One problem that impeachment presents is how to define an impeachable offense. Moreover, when should a country really start the process of trying to use extra-democratic means to remove an office holder.
Even if you have some current FBI or DoJ officials testifying that the president committed illegal acts, does it hold that we necessarily impeach? Is Congress obligated to impeach even when a majority of the American public is not really on board?
Being able to make an argument for impeachment that satisfies a constitutional law professor is one thing, but what if the country isn’t bothered by the alleged criminality to want the president removed?
This is the tempest that Democrats are sailing into: potentially removing a president without the consent of a clear majority of people. Hate Trump all you want, but I would be careful when handling these live wires.
Funny that there isn’t a clear majority in favor of impeachment before anyone’s bothered to make the case for it. Who’d’a thunk? :rolleyes:
You don’t define one; you run prospective impeachable offenses up the flagpole and see who says, “fuck yeah, that’s impeachable.”
Stuff like ten apparent instances of obstruction of justice, five of which have been shown to meet the standard for criminality? Fuck yeah. Children in cages taking care of babies in cages? Fuck yeah.
If anyone thinks they’re trying to remove Trump via impeachment, I think they’re deluded.
But what’s extra-democratic about this? We’re a representative democracy, which is the normal type of democracy for any group that’s too large to convene in a single room. And our elected representatives would be initiating a procedure enshrined in our Constitution.
Clearly there’s about 40% of the population that wouldn’t think Trump should be impeached if he had the Democratic Party HQ bulldozed. But you can bet that Democratic leaders will be paying attention to how it’s playing with the other 60% when they make their case: you may have noticed that while Republicans will cheerfully do whatever they want, regardless of popular opinion, Democrats get scared at the least hint of opposition. I am totally unworried that the Dems would schedule a vote on impeachment unless the winds of popular support were blowing their way.
Should congressional majorities always do this when the president is a member of the opposition party? Just run various charges up the flagpole and see who’s interested?
Nothing new we’re talking about. It’s not going to make Democrats more popular.
Just because they can do it doesn’t mean they should.
Everything that has been raised as impeachment bait is essentially old news. I have no idea why people think that going from “oversight” to “impeachment” is going to suddenly make the public outraged when they could have been outraged by many of the things he said on the campaign trail in 2016.
I’m not saying never impeach, but I wouldn’t bother unless it’s something we haven’t seen before.
They saw things on the campaign trail, yes. This is not about the campaign trail. This is about impeachable offenses. I know what these are, that is, the ones Mueller listed in his report. I assume you do to. But what makes you think the average Democrat, or any other person for that matter, has? Why can’t it be that bluster doesn’t affect opinion that much, but possible, likely crimes, will?
Christ, the guy basically admitted he has a penchant for groping women (a crime), which was later corroborated by scores of women. And did it matter? Nope - got elected by the country eyes wide open anyway. Hell, he admitted in an interview that he pushed Comey out because of “the Russia thing” - obstruction of justice, last I looked. We didn’t need Mueller for that. We didn’t need Mueller to establish that Trump is a criminal and a con man. I hate to say it, but people really and truly don’t care about that - not in 2019. They just…don’t. You do. I do. But the average American that ended up getting this guy elected does not.
Viewers aren’t going to see “crimes” they’re going to see one party trying to weaken a president they don’t like, which is how they’ve been seeing it for the past 2 years.
There may be people, Democrats or otherwise, who aren’t aware of things as of now that would come out during an impeachment hearing and then trial. In fact, I’m sure there are. You know why? Because most people in the country aren’t like you and I, in that they don’t follow this shit in detail like we do, discuss it everyday, get different viewpoints, and then decide where we stand. I’d bet oh 80% of the American public has no idea who the fuck Mueller is. But here’s the thing: I don’t know if impeachment would help or hurt Trump. As I’ve said elsewhere though, I can see reasons to think it would and reasons to think it would not, and acknowledge each as a real possibility. You don’t seem to be open to this idea.
This is a perfect example that I said why exactly. But, sorry, “they just don’t” doesn’t help when it comes to Dem voters. I know you said “who got him elected”. But Im talking about Dems,not them,.
