Yes, Democrats Should Impeach Trump—and Make Mitch McConnell Defend His Acquittal

[Babba]

Jonathan Alter is no uber liberal and is part of what Heather Parton refers as "the village". The journalists who were so cowed by the right insisting that all the media has a liberal bias besides Fox News that they bend over backwards to do bothsiderism in their reporting even when there is no comparison between the right and the left on particular issues. Anyway, he makes a persuasive argument that I hadn't heard before.

What’s holding them back is a faulty analysis of the politics of impeachment. They’re still caught in the grips of myopic conventional wisdom about the way the whole thing would actually play out in a trial in the Senate.

Recall that in the July 31 debate, Sen. Michael Bennet repeated the familiar argument that the Senate will not remove Trump from office. If the House impeaches him, Bennet said, Trump “would be running saying that he had been acquitted by the United States Congress.”

Julian Castro shot back: “If they don’t impeach him, he’s going to say, ‘You see? You see? The Democrats didn’t go after me on impeachment, and you know why? Because I didn’t do anything wrong.’”

Conversely, Castro continued, if the House impeaches Trump, the public would conclude that “his friend, Mitch McConnell, Moscow Mitch, let him off the hook.”

Castro’s argument was so persuasive that Bennet did something you never, ever see in a debate—he changed his mind on stage: “I don’t disagree with that. You just said it better than I did. We have to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Walking and chewing gum at the same time—a useful cliché—usually means in this context legislating and investigating Trump simultaneously. But it could also mean something else: attacking Trump and McConnell at the same time. It may be that a winning Democratic impeachment strategy is coming into view, one that simultaneously upholds the rule of law and yields political dividends.

I call it “Stain and Blame”—stain Trump by impeaching him, and blame McConnell when he is acquitted in the Senate.


But Clinton’s impeachment, while unpopular at the time, was nonetheless a humiliating blow. The next election after the whole process was completed was not the 1998 midterms—won by Democrats before Senate acquittal—but the 2000 presidential election, which George W. Bush (barely) won over Clinton’s vice-president, Al Gore, in part by promising to “restore honor and dignity to the Oval Office.” The argument worked, even though Clinton wasn’t on the ballot. In 2020, after impeaching Trump, it would work much better. Without impeaching him, it has no sting.

Yes, Democrats Should Impeach Trump—and Make Mitch McConnell Defend His Acquittal

 

[Rev. Hellh0und]

That would HAND the election to trump. you guys don't think shit through.

 

[roberthughey]

How incredibly naive can someone by to think the majority leader of the Senate can solely be held accountable for not impeaching the president.

Rather stupid IMO.

BTW I don't the democrats have 218 in the house to pass any articles of impeachment.

 

[Jets]

Instead of promulgating it, the House should call for a vote on articles of impeachment. Two options here:

-Start Impeachment proceedings regardless of the Senate outcome.

-Focus on the Democratic candidate winning the 2020 election

Period.

 

[Babba]

That would HAND the election to trump. you guys don't think shit through.

You should read the entire article. He thinks it through thoroughly. And Democrats should NEVER take advice from Republicans or Libertarians.

 

[Rev. Hellh0und]

You should read the entire article. He thinks it through thoroughly. And Democrats should NEVER take advice from Republicans or Libertarians.

True,. you should believe your own polls and shit cause that worked so well last time.

 

[Babba]

Instead of promulgating it, the House should call for a vote on articles of impeachment. Two options here:

-Start Impeachment proceedings regardless of the Senate outcome.

-Focus on the Democratic candidate winning the 2020 election

Period.

We can walk and chew gum at the same time. And as Alter points out,

A related piece of conventional wisdom is that impeachment and a Senate trial would open Democrats up to the charge—already being made by the GOP against pro-impeachment House members—that they are not working for their constituents.

But if the Clinton case is any indication, a week-long Senate trial would wrap up only a month or so after impeachment. That means the whole thing would be over in January or February. The Democrats could shower blame on McConnell for the acquittal and move on. By summer, Democratic members would have had plenty of time to refocus their attention on constituent concerns. No Republican challenger can credibly argue in October of 2020 that the incumbent Democrat ignored constituents for a brief period 10 months earlier while he or she voted for impeachment. People can’t remember what happened two weeks ago, much less 10 months ago.

But they would remember Trump being impeached. That stain is forever.

 

[Babba]

True,. you should believe your own polls and shit cause that worked so well last time.

The polls currently show that most people are against impeachment. But that was true before Clinton was impeached too but the impeachment hurt Al Gore a lot. Bush campaigned on "restoring dignity and honor to the White House".

 

[Jets]

We can walk and chew gum at the same time. And as Alter points out,



But they would remember Trump being impeached. That stain is forever.

Don’t disagree. What is stopping the Democrats in the House?

 

[Babba]

Don’t disagree. What is stopping the Democrats in the House?

Nothing. They plan on voting on articles of impeachment by the end of the year.