Up to Trump, my position was that the politicians will say what they need to say to rile up the people in support and then go and do whatever makes sense from a moral and legal standpoint (plus or minus a bit).
At this current moment in time, however, I can’t really say (for the House of Representatives). We haven’t really had a chance to see what McCarthy will do when he’s in power.
I think it’s a given to say that McCarthy understands that craziness is taking over the party, and he knows which parts are those. But, given his near complete subjugation of himself to that group, it’s not clear if they have something on him (e.g. tapes) or if his position is so weak, to stay in control, and all the alternatives so horrible, that he views it as a necessary evil to do what’s needed to keep himself in power so that it’s not a complete overrun by crazies.
The Senate is still all solid, though. Assuming that the Republicans were in power, McConnell would tell Romney, Collins, etc. to feel free to switch sides during the impeachment hearing, they’d give the proceedings just enough time to rake in some dough from the delusional, and the whole deal would be scuttled off in a hurry so that real business could be done.
What “real business” has a Republican controlled Senate done in the last 10 years or so? Tax cuts are just about it.
So, pass a quick tax cut, then spend the next year doing nothing but talk about how badly Biden needs to be impeached and convicted, which gives them a perfect excuse for doing nothing - they were too busy dealing with that criminal Biden, alas.
That seems like a question that has no answer that would stay on topic. But I would suspect that you can look up the legislative history of bills that passed the Senate, shuffle them up and sample them - without looking at the dates or the names of the principles - and for most of them you’d probably have no sense of which party was in power at that moment in time.
And I would suggest trying that. It might tell you something about the difference between watching what people say vs what they do. Only what they do is what really matters (in politics).
I think it’s so cute that McCarthy believes that if the Republicans take the House, they’re going to pick him as Speaker, and not someone from the batshit brigade. Speaker Palin FTW*!!!
I agree with your overall point, and about the culture wars, but in terms of the economy a lot of this has also been marketing, or the lack of.
Unemployment is about as low now as it’s ever been, and GDP growth has repeatedly outstripped predictions.
Now I know it’s true that a lot of Americans might not see the effect of that GDP growth, but that’s usually the case. That nuance wouldn’t be mentioned on FOX if GDP growth was below expectations.
And yes the big issue right now is inflation. And while I would criticize Biden for some of his handling of this, it is at the end of the day a worldwide problem.
It’s interesting, in that the economy is famously the most important element in how Americans (and most other countries) feel about their government, and yet it increasingly seems like a confidence trick. Millions of Americans are convinced that Trump resurrected Obama’s stagnant economy, and now, with Biden at the helm, it is back in the dumps. When the data says otherwise.
That may become a question of whether the House conference manages to have 218 Absolute Trumpistas who’d stay in line. Kevin McCarthy’s tears would be so sweet as he bows his head and bends his knee surrendering his prize to someone who just shows up and says “gimme!”
There’s no guarantee that McCarthy will be Speaker if team R takes over. Matt Gaetz has said he will put Trump’s name forward, and if neither Gaetz or Trump is in jail, I’m not sure how anyone can stop him. Will McCarthy be able to cobble together a majority over Trump?
A republican House with Trump in charge will vote on new articles of impeachment every Tuesday right before Trump heads to Mar-a-lago for another six day weekend. It will be the new symbolic repeal of Obamacare that the Ryan House made famous.
Roberts has no Constitutional authority to decline — when the sitting President is facing an impeachment trial, the Constitution says the CJ “shall preside.”
He would be in abrogation of his Constitutional duties, and presumably could be impeached and removed. I think the likelihood that Roberts would decline to preside over the trial is negligible, though. The role is largely ceremonial and the Presiding Officer doesn’t actually do much beyond administering the oath of office for senators, “direct[ing] all necessary preparations in the Senate Chamber” as described in Rule VII, and calling for a vote. The Senate establishes its own rules and procedures beyond those explicitly listed. In any case, proceeding into a trial would be ground to a halt by objections and amendment ad nauseam, and the whole exercise would just be showboating by Republicans for the yucks and retweets. 21st Century democracy in action!
Traditionally (and it’s almost all tradition – there are very few actual rules around the process), each party’s caucus decides on their candidate and the senior member of each party puts that candidate into nomination. But any member may put any candidate into nomination, and members aren’t even required to vote for someone who was nominated – they can vote for any individual they want. The vote proceeds as a roll call with each member saying the name of the candidate they want for Speaker. If no name gets a majority of members present and voting, they keep voting until someone does.
Given this, the most likely result of a Trump-McCarthy face off is that no one is able to get a majority. In this situation, what do Democrats do? Could they cut a deal to support McCarthy to keep Trump out? Could they splinter off enough Republicans for a third option?
The most likely result is that Trump thrashes McCarthy. Besides Kevin McCarthy, which Republican congressman is publicly opposing Trump. Most who voted for Trump’s impeachment will already be gone by this point.