Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 253: Scot Free

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think the implication is that impeachment is not an issue for which individual senators should be basing their votes on the collective decisions of their political party, as is suggested by your description of them "sticking together", etc.

I think that's a sentiment I would agree with also, though I haven't thought especially deeply about what the implications of this question are.
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For what it's worth, I think 9 Republican senators voted against their party to acquit Andrew Johnson. Not a single one of them was reelected to the Senate. I think the verdict of history has been decisive - stick together or lose your seat.

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https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1207024107101007872?s=19

yeah good luck with all that

The real question isn't if Rs will defect to call key witnesses (the same witnesses the Rs complained weren't called by the House because the White House refused to allow them to testify), but what tools McConnell has access to in order to shut down proceedings if they are called

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Don't know if there'll be four votes or not. Probably Romney, but I wouldn't put any other individual R Senator over 50%.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1207024107101007872?s=19

yeah good luck with all that

The real question isn't if Rs will defect to call key witnesses (the same witnesses the Rs complained weren't called by the House because the White House refused to allow them to testify), but what tools McConnell has access to in order to shut down proceedings if they are called

Trial schedule

Day 1-3 Hunter Biden
Day 4-5 Joe Biden
Day 6-30 Hillary Clinton
Day 31 the Senate votes that if they were voting on the impeachment of Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton, they would vote to convict.
Day 32 Complete and Total Exoneration of Donald Trump

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Gardner and Collins definitely have to consider even the appearance of impartiality due to the tough tests they face in 2020.

However Doug Jones could be one that would defect to the other side.

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red sox 777 posted...

For what it's worth, I think 9 Republican senators voted against their party to acquit Andrew Johnson. Not a single one of them was reelected to the Senate. I think the verdict of history has been decisive - stick together or lose your seat.

The idea is the reason impeachment exists at all as because some people believe there should be more important things than attempting to maximize political power in the hands of yourself and your allies.

I certainly agree with you in the sense that I expect breaking with the party would be electorally disadvantageous in most cases, but that's just fundamentally not the mindset with which I'm viewing this issue.
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Jones certainly has a huge electoral incentive to defect, but I have a gut feeling that he won't. Possibly relevant is that afaik he's pretty good friends with Biden.

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That Mitch McConnell doesn't even have to pretend to be impartial says a lot about how broken our political system is.

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pyresword posted...

The idea is the reason impeachment exists at all as because some people believe there should be more important things than attempting to maximize political power in the hands of yourself and your allies.

I certainly agree with you in the sense that I expect breaking with the party would be electorally disadvantageous in most cases, but that's just fundamentally not the mindset with which I'm viewing this issue.

Ok on second read the way I phrased this post is stupid.

Main point I'm trying to get across here is that I believe party considerations should not matter for impeachment, and that individual electoral considerations at best should be considered as equally important to ethical or constitutional considerations.
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Dancedreamer posted...

That Mitch McConnell doesn't even have to pretend to be impartial says a lot about how broken our political system is.

It's especially bad because the GOP has worked their asses off to frame the House inquiry as unfair just so that they can make the trial as biased as possible and claim no wrongdoing

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So since this is a witch hunt....Mitch, maybe allow spectral evidence to admitted? I think spectral evidence was admitted in the US by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Essentially, witnesses may testify about what they saw in dreams or visions for the truth value of the dream or vision.

For instance, someone could testify that they had a dream in which they saw Hillary Clinton meeting with the former President of Ukraine and coordinating the rigging of the 2016 election. And the jury could decide to believe the dream as a true vision of reality.

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Pretty sure writing this letter qualifies somebody for a one way trip to Arkham Asylum

https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1207018176686505986

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Every time I see a batshit Trump letter I have to wonder about all the people who must have signed off on it. It's baffling.

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That letter looks completely reasonable. When will the Democrats come back to reality?

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And the Democrat strategy on this is wrong, IMO. If they must impeach, they should charge attempted bribery. That is unquestionably an impeachable offense. And Trump's acquittal won't set a precedent that XYZ conduct is not impeachable, it will only be a far more limited factual determination that Trump did not do it this time. That gives more room for future presidents to be held to account.

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If we're doing a "Power Ranking" of Senators most likely to break rank...

