Fortunately, for all of his political wiles, McTurtle will be Minority Leader. And we can thank Trump’s idiocy for that. Were it not for Trump’s tantrums and inept meddling, Republicans would likely have won at least one if not both of the Senate seats in the Georgia runoff. One could have an interesting debate about whether he was too stupid to know that, or too narcissistic to care. My betting is “both”.
Two reasons in combination.
One is that the delays are already adding up to a week. Will this one be the last? Who the hell knows. But I am conditioned by past behavior to expect the Democratic leadership to delay and avoid meaningful action when they can. Wednesday might turn into Friday and on Friday, Congress might want to get out of town before it becomes Insurrection City again this weekend.
The other is that the river of events is even more unpredictable than usual right now. Who knows what will happen this weekend and next week? This week may be the last moment of relative calm before an even bigger storm. Now is the time to do impeachment if at all, before it gets overtaken by who knows what events.
Yes, we don’t know when the trial will be. But if the House passes an impeachment resolution this week, IMHO there will be a much greater likelihood that there will ultimately be a trial than if they wait past Friday. Because there is no impeachment trial without impeachment.
Then why wait on Pence at all?
The point is to make sure they get sent at all. Once they’re sent, how is Mitch going to fuck things up before the 20th? The articles will still be there, waiting for a Democratic-controlled Senate, unless Mitch actually holds a vote on them first, which won’t happen.
We do not yet know how much is already in the locker as regards evidence, we don’t know the extent of other crimes by Trump supporting politicians.
What we do know is the Republican Party really needs to try to reclaim itself from the lunatics if that is even possible, an impeachment trial gives them the opportunity to show which side of democracy they stand.
When Republicans state that impeachment will be divisive they got it right, it will divide their party and who knows what the result will be - but they need to put nation before party.
Yes it will reveal just how much of their party is under the heel of the Trump activists, personally I think they are completely suborned and GOP and Trump are actually very nearly the same thing - that’s what GOP are frightened of.
First, the problem isn’t our culture; it’s their culture. Having an ‘our’ culture and a ‘their’ culture wouldn’t have been possible 40 years ago. But the Fairness Doctrine got scrapped, which freed people like the soon-to-be-late Rush Limbaugh to spout whatever toxic nonsense they wanted without having to worry about a rebuttal. And once that market was created, Fox News stepped in to take advantage of it and extend it considerably. And now we have Sinclair and Newsmax and OANN and a thousand mini-Rushes on right-wing talk radio, and all the shit that goes down on Facebook.
So they can wrap themselves in the bubble of an alternative universe of news and culture. It sure isn’t my culture; I almost never see it. It’s theirs.
And in the short to medium term, like the next five years, I don’t see what can be done about it. It would take tens of millions of regular Facebook users to leave FB before it even noticed. A good chunk of Fox News’ audience may be in nursing homes or six feet under in another ten or fifteen years, but it’ll take that long.
AFAICT, the main thing we can do about the culture right now is to hold people accountable for their crimes against our democracy. And while the prosecutors and courts will be the main players there, I don’t think Congress can step aside and say it’s not their problem: they too must do what they can to hold people accountable. Holding a President accountable is their job.
It’s true that an impeachment at this point holds only symbolic value, but let me say this: not impeaching Trump, given what we have already seen, would also hold great symbolic value - of all the wrong sort. It would send exactly the wrong message to our culture, and especially to their culture: that they can do bad shit with impunity.
I’ve read that they will be holding the impeachment vote on Wednesday.
Not only is their base heavily right-wing and Trumpist, but it’s also well-armed. A week ago, many were afraid of being primaried, even if they believed Trump should be impeached over the Raffensperger phone call (speaking of things that got overtaken by events). Now they’re probably also afraid that the mob would come after them now, rather than merely voting them out in 2022. Leopards, faces.
Still, if they’re afraid to do their jobs, they can resign. Then move to Australia, once that’s a possibility again.
Guaranteed? Cross their heart and hope to die? No take-backs?
Yes, I read that too, and that’s what I was upset about. They could have remained in session last week, and impeached then, but they recessed. They could have impeached yesterday, but they decided to give Pence 24 hours to invoke the 25th - starting, for no apparent reason, after they passed a resolution asking him to do that, which they had to wait until today on. They could have started that clock ticking yesterday - like they need to pass a resolution in order to deliver an ultimatum - and voted on impeachment today. But they didn’t.
So I’m asking, what’s going to be their excuse on Wednesday? Given their track record, I’ll breathe a sigh of relief if they actually vote on impeachment on Wednesday.
