Of course that’s what’s already happening. The question seems to come down to a matter of interpretation on the part of those “seething Republicans”. Do they interpret Trump’s actions as merely that of a petty, vindictive, stubby fingered man who lacks self-control, or do they interpret them as someone who is behaving deliberately and according to some kind of plan? If they assume the latter rather than the former, they give Trump more credit than he deserves.
Okay, so they don’t have Trump testify.
They just hold hearings and have all of the witnesses testify against Trump. At televised hearings.
This is more than likely. Some hearings are inevitable.
Although Dopers would love the spectacle, Congress needs to do this sparingly. A hearing is a long, drawn-out affair that titillates only political groupies. The public will get bored after the first couple, if it takes that long. Most polls suggest that people want Congress to get stuff done, and hearings would only reveal stuff that everybody already knows if they’ve been playing the slightest attention. A Democrat revenge tour doesn’t play to its base the way Republican revenge tours do.
I think we’d be better off to wait until 2029 and a Democratic president presiding over a DoJ with some teeth. I hate to say that because 2029 is a mythical future at this point, and the country may have torn apart by then. So get the biggest offenders, you know, “the worst of the worst,” in 2027 but get some positive achievements in the bank first.
I disagree. I feel that the nation’s future depends on us not just surviving Trump. We need to repudiate Trump. We need to impeach and imprison Trump in order to acknowledge that we screwed up but also to show that we were able to fix the problem.
We need to show that there are consequences. If Trump is allowed to complete his term, pay a few token fines, and die a free man, we’re just inviting another criminal to do the same. And next time it’ll be a more competent criminal.
How can Congress impeach and convict when that takes a two-thirds majority which the Dems won’t have? You’re trusting the Reps to cross that line? Fantasy. Another failed impeachment will make Trump stronger and ruin any chances that Congress can successfully oppose his madness.
Take what is possible.
Hold the public hearings so everybody sees the evidence and knows that Trump is guilty. (Except for the maga cultists. They’re hopeless and all we can do with them is push them back under the rock.)
Start the impeachment process.
Make it clear that every Republican who stands by Trump and refuses to vote for impeachment in the face of Trump’s clear guilt will pay by being voted out of office.
Watch how many Republicans place their own self-interest ahead of any loyalty to Trump.
Stop acting like this is hopeless and everything is impossible so we might as well just give up and do nothing more strenuous than complaining. I swear, I think some people want Trump to win just so they can enjoy losing.
Well, direct from Trump, he does not care about the midterms:
Having said that, based on his next statement about last night being the prelude to the midterms, I think his attitude here is that he expects to win without effort. However, I expect that most people are not going to necessarily draw the same conclusion and will instead take his first statement at face value.
Does that mean that his cult shouldn’t feel it necessary to vote?
The congresscritters do not fear Trump. They fear the lowest common denominator voters that will attack them if they try to question Trump, so any possible exposure on Trump’s misdeeds in Congress merely exposes the people that oppose him.
Ken Paxton, one of the most loathsome creatures in the political underworld, just crushed popular sitting senator John Cornyn in the primary because of Trump’s endorsement.
As long as Trump is head of the cult, self-interest and supporting Trump are practically circles on a Venn diagram. The more Dems attack him, the tighter the cult embrace him.
Apropos of Nothing… Brazil 1984, mass “riots” and demonstrations when the legislation failed, many crying Foul! Businesses locked their doors, Police swarmed the streets, teargas was flying all over…
Lasted about an hour, then everybody went home, hardly heard a word after that. Craziest thing I’d ever seen up to that point. Still got the T-Shirt.
My congratulations to Senator-Elect Talarico.
In a sane world I’d agree with you. In our world, I’d believe this only if Cornyn ran an independent and split the Republican vote.
Paxton gave a man who’d raped a 10-year-old boy and was facing life in prison a deal that resulted in a 60-day sentence and not even having to register as a sex offender, then let him out after less than a month for “good behavior”.
That’s gonna be a MAJOR weapon in Talarico’s arsenal.