Romney
Murkowski
Collins
lol

Romney is the only one I think has even the slightest chance to vote to convict. The others though may be willing to vote to at least give the appearance of an actual trial rather than a no witness, super quick sham that McConnell apparently wants.

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I want a long trial. I think the People need to be respected, and one of the organs they speak through is the House of Representatives. So if the House impeaches, the People are entitled to have a trial.

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Worth noting that polling indicates something like 70% of the public (and iirc a majority of Republicans) think that Trumps aides hes been blocking from testifying should do so at the Senate trial, so theres a real risk for Mitch here.

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But yeah. Reminder that every day we spend on this impeachment trial is one day we spend talking about Trump and not talking about all the policy ideas the Democrats have for the country. We've spent the last 4.5 years talking about nothing but Trump and if we keep doing that over the next 11 months it seems very very likely that he will be reelected.

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red sox 777 posted...

But yeah. Reminder that every day we spend on this impeachment trial is one day we spend talking about Trump and not talking about all the policy ideas the Democrats have for the country. We've spent the last 4.5 years talking about nothing but Trump and if we keep doing that over the next 11 months it seems very very likely that he will be reelected.

100% disagree.

The ideas the Democrats have for the country are universally terrible. I want to spend a LOT more time talking about the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. That helps Trump a lot. These things are not even a little bit popular outside of left-wing Twitter.

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https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1207101446593884160

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Please god either kill me or let us stop talking about this stupid shit. I'm honestly tired of hearing about how stupid and crooked Trump is, he has no floor he won't sink to.

He's a garbage dumpster of a human being and honestly needs to be beaten on policy.

He has 90% approval in the Republican Party.

He is the head of the party of "law and order", but has managed to make the alphabet agencies his enemy aligned with the Democrats, all while keeping the blue lives matter/support your troops folks in his corner.

You can't beat this with logic, or facts, or "bad letters", or contradicting statements or anything, because there's no logic to any of this.

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SmartMuffin posted...

100% disagree.

The ideas the Democrats have for the country are universally terrible. I want to spend a LOT more time talking about the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. That helps Trump a lot. These things are not even a little bit popular outside of left-wing Twitter.

Both of those are incredibly vague statements of intention more than policies. Probably they will be seen as unrealistic pie in the sky ideas but why take the risk when talking about Trump exclusively is pretty much a guaranteed winning strategy?

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Please god either kill me or let us stop talking about this stupid shit. I'm honestly tired of hearing about how stupid and crooked Trump is, he has no floor he won't sink to.

He's a garbage dumpster of a human being and honestly needs to be beaten on policy.

Impeachment is what they're using to rally the base and the youth because they sure aren't gonna do it with Joe Biden's policies

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Impeachment is what they're using to rally the base and the youth because they sure aren't gonna do it with Joe Biden's policies

The base and the youth isn't who you need to rally. It's working class people, both young and old. I agree that Biden's policies aren't going to get that done, but Bernie's policies could.

You need to realize that centrists like LOTM, SJWs, champagne liberals, left wing activists, etc. are going to vote against Trump no matter what. You don't need to worry about rallying them. It adds absolutely nothing to your cause. If they want impeachment and you don't impeach they aren't going to vote for Trump or stay home out of spite.

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Impeachment is what they're using to rally the base and the youth because they sure aren't gonna do it with Joe Biden's policies

Don't tell the youth that the core premise of the entire impeachment scam is that Joe Biden was obviously going to be the nominee and is a honorable and not at all corrupt politician who was horribly wronged by Trump

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xp1337 posted...

If we're doing a "Power Ranking" of Senators most likely to break rank...

Romney
Murkowski
Collins
lol

Romney is the only one I think has even the slightest chance to vote to convict. The others though may be willing to vote to at least give the appearance of an actual trial rather than a no witness, super quick sham that McConnell apparently wants.

Manchin going to convict?

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Hey Muffin do you think that

1. Trump did not leverage the powers of his office to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into Biden
2. Think he did, but that its okay
3. Think he did it and not necessarily think it was okay, but fuck you get over it
4. other?

