Seconded. I think the second Pence is clear of Trump Pence completely changes priorities. I can only guess at Pence’s agenda based on what Pence did as governor: limiting ability to sue “religious” people for civil rights violations; attacking public schools; making abortion more costly and difficult. The choices of VP for that agenda are pretty much endless.
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More over I think the minute he ends up in office he entirely cuts ties with the Trump crew. There’s been a lot of reporting for a while about Pence taking pains to insulate himself and separate his staff as much as possible.
I also highly doubt he’ll have enough clout to do much, or pick his own VP and the like. Pence taking over from a disgraced Trump, even if he doesn’t end up going down with him, is the lamest of lame ducks. And in all likelihood he wouldn’t have enough time to mount a campaign. We’re three-ish months off from the first primary at this point.
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This is such an awkward time to be impeaching. Pence can’t enter the campaign until Trump is gone, but when will Trump be gone? The house says they are targeting Thanksgiving. That seems crazy late to me. The senate will have to conduct the trial in two weeks. If they don’t feel they can do that they’ll put it off until after the New Year, but if they start in early January and go for a month they won’t finish until after the Iowa caucuses, leaving them with the choice of Weld, Sanford or Walsh. None of those will fly because half the party will want someone who didn’t turn on Trump. That makes me wonder if they’ll vote to remove Trump.
House should be sending articles by end of the month so they can boot Trump in November and give a short run up for a candidate the party actually wants to take on Warren the Democratic candidate. Then again, maybe they figure if impeachment happens the candidate is just a sacrificial lamb anyway and they would be happy letting Walsh take it.
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I’ve honestly been thinking they were likely to impeach around January anyway, if public opinion looked firm enough. Specifically to keep all this mess going through as much of the campaign season as possible. Its still vanishingly unlikely the Senate will convict. So your best chance of making an impeachment have actual consequences otherwise is basically to plow us into the mess we’re about to plow into. Cause it’s not neccisarily just about removing Trump, so much as it is about dismantling his organization. The more people you can implicate and the more it can stall out his administration, and dominate the campaign the less damage he can do.
So maybe with something more to hang it on they can get that going a little faster? Be on firmer footing and have less work to do selling it to the public during active campaign season.
I just don’t know if they can pull it off as quick as November, none the less the end of October. Trump has done a really good job stalling things out in court with bullshit legal arguments. And I don’t know that that all clears quickly enough even with a formal impeachment on the table. So I think it depends on how quickly the Ukraine thing escalates, cause it’s pretty clearly escalating.
Assuming he does end up getting removed, quicker would probably be better in terms of the election being viewed as legitimate. But with as doubtful as that seems currently, long term the GOP ending up completely rat fucked during an election season is an apt consequence for backing Trump and their party over the country itself. And probably sets a firmer precedent on why you don’t do that. So I’m a little torn on the “should” end of this.
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I think removal from office is more than a vanishing probability. I’m not saying I’m banking on it, but I think it really could happen. It’s an open secret that Republican senators mostly think Trump is awful and deserves to be gone but are putting political considerations above that. I feel like it’s like predicting an earthquake. At some point the shared pressure builds to the point where they explode and all vote guilty, but if that point doesn’t come before the vote then it doesn’t matter. I think Trump’s move in Syria is probably going to add a lot to that pressure, and continuing to act as the Foreign Minister for Russia until the impeachment trial makes it at least possible that the senate will have engouh.
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A friend (who is a poli sci professor and minor talking head, for whatever those are worth), said last night that in light of Trump’s bizarre decisions re: Turkey (and everything else), there might be a possibility Pence and Cabinet will remove Trump from office on mental stability grounds before the impeachment can go through.
I think its very possible, depending on how it plays out and where public opinion goes. But if things stay where they are now it just won’t happen. Public opinion is still shifting, support for impeachment and removal is currently higher than it was for Nixon when the impeachment process began and still moving.
So I think it’ll depend on how agressive the House is, and whether and how quick subpoenas and what uave start to clear the courts. Otherwise Trump can continue to stall, the Mitt Romneys will remain chickenshit. I don’t feel confident expecting anything beyond the situation changing, and fairly fast.
You are correct ??? Republicans would not be that stupid ??? they probably
think about presidential succession more than any of us. And I’m glad
you appreciate the impossible dream!
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