Interesting article at Alternet about the Texas primary. Voting in primaries is almost always much lower than in any other type of election, but the Texas vote was shockingly small. Seems like all non-MAGA types stayed home. That’s a telling sign of what might happen in November.
Dems are not going to convert many Reps; too much hate for them. But if they stay home that’s almost as good.
Not to mention that the party spent $90 million trying to boost Cornyn and they’re now scrubbing all those ads attacking Paxton, so they’ll need a new bucket of money for the fall.
All good news. I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised if good comes from it.
Not gonna happen. There’s a reason Cornyn lost by a very large margin, and it isn’t that Trump endorsed Paxton, or that Paxton’s politics are that much further to the right than Cornyn’s. It’s because Cornyn debased himself, and it was a terrible look for him.
I’m a Democrat. If I was forced to choose between a Senator Paxton and a Senator Cornyn, I’d pick Senator Cornyn. But in these last few months, Cornyn came across as a little snot nosed kid begging the big boys to let him play with them, with a “I’ll do whatever you tell me to if you just let me hang out with you, please please please please” approach to his position as senator. It was an ugly look. Very ugly. If I, as a Democrat, noticed it and was turned off by it, I can only imagine that the typical Republican voter, to whom such things matter even more (they would never vote for a cuck or beta male, which is how Cornyn came across) would have been easily swayed over to Paxton by Cornyn’s extremely public display of groveling. Paxton’s voters probably voted for him with their heads held high. Cornyn’s voters probably voted for him holding their nose.
As far as Talarico vs. Paxton, right now I agree with the popular wisdom that Talarico is a slight favorite. My guess is 52/48 (likelihood of winning, not vote margin). The events between now and the election will determine who will win. Cornyn’s actions, whatever they may be, are not one of the potential events that will sway that probability one way or the other. At this point he’s a nothing factor.
Also, it’s a genuine good reason not to support them. Does that sound like the person who will be willing and able to actually get anything done for his constituents? A Senator needs an assertive personality to actually accomplish things. It’s not like other Senators will respect a groveler any more than the voters did.
In 2020 Cornyn beat Hegar 54-44. In 2024 Cruz beat Allred 53-45.
Any third party that pulls eight percentage points away from Paxton could give the election to Talarico. That’s 15% of the R vote from 2020, which is a lot. but no matter what you say about Cornyn, his getting 15% of the vote just from name recognition, given moderately good funding for a campaign, is a realistic possibility. MAGA voters aren’t near 85% of Republicans even in Texas. He’s 74. His political career is done. I realize he’s been an extremely loyal party follower so the likelihood of his inserting himself into the race is small. As a spoiler, though, he has enormous power.
The real-world problem is that he’s too late to file as an independent and Texas only has two recognized third parties, Libertarian and Green. The Libertarians already have a candidate. The Greens don’t, but Cornyn running as a Green is fantasy. The Libertarians picked their candidate from a convention of less than 100 people. Could they make a change just to boost their own name recognition? No clue.
I don’t think Cornyn has any path to be on the ballot. I’m saying that the election is already expected to be close and any R votes torn from Paxton might be the difference-maker. Please note that in the post you linked to I presumed a Paxton win. Hoping not doesn’t change that; it’s just more of 30 years of hoping that Texas turns blue.
I agree that he won’t be on the ballot. But in a hypothetical three way race, I think there’s also a good chance he could actually do more damage to Talarico than to Paxton. Paxton has his base, and Cornyn isn’t going to peel them away. The votes Cornyn would get would be from the Liz Cheney wing of the Republican Party. Given Paxton’s character, I think there’s a better than even chance those voters would either vote for Talarico or stay home.
Living in Houston, I was subjected to months of Cornyn ads. He had the old “voted with Trump 99% of the time” in all of them. That used to be fine.
For Maga, that’s not nearly enough. Cult level voting required. Immediately made my ears perk up as a red flag. How would the Cornyn campaign not understand this.
For anyone else, that’s way too much. That’s no maverick or anything close to it.