Re: Politics
Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 5:58 pm
You are super overthinking this if you've talked yourself into thinking there's a scenario in which impeachment is on the table and Dems don't vote for it. Whatever political advantage they have going into 2018 they owe to the fact that they are the opposition to Trump. If impeachment comes to the floor for a vote and they vote against it, that goes up in smoke. And calling that a lost advantage is assuming they even made it to the general election. Do you want to be the Dem rep who has to explain to Dem primary voters why you voted to keep Trump? But even in races where the Dems who voted against impeachment get primaried, the Dems' role as opposition party is permanently tarnished. Nobody is going to vote for them as an anti-Trump vote if they already declined to remove Trump when they had the chance.
But the GOP is still not going to impeach their own president if for no other reason than because they're too afraid of getting primaried by Trump's base. His approval rating among Republicans is still in the high-70s, many of whom would not abandon Trump just because the GOP establishment turned on him. The idea that the "alt-right" Nazis will support "ideological GOP" like Pence after Trump is out seems pretty baseless to me. These guys will continue to push Trumpian candidates to challenge establishment Republicans in primaries and if their guy loses the primaries a lot of them will not just turn out and reflexively pull the lever for whoever's got the R next to their name. And the current Republicans in Congress, who have either survived similar challenges from the Tea Party or were the victorious Tea Party challenger, understand all of this very well.
What's much more likely is that they just push on independently, try to pass stuff without his help or leadership, and send it to him for a signature. Most of the statements Republicans in Congress issued after last weekend were just boilerplate "racism is bad, there is no place in our society for this kind of behavior" -- few of them actually called out Trump himself. I have no idea what combination of events would need to transpire before impeachment was realistically on the table, but they have not transpired yet. I don't think Trump is out six months from now and if he is, it's much more likely due to resignation, 25th Amendment, or death (not necessarily assassination, I mean we're talking about an obese 71 year old who moves as little as possible because he believes exercise reduces some finite well of energy that will never replenish, who is now stuck with the most stressful job in the world) than impeachment. I suppose it's possible that some Congressional GOP might work behind the scenes to push the 25th Amendment option but that would be very risky for them since there would be hell to pay if it ever got out, and this administration is leakier than a sieve. For the same reason, you're not likely to see anybody put overt pressure on Trump to resign either.
As for Pence -- the close race between Ford and Carter, followed by Reagan's win in 1980, shows us that the GOP can recover shockingly quickly from catastrophic scandal, so I can't just out of hand count out the GOP in 2020. But I've got to think that Pence personally has been seriously tainted. If the GOP turns on Trump, hard to believe the wing of it that goes will still be behind Pence (more than they have to be, at least, since he would become the president for the remainder of the term). On the other hand, to Trump's white supremacist base, Pence was never their guy in the first place and isn't going to become that guy when the GOP establishment makes him president. The Dems are in disarray themselves so I guess it's foolish to make predictions about anything but as I write this in August 2017 it is currently very hard for me to see Pence winning a presidential election. There's still three years for someone else to arise but I've got to think that in 2020 if the GOP's guy isn't Trump, it's probably Kasich.
But the GOP is still not going to impeach their own president if for no other reason than because they're too afraid of getting primaried by Trump's base. His approval rating among Republicans is still in the high-70s, many of whom would not abandon Trump just because the GOP establishment turned on him. The idea that the "alt-right" Nazis will support "ideological GOP" like Pence after Trump is out seems pretty baseless to me. These guys will continue to push Trumpian candidates to challenge establishment Republicans in primaries and if their guy loses the primaries a lot of them will not just turn out and reflexively pull the lever for whoever's got the R next to their name. And the current Republicans in Congress, who have either survived similar challenges from the Tea Party or were the victorious Tea Party challenger, understand all of this very well.
What's much more likely is that they just push on independently, try to pass stuff without his help or leadership, and send it to him for a signature. Most of the statements Republicans in Congress issued after last weekend were just boilerplate "racism is bad, there is no place in our society for this kind of behavior" -- few of them actually called out Trump himself. I have no idea what combination of events would need to transpire before impeachment was realistically on the table, but they have not transpired yet. I don't think Trump is out six months from now and if he is, it's much more likely due to resignation, 25th Amendment, or death (not necessarily assassination, I mean we're talking about an obese 71 year old who moves as little as possible because he believes exercise reduces some finite well of energy that will never replenish, who is now stuck with the most stressful job in the world) than impeachment. I suppose it's possible that some Congressional GOP might work behind the scenes to push the 25th Amendment option but that would be very risky for them since there would be hell to pay if it ever got out, and this administration is leakier than a sieve. For the same reason, you're not likely to see anybody put overt pressure on Trump to resign either.
As for Pence -- the close race between Ford and Carter, followed by Reagan's win in 1980, shows us that the GOP can recover shockingly quickly from catastrophic scandal, so I can't just out of hand count out the GOP in 2020. But I've got to think that Pence personally has been seriously tainted. If the GOP turns on Trump, hard to believe the wing of it that goes will still be behind Pence (more than they have to be, at least, since he would become the president for the remainder of the term). On the other hand, to Trump's white supremacist base, Pence was never their guy in the first place and isn't going to become that guy when the GOP establishment makes him president. The Dems are in disarray themselves so I guess it's foolish to make predictions about anything but as I write this in August 2017 it is currently very hard for me to see Pence winning a presidential election. There's still three years for someone else to arise but I've got to think that in 2020 if the GOP's guy isn't Trump, it's probably Kasich.