I think that it might easily be possible to use impeachment proceedings as a weapon against the Republican Senators who vote to acquit him. I'm not sure it's going to work, but given the other obvious reasons to impeach him, (that is, fuck fretting about optics) it sure seems worth a shot. We need a Hail Mary pass to take the Senate back, and this is our best shot of shaking things up.
Democratic Congressional leadership takes public opinion as an ever-fixed mark, rather than something that can and should be moved. So they discount how much impeachment proceedings could bring out and highlight the truth and change public opinion. (That's an overgeneralization - some public opinion they dislike and discount - but that's mostly when it would be a break with status quo.)
However, they really need to change how the hearing process works. At the moment it's designed to give every committee member time to grandstand and a chance to get their face memorably on TV, not professional factfinding.
2: And I take it it is within the power of the committees/House to change the rules.
2.2: But that's the whole reason why the House members should be selfishly motivated to go for impeachment. It's their big chance to become stars!
I'm on record here as being in favor of beginning impeachment hearings, but I'll concede (1) and (3), and the first half of (2).
I'd agree with 1 and the first half of 2. (The second half, genuinely not sure.) As for 3, it's... technically correct but not very useful? The whole article seems to be about how great parliamentary systems are as compared to our presidential, separation-of-powers, three-branches-of-government system. I agree, a parliamentary system seems better. (In general, although the whole Brexit shitshow would have happened very differently in a presidential system.) But, given that a presidential system exists, is there anything fundamentally flawed about an impeachment mechanism in it? And granted that a parliamentary system would generally be better, that's not what we have; does ThinkProgress have any suggestions how to get to a more parliamentary-like system, and in a presidential system, is winning elections really the only remedy to horrible elected officials worth considering?
The worst parts of Trump:
Eh, in these specific respects he's a garden-variety Republican, and arguably not as bad as Bush. Talking about killing 10 million people in Afghanistan is bad but not as bad as actually killing 1 million Iraqis. Conversely, as bad as getting elected by the Supreme Court was, the Russia-Trump connection is definitely worse for our democracy than that.
To the extent that I'm a procedural liberal, someone loyal to democratic institutions for their own sake, I support impeachment because that's officially the first step of one possible remedy to half a dozen specific different things Trump has done. As someone who cares about integrity in government and sane implementation of leftist policies, I'm kind of uninterested in whether Trump should be impeached, or why, so much as what works. If I thought that impeaching him for his combover would be most likely to result in integrity and sane policy soonest, I'd be all for it.
To the extent that I'm a procedural liberal, someone loyal to democratic institutions for their own sake, I support impeachment because that's officially the first step of one possible remedy to half a dozen specific different things Trump has done.
This seems at odds with this:
If I thought that impeaching him for his combover would be most likely to result in integrity and sane policy soonest, I'd be all for it.
The latters seems like "the means justify the ends" and the former seems like "I care about means being meaningful and fair".
Wait, the front page post overlooks Trump's ordinary grifting. That's not supposed to be how presidents work either.
I'm all for impeachment as the right thing to do. I also think that exposing every one of his flaws on TV all the time is a good way to use our next year. I'm not out to convince the Crazifaction portion. But Republicans poisoned the well for Clinton by implying that if she weren't a wrongdoer, why are there so many investigations about her? Since we know about lots of his wrongdoing, investigations themselves are worth doing. I never find elaborate backflip analysis about how people will think they mean the opposite and make people love Trump convincing. Honestly, I don't like any arguments relying on people's theories about other people's mentalities ('those other people will never vote for a black man with a funny name').
That's very true.
However, you could make the case that his grifting is the coarse reality-show/Twitter/vulgar version of the insider trading and fancy hidden grifting that I assume McConnell does.
I was trying to think if I could come up with a good reason for Nancy Pelosi's behavior.
I don't have any idea if this is true or even plausible -- but maybe there are a group of Democratic House members from conservative districts begging her not to force them to take a position on impeachment. This group believes that voting for impeachment would insure their defeat in 2020, and voting against impeachment would mean that they would be disowned by all the Democratic national fundraising organizations.
I've been a mild skeptic of impeachment for a while and this post helped crystallize why: The worst things in practice about Trump-as-president (as opposed to Trump-as-person) are his policies, but policy disputes are exactly the kinds of things that are not supposed to be handled by the impeachment process, at least according to prevailing historical norms. The remedy for policy disagreements is the electoral process.
