Which brings us back to the problem that impeachment is a political process rather than a judicial one. Facts and law have minimal if any influence.
Impeachment relies upon the votes of the GOP Congress. I do not believe it to be overly cynical to argue that evidence has shown them to be motivated entirely by self interest.
Some of them would like to be rid of Trump, but not at the cost of their own power and wealth. They are fully aware that open opposition to the Trumpists equals suicide in the primaries.
That situation will not change so long as the GOP base continue to support Trump. There appears to be no realistic chance of significant change on that front. The fascist base of the GOP like what Trump is doing.
The few who are not actively collaborating are running for the exits rather than actively resisting. The Trumpist purge of the party is obviously underway; once the primaries are done, the GOP will be entirely Trumpist.
The fascists can be stopped. But Congress does not look like a promising venue for that to occur.
You’re not neccisarily wrong. But there should (or might, or I hope) come a point where not being rid of Trump is what risks their own power. That’s almost exactly what happened to Nixon.
A good bit of the GOP base seems to be supporting Trump out of rote partisanship. And I’ve never been sure that Trump’s base, is large enough to really push out as many people as Trump claims and so many fear. Especially given his approval/disapproval ratings. Which are at a new historic low nearly every time we come up with new numbers. And I don’t really think that whatever spat the GOP gets itself into primary wise is going to be as clean as all that. Just because a Trumpist candidate can muster the support to mount a plausible primary challenge, or even win. Doesn’t mean they’ll neccisarily make it through a general election safe and sound. Primary voters are a smaller, older, more ideological block than the general electorate. You’ll see 3rd parties. Split votes. There’s no way he/they can replace the whole GOP contingent nation wide. So now you’re simply talking about a party split between 2 clear factions, a ratcheted up version of what’s already stalling them out.
I just don’t see Trump and his faction, such as it is, being coordinated enough. And frankly intelligent and controlled enough to mount some kind of concerted movement take over. The guy can’t even keep the few people he appointed to anything on the job. A good lot of the GOP congress critters pushing back on Trump used to be the congress critters backing him. He keeps turning on and attacking his own people. They can’t get their shit together to unilaterally pass legislation. Even Trumps non-legislative policy changes aren’t making it through the courts. So as much damage as he’s going. There’s very little in the way of consistent agenda, or actual governing going on. His movement is pretty key stone cops when you get right down to it. Which doesn’t make his threats, or other worries about a purge through electoral and other usual means very valid.
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We’re in subjective perception land, so the question is obviously not provable. But my major difficulty with that argument is: so were all of the others.
Mussolini was a buffoon, Hitler was a fool.
(Hitler bit starts at 3:00)
But not all of the fascists were stupid, and the money behind the movements had sufficient resources on tap.
I’m not making the “they aren’t dangerous because they’re fools” argument. I’m pointing out that Trump entered “fall of Nixon” territory within six months. Criminal charges against the president won’t save us from the impeachment conundrum because as its stands. You can’t file criminal charges against a president without first impeaching him. And I don’t think what we’ve actually seen indicates these people can end round impeachment by stocking congress with cronies. At the very least they’re having a hell of a time finding and keeping cronies.
Meanwhile we aren’t even at critical mass on the scandal/impeachment thing. Watergate took 2 years to result in Nixon’s resignation. He decided to stick around for his impeachment it would have taken longer.
I really think the risks here come in what skates through all this instability. And what follows after it. Or if Trumps camp starts to move from weak threats of primary challenges and bizarre arguments at court. To something more extreme. I’ll be more worried when he starts slinging pardons around or ignoring the usual rule of law. We’ve seen hints of that already and its far more frightening to me than typically craven politicians trying to ignore the problem in the hopes they can sneak through tax cuts and court appointments.
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