I really do not understand this learned helplessness BS. Of course the Senate, while under Republican control, will never vote to remove Trump from office. But it’s absurd to think that if House Democrats do their job and pass lengthy, thorough articles of impeachment to the Senate outlining and detailing Trump’s many, many crimes and violations of his oath of office, the Senate can just sit on them and Trump can walk into the election with a claim of exoneration.
The only way that works is if Democrats utterly fail at making the blindingly obvious case that Republicans are aiding in Trump’s determined undermining of the rule of law and covering for him for the sake of passing their wildly unpopular agenda. Trump’s devout will claim victory no matter what happens, because they don’t give a shit about reality. But we can’t let that utter detachment from reality guide what we do to remain committed to the rule of law. Why would you preemptively cede the high ground to Trump on this?
If we go into the 2020 election and Trump hasn’t been impeached by the house, that’s also an exoneration, and a bi-partisan one at that. Do you think he won’t wield that as a cudgel at everyone who wants to try and bring up how flagrantly criminal his administration has been?
This isn’t some neutral Schroedinger’s Cat space where nothing matters until a decision gets made. Not making a choice (or repeatedly insisting that now is somehow “not the right time” to make a choice) is the same as choosing not to impeach him. It makes his argument that he’s done nothing wrong stronger every single day that Democrats slow-walk or just outright refuse to take serious action.
The report was released months ago. Why are they only just now filing this suit? Why would you wait for months to sue for the evidence in a case where you knew there would be material there that could strengthen a possible impeachment hearing unless your goal wasn’t actually to carry one out?
I certainly hope you’re not linking that because of the headline…
Meanwhile, an Economist-YouGov poll this month found that 36 percent of adults support efforts in the House to impeach Trump, while 45 percent were opposed.
In that poll, 11 percent of Republicans supported efforts to impeach Trump. It’s possible that that is the figure Trump was referencing in his tweet, but the poll was conducted more than a week ago and would not be the “newest.”
(emphasis added)
Point of order: it is literally Nancy Pelosi’s job to uphold the Constitution of the United States and protect the country from all enemies foreign and domestic. That means impeaching a demonstrably criminal presidency.
Trump is an emotionally fragile bully, and you don’t defeat emotionally fragile bullies by letting them dictate the terms of engagement. You defeat them by punching them square in the nose and then laughing at them when they start crying. Trump is shit at political calculus (he thought the last government shutdown would be a political winner for him), and he’s even more shit at it when he’s pissed off. He’ll flail wildly, spill endless word salad screeds on Twitter, and do anything he can to get in the way of any kind of investigation, which is absolutely a great look for someone who’s definitely as innocent as they claim they are. When Mueller was appointed, Trump tried to have him fired, and even replaced his AG with a yes-man who refused to recuse himself despite having already stated publicly that the investigation was a waste of time. He obsessively watches vote tallies on issues relating to his guilt. Can you even begin to imagine what an impeachment hearing would do to him?
Trump does better politically when he’s not the one making the news. An impeachment hearing would be nothing but Trump news driven by someone other than Trump. It’s a complete no-brainer of a political winner to launch an investigation that would drive the president absolutely off the deep end if your goal was to make the president look guilty as fuck.