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Most likely to break ranks:

Manchin
Jones
Murkowski
Romney
Collins

The thing to remember about Romney is he has no spine whatsoever. I think Trump tried to bully Murkowski before during the debate on the healthcare bill by threatening to block aid to Alaska if she didn't vote for the bill, and it backfired because she refused to buckle under and called his bluff*. I think she's the most likely Republican to break rank.

*I think it was a bluff. I don't remember hearing any stories about federal funding to Alaska being stopped, so Trump must not have done it.

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Corrik7 posted...

Manchin going to convict?

Oh. You know, I'm not sure. I think the safe answer is to say he will not, no. But he might. I was only talking about the Republican Senators there since conviction obviously isn't happening so the only thing of interest here is if 50-51 votes can be gathered to call witnesses and not have a complete sham. Manchin sticks with Dems on calling witnesses I'm confident of that.

otoh romney apparently said earlier today he has "no reason to question" mcconnell not wanting to call any witnesses so who knows what's going on

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also because it ****ing triggers me whenever people say democrats have a problem with the "working class" is that no they don't they overwhelmingly win it with the non-white working class. Clinton won that over Trump by over 50 points. It's the white working class that they got crushed by in 2016 and seeing as how studies looking into the why of that keeps coming back "racial resentment" I'm "curious" what exactly such people think the Democrats should do about that.

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red sox 777 posted...

Most likely to break ranks:

Manchin
Jones
Murkowski
Romney
Collins

The thing to remember about Romney is he has no spine whatsoever. I think Trump tried to bully Murkowski before during the debate on the healthcare bill by threatening to block aid to Alaska if she didn't vote for the bill, and it backfired because she refused to buckle under and called his bluff*. I think she's the most likely Republican to break rank.

*I think it was a bluff. I don't remember hearing any stories about federal funding to Alaska being stopped, so Trump must not have done it.

Jones has zero chance of breaking ranks. Knows he isn't being re-elected and just doesn't care

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xp1337 posted...

Oh. You know, I'm not sure. I think the safe answer is to say he will not, no. But he might. I was only talking about the Republican Senators there since conviction obviously isn't happening so the only thing of interest here is if 50-51 votes can be gathered to call witnesses and not have a complete sham. Manchin sticks with Dems on calling witnesses I'm confident of that.

otoh romney apparently said earlier today he has "no reason to question" mcconnell not wanting to call any witnesses so who knows what's going on

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also because it ****ing triggers me whenever people say democrats have a problem with the "working class" is that no they don't they overwhelmingly win it with the non-white working class. Clinton won that over Trump by over 50 points. It's the white working class that they got crushed by in 2016 and seeing as how studies looking into the why of that keeps coming back "racial resentment" I'm "curious" what exactly such people think the Democrats should do about that.

Xp, Trump did vastly better with the minority working class than previous Republicans and he did vastly better with the white working class than previous Republicans. So I say he did better with the working class.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Hey Muffin do you think that
1. Trump did not leverage the powers of his office to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into Biden
2. Think he did, but that its okay
3. Think he did it and not necessarily think it was okay, but fuck you get over it
4. other?

Maybe 4 - "who cares."

But definitely also 2. It is certainly in the country's best interest to know whether or not the former vice president was engaging in rank and open corruption (which he almost certainly was). If he becomes a candidate for President, even moreso.

It's unbelievable to me that the same people who justify Obama ordering the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign based on a Hillary oppo research file think it's unconscionable to investigate Biden.

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As for what to do about it? Start identifying people as individuals, as first class citizens, who may identify with a socioeconomic class if they choose to do so. Recognize that deleterious effects of identifying people en masse by race.

And stop arguing that beating Donald Trump with the minority vote is an accomplishment. You need a landslide like previous Democrats got, a majority isn't enough.

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red sox 777 posted...

Xp, Trump did vastly better with the minority working class than previous Republicans and he did vastly better with the white working class than previous Republicans. So I say he did better with the working class.

Against Republicans who went up against a once-in-a-generation politician named Obama, sure.

If you can look past that though...

Exit polls aren't as nice as breaking down education+race back then but some quick math tells me:

Trump - Won non-college voters by 7.9 points.
Bush 04 - Won non-college voters by 6.2 points.

a point and a half is "vastly better"?

