Impeachment

[Myword]

I'd like to see Trump and Pence impeached or resign.
Then Pelosi will be president. She's not my favorite candidate,but
far superior to the 2 above and she is eminently qualified.

This occurred when Nixon was president.

[mamselle]

OK, I do see those things.

Sigh.

Makes me also ponder (as I have a couple times lately, and I know things don't really work this way...) if real justice wouldn't be declaring the 2016 election results void and putting Hillary in place instead...

It also brought to kind one of the things mentioned when Watergate was going on. Nixon looked to be winning the election on his own (de)merits, and the break-in was totally gratuitous. Like a Oedipus, in satiating his overweening needs he brought his tragedy down on himself unnecessarily.

Here, too, the "loyal Trump fan base" is so strong the impeachment may move forward, or not; the removal is still very much in doubt.

With so much support, he apparently didn't need to go up against Biden so brutally or use unfounded claims to discredit him. But pushing as if he did may well land him in the soup (or, following Polly's observations, outside the soup pan as well as the frying pan, and into the fire.

It's all, really, very tawdry and unnecessary and sad.

M.

[mahagonny]

But he ran as an outsider. Now he's an insider with baggage and a record to attack.

The whole impeachment activity serves to indicate how Trump remains an outsider.  If Trump were an insider, then he'd either be protected or quiet words with increasing penalties would be being applied.

You only have to pull a big public spectacle when someone isn't sufficiently inside to be swayed by group pressure in private.

Can't wrap my brain around your second sentence. But to your first one: can you name a political who does the kinds of things Trump does who hasn't been impeached because he's an insider?

[ciao_yall]

Trump beat a strong woman last time and Warren isn't nearly as good a candidate as Hillary was.  If Pelosi is simply put in as the replacement president, then Trump has much bigger personal problems than an election in which he isn't eligible to run.

Warren is far more electable than Hillary. She is an amazing speaker, she speaks directly to the people's concerns (albeit a bit wonkily but so did Obama) and she doesn't have the baggage that Hillary did.

[ciao_yall]

I'm troubled about many aspects of this immorality play as it's going down; one in particular is Guliani's slippage from an OK mayor and seriously anchoring figure after 911 to the tawdry, cheap little "fixer" he's now become in my eyes.

Or maybe the tawdry fixer was always there.

I also wonder what Trump's got on him that keeps him by the puir, wee man's side....

Trump: "Rudy who?"

[polly_mer]

if real justice wouldn't be declaring the 2016 election results void and putting Hillary in place instead...

How would that be justice?  We have a system that resulted in a clear winner according to the rules of the system.  Changing the system to a different one for future elections may be a solution to get a different answer next time, but fair play is living with the outcome of any election in which the rules were followed.  As Mr. Mer keeps pointing out, Hillary doesn't become president if Trump is impeached and then convicted.  That option is off the table in the current system. 

As someone who has never voted for a presidential candidate who won and who tends to live in low-population states, I prefer weighting results over a grand-winner-take-all system in which a significant fraction of the population will not matter at all.

,,,

Trump beat a strong woman last time and Warren isn't nearly as good a candidate as Hillary was.  If Pelosi is simply put in as the replacement president, then Trump has much bigger personal problems than an election in which he isn't eligible to run.

Warren is far more electable than Hillary. She is an amazing speaker, she speaks directly to the people's concerns (albeit a bit wonkily but so did Obama) and she doesn't have the baggage that Hillary did.

That's not my take on Warren. 

Hillary was a seasoned politician on the international stage; Warren has been an academic for much of her adult life and only recently became a senator.

Hillary has a track record of being able to plan and implement those plans at the national level; Warren claims to "have a plan for that", but has done very little in her senatorial career to lend confidence to both having a good plan and having the ability to implement the plan.  I like the meme asking where those plans have been prior to starting to run for president.

I have yet to see any of my concerns addressed by Warren, but I'm seeing a lot of Bill Clinton-like "I feel your pain" assertions related to areas that are not the primary job of the president.  I disagreed with many of Hillary's stated views on what to do to address my concerns, but Hillary at least did speak to several of those concerns that are the president's responsibility.

