What do I think of the impeachment trial so far? And why haven't I bothered to write anything about it?
The first question is easy: I think the House impeachment managers have done a great job. In fact, their video presentations have been exactly what I've wanted to see for a while: a dramatic tick-tock showing Donald Trump's minute-by-minute reaction to the violence at the Capitol. Kudos to them for an effective presentation.
Unfortunately, the second question is also easy. If there's anything I've come to loathe over two decades of blogging it's bad faith arguments. They're just endless these days, and they've gotten to the point where no one even bothers to hide what they're doing. It's such an insane waste of everyone's time and it drives me nuts.
And that's the entire story of the impeachment. The House managers could have video of Trump texting directions to the insurrectionists and it wouldn't matter. Republicans have decided to pretend that they have a deep constitutional objection to impeaching a president who's out of office, and that's that. The rest is just theater.
This is a bad faith argument, of course, and everyone knows it. Republicans don't want to convict a president of their own party, but they also don't want to force their members to cast a vote implicitly approving of insurrection. So they groped around for some kind of technicality that would eliminate their dilemma and came up with the out-of-office dodge. This allows them to vote to acquit but to claim it was solely because of their deep commitment to constitutional norms.
There's no point arguing about this since it's not meant seriously. It's just a bad faith argument designed to get Republicans out of a dilemma and waste lots of Democratic time.
But this is the world we live in. It's full of bad faith arguments like this, designed solely to produce a plausible explanation for the rubes and to waste everyone else's time. And it works. The rubes obediently parrot it back and the rest of the world earnestly explains why the argument is wrong. Nobody really cares, though. And then we move on.
But let's suppose Rmoney, Sasse, & Murkowski -- the only GOP Senators I anticipate to hold their previous vote to proceed to trial & vote to convict -- break the GOP line?
Not only does it make the GOP unconstitutionality excuse look like the weak beer it is, but it triples the number of same-party votes in favor of conviction from the previous one. (As well, Rmoney was the party presidential nominee just eight years ago, while Sasse is the Cool Dad rival to Tom Cotton's Creepy Stepdad in the 2024 shadow primary to be the next in line to GOP leadership. Murkowski? She's already won back her seat as a "third party" write in in the original MAGA wave of 2010, so her level of fuckgiving is nigh nonexistent.)
I'd guess there will be more than three GOP votes to convict.
Nobody really knows what the GOP will look like in another year or in three years. But whatever happens, I would expect that impeachment and the vote on the verdict will matter a lot.
What do you suggest as an over/under? I would go no higher than the original five (though not necessarily those five), & would put a friendly wage of 25 dollars to charity of winner's choice.
(Ask Joel Hanes from the old blog -- I am good for it.)
I think 5 is the floor. I'd guess 6 or 7, though I could see the number go higher. I hate making predictions ... but say 7 just to pick a number.
As a rule I don't bet on votes and elections ... but I'll be happy to donate $25 to a worthy cause whatever the outcome.
Cool.
I will put up 25 of my charitable dollars to a group of your choosing, regardless.
Looks like we may know tomorrow. I hope I'm way wrong on the low side. Charity tbd ... maybe something Stacey Abrams-related.
That's actually political more than charity ... I suppose.
I heard Murkowski interviewed. She thinks Trump's lawyers did a good job. I will be very surprised if she votes to convict. All she needs is the tiniest fig leaf to hide behind and she is likely to join all the other corrupt Republicans.
Murkowski "earns" her reputation as a moderate by expressing deep concern that lasts until the final vote. I don't know what she'll do, but I will be surprised if she votes to convict.
More than three? I doubt it.
Rs are stupid not to take this opportunity to convict when there is no real penalty. Because we know he’s about to get hit with fraud cases, tax cases, some of them probably criminal. If they convicted now, then later they could say “we took him out of politics, give the guy a break”. Instead they have to keep pleading Trump derangement syndrome etc. Not nearly as effective.
Good point, but R's are stupid. They have no clue haw they can expand their appeal to voters, so they hang on to every racist, white supremacist, anti-Semite, Trump-cultist, conspiracy theorist, or right-wing nutjob that they can.
Too bad for them that so much of their base is perishing from COVI--... I mean, diabetes or emphysema or high blood pressure.
I'm afraid your list of nutjobs pretty accurately describes a majority of House Republicans and a sizeable number of Republican Senators. They don't just represent the nutjobs, they are card-carrying nutjobs. (Does anyone carry membership cards these days, other than Costco and such?)
Marjorie Taylor-Greene is expert in all the nutjobs.
The Republican voters are a lot more stupid than are the Republican senators, who keep getting elected.
Corrupt is more descriptive of Republican senators than stupid. Of course, there is a profound level of stupidity behind what they're doing to this country, but they're betting on their own fortunes in the next election, not on whether the country survives as a democracy.
The GOP needs to exorcise Trump from their body politic if they are to survive as a party. This is their best shot at doing that.
