McConnell will pull any conceivable kind of procedural shit if he thinks most people aren’t paying attention. But to refuse to allow a trial would be a constitutional crisis and would be a huge huge news story. It would make it appear that he is afraid that Trump would lose this trial, when he can instead just let the same Republicans who would vote for this procedural motion vote against removal and then claim vindication without the firestorm.
Sad but true. There may be some kind of underlying sociological process that maintains an equilibrium. The 50-60% or so “whitest” voters will always consider themselves white and ally together against the “brownest” ones.
I have lived in several parts of the country, but where I have spent the past couple years is in northern Minnesota, where we have a vantage point to sort of see this dynamic from the outside. The vast majority of the population here is blue-eyed, with lots of red and natural blonde hair. (Guys with bushy red beards who look like Tormund from “Game of Thrones” are a dime a dozen here.) Then we also have a very visible population of recent Somalian immigrants. But the spectrum in between, of Italian Americans and so on, is almost entirely absent. So when my family visited New York City last summer, I felt like we were the only “white people” on the entire packed Staten Island Ferry, except for one other family that I subsequently noticed was speaking German to each other, LOL.
I had lived for a couple years in NYC in the late 90s, and remember feeling like there were white people all over the place. But now that I have gotten used to not being around people of southern European or Middle Eastern origin, my perceptions have shifted in the opposite way as happened over the twentieth century in the country overall.
I think this is probably correct. Sure, McConnell could just block a trial, but if he already knows he has the votes to exonerate him, why not just have a dog-and-pony show trial and be done with it?
Bringing this back into the thread to make it clear what my position is, since there seems to be some confusion:
If the House votes to impeach, the Senate will do nothing.
That’s it. McConnell will not visibly stop a trial from happening. The Senate will stop it by not starting it to begin with, by engaging in exactly zero trial-related activities. (Which would of course be at McConnell’s direction, whether anyone says so or not.) The House will impeach, and the Senate…<crickets>.
Show me where the Constitution says the Senate has to have a trial if the House impeaches.
If the Constitution doesn’t require it, then not having a trial would not be a Constitutional crisis.
And once again, McConnell doesn’t have to actively ‘refuse’ anything. The Senate just does nothing.
And as far as McConnell only pulling procedural shit if people aren’t paying attention, he got rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations while everyone was watching, in order to confirm Gorsuch. He will change procedure in full view if he thinks there’s enough to be gained.
Trump has explicitly called for, endorsed, or expressed approval for violence on multiple occasions, including violence against migrants: Trump Is Getting Worse - The Atlantic
The same article also details how he’s expressed sympathy for those with violent tendencies, and the direct implication that his supporters would be more skilled and capable of violence than his critics.
The latter link also argues that Trump is getting worse on this – more and more he and his advertisements use words like “invasion” and “invaders” when referring to migrants.
It seems clear to me why he’s doing this – he has made no effort, and perhaps has no ability, to rhetorically reach out to moderate or minority voters. I think he and his team recognize that the only chance they have at a second term is to make sure every single supporter, including the hardcore racists and white supremacists, vote. He can’t risk turning off the racists and white supremacists.
Trump wants to go to El Paso, but critics think it’s a bad idea.
Trump will go, particularly now that he’s been told NOT to, and especially since he knows it’ll inflame people in El Paso. He gets another opportunity to create another “Us vs. Them” moment.
People who support this piece of shit are supporting the internal destruction of their own country, and for what - so they can boost their pathetic fragile little egos? So they can get a tax cut? Is that all it takes to sell this country out?
I think it’s quite simple: he hates the same people that they do. They fear the US becoming browner, blacker, freer to love the same gender or switch gender, and where people can pray as they see fit. No matter how much they claim to love the Constitution, they hate the freedoms that it stands for. They want a strongmen who can tell the others, you aren’t fucking welcome here.
One theory I heard floated in an interesting interview of a Vox writer (herself young and black) by the conservative #NeverTrump writer and podcaster Jonah Goldberg, is that Trump himself is only mildly casually racist—but he condescendingly believes conservatives (a group he does not truly belong to) absolutely love virulent racism, so he throws them lots of bigoted red meat to boost their adulation of him.
A lot of us have debated whether this is Trump the impulsive narcissist or Trump the strategist. In truth, it’s probably both.
Part of Trump is just pure impulse - no strategy, just years of Roy Cohn tutelage and vicious narcissism that fuels a viper-like reflexive attack on anyone who attacks his character. He doubles and triples down and refuses to apologize. If he’s asked to stay away so communities have time to heal, he flies there to spit in their face. The closest he’ll come to an apology is saying “It’s a sad situation” or he’ll simply drop the topic and move on to another outrage. This is impulse for sure.
But the impulse has become a strategy. It’s too late for Trump to become a moderate; he’s stuck with the extremists, and they’re stuck with him. Bob Mueller has made it pretty clear that if he leaves office and a Democratic president takes over, he can be prosecuted for crimes, so these are the stakes in the upcoming election for Trump: it’s not just reelection, but his survival that’s on the line.
Polarization shouldn’t work, but it can. It should repulse people, but it can also frighten them into thoughts and beliefs they might not have had before. Let’s say a Black-, Hispanic-, or Arab-American man gets so fed up with white nationalism that he walks into a church and murders scores of worshipers - that’s something that plays into Trump’s and his white nationalist supporters’ hands. It’s what they want. They want an overreaction so that they in turn have more license to be even more outrageous. They want their opponents to react. It’s no different than Al Qaida in Iraq when they went and blew up sacred mosque after sacred mosque. They beget Shi’ite death squads. I’m not predicting quite that, but I’m saying that they want conflict - conflict benefits the polarizing extremists.
There are theories that the inhumane treatment of refugees on the border is intended to provoke an incident, with at least one white victim (one of the guards/private contractors working in those facilities). Then Trump has his excuse to impose martial law on the border.
Same thing with your scenario of a man of color snapping and committing mass murder of whites–that gives Trump his excuse to finally do what he’s been heading toward since Inauguration Day: tear up the Constitution. Close down the court system and appoint his own “courts.” Imprison critics on the grounds that criticizing the President is sedition. Close down the New York Times and Washington Post and CNN and MSNBC. Impose controls over the Internet.
They’ve been edging closer as the months go by. They have their own people in place in many venues that will be critical–for instance, the FCC’s Ajit Pai stands ready to close down every means of independent communication. US troops are already stationed on US soil, breaking centuries of precedent. Plenty of right-wing judges are ready to staff the new “justice” system.
You bet your ass that’s exactly what Trump wants. And it’s what quite a few Republicans dream of. It is their only salvation at this point. I honestly would not be surprised if some Republican strategist somewhere does not have thoughts of making this a reality somehow.
