These leaders that think they know how the public would react and make decision based on that, instead of just simply doing what's right is what's wrong with politic. Impeachment process needs to start, as a constitutional duty, and not for politic reasons. Pelosi has said so herself and I would hold her accountable for acting upon it. “We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report,” Pelosi told Today, referencing the investigation into Russian election interference. “We shouldn't be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn't avoid impeachment for a political reason. So we'll just have to see how it comes.” I expect it to starts once the House and Senate have a full non-redacted version of the Mueller report. Aside from doing the right thing, I don't buy that impeachment would be good for Trump because the Senate would eventually not convict. Trump consistently play the witch hunt card and his followers are already on board. The Muller report is clear in his obstructions, yet it's glossed over and they still only hear the drum beat of it's a Russian Hoax. These people have already made up their mind. Yes, they might get more motivated, but the opposite is also true. Not doing the right thing here would demotivate the folks that already made up their mind that Trump is a criminal and needs to be impeached. In addition, the Senate not convicting is also motivation for change in the Senate. Put each of them on record on their vote for or against Trump and his criminal behaviors. Secondly, the POTUS always has a big advantage when it comes to narrative building given a single focused voice. His narrative of a Russian hoax, a witch hunt, and total exoneration has wide spread coverage while the other side response is diffused and weak. An impeachment trial re-focus and bring attention to the details of the president behavior that get coverage for an extended period of time. I think that's an effective counter-narrative and provide the public with actual details and they then can make up their own decision comes 2020. Third, the public at large might not care for an impeachment trail and think there are more important things to be concerned about. However, it's the House and Senate duty. I'm doubtful, outside of Trump supporters that already made up their mind, the public is going to hold the Democratic in a negative light for doing their constitutional duty.
Trump collusion hysteria explained: He's a spy He's colluding He's a pawn He's obstructing We didn't find what we were looking for in the Mueller Report, please impeach
looks like Warren is pushing for impeachment, whether this is a sincere push or if she's just making political hay here is a different question.
Lawfare editor Susan Hennessey calls for an impeachment inquiry: The problem is that impeachment isn’t a purely political matter—though certainly it is political in part. It’s a constitutional expression of the separation of powers, of Congress’s ability to check a chief executive overrunning the bounds of his power. It’s also, under the OLC memo, the only release valve in the constitutional structure for the urgent and mounting pressure of an executive who may have committed serious wrongdoing. To say that the appropriate course is to simply wait for the next presidential election in 18 months, is to offer a judgment that—even in light of his conduct as described by Mueller—Trump is not truly unfit for the office. It is to say he is no different from, say, Vice President Mike Pence, who would take his place, or any other Republican for that matter. It is to say that what matters is winning elections, even if it risks further institutional harms. There is a danger to this mode of thinking, which is that Democrats should tolerate the institutional harms that would come from not initiating a serious impeachment inquiry because what really matters is winning the 2020 election. When you convince yourself that the best way to safeguard the republic is for your side to win, it gets tempting to tolerate all kinds of intolerable things. It is the precise calculus many congressional Republicans have made in supporting Trump despite his degradations of his office. The Constitution does not mandate that Congress initiate impeachment proceedings each time it is faced with an impeachable offense—but that doesn’t let Congress off the hook in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities, either. Each member swears an oath to defend the Constitution and “well and faithfully” execute the duties of her office. Though hard questions remain about whether President Trump should be impeached and whether the evidence would be sufficient for the Senate to convict him, these are not questions that need to be answered at this stage. Congress’s responsibility at this point is to begin an impeachment inquiry as a means of finding an answer to them. And Mueller has provided more than enough information to justify initiating an inquiry: the report sets out evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing by the president during his time in office related to abuse of power, which is at the dead center of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” impeachment is designed to check. Though most scholars agree that violating the law is not necessary for impeachment, Congress included allegations of such conduct in articles of impeachment against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton—all three times the legislature seriously contemplated impeaching the president. In Nixon and Clinton’s case, the articles specifically concerned criminal behavior, including obstruction of justice. What’s more, the Mueller report itself suggests a possible hook for impeachment in indicating that the “corrupt intent” necessary for an obstruction offense would also violate the president’s obligation to “faithfully execute” the laws under the Take Care Clause. In the face of this evidence, for Congress to not even consider impeachment as a matter of serious inquiry is to declare that the legislature is not interested in its carrying out its institutional obligations as a coordinate branch of government. https://www.lawfareblog.com/mueller-report-demands-impeachment-inquiry
Anyone want to guess over/under for when the GOP gives up on Trump? If the conservative media starts to leave Trump, he is finished. Drudge right now: REUTERS POLL: TRUMP APPROVAL FALLS TO 37%... ELIZABETH WARREN CALLS FOR IMPEACHMENT... Pelosi Pressured... ROMNEY: I Am Sickened... Fake news? Mueller isn't buying it... NAPOLITANO: Report Might Be Enough to Prosecute...