Trump's personal corruption is the kind of problem that does justify impeaching him, but that's mostly a Trump-as-person thing that can be hard to identify as driving bad outcomes for the country, though it surely does to some extent especially with foreign affairs. It's obvious that Senate Republicans aren't going to remove him over this stuff even if he does get impeached, though, so going through the process seems kind of pointless.
So yeah, I think the focus needs to be on voting him out in 2020 even though he does definitely deserve to be impeached.
That implies that there is a conflict between impeaching him now and voting him out in 2020. We can do both!
That implies that there is a conflict between impeaching him now and voting him out in 2020. We can do both!
Andy Serkis is going to own this whole thing. Don't know how, but he will.
I suppose we can, though the clock is ticking on getting to an impeachment vote before November 2020, and there's almost certainly no way he'll be removed from office by then even if he does get impeached. So why bother?
I think that lawlessness (who's protected, who's bound, all that) is also a key tool and principle of Republican policy and rule, so taking a stand via the legal mechanism of impeachment also supports good future policy/values. Obviously not to the exclusion of campaigning for Democrats / for good values in the purely political arena.
There's also an element of worst-case damage control in the question of whether to proceed with impeachment. I consider Trump an underdog to win reelection, but it's still possible that he does get reelected by appealing to white anxiety. In that case, it's really really important that Democrats hang on to the House to block the worst of Trump's impulses. There are a bunch of Democratic freshmen who just got elected in various Trump-leaning districts. As far as I know, none of them are currently supporting impeachment. Forcing them into a position where their votes are needed to keep an impeachment resolution from facing defeat, but a vote in favor is going to be really unpopular in their district, could make a bunch of them single-term Representatives. Back in 2009, Pelosi pushed a bunch of vulnerable freshmen to vote for the ACA even though it turned out to mean the end of their careers and loss of Democratic control in the House. I think getting the ACA was worth it, particularly since Obama was still in office to check a Republican House. But is a largely symbolic impeachment vote going to be worth the same price? Maybe - but it doesn't seem quite as obvious. I don't know if this is what Pelosi is thinking at the moment, but it could be part of her calculation.
Again, for Pelosi motivations, this was very helpful to me. TLDR: short-term horizon, risk-aversion, and yes, a smattering of complacency and privilege.
My knee-jerk not-even-American reaction is impeachment proceedings have to start, because lines have to be drawn. The Senate will never convict, it'll eat Congressional time. So what? It would make perfectly explicit what treasonous scum are Republicans; what substantive legislation would otherwise be getting through a Republican Senate?
I think that lawlessness (who's protected, who's bound, all that) is also a key tool and principle of Republican policy and rule, so taking a stand via the legal mechanism of impeachment also supports good future policy/values.
I guess, but I also think setting a precedent for impeachment (especially if it's perceived to be partly over policy differences rather than personal malfeasance) would embolden Republicans to impeach all future Democratic presidents whenever they have control of the House. Prosecuting Trump after he's voted out might be a better way to support good future policy/values.
I think 21 is going to happen anyway. They've done it already to both Clintons, best they could; stand to be corrected, but I assume it was only Obama's exceptional newness and squeaky-cleanness that stopped them doing the same to him.
I guess part of my concern is that I think it's very important to keep policy differences, legal disputes, and questions of personal fitness all separate from each other and confined to their respective spheres. Blurring those boundaries is likely to cause a lot of problems down the road.
23: I think if Democrats had impeached GWB (which there was talk of doing at the time), Republicans would 100% have impeached Obama.
25: Fair.
24: Nothing need be blurred. Trump provides a bountiful smorgasbord of grounds for impeachment.
And maybe it's ultimately fine if that norm gets broken and impeachment becomes a regular feature of divided government. It feels like crossing a line that has so far kept our system from devolving into the kind of constitutional chaos you see in places like Brazil, though.
26.2 is true, but the perception is as important as the reality and I don't have any confidence that the Democrats can manage the perceptions properly, especially with Trump doing everything he can to muddy the waters and the media most likely helping him.
ISTM the biggest single problem in this shitshow is that the constitution essentially relies at many points on office-holders acting in good faith. That stopped being true 20+ years ago (and maybe was the historical norm? I eagerly await enlightenment.) More recent constitutions in third-world shitholes assume no-one is acting in good faith and assemble additional constitutional organs, to check one another. The evaporation of any pretense of good faith in DC may bring the day of meaningful reform closer for the US.