Positive comparisons of Obama and Warren is a problem for Warren because of how poorly Obama performed as president in areas of national security and global defense.  Trump wouldn't be able to be pulling some of the shenanigans he currently is if Obama hadn't performed so poorly in some areas of international relations.

To the best of my knowledge, Warren doesn't have legal problems as baggage as Hillary did.  However, Warren has baggage and some of them are deal-breakers for those of us who can see other, better candidates still running.

From what I've seen, Warren is much more like my mother-in-law and all the church ladies ready to micromanage everyone into the dirt to ensure that her plans are followed to fix the minor problems rather than a true leader with a vision and a willingness to listen to experts to do the tasks that only the president can do.

[polly_mer]

But he ran as an outsider. Now he's an insider with baggage and a record to attack.

The whole impeachment activity serves to indicate how Trump remains an outsider.  If Trump were an insider, then he'd either be protected or quiet words with increasing penalties would be being applied.

You only have to pull a big public spectacle when someone isn't sufficiently inside to be swayed by group pressure in private.

Can't wrap my brain around your second sentence. But to your first one: can you name a political who does the kinds of things Trump does who hasn't been impeached because he's an insider?

Insiders tend to be told that they will resign with the public reason as "spending more time with family" and make a solid statement of support for the group-chosen successor as the last public statement for quite a while as they drop out of sight.  Preserving the relationship with the group tends to lead to people taking the graceful option of a time-out for now.  People who have done very bad things on the national/international scale and were given the easy out generally don't make the newspapers so that we all know the full story.

In answer to your question, I will restate the second sentence as two paragraphs:

Insiders are protected with the pressure applied to the mouthy people to knock it off in public.  When the insider is desired by the Powers-that-Be, then the little guys who are talking smack in public are the ones who get the quiet word to knock it off or be fired/shunned/expelled from the group.

As an alternative, an insider gets a handler who flat out tells the insider what will be done for damage control if the insider isn't told to resign with a lot of smiles all around to sell the cover story.  A bazillion television shows and movies give examples of how this works.  My first-hand knowledge is not at the national level, but the narrative examples are pretty good about how the "we need to talk about what you're going to do" conversations go.

Threatening someone with being shunned or expelled from the power group only works if someone is insider enough to expect to receive significant value from toeing the line and has good reason to believe that they will actually be shunned/expelled in the very near future if they don't shape up.

Trump is not a political insider who is best served by knuckling under as a good solider member of the group.  Who will be shunning Trump in such a way that Trump will feel significant personal effects?  I don't know, but we could ask Bill Clinton who was impeached as president of the United States, remained in office for the remainder of his elected term, and is now still treated in the media and power circles as a player on the international stage. Impeachment as POTUS is not at all the same level of consequences as going to prison for the rest of one's natural life or the death penalty for international war crimes.

The current impeachment circus is much like threatening to write someone's name on the board for being very naughty; for some people, those consequences aren't enough of a deterrence to change behavior.  Why did so many high-ranking men for so long do so much sexual harassment?  Because the punishment generally wasn't applied.  Bill Clinton is another example of that abuse of power as well and, again, Bill's still treated as an elder statesman, not pariah to the point that people will refuse to take money from his foundation and won't sit next to him in public places.

That circles back to the Elizabeth Warren electability.  You only have to make laws against something if people will take a variety of actions, some of which are undesirable to other people.  The president can't change minds so that people don't want to take certain actions; all the president can do is hope that saying "don't do that or <consequences>" and following through with the consequences is sufficient to deter people from doing whatever.  If people are in disagreement as to what the proper actions are, then people will vote against someone who has chosen the "wrong" proper actions.  Elizabeth Warren isn't even at polling at something as a solid majority (e.g., 70%) of all the current Democrats, let alone the independents, third party supporters, and flexible Republicans. 

[Antiphon1]

Trump is not a political outsider.  He's the president of the United States with the entire executive branch of our government at his back.  Whether he's listening to the career staff who have decades of experience in law, policy and procedure and whose jobs it is to advise him, well, that's a different argument.  Arrogance, ignorance, incompetence and sheer stupidity on Trump's part does not mean the system of government is against him.  It means his personal goals are in conflict with the job he was elected to do.  No deep state here just unwillingness to do his job. 