...god exit polls in the past are useless, i really want to give you more than this but either it doesn't exist or i'd be in for a search mission.

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xp1337 posted...

Against Republicans who went up against a once-in-a-generation politician named Obama, sure.

If you can look past that though...

Exit polls aren't as nice as breaking down education+race back then but some quick math tells me:

Trump - Won non-college voters by 7.9 points.
Bush 04 - Won non-college voters by 6.2 points.

a point and a half is "vastly better"?

...god exit polls in the past are useless, i really want to give you more than this but either it doesn't exist or i'd be in for a search mission.

That is a 27% increase, so yes, it's vastly better. And Bush never said mean things about minorities either.

As for Obama - how about instead of writing him off as a one-time outlier the Democrats try to emulate his campaign strategies? Like connecting with people, building trust, showing people hope, etc. Obama speeches were inspirational - that kind of message tends to win!

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Like - Obama could have spent the entire 2008 campaign griping about Bush and how his policies caused the crash. He didn't. He gave people something to vote for instead.

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red sox 777 posted...

Recognize the deleterious effects of identifying people en masse by race without their consent.

*looks at 2016*
*bursts out laughing*

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xp1337 posted...

*looks at 2016*
*bursts out laughing*

"Hispanic" isn't a race

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xp1337 posted...

*looks at 2016*
*bursts out laughing*

Why laugh? Trump is just a mirror. A mean mirror, but ultimately a mirror. All of the negativity came from the Democrats, Trump just showed you what the Democratic Party is without the veil provided by fancy degrees and money.

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Xp, I apologize. I completely misread your poll earlier. I thought you were reporting the percentage of minority non-college educated voters who voted for the Republican, but you were actually reporting the margin of victory across the electorate as a whole among all non-college educated voters.

So my earlier comments are withdrawn, and my reply is that Bush '04 won the national popular vote by 3 points while Trump '16 lost it by 3 points. So the working class swing is about +8 relative to the national popular vote.

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red sox 777 posted...

but you were actually reporting the margin of victory across the electorate as a whole among all non-college educated voters.

Well, yes.

Like I said, exit polls in the past were terrible and didn't have those breakdowns so I couldn't compare as I would have liked.

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SmartMuffin posted...

Maybe 4 - "who cares."

But definitely also 2. It is certainly in the country's best interest to know whether or not the former vice president was engaging in rank and open corruption (which he almost certainly was). If he becomes a candidate for President, even moreso.

It's unbelievable to me that the same people who justify Obama ordering the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign based on a Hillary oppo research file think it's unconscionable to investigate Biden.

Probably a waste of time to really get into it, but I'll note that your premises are known to be false! Anyway, thanks for answering!

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Probably a waste of time to really get into it, but I'll note that your premises are known to be false! Anyway, thanks for answering!

We haven't had trial yet. I think the Senate will determine that the premises are in fact true.

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Presumably they won't be examining the FBI spying claim! Though notably the IG report that was just released shot that one down (as if it wasn't obvious bullshit from the start originating from Trump's crazed "tapp my phones" tweet)

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/rep-jeff-van-drew-was-almost-obsessively-anti-trump-before-he-considered-joining-his-party

For months, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a freshman Democrat from New Jersey, has publicly trashed the impeachment process, calling it unfair, unfounded, and deeply damaging to the countrybut privately, this soon-to-be Republican had a much different reasoning.

Behind closed doors, Van Drew has told colleagues that the president was stupid and mentally unstableand that his opposition to impeachment stemmed from his belief that impeaching Trump would ensure his re-election, according to two Democrats present at closed-door discussions with the congressman.

A third verified Van Drew had disparaged the president in harsh terms, calling him crazy.

He was almost obsessively anti-Trump, said one of the Democrats. His only justification, and this was adamant, was that he thinks that [impeachment] will help Trump win.

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To be fair that is probably the only legitimate reason to oppose impeachment.

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switching to the republican party to own the president

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The thing I don't understand is how he thought trashing impeachment was going to help the Dems politically. Like sure, if that's what you think argue it behind the scenes, but bashing the impeachment on the merits is counterproductive to your stated goal

Of course, then he saw his primary polling and abandoned whatever principles he did have...

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