And of course, now they know that while they were besieged, Trump was watching the whole thing on TV, and rather than summon reinforcements to rescue them, he was quite enjoying what he was seeing, and didn’t want anything to interrupt it. Must-see TV.
I’m hoping that will get them off their duffs.
I agree: hold people accountable – where that is possible. But I wouldn’t want to waste a second pursuing accountability where we know in advance it cannot be enforced. We don’t have time for symbolism; we are much too close to an epic collapse for that. When you call the fire department, you don’t call them for symbolism; you call them to put out the fire and save lives. That’s the kind of thinking we need now.
People don’t want symbolism – you might but your average voter doesn’t. They just want Biden to get that vaccine out, get the economy going again, and to show that government still has a place in our society. If he blows his political capital on impeachment, he’ll be risking his opportunity on something that might look like political revenge.
Other nations are looking to see what we do here. If there’s no attempt to hold Trump accountable, our international relations are going to be a good deal more awkward than otherwise.
Maybe you’re confused about who is and isn’t involved in impeachment.
Besides, as I said early in the thread:
Nobody associates things that happen in Congressional committees with the President.
If there is a reasonable chance for conviction before Inauguration they might consider it. Otherwise it seems a waste of time especially after he is gone. There is a massive health emergency where thousands are dying every day. The US is already poorly with its vaccine rollout. Every scrap of attention that the Federal government can spare needs to be directed at that. Voters have already held Trump accountable and the legal system can continue after he goes.
Politicians like to wait until the last actionable moment to do things. Whether it succeeds is dependent on who correctly judged the last actionable moment.
The argument in favor of rushing a vote is to take advantage of the outrage before it dissipates, before the disinfo machine has a chance to put legs under the fake narratives of “it’s just a big goof”, or “the nation needs to move on”, or “what’s the point”.
The argument in favor of delaying is:
- Make sure the key players are on board
- Correctly judge public sentiment
- Allow law enforcement to make arrests and collect evidence
- Give leakers time to leak
- Allow enough time for alternate courses of action to develop
Whatever you think of the merits (I think it is merited), impeaching a short-timer like this is politically risky and may not bring about the desired result. I tend to lean on the “caution is warranted” side.
They are already seriously awkward, but whether to impeach him or not will be viewed as domestic business. Other countries won’t care about anything except whether American voters are dumb enough to keep voting republican in alarming numbers.
That’s the point I’m trying to make: our crisis starts and ends with us, the people who vote. We created this crisis by voting R in 2000, 2002, 2004, and then again in 2010, 12, 14, and 16. It’s voters who have to undo these six catastrophic cycles of elections (you could go back farther of course, to the Gingrich Congress and Reagan White House). Impeachment won’t do much to that end, and I’d argue that if it in any way can be used to disrupt and distract Biden’s agenda in the first 100 days, it’ll be counter-productive.
People are counting on Biden to succeed. That’s why they voted for him in record numbers. They are desperate. If we want to fix this crisis, he and Democrats have to be viewed as effective or at least not problematic. I’d argue that we can do far greater good by using the momentum and bully pulpit - and even regulatory power - to impose regulations on social media companies that have for far too long forsaken their responsibilities to be good corporate citizens. We have to reshape the culture in this country both from the ground up and from top to bottom. It won’t be easy.
I’m hoping he is impeached for two reasons, and it’s fine if it happens post-inauguration (because that’s probably the only way it could happen).
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It sends a message that the United States doesn’t tolerate what he did, and that there are consequences. It shows that even the President of the US can’t just do whatever he wants, act as reckless as he wants, and get away with it.
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It can be used to guarantee he is never able to run again. No calls for a second term, no more groups rallying around him as the leader of the nation. End all hope and fear for that.
I think it’s very important that this happens and I’ll be very worried and disappointed if it doesn’t.
2b. Because of this, it ends the ability of Trump to fundraise from his useful idiots for his pretend 2024 run, giving him a slush fund of cash that he can use to prop up his rapidly failing business empire when the loans start to get called in.
There’s also this: you don’t give in to the demands of terrorists.
Practically the whole Republican party has been saying, you better not impeach, or we’ll get even madder than the last time.
Sorry, but you can’t give in to that sort of extortion. You want to embolden these people? (And here I’m talking about the Republicans in Congress getting their way through threats of violence.) Fuck that shit. No appeasement for these bastards.
I think the situation on the ground, as it were, is escalating rapidly and new information on both the seriousness of the attack and the extent of the security failures is causing them to run for the exits.
At this point, I would not be surprised to see elected Republican House legislators openly threaten violence against the families of anyone who votes to impeach Trump.
This is how low they have sunk.
What does h/t mean? Couldn’t you have written it in your post? (Or maybe it’s known by all but me)