And yet the GOP Senators are unmoved and GOP voters are still convinced it’s a witch hunt.
Shit the Mueller probe, the thing that’s supposed to find evidence is still ongoing and the new House has barely even started hearings.
Precisely what point is there in beginning impeachment proceedings if the Senate is simply going to squash them without seriously trying the guy?
You’ll need specific, serious accusations that are difficult to deny, and clear evidence to back them up. The sort of thing that can gain enough traction with the public across the political spectrum to move the Republicans in both houses. You need at least 22 Republicans to jump ship. Does that seem likely at the moment?
I very much doubt there is a way of convincing these people (Senators and voters) while they remain part of the GOP. Criminal conspiracy or cult, either way, I am pessimistic of logical argument, no matter how well founded, reaching them.
So you very much believe that impeachment won’t happen.
Personally I think public opinion could swing enough. The minute it looks like Trump is more of a burden for the next election than a benefit, GOP politicians will begin to flinch. It’s just going to take that proverbial silver bullet. With Nixon it was the tapes. For Trump maybe that comes out of the Mueller investigation like we’re all hoping. Maybe it comes from somewhere else. Maybe it doesn’t come till he’s already out of office.
Meanwhile you actually have to win that next election.
And current polling on Impeachment isn’t exactly where you might think. Less than 40% of gen pop support, only a bit more than half of Dems think it should be a priority. And among Republican voters it’s less than 10%.
This is not exactly an issue to rally the base and win people over.
if the evidence is damning, the senators will look pretty corrupt voting (as they will) for acquittal. That could work in the Democrats’ favor.
But Republicans have no shame.
There are a bunch of pieces in Liberal minded journals that aim to defuse this enthusiasm for impeachment.
The reality of Russian interference, as far as we credibly know it, is less clear-cut than the most extreme Mueller conspiracists would have it. There is a there there, but it is not the Manchurian Candidate operation that the Twitter Woodwards and Blogspot Bernsteins might hope. Certain Trump operatives had direct, cooperative relationships with Russian representatives during the election — but we largely know about these relationships by now. Steve Bannon is not, and was not, a Russian spy. In fact, the biggest problem for Trump may not be the collusion charges initially pursued by Mueller’s investigation, but the extent to which the president attempted to obstruct that investigation.
I’m sure she’s got some kind of political calculus at work here, but to publicly come out against impeachment while there are still several major ongoing investigations into Trump’s wrongdoing is to admit that congress won’t hold Trump accountable for his actions regardless of his crimes or evidence of his guilt. That’s just pathetic.
She could have at least taken a “let’s see what the investigations turn up before we commit to a course of action” approach.
I was jumping into this thread to say this exact thing.
I don’t believe Pelosi thinks Nostradumbass is blameless or innocent or couldn’t be impeached. I think she sees that move as too much of an uphill slog and divisive as a whole to the nation’s voting population. whereas if things just continue on as they are…He will probably lose to anyone who is on the democratic ticket and then it’s done…eazy peezy.
I don’t know that is the best way to handle it…but it’s certainly not the worst way; and I have been adamant that the only real way to get rid of him is vote him out in 2020.
It’s funny cause John’s brother Tony is still entangled in the whole Mueller affair thanks to Manafort. The real question is any adjacent prosecution as a result going to go lighter on Tony Podesta than Mueller was on Manafort? I don’t think so. Dem aligned lobbyists better accept that a new reality is forming on this matter quicker than they can adapt. Centrism is DOA.
I’m sure that’s what she thinks. I also think it’s just another example of a rich guy not being subject to the law, and that itself is corrosive to America.
That’s her hope, I agree, but we well know how the democratic party is eager to snatch failure from the jaws of victory… they could very well screw up 2020 again… They need to run on issues, not tactics.
Her comment confused/angered me at first too, but I think this piece sums up how I feel about her comment now. We don’t necessarily know her angle here, and the longer Trump stays in power the more likely he is to royally screw up more, harming the GOP more (imagine a blue wave bigger than 2018 in 2020, for example.)
From the piece: "Is this just tactical positioning of the moment on Pelosi’s part or is she dead set against impeachment in this Congress? I don’t know. I don’t think it matters. If the facts produced by the House committees are clear, and especially if they move public opinion, they’ll carry Pelosi before them. "
I agree with @anon50609448 too on that point…but I am being incredibly realistic on what’s most important on this one…getting him out of office. I cannot afford to be idealistic about this.
That’s the problem, though, it might not get him out of office. The Democrats could very well double down on remaining center right in the 2020 general election, and push out people who are promoting actual ideas of substance instead of appealing to the white upper middle class that Trump so effectively captured.
Even if impeachment comes up and he does not get removed, it makes is far more likely that he will win in 2020. Ignoring his crimes will only make the democratic party look partially complicit. I think they’re afraid of alienating people and making him more popular, like what happened with Bill Clinton, but there is far more substance there for an impeachment, unlike with Clinton.
Yes to all that, and I think they’re also afraid of the insurgent left flank, the younger ones who are more than sick and tired of (money-making for pols on both sides) Bizness As Usual. What I’m gathering from the more/real progressive pols is that impeaching The Obvious Criminal is the right thing to do because he’s you know, a fucking criminal. And another right thing to do is to stop listening to “pragmatic” (and rich), out of touch pols like Pelosi, and get them out of office by arguing concisely, loudly and incessantly for the interests of the 99%, while no longer obeying the .001%.
ETA: As for me, I’m sick and tired of general liberal complacency about the corporate-mony pox that’s fallen on the Dem house, a complacency that thinks we should just forget how the nomination was stolen from Sanders, and that as long as we just get a Dem in the presidency, any Dem, things will be all right again.
I agree. We’re at a crisis point and we have to start addressing these issues soon. The pragmatic approach (which isn’t really pragmatic in the sense of John Dewey, but in the sense of trying to win a popularity contest via messaging rather than actual pragmatic solutions to real, existential problems) has not served the democratic party well. It’s alienated people who want real change and empowered corporate lobbyist more than anything else.
I agree with that, but impeachment did have one effect on Clinton.
It absorbed all his time and political capital while it was happening. He ended up still in power, but he couldn’t push through anything big while he was in the midst of it.
Then Gore had to run as a not-too-close Clinton co-worker/not-friend more than as a member of a ruling partnership.
So, if people thought Trump was setting up some big-time evil project to pop before the election, it might be a way to busy him. Still risky.
I’d love to see him impeached, but i sorta see the angle. Impeachment may lead nowhere because the senate will be complicit and he won’t go anywhere. The right will cry witchhunt and cling even tighter to him and reelect him. An election that takes him down will have a larger impact. Let the people have the final say and we’ll get to throw out pence and the whole administration with him. Democrats, don’t screw this up. Voters, get involved in the primaries, and come together in the general. Cuz this coming election is HUUUGE. (I’d love to see a Bernie/Beto or Bernie/Warren ticket myself)
If Trump’s crimes become so obvious that republicans start joining in the calls for impeachment, then heck yeah, start them engines. But until then i get it, it’s a political game at this point, not a legal one.
Once information like his tax returns and other things that House committees are finally poking into come out, it would look better if her starting position was “I was hoping to work for unity and cooperation in hopes of getting things done, but in light of the latest disclosures, I feel we have no choice but to …” rather than going to pitchforks and torches on day one.