Reasons to impeach 1. He is a national security risk and friendly with our stated enemies 2. He likely committed treason (see #1) 3. He values personal wealth over national interest 4. He likely committed crimes (to cover up #1,3) 5. If later #5 is proved to be true, you'll be on the wrong side of history 6. He is a massively divisive figure that is splitting the country in two 7. He is setting a terrible example for how to conduct politics for future generations, if left in office Reasons not to impeach: 8. It's a big political risk knowing the Senate is unlikely to remove him from office Yes, it's risky but I think the benefits, even if unsuccessful, outweigh the one risk. Then back to politics, the Dems must figure out how to control the narrative and paint the pro-Trump crowd into a corner for 2020. With 1-7, you wouldn't think it would be that hard ...but it will be. But they gotta pull up their panties and do what is right.
He actually wasn’t elected by the people. More Americans in this country voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. Al Gore should’ve been the 43rd president and Hillary should’ve been 45th.
Steven Taylor at OTB considers the impeachment question: . . . The Mueller Report has clearly given the Congress some work to do (although that work will only be done by the House for partisan reasons, but such is politics). I am sympathetic to those who think that the Mueller Report confirms that the sitting president is unfit for office. Quite frankly, the conclusion that he tried to obstruct justice but just couldn’t get his subordinates to perform the appropriate tasks is no solace about his character. Indeed, I am not sure how a dispassionate reader (granted, those are hard to come by) can look at the document and conclude that Trump ought to be president. Still, I tend to think that impeachment is not the right route at the moment, if anything because, like a lot of our constitutional machinery, it is clunky and not suited to the world of party politics in which we live. What many people (i.e., Democrats) want is basically a vote of no confidence. They certainly have no confidence in Trump and want the world to know it (the fact that it would be a symbolic act be damned, it would seem). But, of course, this is not about a governing party/coalition no longer having confidence in the leader it chose. Instead, it is an opposition party wanting to punish a president it never wanted in the first place. Indeed, Trump’s party continues to have confidence in Trump, and hence the political standoff that the impeachment process in full faces. Objectively, I get the position that Trump ought to go. I am on record as not thinking Trump fit for office, and so it will come as no shock that my view on his fitness has not grown as the result of the report. Still, I have to fall into the camp that says: let the House engage in further investigation (because I legitimately think further investigation is warranted) and let SDNY do its thing with whatever pending cases remains in their jurisdiction. And from there, the elections aren’t that far away (although the next 18+ months may at times feel like an eternity). While some may argue, with good reason, that there is a moral and legal imperative revealed by the report, the reality is that that impeachment is inherently political and I do not see how the politics of the moment get us to removal and I am not convinced that even impeachment (i.e., indictment in the House) would be helpful–especially since the time it would likely take to undertake the process likely is similar to the amount of time it is going to take to get to the 2020 election cycle. https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/impeachment
A vulgar charlatan, an egotist, an utterly unprincipled self seeker, a cheap demagogue, a flatterer of the people, and these are just a select number of comments about Teddy Roosevelt, of which there are plentiful. I say this to emphasise a point about history. History does not remember how people felt at all, it barely remembers what was said (a speech or notable quote) despite there being documentation of a lot of it, it remembers what happened, what was done, who did it, and sometimes (but generally not) why. Take the autocracy claim, those people are remembered as such because their countries were autocracies, claims like "autocratic tendencies", weasel words that they are, could be applied to certain actions of basically any leader ever, are nothing more than emotional rants.
