The GOP have no principles or spine, all they care about is getting re-elected. The only way Trump gets impeached is if the GOP starts to think there is a serious risk the rank and file will lose reelection for being too pro-Trump.
I’m personally already seeing this a bit. But as more and more polls show the dems taking the house in 2018 and the GOP senators barely breaking even in 2018, more GOP senators will defect.
The problem is, the base of the GOP is blindly loyal to Trump. HOwever everyone else (the other 70% of the country) is getting more and more disgusted. So GOP politicians are in a bind. Reject Trump and enrage that 30% who make up the base of the GOP. This means you may lose a primary election. Or align with Trump and alienate those 70% of dems and independents, which means you may lose a general election.
Either way, fuck em. They made their bed, so lie in it. The republicans have been preying on the bigotry and stupidity of Americans for decades, and now it is finally starting to bite them in the ass.
What ‘may’ happen is Trump tries to win some popularity by abandoning conservative values and embracing liberal values. This will enrage the GOP base but not win him much support among liberals. If that happens, then the GOP will realize there is literally nothing to gain from staying aligned with him. The GOP base, independents and democrats will all oppose him.
The Democrats can agitate as much as they want. It won’t budge Trump inch out of the Oval Office via impeachment or the 25th. The only way that happens is if the GOP decides Trump must go.
Impeachment is going to be the constant refrain for all four years of Trump’s Presidency and maybe eight. It acts as a comforter for the Democrats, almost like thumb-sucking. Come the Greek Kalends it may just happen.
It only take 3 republicans senator to “cross the line” for the GOP to get over ridden on issues, it already just happened on an environmental bill. Surely out of the 54 GOP senators at least three of them can see the immense damage Trump is doing to the rule of law and future of democracy in the US?
They need 67 votes to convict in the Senate for impeachment and 2/3 majority in both Houses to uphold a finding of disability that Trump has challenged.
To get Trump out of office, every single Democratic and independent Senator would have to vote to convict, and 19 Republican Senators would have to join them, to get to a total of 67.
What I’m curious about, at this point, is, if there were a motion to impeach Trump, how many Democrats in Congress would vote to keep Trump in office, especially if they felt that Trump in office boded better for their electoral prospects in 2018 and 2020.
Ok I guess I should have been more clear, I wasn’t just talking about direct impeachment. For example a 51% senate majority could I believe demand Trump’s tax and other financial records and the evidence in those could lead to impeachment. They could (and hopefully will) also veto his new FBI head if it’s clear he’s a partisan who will kill the russia investigation… (and that investigation could later lead to impeachment)
Ah OK I see. However I still doubt that there’d be 19 Republican Senators who’d vote to convict Trump, even if such tax/financial records were obtained. The deciding factor wouldn’t be any criminal evidence, but rather, what Gallup polling is saying about the GOP’s chances in the upcoming elections.
I’m not saying complete incapacity. I’m saying a diminished capacity which leaves him “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”.
Airline pilots face a mandatory retirement at sixty-five. Nobody is saying they’re incapacitated. But they generally no longer have the capabilities to handle a highly demanding job. The presidency is a much more demanding job.
I’m not saying it needs to happen. But it’s a face-saving option for the Republicans if they decide they want one.
Well yes but I would like to believe that blatant enough evidence of corruption would actually influence those poll numbers For example Flynn squealing like a pig under oath that Trump (or more likely a surrogate that hold it on his behalf) was offered billions in Rosneft stock for getting sanctions lifted off Russia.
(not saying that did actually happen, but I’d like to think something that blatant would actually change public opinion enough to make impeachment inevitable).
Plus years of prescription drug abuse. Trump famously doesn’t drink, but there is plenty of reports of ex staff that he used to take various kinds of uppers at levels which can leave long lasting damage.
That "I invented the phrase ‘prime the pump’ COULD be a harbinger of dementia - it smacks of confabulation - but with Trump, it is so hard to tell. He might just be acting like his braggart, ignorant, lying self: maybe he’s too ill-informed to realize the term is a common one and he’s lying about inventing it because self-aggrandizement is what he does, and he thinks (correctly it would seem) that he can get away with anything.
A scenario that hasn’t been mentioned yet is that he might become incapacitated due to declining physical health. Presidents always age in office, but I must say, he already looks a lot worse than he did on the campaign trail; he’s getting more bloated looking already. And somehow I doubt that Mr. I-get-two-scoops-of-ice-cream-with-my-chocolate-pie has the self-discipline to eat vegetables and exercise. If a severe stroke or heart attack is in his future, I’d not be too surprised.
Said this in another thread: 1 in every 11 Germans alive on September 1st, 1939 were dead by May 5th, 1945… and Hitler still had to remove himself from power.
Reagan wasn’t impeached for Iran-Contra. GWB never got in any trouble. Maybe some lower level guys will get thrown under the bus. The GOP certainly doesn’t care to pursue anything.
Let’s get real here. He has essentially confessed to obstruction of justice. He fired Comey because of the Russia investigation, throwing everybody under the bus who lied their asses off for him just a couple days earlier. This alone should be enough to remove him from office and place him in Leavenworth. There will be more that comes out as the FBI investigation continues. When this is all said and done, he’s going to make Nixon look as pure as Jimmy Carter by comparison.
The other reality is that the Republican Party is both a criminal enterprise and a terrorist organization. They are not going to do anything while they are in the majority. Beauregard Sessions is not going to hire a special prosecutor and neither is any assistant who may come along. This thing is going to consume the remainder of this presidency whether it be 1 year or 3 1/2 years. The FBI will do its thing, but what happens when they are done? They tell Congress and what are they going to do? MAYBE in 2018 the House will flip and the Senate come closer to doing so (it WILL flip in 2020).
Ultimately, the awakened Democratic majority will vote him out. Not that I wouldn’t welcome impeachment/conviction/imprisonment/execution. But for the remainder of this term, NOTHING gets done. The Republican agenda is dead in the water while they try to save this miserable waste of fake tanning lotion in the White House.
For example Flynn squealing like a pig under oath that Trump (or more likely a surrogate that hold it on his behalf) was offered billions in Rosneft stock for getting sanctions lifted off Russia.