This is how I feel. It's a moral issue. Politically, I actually believe inaction could cost them more votes than action.
Oh, I agree with you criminal court is definitely possible. However I think two things will happen further into the future if Trump and/or more of his family and associates are prosecuted and convicted in a criminal court and neither of them are good for Democrats. 1. People will see they are convicted, and then wonder why if Congress had access to any or all of this information didn't impeach. They will think Democrats are weak and ineffectual. 2. If convicted people will think it was all legal technicalities because whatever they did wasn't bad enough for Congress to impeach.
i think you are projecting too much and sensible people realize how inconsequential impeachment would be at this point. The majority of Americans agree with me. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/20/politics/cnn-poll-impeachment-trump-russia/index.html The decline -- from 43% in favor in December to 36% now -- stems largely from a change in Democratic views on impeaching the President. In December, 80% of self-identified Democrats said they were in favor of impeachment -- that now stands at 68%, a 12-point dip. Among independents and Republicans, support for impeachment has fallen 3 points over the same time.
That is okay. I often disagree with the majority on what should be done. My point is that by the time the election occurs, impeachment will be way down the list on what voters base their decision for whom to vote.
Hmm, interesting question. There are two scenario's. A. Not Impeached 1. Trump supporters won't feel alienated 2. Dems focus their platform on actual issues (TBD if this works. Negative campaigns are effective, unfortunately.) 3. Economy is doing well so you don't add uncertainty (should be noted, macro economics are far more complicated than who holds office) B. Impeached, not removed 1. Dems can claim the moral high ground (see: most items in my prior post) 2. and/or Dems can run a hard negative campaign (this would be exhausting for all, however, as it'll be hard to out do Trump as he's mastered negativity) 3. GOP can claim victory and run campaign on the "witch hunt" conspiracy theory (TBD if this works) Can't think of any more benefits to not removing Trump from office.
Paul Waldman at the American Prospect: Right now, it looks like congressional Democrats are taking the same position on impeachment they did before the 2018 election, which is essentially: "Maybe; we'll see." As long as that's followed up with vigorous investigation of the things Mueller revealed and the rest of myriad facets of Trump's corruption (still waiting for those tax returns!), that's fine for now. But there's also something to be said for taking a simple moral stance that stands apart from political considerations, namely this: If Donald Trump deserves to be impeached, then Donald Trump should be impeached. That's pretty hard to argue with. https://prospect.org/article/why-democrats-cant-punt-on-impeachment
I think the Dems need to grow a spine and take the moral high ground. If you believe it's the right thing to do, don't avoid it because it'll be hard. Sometimes things don't work out but at least your base will respect you for taking a stand. In the long run, history will be the judge. The message is simple - "Nobody is above the law" The problem is many people don't understand what "obstruction of justice" means so there is an education component. Attempting to obstruction justice (and failing) = obstruction of justice. If you succeeded to obstruct justice that simply means you got away with it. lol.
Censure is a formal, and public, group condemnation of an individual, often a group member, whose actions run counter to the group's acceptable standards for individual behavior. In the United States, governmental censure is done when a body's members wish to publicly reprimand the President of the United States, a member of Congress, a judge or a cabinet member. It is a formal statement of disapproval.
I normally stay away from forum OS. But I am curious to know how you feel about the obstruction section of the report? Are the critics right or is it not that big of a deal? I have learned to stay neutral when it comes to politics. I’ve honestly lost faith in both sides of the aisle. But I am curious to know how conservative leaning folks feel about the obstruction section. The one Trump quote/line that always stood out to me from his campaign was that he could out to 5th Ave, shoot someone in the head and his supporters would still love and support him. Or something like that. I get that no collusion was proven, but do his morals matter at all to his supporters? Does receiving help from a hostile foreign power even move the needle a little bit for conservatives? I’m of the belief that liberals and conservatives have been brainwashed by various forms of media. I’m asking because you seem to be pretty level headed when it comes to hoops. I hope this isn’t an offensive question.