Not sure if you have brought up polls, but others have, so to respond to them and maybe you, since I’ve thought about this for a while:
I haven’t looked for any polls recently about if Democratic voters are for or against impeachment. If there is one out there that says not only that a large percentage are against it, but also why they are against it, and the reasons are along the lines of that they don’t think Trump deserves it and it would lessen their chances for voting for a Dem, that would support the idea. If on the other hand a major reason, for example, is because they’re sick of DC, don’t trust either side, and don’t want an impeachment to muck up their TV schedules or whatever, then that would not support it. A simple poll of Dems that says only that they are against it is pretty meaningless, IMO.
It certainly has to be one of the criteria. If after you’ve made your best case as the Judiciary Committee debates articles of impeachment, and only a minority think they’re important, then yeah, you should bag it. Just like the GOP should have in 1998, after they’d made the midterms a referendum on impeachment, and lost.
Of course none of it’s new. Big fucking deal! The point is that while there’s always some new Trump outrage, (ETA: the big stuff has gotten lost in the rest of the garbage, and) nobody’s bothered to say, “these are the ones that are beyond the pale, nobody who does these things should be allowed to continue as President. All that other stuff is bad, but someone can be a total shitheel and still be President. This is the stuff that goes way beyond that.” The impeachment process will do that.
You said it was “extra-democratic.” I explained why it wasn’t. I gather you concede the point, since this is in no way a rebuttal.
It’s certainly within the parameters of the constitution and it’s part of the machinery of our republican form of government, but it can certainly be perceived by voters as extra-democratic, or reversing the outcome of an election. When Republicans attempted to remove Clinton from office, that was perceived as extra-democratic, which is also why the public didn’t like it and part of the reason Republicans lost seats in the 1998 elections and why Newt Gingrich lost his speakership.
With any president you could probably find 30-40% of the country that didn’t like the candidate and would be willing to impeach him/her. But for the most part, most voters would rather remove a sitting president through elections.
Has anyone even noticed the all-but-nonexistent ‘oversight’ any more than they’ve noticed all the waste-of-time ‘message bills’?
The point isn’t outrage, any more than it was in the case of Nixon’s impeachment. The point was then and is now: yes, this is very serious shit - too serious to just get mad over.
Stuff like what Trump said about Baltimore the other day - yeah, that was stuff to get mad about, but was far from an impeachable offense.
Remember when you knew you were in trouble with your parents when they yelled at you? And when you knew you were in far worse trouble when you’d done something bad, and they didn’t yell at you, but just got really quietly serious when they sat you down?
Or maybe your parents weren’t like that. But it’s kinda like that. Impeachment is when we get really quietly serious, because the stuff he’s done is past the point of yelling and outrage.
All I can say is, I’m not impressed with your judgment.
I doubt very many voters thought about it in those terms. While technically the GOP was impeaching Clinton for obstruction of justice, for lying about a blowjob, they put most of their PR effort into making it all about sleazy sex. And most people didn’t think either the sleazy sex, or being cornered into lying about it, was reason for impeachment, that’s why the GOP lost seats. And Gingrich lost his speakership because he’d been making whoopee on the side as well, which would have undermined their case if they’d kept him.
Well yeah. The point is, Trump isn’t a “for the most part” President. And don’t worry, they’ll still get the opportunity to remove him in 2020.
If they Can, yeah, maybe they should. For instance, Obama was widely despised by members of the GOP base. They would have been happy to be rid of him. But what would their representatives have charged him with? Smoking a joint in High School? Good luck with that impeachment.
The Trump case is radically different. Trump is guilty, many times.
Trump is definitely more vulnerable both on the ‘possible actual crimes’ front and on the ‘violate various Constitutional provisions, such as the emoluments clause’ front.
But that wouldn’t have stopped the GOP from voting to impeach Obama, had that been the norm (and had they a majority in the house). “Disrespect for our military” (saluting while holding a cup in his hand); “disrespect for the office of the Presidency” (due to wearing a tan suit); “failure to uphold his oath of office” (due to playing golf too many times)------these are only some of the possible charges that the Republicans might have set down as articles of impeachment.
Ludicrously partisan? Ridiculously political?
Of course. Impeachment is an inherently political phenomenon. It’s nothing to do with eternal truths or timeless expressions of Right and Wrong.
Interesting. You’ll remember that a similar charge* was the first on the Senate voted on in the trial of Andrew Johnson and the House felt it was an assured conviction - but he was acquitted of the charge. So the standard is that being an ass towards Congress is not a high crime or misdemenor so please remember that Dems if Trump is acquitted of verbally attacking Congressmembers or Congress itself.
*The first charge voted on was disparaging Congress, not violating the Tenure of Office Act.