I don’t understand why you (and others in this thread) seem unwilling to consider the possibility that by making the ‘face of the Democratic Party’ that of its most progressive members, Trump may instill enough fear in enough voters to make them vote for Republican senators (even if they aren’t also going to support Trump).
Possibly because Donald Trump is the “face of the Republican Party,” and Republican senators seem ready to embrace him.
Consider these two tweets from Missouri’s Josh Hawley after he addressed the National Conservatism Congress earlier this week.
I find sad that two people as intelligent as Hawley and Nussbaum are supposed to be fail to realize the implications of the word “cosmopolitan,” which was used by both Soviets and Nazis to refer to Jews.
Since you’re ignoring Amash’s vote to table impeachment on this past Wednesday, my view that his vote was strategic is more plausible, and DrDeth is correct.
“Political” and “reality” can be the same thing. Especially when one understands the math that you continually refuse to explain how to overcome.
Sure thing.
I see. You can ascribe motives to Pelosi, but not to Amash. That’s pretty convenient, too.
…the assertion “The only reason for or against Impeachment is to get Trump out” is objectively not correct. Even if you ignore Amash’s arguement you still have Warren’s, you still have every single other argument for impeachment which is not predicated on “getting Trump out.”
No they are not. There is no overlap here. We are talking motivation. The motivation for “not impeaching on the grounds that Trump might win again” is political, not “reality.”
The math would be overcome the minute Pelosi changed her mind on impeachment. If she supported it almost everyone else would flip. I’m not avoiding the maths. It simply isn’t relevant to anything that I have said.
Nothing convenient about it at all. Pelosi said yesterday that “she will deal with it on the floor.” That is consistent with every public statement she has made regarding impeachment.
As for Warren’s position, she has the luxury of not having to vote on anything except removal. Amash, however… seems to me, his goal is to get Trump out. Why else come out in favor of impeachment yet vote to table impeachment for now?
The math is the math. You’ve yet to explain how it can be overcome. That is reality.
Pie in the sky. Pelosi has never said she doesn’t support impeachment. What she has said is she’s not willing to support unsuccessful impeachment. Please cite anywhere she has ruled out impeachment altogether. That’s simply a false assertion on your part. And yes, you are totally avoiding the math.
How is that ruling out impeachment? All she’s doing is ruling it out for now. Do you genuinely not get this distinction?
…did you read Warren’s reasons why she thinks impeachment is appropriate? Its all there.
This has nothing to do with my point. If you want to find out why Amash didn’t vote for impeachment on this occasion you will have to ask him.
I literally just told you how it could be overcome. Really I did. I actually did. That is the reality.
There was nothing false in my assertion. If Pelosi changes her mind everyone else changed her mind. Now can you get out of the habit of quoting me then arguing that I said something that I didn’t in that quote?
And by the way: impeachment happens in the house. It requires a majority vote. If Pelosi thinks impeachment would be unsuccessful thats an indictment on her ability to do her job. You aren’t talking about impeachment. You are talking about the trial.
Except I’m not.
I’m entirely comfortable with my opinion. I understand you think a distinction exists. Based on everything she has said in public and everything we have heard that has gone on behind the scenes I don’t think Pelosi has any intention of changing her mind.
Its equal parts hilarious, maddening, and depressing. The most galling thing (if true…the claim was made by someone on reddit) is that the guy says he’s still going to vote for Trump. Despite all the shit he enumerates.
And he’s black.
If he’s representative of independents woke enough to be bothered by Trump’s racism but not logical enough to abandon him, then God help this country. Scrap that. God is dead.
If the House impeaches, the Senate will not (if they even bother with a vote/trial). Trump and his supporters will say “See? I’m as innocent as the pure WHITE driven snow”. This will help with his re-election. If anyone is on the fence about Trump (how that is possible is something that I will never understand) a House impeachment and Senate acquittal will drive them towards Trump ("I was right all along! He’s innocent!) This will play well for them around the dinner table when talking politics. The few that may feel a twinge of guilt for supporting a racist have been vindicated (but, but he’s innocent!).
It’s nice when choices are black and white. In that of course the House should do their job and impeach. If they even can. But when your house is burning down, it is pointless to throw buckets of water on it. What you do, is make plans for building a new house.
Vote Trump out and let the NYSD keep Trump busy for the rest of his pitiful life (he will sadly, never see prison), and move on.
If the numbers aren’t there among the House Democratic caucus for impeachment, then it may just be a matter of time. It should also be noted that support for impeachment is currently much higher among both House Democrats and the general public than it was when the impeachment inquiry into Nixon was started.
Even if there are some House Democrats that don’t favor impeachment for purely political reasons, because they think that acquittal by the Senate would be a victory for Trump, I think they would support a House impeachment vote if it came to it, since in political terms they would surely recognize that it would be a disaster for an impeachment effort to fail among Democrats in the House, rather than among Republicans in the Senate, where it is a moot point whether that would be a political victory or defeat.
It’s a tough decision. Some days I feel that an impeachment inquiry should be opened now, and other days I feel that it would be best to hold the current course, advocated by Pelosi and others, to let the House committees keep investigating and “see where the facts lead”, although we all know where they are likely lead.
Aye; you’re not alone. I excoriate the Democrats as being weak all the time (because they are) but I recognize the importance of getting this right and the seemingly narrow crack that needs to be widened in order to ensure it is done right (i.e., achieves the desired outcome). I have a ton of respect for Nancy Pelosi, but I do get frustrated.
I get frustrated because there is always the idea in my head that it’s already too late to stop the flood, that while he is in office he and his supporters do so much damage that there isn’t time or resources to fix it and so we are doomed to a slow spiraling decline, at best. That thought often horrifies me, and so I feel that I want things done now.
