It really isn’t. For Trump to be successfully impeached before the next election, 20 Republican Senators have to vote to convict. The usual suspects — for no empirically good reason — are indeed Collins, Gardner, Ernst, etc. Assume all the ones you name are ready to vote to convict. That’s 4. Assume Kyl’s seat, though there’s no good reason to do that, and you have 5. Who are the other 15 who have more to gain than lose by convicting?
I’m assuming that Trump will not be re-elected in 2020, which then renders impeachment moot.
I’m not sure they can primary Trump. It may be more likely that Trump supporters will primary anti-Trump Republicans. The people voting in a primary will be the hardcore, impossible to reason with, Fox News Republicans.
If the GOP loses 5 senators to elections, they lose the majority, they already lost the house.
That means, no more Supreme court judges, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, and nothing from the Senate’s agenda getting done. The Democrats will be holding the entire legislative branch of government.
What I am saying is, good ol’ Cocaine Mitch might press some of his more conservative fellows to Impeach Trump if they can think it will save the Senate majority, and his place in power.
The Republicans desperately want to keep the Senate majority, and it really feels like they probably can do it too, if Trump doesn’t pull down the moderate candidates up in 2020. (and as 2018 has shown, the moderate candidates haven’t survived)
They do, but they also don’t want to be primaried. I very much doubt there are 20 senators who value a senate majority in the abstract more than their own seat.
I guess that is the argument Mitch will have to make.
I honestly think that there are at least 20 GOP senators who are not Trump true believers, and would absolutely step on Donny’s throat to protect their majority. It isn’t like they are going to lose an Election because they impeached Trump.
You are assuming that voting to impeach Trump is equivalent to losing their senate seat, and I don’t see the case. Even with that vote they still hold their 10+ point GOP seats.
It all comes down to the calculus of how much Trump helps them keep their seats and their majority. When he isn’t helping the GOP, they’ll dump him. The 2018 election certainly didn’t further the narrative of Trump helping the party.
But, I guess we will see what happens when it does. We could all be wrong, politics has been increasingly difficult to predict lately.
I don’t want them to impeach Trump. I want him to be voted out of office and then, when no longer President, be convicted of crimes and put in jail for the rest of his miserable puny life.
But, with Trump out of the picture, will it matter anymore? Can the Trump true-believers outraise and win a primary without support from the GOP? Maybe? But probably not likely. I think the reason those people won was that they would be joining Trump in Washington. With him gone, does that sales pitch work the same “I want to continue Trump’s work?” Does that cult of personality still work with the personality out of power?
Perhaps — maybe they just get primaried out by another Republican— but even assuming they know they’ll lose their majority, who are the 15 current Republican Senators (accepting your 5 proposed for the sake of argument) who have more to gain by voting to convict than they have to lose personally? I can’t think of a single one, and I can’t imagine any one of them volunteering to fall on their sword for the sake of a majority for the survivors.
I don’t think we’ll see Republican congress-critters “do something” in the dramatic way that a lot of us would like to see them “do something”. But with that said, one thing I can tell you is that the bloom is off the rose for the power of Trump as a political force.
There are going to be a lot of Republican folks quietly putting a finger up into the wind over the next year or so. They’d be fine with Trump winning in 2020, as they’d love to take a stab at Breyer and Ginsburg’s SCOTUS seats, as well as giving Thomas and maybe even Alito an off-ramp.
BUT…if Trump’s approval numbers keep hovering in the sub-45 range, and if the Democratic smoke signals heading into 2020 look as strong as those that presaged the 2018 midterms, I think you’ll see folks like Kasich, Sasse, Murkowski and Collins try to start positioning themselves as leaders of a “new” Republican party that tries to take itself back to Reaganism and GHWB-style foreign policy ideas.
Honestly, for a while I’ve thought that the long-term smart play, politically, would be a real rejection of Trump. Just just concern and bullshit, but actually harming Trump with action. Saying something like, “no, this is so terrible that it must be destroyed.”
I feel like the Republicans who do that are going to be the only ones left at the end of all this… And they won’t be called Republicans any more. But actually putting some sort of principles above party is something that Americans actually respect, i think. The partisan bases don’t, and that makes primaries a problem. But a big chunk of the country hates the partisan bases.
While I always hesitate to try to feel too positive about any of this stuff, let’s remember a couple of things about Trump. First, nobody is truly loyal to the man, especially since he has proven time and time again that he has zero loyalty to anyone else. Look how fast almost everyone close to him has turned on him with Mueller. The Republicans rallied around him only when it became clear they had to to keep their power. They’ll fall away from him as soon as that changes.How does that change? Well, Trump is popular because he acts tough and picks on people who can’t defend themselves. He’s the schoolyard bully. It doesn’t take a lot for that type of person to be exposed and then suddenly that toughness aura they project disappears. Trump has managed to keep his appearances up for a long time, but if the full truth comes out about his past, that may undo his image.
True. I think, like Enron, if Trump goes down, he’ll go down FAST. Like one day McConnell is talking about how much he supports Trump’s agenda and the next he’s vilifying him.
I don’t think Trump’s image or approval polling really matter. For each Republican Senator, they’ll look at the Republican base in their own state. If they’re in a solidly Republican state (which most of them are), they’ll be more afraid of a primary challenge than they will of any Democratic challenger. There are a few (as granted) who might face a different calculus, but a successful impeachment would require 20, and 20 Republicans vulnerable to a Democrat cannot be found. So he won’t be impeached. I do think he’ll get trounced for re-election, but maybe it’s my turn to be too optimistic.
Eh - maybe… but look at Cory Gardner in Colorado. This guys has been completely aligned with Trump and the GOP despite Colorado’s complete distaste for Trump.
Mike Coffman, a far more moderate GOP Congressman was just ousted by 10pts in a district the GOP has held for 40 years.
Gardner has doing nothing to try and moderate his tone in regards to Trump.
I mean I glanced at it whilst toileting one fine morning and that was it. Barely worth mentioning which is why I heatedly denied all contacts to Russia when asked. Nobody thought we could win in Michigan, nobody. It was a beautiful thing. I won more states than any President in history.
