CalvinBall wrote:Brantt, Moz, CFP, etc...

If what Trump doing (phone call etc) why did they try and cover it (along with a number of other calls) up? I live in a bubble so would love to get the perspective of those outside of it.

I think Trump is guilty as sin of everything he has been accused of.

My question is: Is any of it plain enough to understand what he did wrong, and that he did it knowingly, and morally repugnant enough to the average, run-of-the-mill, not plugged in center-right type person that s/he will definitely vote Dem not just on the president but on his/her senator if that senator dares to hold their nose shut their eyes, and vote “not guilty” on impeachment?

Unless what we are looking at drives a critical number of such people to take on such a mood, impeachment continues to be a dead letter.

The complaint and the transcript by themselves don’t meet the threshold in my judgment. If a parade of people who you would normally expect to be loyal start testifying against the president and laying bare his drive to conceal his actions, perhaps my tune will change.

Don't be so damn scared

CalvinBall wrote:impeachment is the bringing of charges-- which there certainly seems enough to do.

Right, but if the Dem controlled house impeaches Trump and then the Senate doesn't convict, then it just feeds his narrative of a partisan witch hunt blah blah blah, and he can keep doing all the shit he's been doing and even ramp it up, because the house isn't going to impeach him a second time most likely.

Impeachment is the equivalent of an indictment. It’s been said many times you can indict a ham sandwich. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. In this case impeachment without conviction is a very bad idea.

Democrats dont stand for anything! They are so weak!

*democrats do something*

Fools what are you doing!

CalvinBall wrote:Democrats dont stand for anything! They are so weak!

*democrats do something*

Fools what are you doing!

Don’t conflate what others may say with what I have said. Besides, the only thing worse than doing nothing is doing something stupid.

I mean I do believe that there is at least a chance that there are enough Republican Senators who will take the opportunity to excise him from the party so long as they trust their fellow Republican Senators to vote with them. This is different from the other instances where they chose not to oppose him in that their action might actually remove him. I do think there is at least a chance at least.

With Trump you find yourself asking questions you never thought you'd have to ask like....is a removed President Constitutionally forbidden from running again?

Squire wrote:This is different from the other instances where they chose not to oppose him in that their action might actually remove him. I do think there is at least a chance at least.

No way. Trumpism is their only path now

How long would impeachment even take? We’re a year away from the next election. I think it’d be much more satisfying to just defeat him in 2020.

think it would be done by the new year

Squire wrote:I mean I do believe that there is at least a chance that there are enough Republican Senators who will take the opportunity to excise him from the party so long as they trust their fellow Republican Senators to vote with them. This is different from the other instances where they chose not to oppose him in that their action might actually remove him. I do think there is at least a chance at least.

With Trump you find yourself asking questions you never thought you'd have to ask like....is a removed President Constitutionally forbidden from running again?

There definitely is a chance but what some of us believe is that there’s not enough right now to persuade enough R senators (and their constituents) that Trump has done enough wrong to be removed from office. More may come out, but the administration and witnesses are going to continue to stonewall. The Dems will have to take the evidence and witness matters to court and the cases will likely end up before a Republican SCOTUS. In fact, even if the House impeaches, I would put the odds at better than even that Mitch McConnell will refuse to convene the Senate trial.

So much as to go right for the Dems to get this done and the Senate and courts are stacked against them. And the Dems have never been known for well-organized, disciplined efforts. As Will Rogers once said: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”

Why does the bar have to be convincing the sycophants in the Senate?

this joseph maguire guy is a bit of a hack

My fear would be Trump gets impeached and Republicans will then have someone competent running in 2020 and defeats whoever the Democratic nominee is. There are enough Republican voters who don’t like Trump and won’t vote for him, but would vote for whoever else the Republicans put out there. Maybe I’m naive, but I just don’t see Trump getting re-elected.

slugsrbad wrote:Why does the bar have to be convincing the sycophants in the Senate?

it is a bar that can never and has never been cleared in any similar occurrences. i also have no idea why this is the bar.

I don't understand why anyone is convinced the House impeaching and Senate failing to convict would make the Democrats worse off than not pursuing impeachment.

First off, I think the die has been cast here. I do not see how after launching a formal inquiry or whatever Pelosi asked for this week, they can back down without paying a price. If they were to punt in spite of all the shit that has come out the past two days (and additional info that certainly will drip out in the next few weeks/months), I think that would be pretty fucking demoralizing to the 'resistance' folks. What's the point of volunteering and donating in 2020 if the Democrats don't use their lever of power to stand up to the President now? I am not a Dem base voter, so I could be wrong, but that's my read.