Patience is the hardest skill I have ever tried to acquire. I’ve been consciously working on mine for over 30 years now and I’m still not as good at it as I want to be; prolly never will be. But I am trying.
In one of the YouTube vids that popped up beside it there’s a video in which Latins for Trump explain why they still support him, and yes, it was just as head-shakingly perplexing.
I think we sometimes forget that there are people in various racial categories who have different life experiences and perceive their blackness or Latino-ness or whatever-ness differently than how the ‘typical’ experience is presented through the media. It doesn’t make them less Black or Latino; it just means they’ve interpreted their identity differently than what we’re familiar with. Whether that’s ‘right’ or not…I don’t know, wouldn’t be qualified to answer.
I understand why people say impeachment proceedings are imprudent.
But this understanding doesn’t allay my concerns about where we’ll be if Trump wins in 2020. If this happens, not only will we be left with no plan A or B, but people’s faith in the political process will be completely destroyed. Anger is going to turn to rage. The moderate Dems who urging all this caution and “strategy” will be seen as complicit with the Republicans, and they will have lose influence as their support disappears .Not only do I fear we’ll be seeing unrest greater than anything our parents or grandparents lived through, but I expect the government response to this unrest will be as horrifically disproportionate as the situation at the border. This is a regime that believes in making examples of people, and so it will be then, when cops are used to arrest, put down, and even execute protestors.
They’re not necessarily imprudent; I’m just saying there might be a right way and a wrong way to go about it. I think impeaching him over the allegations in the Mueller report won’t work. Ideally, in my world, Trump makes a mistake that pisses off not just the progressives but more moderate and centrist Dems, and I think violating the Court would have been that mistake. FWIW, I think he will make more mistakes.
I think the strongest argument for pulling back on impeachment, at least initially, has been that it’s ideally better to defeat someone like Trump at the ballot box than through constitutional machinations of impeachment. That assumes that we actually have fair and legitimate elections, of course, and like you, I share the concern that this might not be possible. Having said all of that, we may get to a point where Democrats collectively just feel like impeaching him. I’m not sure I’m necessarily that opposed to it at this point. I’m much less opposed to impeaching him than I was even 30 days ago. I just hope that whatever they do, they are methodical and organized in how they approach it.
Absolutely no disagreement here. We are in real trouble as a country, and if we end up with 4 more years of Trump, the US as we know it may be irreversibly damaged.
The numbers are continually rising, and that is Pelosi’s goal. The point you make about support for impeachment being currently much higher among both House Democrats and the general public than it was for Nixon is absolutely true.
However, in the Nixon era, we weren’t fighting against the likes of Fox “News,” nor had Republicans fully abandoned their oaths to the Constitution. The anticipated trajectory of public opinion was much easier to plot. It’s a very different world today, and unfortunately at the moment, Republicans hold most of the levers of government. Trump will unscrupulously use them all in his crusade to remain in office – with McConnell’s and Barr’s unscrupulous help. Pelosi must regard that. It is her job.
The House Democrats who don’t favor impeachment for purely political reasons is not just because they think that acquittal by the Senate would be a victory for Trump. They also think it will be a personal defeat for them in 2020. These are districts, about 31 of them if I recall correctly, that have almost always been red but swung blue in 2018. We won the House because of them. The constituencies of these districts do not support impeachment. We could lose the House majority again – together with the Senate – if they swing back by giving Trump that victory. That’s a reality calculus as much as a political one.
You’re right also that those House Dems will support an impeachment effort if Pelosi calls for one. And it may cost them their seats when the effort fails, as it invariably will unless public sentiment swings hard toward removal, in the Senate. So what will that have gotten us? Four more years of Trump, McConnell and Barr, that’s what. Only from 2020 to 2024, they may have the House back, too.
We all know exactly where it will lead. We’re not the ones who need it explained to us. Neither does Pelosi. But unfortunately, a majority of persons in this country do not support impeachment, and that is the reality math with which she is faced. Those Americans accepted Trump’s and Barr’s representations at face value and don’t understand why we’re still spending time on the whole foreign intervention in our elections thing. They remain vulnerable to believing those representations. From Dems, they want to hear ideas about health care, infrastructure, jobs. They get angry when their representatives’ time is taken up with impeachment stuff.
What do you think we’ll be talking about 24/7 if/when an impeachment inquiry is opened? If Dems don’t have their ducks lined up with respect to court rulings re subpoenas, etc. before they open their official inquiry, it’s just going to look like another “failed” attempt. Why do you think Jerry Nadler is holding off, even though he has the power as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment inquiry even without Pelosi’s consent?
If you think our nation is unrecognizable now, just think what it could look like with another 4 years of the Trump nightmare. Two more SCOTUS seat picks, at least. Another obscene tax cut for the already obscenely wealthy. Misogyny, xenophobia and white supremacy will be who we are and what we are known for around the world. A police state that looks a lot like Saudi Arabia or Russia.
Pelosi and Nadler are not stupid. They understand they hold the fate of the entire nation in their hands. Best not fuck up.
I hear a lot of people say history will judge Democrats harshly in hindsight if they don’t pursue impeachment immediately. I disagree. I don’t think history will judge Democrats at all. If they lose, they won’t be writing history.
Happily, Trump has handed Dems another basis on which to impeach him, one that is not nearly so complicated as foreign intervention in our elections: Naked white supremacy. Even Republicans don’t want to openly run on this platform. They prefer it to stay submerged, just below the surface. But Trump won’t be able to resist.