Part of the reason these issues are on my mind lately is that we have a somewhat comparable situation at the state level where there's a ton of outrage at the governor and talk of a recall campaign. He has definitely done things that violate the state constitution and would be grounds for recall, but a lot of the outrage is over his recent line-item vetoes, which in general are definitely within his power. (There have been arguments that some of the vetoes are unconstitutional, but I don't know how strong they really are legally.) There's a very high bar to getting a recall on the ballot, and I'm concerned that if the legal case for it isn't airtight it's going to ultimately be a waste of time and effort that could be spent on more productive organizing.
I consider Trump an underdog to win reelection, but it's still possible that he does get reelected by appealing to white anxiety.
Wow, I disagree here... I think he is absolutely going to win if there isn't a colossal effort to defeat him (i.e. on a more massive scale than 2018). The electoral college math is ugly; he's completely unscrupulous and will break every law he can get away with, with the apparatus of the state behind him (and going after his opponents); the media eats out of his hand, and the economy hasn't tanked yet. It will be a difficult fight to upset all that. I strongly advise you and everyone here not to underestimate.
I think if Democrats had impeached GWB (which there was talk of doing at the time)
I have had this thought a lot, in part because my tic-brain seized on the old bumper sticker, "Chimpeach the Chimperor!" and every time I hear 'impeach!', I think 'Chimpeach!'
The point being that there was a real, valid reason to impeach W (and as 5 notes, he's responsible for a million actual deaths). And maybe we didn't for a good reason - that Republicans would forever impeach everyone - but maybe we didn't for a bad reason - that now we've set a precedent that garden-variety Republicans is an acceptable level of evil.
And maybe we didn't for a good reason - that Republicans would forever impeach everyone - but maybe we didn't for a bad reason - that now we've set a precedent that garden-variety Republicans is an acceptable level of evil.
I think we did set that precedent, but in the 2004 election rather in any decision relating to impeachment.
Chimpeach the chimperor!
And obviously Trump's level of evil goes way beyond "garden-variety Republican" in a whole bunch of ways. I definitely do agree that there are reasonable grounds for impeaching him and I wouldn't be upset particularly if it did happen.
All this process stuff is great, but why aren't people trying to win state houses and shit like that that will make the difference for next next twenty years.
Just mildly skeptical that it's the best course of action given the current circumstances.
37 to 35. To 36, I think a lot of people actually are focused on that, but it doesn't get as much attention as a flashy object like the impeachment argument.
36: I think those races don't require people to start quite as early as the presidential marathon, right? Are there off-year state elections happening now?
34: I didn't remember (or did I even know about it at the time?) that the House voted to refer an impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_George_W._Bush
I also think setting a precedent for impeachment (especially if it's perceived to be partly over policy differences rather than personal malfeasance) would embolden Republicans to impeach all future Democratic presidents whenever they have control of the House.
I agree with Mossy they do not need our emboldening; they do what they want, if not all at once. Worrying about what crimes our rightful actions might provoke of them (a DC Dem habit) is the logic of learned helplessness.
And impeachment is never going to be purely separable from politics; that's why it's up to Congress. Maladministration and criminality march together, so I can't see any scenario in which a rightful impeachment couldn't be dismissed in bad faith as "about policy disputes", because those disputes will always come together.
I think it's funny that peep directed 41 at a time-traveling commenter from 14 years ago.
I think those races don't require people to start quite as early as the presidential marathon, right?
No, but it doesn't hurt. A high-profile challenger to our highly obstructionist House Minority Leader filed right in the midst of the current budget clusterfuck, which I thought was a really smart move. That sort of thing is unusual, though.
Are there off-year state elections happening now?
42.3: Back in the 1990s I was startled to come across an article in a conservative academic journal arguing that the whole Watergate scandal was the Deep State (I don't think he used that term) response to Nixon's proposal to radically downsize the federal government.
Maladministration and criminality march together, so I can't see any scenario in which a rightful impeachment couldn't be dismissed in bad faith as "about policy disputes", because those disputes will always come together.
And you see this as an argument for impeachment? It seems more like an argument against it to me, at least if it's only symbolic as in this case.
A symbolic impeachment could well be an improvement over what House Dems are doing instead, which is passing a bunch of bills that would be good policy if enacted but that definitely will not get through the Senate, making them just as symbolic. It would certainly get more attention.
Would McConnell bring impeachment up for a vote, for the joy of seeing it lose along party lines? Or would he just let it die, without bringing it to the floor?
Thanks for 44. I'll check out the Louisiana situation in particular...