I think there is a way politically you can impeach him. It will hurt in the short term. But candidates running for office don't need to use it as a campaign issue. They can keep putting their policy ideas out there. Trump is nowhere near as popular as Clinton was when he was impeached. Clinton's popularity grew at first and people were mad about the impeachment process and thought it was partisan BS. That will likely happen again to the Democrats. Yet, the next election it was the Republicans who won the election. So the short memory kicked in, or people weren't that upset by it, after all. Exhibiting strength and not trying to gauge actions by the expected response is a better look than not doing the right thing.
Trump won't lose his base and at the end of the day, what matters is 2020. If I was the democratic leadership - I would not impeach as it will do nothing but make Republicans rally behind Trump. Instead, I'd investigate more and let more and more of his corruption and criminality come out as a continual drip leading up to the election...and if it looks like he has a chance to win then impeach. 1. Investigate his crimes further 2. Let the middle continue to see how corrupt he is 3. Us this to drag down other tickets
Well, when the Republicans impeached Clinton which was not a popular move, it didn't rally Democrats to come back and vote for them in the next election. Impeachment was unpopular, but by the time the next election happened, nobody really held it against the Republicans. If they drag it on, they will look pathetic like the Republicans did with investigating the same things over and over. I think it's better that they quickly impeach. Get it over and done with, don't use it as a platform for any of the candidate's election or re-election and put out other ideas for policy that will gain attention and publicity. If you generate new news, people move on from the old news. Trump will generate new news with 436 new stupid things before the next election. Democrats need to put forward and push new ideas to generate their own news as well. That will lessen any negative impact from impeachment.
You mistake Dems and Republicans as interchangeable. Dems and particularly moderates who vote for Dems expect Dems to be the adult in the room. Those who vote for Trump are more motivated by nativism and less likely to care about their brand of politics vs their stance on minorities and immigrants. Impeachment will not hurt Trump one bit but will allow him to play the victim card.
I agree that it will allow him to play the victim card. But nobody who buys that was ever going to vote for a Democratic candidate, anyway. 1. It will make Trump-Republicans angry and incensed. They weren't going to vote Democrat anyway. 2. It will make people who normally don't follow politics slightly annoyed. They will initially think Democrats are bad for doing it. They will soon forget about it because they don't really follow politics. 3. It will make some moderates who follow politics but are cynical enough to not like anyone will be upset with Democrats. They will eventually move on because there are other things about which to be upset. 4. Some Democrats will only be worried about political ramifications. 5. Some Democrats will be enthused. In the end, half of group 2, groups 3, and 4 will be happy the Democrats didn't look weak and took a stand even if it was unpopular at the time. Many cycles of news, new scandals, the Democratic primary, and a strong Democratic candidate will water down any negative effect from the impeachment. That will only happen if they get it over with so they can move on now.
there's another possibility: Dems (both moderate and conservative Dems) as well as independents who might swing either way may be looking to Dems to the the adult in the room and pursue impeachment proceedings. David Faris argues in the piece linked earlier, "For Democrats to not proceed to an impeachment in the House would be an act of unparalleled moral cowardice." While Susan Hennessey argues in the piece linked earlier: "To say that the appropriate course is to simply wait for the next presidential election in 18 months, is to offer a judgment that—even in light of his conduct as described by Mueller—Trump is not truly unfit for the office." Either Trump is fit for office or he is not. If he is fit for office, then Democrats and virtually everyone in this forum need to just shut up and let him do his job for the next 18 months as the duly-elected President of the United States. If he is unfit for the job, then morally Democrats in the House need to fulfill their Constitutional obligations. If Dems sit idly by and tacitly admit that Trump is fit for the job, then that confirms what Trump defenders have been saying all along: the Mueller investigation has been a witch hunt, and whatever incessant wailing there is now about Trump's bad behaviors amply chronicled in volume II of the report is just so much sour grapes. And such inaction on impeachment will confirm that Trump's opponents have simply been using the Mueller investigation since Day One of his administration to simply thwart his efforts as President. Which is what 18 more months of additional foot-dragging investigation ("I'd investigate more and let more and more of his corruption and criminality come out as a continual drip leading up to the election...and if it looks like he has a chance to win then impeach") would demonstrate as well. If Dems pursue this latter policy, they are in effect acknowledging and confirming Hennessey's point: "To say that the appropriate course is to simply wait for the next presidential election in 18 months, is to offer a judgment that—even in light of his conduct as described by Mueller—Trump is not truly unfit for the office."