You want an opinion for @Os Trigonum. That's rich. I am fully expecting that Os to reply with an OPed piece, from a curiously non-moderate-Democratic entity.
If Clinton can be impeached or (try to be) for something stupid and inane about getting a bj from a White House staffer, then why not try to impeach Trump here? Now with that being said, I think it will be close to damn impossible to remove him as they will never get the votes they need in the Senate to remove him. The only thing I see changing this is if Mueller, himself, testified in front of Congress and some of these Republican numbnuts who have sold their soul to the devil (I'm looking at you, Mitch McConnell) finally develop a conscience and turn against Trump. But it won't happen as they are too afraid of him. I just hope he doesn't get re-elected in 2020.
Not really. Formally acknowledging that the president did something wrong but not having the courage to actually do anything about it is not moral. It actually processes his guilt only to trivialize the offense. It's like declaring a person guilty of murder and then sentencing him to community service. Surely the victim is worth more than that. Besides which, Senate Republicans would not vote for something even as toothless as a censure.
I appreciate these questions. I've got a couple of reactions to the obstruction section. One reaction is that it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. Trump is a pretty lousy human being, has poor judgment, is impulsive, and apparently doesn't have much of a moral compass. He is kept in check (as much as that is possible) by the people around him. Second it's hard for me to tell the severity of the various offenses. If I am married to a particularly bossy spouse, it may just be that I've learned over time how and when to tune that person out, and only listen selectively at times to discern when the bossiness is just empty commands that will blow over and quickly be forgotten, versus genuine instances where my spouse actually wants me to do something and do it NOW. I don't know if Trump's relationships with the people in the ten cases resembles that of me and a bossy spouse, or was in fact Trump trying his damnedest to get his subordinates to lie and/or otherwise break the law. My suspicion is that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle--at least for some of those cases if not for many of them. A third concern is that the obstruction section of the report itself represents a view of "how the sausage is made." Had it not been for the (now demonstrably false) collusion charges, none of the obstruction section would have seen the light of day. This observation of course is completely and 100% separate from the issue of the actual content of the obstruction section as it now exists, regardless of its genesis. But I do think there is an element of unfairness to putting someone in the position of being investigated, and then having all these putative process crimes result, leading to impeachment or censure. But of course that's the reality the country now faces. As a personal matter, I am neither a Trump supporter nor Trump detractor. My own personal view is that once the man was elected President, he earned the general respect of the Presidency we would afford anyone in that position. In this sense I agree with something Ann Althouse wrote a couple of weeks back: "I was not a Trump supporter at the time of the election. (I wasn't a Hillary supporter either.) But the effort to take his victory away is something I have always opposed very strongly. America voted, and that was that as I see it." That's pretty much how I see it too. My general complaint (as I've said a couple of times this week) is with Democrats whom I believe ought to know better and who ought to act better. Which leads me to where I am now. I am willing to consider the obstruction findings as grounds for impeachment. This is the general message that ALL Democrats seem to be sending. What I am also seeing is a general collective unwillingness to step up to the plate and act on that conviction. I do not care at all about the arguments that (a) this will hurt Democratic candidates in 2020 and/or (b) the Senate will never follow the House in convicting the President. Those arguments to me are beside the point: they are prudential arguments, not moral or ethical ones. Again I will say that if Democrats feel strongly enough about their conclusion that Trump is unfit for office, they have a political obligation to act upon that conviction--regardless of the prudential concerns raised against impeachment. Otherwise, Democrats should cease-and-desist and shut up about Trump's obstruction transgressions and allow the American people the opportunity to remove him from office come 2020. Or return him to office in 2020, whichever the case may be.
The choice might be censure or nothing. I suspect that you would like neither. Censure of a sitting is extremely rare. Andrew Jackson was the last President to be censured. And censure is better than nothing. BTW, how do you think "history" will remember Bill Clinton's impeachment? A partisan exercise? A necessary political exercise showing that OoJ is a serious crime but a crime that fails to meet the high-crimes-and-misdeamnors bar? Historians may not differentiate a successful censure vote from a failed impeachment vote.