Democrats were given a rare opportunity to guide our national conversation and put Trump on defense in the Muller Report. As they're learning, the alternative to talking about impeachment is talking about whatever's on Trump's diseased mind. That being said, teo's making some characteristically good points and the impeachment conversation will not go as well now. They've developed antibodies.
I'm not sure I understand the antibody metaphor, but thanks.
I, and many others, have probably been too harsh on Pelosi if it's true that we don't even have enough votes in the House. Her public statements have not been helpful but I have no idea what she could've said in that case.
Altogether, if they have the votes I'm still all impeach the motherfucker. Brand him.
52: Ways to help their followers dismiss impure thoughts.
My knee-jerk not-even-American reaction is impeachment proceedings have to start, because lines have to be drawn. The Senate will never convict, it'll eat Congressional time. So what? It would make perfectly explicit what treasonous scum are Republicans . . .
Idea (which I assume the lawyers will explain is impractical or counter-productive). What about having more pathways to condemnation at the state level.
What if a bunch of states passed laws saying:
If the Attorney General finds that a current office-holder has violated the duties or oath of office in a substantial way, they can issue a finding, and direct the secretary of state's office to note this fact on the ballot if the office-holder is running in a current election.
[The name would still appear on the ballot, but perhaps it would appear in strikethrough or in a light grey or in some other way be clearly disfavored on the ballot].
The secretary of State shall make this information publicly available, along with a response by the campaign if they choose.
The CA (or WA, or NY) could issue a finding against Trump, while GA or AL could have issues their own criticisms of Obama. It would allow for clear action at the state level, and eventually there would be an equilibrium. If it didn't happen very often then it would be a national story (along with the question of how the campaign would respond, and if they would seek to challenge in a court of law). If that sort of thing was happening in 4 or 5 states every election then perhaps it wouldn't be much of a story.
56: I don't know that such a concerted political effort - requiring assent from both their legislative houses, governor, and multiple other officials who are commonly independently elected - would be possible in any state not already deep blue.
California is working on a law that would bar candidates who have not submitted their tax returns from any presidential primary ballot.
57: Yes, it's impractical. But, as a thought experiment (if you will) would that be a useful way for some of these political fights to play out?
If one argument for impeachment is, "not considering impeachment is, itself, an endorsement of Trump's behavior" would it be better to have other chanells through which objection to Trump's (or any other president's) behavior could result in concrete official action other than impeachment . . . ?
31: Lurid, here's a draft of a paragraph I wrote recently for another blog comment, as yet unposted, in response to someone outside the US:
If it's any consolation, my perspective from inside the US is that I would put Trump's chances of re-election at less than 50% right now, although there is still a non-trivial chance that he does win. His approval rating is at least 7-8 points underwater in some key midwestern states that were key to his win in 2016, and he has made no efforts to reach out to people beyond his base of supporters who got him elected in 2016 with a minority of the vote. Following his midterm loss of the House in large part because voters were concerned about what Republicans were going to do about health care and the potential loss of insurance protection for preexisting conditions, he has doubled down by ordering his Justice department to support a lawsuit that seeks to strike down the whole Affordable Care Act, including its protection for preexisting conditions. That lawsuit is currently likely to reach a Supreme Court decision around June of 2020 - if he wins, his fingerprints will be all over the resulting disaster; if he loses narrowly (the most likely outcome given the current composition of the Court), it will remind voters how risky giving him another Supreme Court nomination might be. He has already had multiple cabinet members that he picked resign due to scandal, and there are more scandals that may yet come to light as a result of Democratic investigations in the House, some of which may involve him more directly. He has had additional high turnover among his other appointees, few of whom have left with reputations intact. Competent people generally don't want to work for him, since he values sycophancy over competence. The only positive accomplishments that he can point to so far are a tax cut for billionaires and appointing a bunch of extreme right-wing judges - the rest is just hype, fear, and hate. Already, a majority of people polled say they definitely will not vote for him in 2020. There is a reason that so many talented Democratic politicians are running for President this year instead of waiting for 2024 as they would for a more normal incumbent President seeking reelection - they sense blood in the water, and want to take their chances now rather than bank on him getting reelected.
So I think there are definitely grounds for cautious optimism about 2020. Trump can still win, but I think there are multiple reasons to believe he will have an uphill battle to do so.
Put me in the camp with Lurid. We can win, but it's going to take massive effort.
I said my bit about impeachment in the other thread. The thing about actual Total Exoneration isn't just that he gets a bump. He gets completely validated. Why put the emoluments clause at near certain risk of total evisceration when you know the process is currently too corrupt to protect the constitution?