As to whether we should get rid of the electoral college, that's really a matter of thinking about how we want to be represented.  Does the current local (house of representatives), state (senate) and national (president and vice president) system provide enough representation for us or do we still need the slave holding protection of the electoral system? It's rather disturbing to watch less than 3000 voters in a contested Florida recount and 60,000 voters the 3 congressional districts use the electoral system to negate over three million votes from across the nation.  Weighted or not, the current system doesn't appear to be representing the votes cast. 

[Kron3007]

if real justice wouldn't be declaring the 2016 election results void and putting Hillary in place instead...

How would that be justice?  We have a system that resulted in a clear winner according to the rules of the system.  Changing the system to a different one for future elections may be a solution to get a different answer next time, but fair play is living with the outcome of any election in which the rules were followed.  As Mr. Mer keeps pointing out, Hillary doesn't become president if Trump is impeached and then convicted.  That option is off the table in the current system. 

As someone who has never voted for a presidential candidate who won and who tends to live in low-population states, I prefer weighting results over a grand-winner-take-all system in which a significant fraction of the population will not matter at all.

,,,

Trump beat a strong woman last time and Warren isn't nearly as good a candidate as Hillary was.  If Pelosi is simply put in as the replacement president, then Trump has much bigger personal problems than an election in which he isn't eligible to run.

Warren is far more electable than Hillary. She is an amazing speaker, she speaks directly to the people's concerns (albeit a bit wonkily but so did Obama) and she doesn't have the baggage that Hillary did.

That's not my take on Warren. 

Hillary was a seasoned politician on the international stage; Warren has been an academic for much of her adult life and only recently became a senator.

Hillary has a track record of being able to plan and implement those plans at the national level; Warren claims to "have a plan for that", but has done very little in her senatorial career to lend confidence to both having a good plan and having the ability to implement the plan.  I like the meme asking where those plans have been prior to starting to run for president.

I have yet to see any of my concerns addressed by Warren, but I'm seeing a lot of Bill Clinton-like "I feel your pain" assertions related to areas that are not the primary job of the president.  I disagreed with many of Hillary's stated views on what to do to address my concerns, but Hillary at least did speak to several of those concerns that are the president's responsibility.

Positive comparisons of Obama and Warren is a problem for Warren because of how poorly Obama performed as president in areas of national security and global defense.  Trump wouldn't be able to be pulling some of the shenanigans he currently is if Obama hadn't performed so poorly in some areas of international relations.

To the best of my knowledge, Warren doesn't have legal problems as baggage as Hillary did.  However, Warren has baggage and some of them are deal-breakers for those of us who can see other, better candidates still running.

From what I've seen, Warren is much more like my mother-in-law and all the church ladies ready to micromanage everyone into the dirt to ensure that her plans are followed to fix the minor problems rather than a true leader with a vision and a willingness to listen to experts to do the tasks that only the president can do.

Where the rules were followed sure, but where does foreign interference factor in?

[polly_mer]

Where the rules were followed sure, but where does foreign interference factor in?

I don't understand the question. 

Rules exist in an effort to have people take the desired action when multiple possible actions can be taken and strong personal incentive exists for taking actions that the rule-making group wants to discourage. 

People who have enough power ignore all the rules until someone with even more power enforces significant consequences.

If the question is to keep revisiting the outcome because it must have been wrong in some way, well, it's been three years and time to accept that right, wrong, or otherwise, applying lessons learned to the next election is far more important than continuing to waste energy and resources on a past one-time event.  I have heard no accusations of stuffing ballot boxes or something else where the people's voices were truly ignored.  The allegations I've seen is people may be swayed by the wrong voices; that's illegal but not the same kind of wrong in my mind.

Back to the current impeachment, having a media circus pointing fingers indicates a lack of power or a lack of will to use the power.  The impeachment process is clear (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/impeachment-process-works/story?id=51202880).  No part of that process calls for name-calling in the press or endless spectulation.  The first step is a formal investigation of possible wrongdoing.  Let's do it and then call for the vote on evidence.