I don’t see a way for the GOP to get there from here. The base of the party is absolutely toxic to the portion of the electorate you’ve said (probably correctly) they need to attract or win back in order to be a majority party instead of just the ruling party. But abandoning the base would mean reduced to essentially a Confederate rump, plus maybe Wyoming, South Dakota, and Idaho.
That would put them more or less where they were when Pres. Obama took office with no guarantee that a future Democratic president wouldn’t kick them to the curb instead of catering to them and being preoccupied with demonstrating that he’s “the adult in the room”.
The saga of the California Republicans is illustrative. The dominance of the Birchers within the party meant that gradually the Republicans went from the largest and most important party (regularly electing statewide officials, senators, and the majority of the state’s congressional delegation) to holding no statewide offices, no possibility of electing senators, and a house delegation that could be eliminated completely if the Democrats wanted to play hardball).
All of the minority and immigrant groups that would be highly receptive to a center right or centrist party (and who were supposed to be the “demography is destiny” that would keep the Republicans in power for generations are repulsed by the party’s Bircher base. So that’s their choice they can rule with their base (and the counter majoritarian constitution) or they can be wiped out. Probably not much in between.
"The GOP needs to exorcise Trump from their body politic if they are to survive as a party."
Seventy-four million voters supported Trump and Republicans did at least reasonably well in other races. Unless you have a way to get rid of a lot of those voters, as well as the Republicans who voted against Trump but stayed true down-ballot, the party will continue well into the future.
Punishing Trump is not the key to changing the GOP. Losing elections at all levels is, but the Constitution, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. will keep them going aided by unreliable Democratic turnout.
We need a Stacy Abrams in every state.
Reporting from The Hill says republican senators believe this has so damaged Trump that he won't be a political threat going forward, and they think Dems were foolish to help them out of their dilemma like this. The problem with this argument is that the base still adores Trump, and will continue to adore Trump because they live in an alternate reality. The way to make Trump go away as a political force is to convict and then remove him from federal politics with a majority vote. And Republican senators still won't even mostly say the election was not stolen. They can't even bring themselves to do that.
Honestly, I think Tulsi Gabbard's Future Running Mate & Grayson Allen's Biological Father are at least as culpable as El Jefe for the Insurrection, & acknowledging El Jefe's culpability with a vote to convict would make the GOP Senate cloakroom an awkward place. Like the 1977 New York Yankees lockerroom.
Reporters could do a lot better job of asking the uncomfortable follow-up questions. If a Senator trots out the "unconstitutional" excuse, ask if they would have been okay with the impeachment trial had it occurred, say, before January 20. If they answer no, then point out that they just admitted that their excuse is BS. If they answer yes, then point out that the Democrats were more than willing to hold the trial in January, and it was Mitch McConnell who prevented that from happening.
It's full of bad faith arguments.... And it works.... Nobody really cares, though. And then we move on.
I don't agree with this. I think a lot of people care. And impeachment, regardless of the outcome, matters. The president incited a violent mob to attack Congress in a failed attempt to overturn an election, and if members of that Congress decide what he did was acceptable, we will not forget and just move on.
Oh, dear . . . no "thumbs up", or even a "respect" option?
Well, I agree with you. I know a lot of people -- granted, all Democrats -- who care very much, and are disgusted, yet again, by Republicans.
But, after the vote, the NY Times can go to mid-western diners to ask Trump voters how they feel.
Trump's lawyers are arguing that he has not received due process. Of course, if the Senate trial had to be conducted as though it were a court proceeding, the Republican Senators would be engaging in jury nullification.
DJTS: Made in America.
And the 15 GOP senators who were absent yesterday would not be casting a vote on the verdict.
On one of my recent visits to rightwingland (talk radio), I heard Mark Levin (described by Kevin as a "lunatic") claim that the trial is "unconstitutional in more ways than I can count."
So, at least 21, since Mark Levin has no ( p ) * e * @ n @ ! I ! % s %.
"unconstitutional in more ways than I can count."
is the same problem with counting Levin has with everything else.
The best thing that will come out of this trial are the 2022 and 2024 campaign commercials against senators who vote to acquit. The impeachment managers have done all the heavy lifting and the commercials will make themselves.
Please indicate if you are surprised by this,
Lauren Boebert's parents were first cousins and her dad was a pro-wrestler,
https://twitter.com/ClockworkAnge/status/1360261459306029056
Post needs a Trig... get warning.
... Too soon?
oh I see. They aren't "idiots"; they are "rubes".
Wingnut self-affirmation,
https://i.redd.it/nr52vwsarng61.jpg
Prisoner's dilemma.
It's not just bad-faith arguments; we're seeing lawyers for Trump overtly fabricating their own truths and repeating unproven/disproven statements. They're not even bothering to finagle a false narrative by bending the truth; they're outright lying and repeating lies.
You can't fix The Stupid.