Our 2020 governor's race is in full swing. Four people I know from here are running for statewide Tier B offices or Congress. They're fundraising, going to fairs, all the usual stuff.
Cable TV isn't paying attention because there's no national interest in who becomes Attorney General for Montana, and because cable tv is stupid.
The "Trump approval underwater by at least 7-8% in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania" has been mentioned on the fivethirtyeight podcast recently; I'm not sure if it's also in their written materials online.
Wasn't he equally or more unpopular on the day of the 2016 election? Plus all the polls of Wisconsin st al. claiming Hillary was ahead comfortably but it was like 42%-32% because there were massive numbers of Republicans pretending they were going to vote for a third party.
On the one hand, liberals snarking powerlessly at Trump can't fix anything. On the other hand,
this is really good.
62: I've found it hard to get comparable state-level numbers from 2016, partly because the question differs (approval since January 2017 is based on what you specifically think of Trump's job performance as President). However, the numbers from last month are pretty bad: Trump approval underwater by 13 points in Wisconsin (42-55), 12 points in Michigan and Iowa (42-54), 7 points in Pennsylvania (45-52). Those "easy to win" Trump trade wars have been doing a lot of damage in the Midwest.
As far as Wisconsin specifically, the statewide polls were off in 2016, but there were some late polls suggesting it could be close. Contrary to what you suggest, the two polls in the mix that only looked at the two candidate vote share (Remingtion and Public Policy) were two of the better polls for Clinton (Clinton+9 and Clinton+7, after adjustment for house effects), while SurveyMonkey, which had one of the bigger third-party shares for Johnson at 9%, was the one that came closest to predicting the upset (Clinton +1). The senate polls were also off in favor of Feingold. It looks like the Wisconsin polls that year mostly failed to predict the late surge of Republican voters.
Why put the emoluments clause at near certain risk of total evisceration when you know the process is currently too corrupt to protect the constitution?
Why not though? If it's worthless then it's worthless. The whole thing's a sham and a scam. I despair...
Why not start impeachment hearings, but plan NOT to finish by election day, 2020? They can say that they haven't finished figuring out the charges. We need additional time to figure out whether we should add violating campaign finance laws with Stormy Daniels payments to the obstruction of justice charges. Then what about bribes from Saudi Arabia. There's renting hotel suites and not staying in them. And then look at Kushner's finances. Then, how should frauds Trump conducted before he was elected be treated. This could go on forever, without ever getting to the Senate.
Not sure that it is a practical argument for impeachment, but I will say that if there is one development that the founders *did* anticipate it was the possibility of a Donald Trump. They absolutely knew about fuckers like that and their danger. The remedies are of course completely hopeless in the event of broad societal-wide brainworms.
On the one hand I see some form of looming massive (and hugely negatively consequential) paroxysm, but on the other more realistic hand I see us (and other NATO members) slowly devolving into degraded quasi-democracies, but ones under which things will move along well enough for most of us and our peers. Our various organizational, financial, and social entanglements and relative wealth will lead us into bitching acceptance. But we will comment on the internet about it using big words so we have that going for us.
My guess is that increasing temperatures, more people, less international coordination, modern farming, and rising inequality create the conditions for a huge plague.
OK. So I should go ahead and play Pickleball this morning.
Just be home when the street lights turn on.
In VA, our entire General Assembly is up for election. This is a huge time in Va. This is much more important than Presidential campaign stuff for us. If anyone cares, here are some races:
Rodman is excellent and has a real chance to win:
https://www.debrarodman.com
Amanda Pohl is running an uphill race against far right Amanda Chase. Chase is the incumbent who said "It's those who are naive and unprepared that end up raped. Sorry but I'm not going to be a statistic." The district leans heavily to Chase, but she is so crazy that there is an opening. If you want to throw some money her way, we could get rid of a very far right Chase.
https://www.vpap.org/offices/state-senate-11/elections/
In my humble opinion, one of the best places to look if you want to know where to put your money is to read Dave Wasserman from the Cook Report. On twitter at @Redistrict
62: I think what was shorthanded as approval rating in 2016 is a different survey question from approval of a president. It's, do you like or have favorable impressions of candidate Trump, versus now, do you approve of the job Trump is doing as president.
65 The laws against shoplifting aren't worthless because some people get away with it sometimes.
News on Twitter is that the House Judiciary Committee is starting impeachment proceedings.
Informative link that I have not read.