seen in a couple of years.
Fine, Hillary won some GOP Congressional districts. Those districts, as you mention, are currently in GOP hands. IOW the Dems won the Presidential vote in those districts, and the GOP won the Congressional races in those districts. If everyone votes as they did in 2016, the seats remain with the GOP.
And historically, voters, especially Democrats, don’t turn out in mid-terms as they do in Presidential years. The main reason Hillary lost is that she didn’t turn out the Democratic votes, especially among blacks, as Obama did. If history holds true, the Dems are not going to turn out all the Hillary voters, and even if they do, they are still likely to lose, as they did the Congressional races.
Isn’t it really time now to stop the whining. On the internet.
I guess people feel somewhat helpless. They want a big solution now, a pill that will make all this go away, and impeachment is it.
Do you think the USA isn’t still a basket case for democratic representation, what do you think has or will change, you all want Paul Ryan or some other bought and paid parochial halfwit instead?
You’re fucked until you change the system: again, Trump is nothing more than a symptom.
What real changes would you suggest? (And what conceivable changes could gain the support of 3/4 of the states?)
The American system had a severe hiccup (okay, a nasty onset of diarrhea) this time, but, really, would we be better off under a parliamentary system, a plenary system, a proportional system, or any other variety? All of them have built-in logical flaws that lead to unwanted results in certain circumstances.
I am so convinced that the Democrat collective can not/will not accept good advice coming from outside of the Democrat collective’s Groupthink, that I’ve chosen to give advice freely, and without reservation.
If you want to impeach any President, you are going to need actual evidence of an impeachable offense, and a sufficient number of votes to make it happen. You guys ain’t got neither.
(p.s. - When you finally get there, be sure to say something nice to the guy at the cleaners. You wouldn’t want them to accidentally burn your shirts on purpose.
On the one hand, you’re right. It doesn’t really matter what RTFirefly says, who he insults, or what sort of language he uses. No one in power listens to him or cares what he thinks about anything. And I’m not trying to single RTFirefly out either. It’s certainly true of myself as well. I don’t have Paul Ryan’s ear. I assume you, Czarcasm, are not advising Nancy Pelosi either. The world is likely to carry on about the same regardless of what Dopers post here.
My post was mostly motivated by a serious downturn in the quality of the discourse here, at the Straight Dope, since the election. This used to be a place with lots of intellectual discussion and relatively little name-calling and childish whining. Since the election, that ratio has been turned on its head, at least in my view. It seems like a significantly-more-juvenile place than before. There are more silly nicknames for President Trump, more vitriol directed at political opponents, the level of thinking that goes into a lot of posts seems worse, etc. It’s disappointing. I liked this place before, and I’d like to see it get back to what it was.