All I keep thinking with the circus is what much worse things are going on outside of public view so that it's in the president's best interest to play along with the circus aspect instead of waging a counter media distraction on something else.  It looks a lot like the impeachment circus is the distraction from something else.

[Antiphon1]

All I keep thinking with the circus is what much worse things are going on outside of public view so that it's in the president's best interest to play along with the circus aspect instead of waging a counter media distraction on something else.  It looks a lot like the impeachment circus is the distraction from something else.

Which circus?  The president's daily twitter storm, helicopter pre-ride ramblings, incoherent rallies or free association remarks while hosting foreign leaders.  Or maybe it's the commentary from the press on his behavior?  Could be his supporters trying to talk around an answer, too.  I have no doubt we don't know every detail, but the circus is mostly part and parcel of an executive branch coverup.  What they are covering up is the real question. 

Here's a legal explanation of presidential impeachment in the constitution.

https://litigation.findlaw.com/legal-system/presidential-impeachment-the-legal-standard-and-procedure.html

The rules for the impeachment process are the house of representative rules and even those are up for discussion.  As I understand this process, the house does an inquiry akin to a grand jury investigation which is not at all like the process for a trial.  We are still in the discovery stage.  Let the process continue.  As you say, we don't know what we don't know, yet. 

[polly_mer]

All I keep thinking with the circus is what much worse things are going on outside of public view so that it's in the president's best interest to play along with the circus aspect instead of waging a counter media distraction on something else.  It looks a lot like the impeachment circus is the distraction from something else.

Which circus?  The president's daily twitter storm, helicopter pre-ride ramblings, incoherent rallies or free association remarks while hosting foreign leaders.  Or maybe it's the commentary from the press on his behavior?  Could be his supporters trying to talk around an answer, too. 

That is exactly the circus I mean.  Why is the president screwing around with the media instead of doing any of the other more standard PR techniques to show what a great job he's doing elsewhere?

There's a benefit to the president playing with the media who are thrilled to have something to fill air time.  What's that benefit in probably an unrelated area where the media aren't even looking?

Why don't we have media digging more into whatever that thing is instead of taking the easy path to engaging with the Twitterstorm that has nothing to do with any evidence or other meat to an investigation?

RealClearPolitics indicates that Trump has a 45% approval rating and only 51% of the US population wants impeachment.  That's not a "storm the castle and depose the king" level of population outrage; that's a "yep, whaddya gonna do because you can't please everyone" situation.

[polly_mer]

Let's revisit this:

Trump beat a strong woman last time and Warren isn't nearly as good a candidate as Hillary was.  If Pelosi is simply put in as the replacement president, then Trump has much bigger personal problems than an election in which he isn't eligible to run.

Warren is far more electable than Hillary. She is an amazing speaker, she speaks directly to the people's concerns (albeit a bit wonkily but so did Obama) and she doesn't have the baggage that Hillary did.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/, 9 October indicates that all five of the Democratic front runners are tied with Trump in a putative head-to-head match-up within the margin of error of the polls.  That's not indicating Warren being really electable; that's indicating that Buttigieg and Harris, who are polling among the Democrats at 5%, would have an excellent shot in the main election, but Trump, even with the impeachment cloud over him, is far from out of the race.

Even the Fox News polls indicating each of three Democratic candidates winning in a head-to-head competition with Trump aren't blow outs; they are a slight edge to the Democrat over the margin of uncertainty.

[nebo113]

I'd like to see Trump and Pence impeached or resign.
Then Pelosi will be president. She's not my favorite candidate,but
far superior to the 2 above and she is eminently qualified.

This occurred when Nixon was president.

No, it didn't.  Agnew resigned and Gerald Ford's appointment to VEEP was voted on an approved by both the House and Senate.

[nebo113]

RealClearPolitics indicates that Trump has a 45% approval rating and only 51% of the US population wants impeachment.

polly_mer:  Be a bit cautious with the RCP polling aggregrations.  They fluctuate, quickly.  What might have been 45% on the day you  checked is 43.5% 10/3 -10/10.  A small difference to be sure, but my point is that RCP polls are aggregates and are only as sound as the underlying polls.