This is right. This is the point.
rowe33
3674
Agree wholeheartedly. Make McConnell, Cruz, etc, vote on it. Show how utterly corrupt they are on the record for all time.
… And the right time for that is probably this fall or winter, not now. Because you want the public demanding impeachment hearings, not the Dems pushing them. The public is getting close, but they’re still not there yet.
(I agree with everything Warren said … but again, the time to get all the Senators on the record is next year, not now.)
You should review the polling data on Nixon, which shows that the public did not get on board with impeachment until well after the proceedings had started. It takes the proceedings to move the public, not the other way ‘round. That’s leadership, what we voted for.
Edit: If you can’t impeach without a guarantee of conviction, then impeachment is forever off the table. If you can’t impeach without a clear popular majority for it before you start, then it is forever off the table.
ShivaX
3678
Which is what an inquiry would likely do. It’s not a vote, it’s collecting evidence to move forward with proceedings if required.
Yes, exactly. Public support for impeachment is higher now than it was when the House authorized an impeachment inquiry in Feb 1974. There was not a majority for impeaching Nixon until the end of the House Committee process.
Enidigm
3680
I knew a Petri dish without even clicking the link.
… I mean, we’ve already had a bunch of well-publicized congressional inquiries into various aspects of this. A bunch of others are ongoing (11 of them, which none of the “impeach him this nanosecond!!!” crowd ever seems to mention.)
Will adding “impeachment” to the names of those hearings really move the meter much? Bear in mind that the media will inevitably and correctly point out that the result of this impeachment will be Trump getting off scot-free with 99.99% certainty.
As the link I posted notes, the current public is actually well ahead of the 1973 public in terms of favoring impeachment. The problem being that it’s apples and oranges: the amount of public outrage needed here is vastly higher because of the whole thing about the Senate being controlled by criminal collaborators. (Dems controlled both houses during Watergate.)
Ultimately congressional Dems can’t do anything other than encourage people to vote, because that’s the only thing that will affect any of this. Which means the congressional Dems essentially need to goad the public for a while. It sucks - but then the Dems’ hand sucks, because the Senate is controlled by criminals, etc. etc.
It sounds to me like you’re in the we shouldn’t impeach if we can’t convict camp. At least, that’s what I get from this.
RichVR
3683
I hate it. But I also agree that the dems can’t pull the trigger too soon. Blue balls it is, indeed.
The current Senate will not convict. At this point, I don’t think anyone seriously denies that.
As I explained above, given that there’s no point in voting on articles of impeachment until people’s minds are firmly focused on the election, because the election is the only thing that matters now. So impeach by all means,* but when the time is right. As annoying as it is, that time is not right now.
*With a caveat about being very careful about what specific charges you impeach on, because if Trump is cleared by the Senate it may make it impossible to prosecute him on those exact same charges after he leaves office. Fortunately there’s an embarrassment of riches: there’s enough to charge him about ten times over.
Sharpe
3686
It is my belief that momentum is slipping away from the Dems and if they do not move forward with at least an impeachment inquiry now, that no impeachment proceeding will ever happen. Given the reality that the Dems currently have enormous, redundant, powerful evidence of abuse of power/obstruction of justice et. al., and yet are unwilling to initiate proceedings now, what could possibly happen before the election that would suddenly give them sufficient grounds to proceed?
And if you say, oh its about timing, juuuust before the election, let me say now that the timing is worse, much much much worse next year than this year. There are many reasons, but here are two:
1)If you wait until the election is underway, a huge faction of the Dems are going to say “oh we don’t want to take this choice away from voters; we’ll let voters decide”, so the Dem pressure for impeachment will weaken dramatically.
2)If you wait until the election is underway, the GOP, enabled by the feckless lazy media, will spout a huge amount of noise about “disrupting the election”, “usurping the role of the electorate” and so forth.
Honestly, folks, it’s now or never.
That’s how I tend to see it too… It’s almost late 2019 and campaign season is gearing up. Watergate may have been a slow burn but it was over and done by the 19 month mark of Nixon’s second term. In Trump’s case we are already at the 2.5 year mark.
If they are unwilling to do their jobs, they should be fired.
CraigM
3689
Yes, absolutely.
There is another factor. If the Dems push impeachment next year, the Repubs will claim it is a political stunt meant only to hurt the President. And the media will lap it up. It cheapens the meaning. ‘They simply are using impeachment for maximum political gain, and nothing to do with anything Trump is doing now’ the Maga Habermans of the world will spew.
Traitors, the lot of them.
I literally don’t give a single fuck what they think.
They – meaning literally anyone who stands with the GOP today – are complicit in treason.
Fuck them. They can all be first against the wall if we have a big enough wall.
e: I know I come across strong here. That’s on purpose. You know what’s treasonous? Buddying up with a hostile foreign power to undermine our democracy because hurr durr librals. I know treason is a bright red word that is scary to the Maggie Habermans of the world. But it’s literally treason to do this shit.
Fuck them.
KevinC
3692
Well, they really do want to build a wall. Maybe we can put them to work.
