Wolfgang622 wrote:Brantt wrote:Wolfgang622 wrote:swishnicholson wrote:swishnicholson wrote:Obviously the latest developments have not had time to really show up in a poll aggregator like 538, but FWIW Trump is at the closest to Obama's approval rating at the same point in his term as he has ever been: 42.4 on day 977 compared to 42.5 for Obama. That was the low point for Obama in his first term, though, as he began a steady climb toward 50% before the election.
Update: now surging ahead of Obama's numbers, as the American people celebrate the Imperial Presidency or a Bad Episode of Veep or whatever this.
Seat of the pants observation-the talk of impeachment continues to harm Democrats more than help, as people not deeply involved in the process get confused how they there can be talk of this while they are also getting inundated with election news-there's a process in place to remove the President, so why bother with this extra distraction?
They had either better have the “smoking gun” that was needed in the Nixon situation, OR this had better be a ploy by Pelosi to shut the “impeachment” people up - do an “inquiry,” determine no probable cause, and move on.
Pursue impeachment if it is clear, obvious, egregious, and morally severe. A backhanded attempt at bribery/extortion is offensive to me, quite possibly enough to remove a low-profile elected official, but well short of the mark of building the political will to unseat a sitting president who has successfully painted himself as the great white knight of a large and reliably voting portion of the population, with all of the attendant racial implications of that term. Old racist white people are good at one thing: they #$!&@ vote, and they make up overwhelming percentages of the population of states you absolutely have to have to win. Dragging their messiah through the mud with anything less than an airtight case is an unforced error at the very least, but political suicide at the worst. It is pointless swatting at a hornet’s nest —
Unless you have the goods. But you BETTER have them.
Hey look, someone gets it!
So you admit, then, that Trump is a race-baiting racist xenophobe and that these qualities are his primary appeal to a substantial minority if not an outright majority of his followers? Because my post is as much about that as it is the untenability of impeachment related to some pretty standard political walking of the tightrope between "legal bribe" and "extortion."
No, I do not believe that.
I do however feel you, unlike many here and on the left, have a solid grasp of the political landscape heading into the 2020 election.
Congratulations for that.