Secondly, there are GOP fissures that can be exploited if this moves forward. At the very least there will be a lot of statements of concern from the Romney/Collins/Murkoskis of the world over the course of this process. Even if they don't ultimately vote for it, there will be grave speeches saying his behavior was wrong/just doesn't rise to the level of impeachment, which will put a speed bump in people following the process as a partisan witch hunt. And if they do ultimately vote to convict, then you get the talking point that it was a bipartisan vote to remove him. And hell if the dam breaks he might actually get convicted.

I think some on the center-left have so deeply internalized the idea that there's this unmovable block of Trump voters and Fox is going to lie about it anyway so what's the point we're just going to play into his hands. Normal people who are up for grabs in 2020 watch the evening news every once in a while, might read a few politics posts on Facebook when looking at their niece's new baby pictures, and are not tuning in on a regular basis to either Sean Hannity or Rachael Maddow. These up for grabs voters already mostly dislike Trump personally, but they think he's doing an OK job as president because they've gotten raises or whatever. Him getting impeached (even if the GOP Senate ultimately doesn't convict), isn't likely to move the needle among these people in Trump's direction. They have an unfavorable view of him, they think he is dishonest, and they aren't going to be galvanized to start liking and backing him there's a credible investigation into him trying to get a foreign country to help him with domestic politics.

JFLNYC wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:Democrats dont stand for anything! They are so weak!

*democrats do something*

Fools what are you doing!

Don’t conflate what others may say with what I have said. Besides, the only thing worse than doing nothing is doing something stupid.

I think the first vs. second term thing here is hugely important. Impeachment is always a political tool; it can become a legal one if the charges are serious enough. The immediate effect of impeachment is to grind any other agenda to a halt. Clinton’s second term and Nixon’s second term featured no new initiatives, really; they were eaten up with impeachment. In Nixon’s case the matter became serious enough it turned into genuine legal questions.

Now take a look at the recall attempt on Scott Walker in Wisconsin, not an impeachment but similar in effect if successful. Total waste of time and resources, and arguably led to re- re-election two years later. At best it was a waste of energy on time better spent doing something else; at best.

You need an overwhelming amount of political support to remove a president who stands to an uncertain reelection in 2020 anyway; waste bullets now on the longest of long shots, and potentially cost yourself down the line. It’s not as though Trump is an otherwise careful and considered person who will not make the same mistake twice; he’ll keep right on doing this shit. If you need to play the impeachment card, a much harder card to win with, you can play it AFTER the 2020 election; it seems unlikely the Dems will lose the House in 2020, even if Trump wins.

Unless you overplay your hand on impeachment now, that is.

what other agenda was there? anything the house passes mcconnell throws it in the garbage.

Meanwhile over at Breitbart

https://twitter.com/BreitbartNews/statu ... 8960478208

CalvinBall wrote:what other agenda was there? anything the house passes mcconnell throws it in the garbage.

You have a point. I think part of the political motivation in 1973 and 1997/1998 was that Nixon especially and Clinton had been handily re-elected and could have wielded that result as a mandate to attempt to force thing through - and impeachment investigations for both derailed any such thoughts.

Washington is at impasse as it stands, so impeachment doesn’t mean it is at any more impasse.

I just think far left Democrats* grossly underestimate Trump’s appeal - I’ve said it before and I will say it again, for a certain type of white person, he is their Obama. They identify with him on much more than just a normal political level, and that passion exceeds the kind of passion a George Bush (either one) or a Mitt Romeny or pick your favorite global capitalist/neoliberal type of Republican you care to name could ever hope to muster. An attack on him is an attack on THEM and their way of life; they will rally to his defense.

You need significant charges to overcome that. The positives of a failed attempt seem to me to be much more vague and illusory than the negatives.

*-I say this as though I am like a member of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. I consider myself to be, and compared to the average Democrat in my neighborhood, for example, to be pretty hard left in what I really think ought to be. The gap I find between myself and those I consider to be truly hard left, whose company I often keep, is two things: I find that their estimation of what is practically possible given current conditions is erroneous, and that they have the fatal tendency to permit the perfect to be the enemy of the good; and they tend not to think of themselves as Democrats but some other label, which to me is a different face of the “practically possible v. Ideal world” problem I see in many of them; I accept the reality that the left party in this country is the Democratic Party, like it or not, and except in some local situations, you’ve got to be a part of and move that party to get shot done.