Ukrainegate/impeachment points of view
Moon of Alabama writes: The Democrats' Impeachment Attempt Against Trump Is A Huge Mistake
Is it? Is it really? Let's see his reasoning.
After two years of falsely accusing Trump of having colluded with Russia they now allege that he colludes with Ukraine. That will make it much more difficult for the Democrats to hide the dirty hands they had in creating Russiagate. Their currently preferred candidate Joe Biden will get damaged
I agree that it will be a) much more difficult for the Democratic establishment to hide the dirty hands they had in creating Russiagate, and b) currently preferred centrist candidate Joe Biden will get damaged.
To which I say: Thank Fucking Gawd!
You are saying this will help discredit the corrupt, neoliberal, warmongering centrists that have been destroying the Democratic Party?
Excuse me while I shed a tear from my only good eye.
It will help Trump to win his reelection.
Will it?
You mean this whole political circus will undermine the campaign of what has to be the weakest possible candidate the Democrats could put up against him, and thus ensuring that Trump will be facing a better, more populist candidate?
And I'm supposed to believe that this is good news for Trump?
Excuse me for not seeing it that way.
The Democrats are giving Trump the best campaign aid he could have wished for. Trump will again present himself as the victim of a witch hunt. He will again argue that he is the only one on the side of the people. That he alone stands with them against the bad politicians in Washington DC. Millions will believe him and support him on this. It will motivate them to vote for him.
This is indeed possible, but predictions are an art, not a science.
MoA may be certain what the future will bring, but I think that he's making a mistake.
Just look at the history of impeachments.
Every single time Congress moved to impeach, the outcome was different than what the general consensus thought at the beginning.
Also, only with Clinton did the impeachment help the president's popularity. It's an exception to the rule.
The Clinton investigation was taking a messy situation and various baseless rumors and seeing if someone/anyone had committed a crime. It was a fishing expedition by definition. Eventually all they got was lying about blowjobs.
That's why the Clinton impeachment didn't hurt the Dems.
That's nothing like the situation today.
What we have today is known dirty politics, and the only question was if laws were broken in the process.
The investigation is already justified, unlike Whitewater.
That's why the impeachment investigation will not do Trump any favors.
The Trump Administration is deeply and openly corrupt.
Unless the Dems blow it, which is always a possibility.
We don't know what the hearings will turn up.
MoA could be totally correct. Or not.
Comments
Too right
I saw first hand what Pence did and was trying to do here in Indiana. He truly believes he is on a mission from his very narrowly defined god and governed that way. This guy is the christofacist people should be worried about. But, he’s not on Twitter saying outrageous shit or being racist or sexist in public or whatever so its harder to convince anyone to take him seriously. I’ve had too many people tell me he’d be better than Trump because reasons, so I really stopped trying to change anyone’s mind about it.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Pence is a hard-line ideologue,
and I get the impression that his allegiances are both rightwing political and rightwing evangelical of the dominionist variety. That is, imo, a dangerous person to be given much power over others because they place more loyalty in their belief system than in the day-to-day demands of real life where suffering and injustice predominate among the weak and the powerless. Ideologues like Pence are not very human. I've gotten the impression that he is just fine with the dictates of the deep state, and it, in turn, would prefer him to Trump.
Just watching Trump for a while, it comes through that he's not stupid, but he's limited. He has never been strongly ideological; he was registered Democrat for many years but primarily concerned with business and social success, living high and having fun with golf and playboy activities than with political ideas. He was never a politician. When he talks about issues, he displays old-fashioned, not particularly well-thought out, Republican values of the type that places great faith in the marketplace and in the attainment of large buildings in nice cities with well-functioning infrastructure. He seems to admire successful systems that reward all participants. He's old-fashioned patriotic in an almost naive way, feeling protective of national borders and of not getting cheated in trade agreements. He unthinkingly swallows conservative propaganda about capitalism and climate change, and he admires the military with their nice uniforms, erect posture, state of the art weapons, but he was never pro-war. He likes situations where people get along.
I don't think he was prepared fot anything like the demands, threats, pressures, underhanded games that accompany the presidency. I think his family is traumatized by it, and he may be as well. He has certainly folded to neocon demands a number of, but I think he'd rather not.
I did hear early on that he wanted to change his mind about having Pence as VP and was told he couldn't.
Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl
I watched that Netflix series
called "The Family" a couple weeks ago. While it's a 5 part mini series or whatever, and some of those seemed to get off on some meaningless tangents, parts 1 and 5 lay out their agenda rather nicely, chillingly to anyone who cares about separation of Church and State. Being "invisible" in public life is a huge part of their dogma along with seeming very unthreatening and merely good stewards of Christianity, etc. They are anything but that. I've read bits about them before, and will probably get around to reading the book "The Family" by Jeff Sharlet. They are fully non partisan in their true agenda, but they do use the right wing to get what they want. And they've had involvement with all Presidents going back to Ike. But to the true believers that Trump is THE only bad man in the White Hut, it's easy to see why Pence seems like a bit of fluff. Hah. There's a reason he's VP now, and it isn't only Trump.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I've started the book three times
and got too mad to continue everytime. FWIW, the book is supposed to be superior to the series.
Also, you've nailed Pence quite well. I made the mistake of assuming he was just some dopey goody goody then next thing I knew, we had bills coming through legalising discrimination against LGBT folx. These weren't just hypothetical scare tactics, these happened. Around here, people joke that Indiana dodged a bullet when Pence got called up for VP, but the country needs to watch its back. But especially because he seems so reasonable next to Trump, it's really hard to get people to take him seriously.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
I don't think Biden is the preferred candidate anymore
I think he's the jobber.
His lead has been built up so that it can be nice and dramatic when Kamala, I mean Warren, overtakes him.
That's one possibility.
The other is that he's going to be a sort of figurehead president along the lines of Reagan or George W. Bush, and the real power will lie with the Vice President, Kamala, I mean Warren. To the extent that real power lies with anyone elected.
Those are my two guesses, your Honor, and I'm stickin' to 'em.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
No, it benefits Trump the way
every crappy, irrational, obviously partisan, obviously corrupt attack benefits Trump. The way that after Russiagate came to its dramatic conclusion (not), Trump ended up with the highest approval numbers of his presidency. The way that Monicagate left Bill Clinton with higher numbers than before the scandal started. Like that.
Oddly enough, making a patently unfair or untrue attack on somebody, even a bastard, makes that person more sympathetic. Something everyone working in pro wrestling knows.
And anyway, you don't think they're going to let anybody who actually wants to change things, like Bernie or Tulsi, be the replacement for Biden, do you? If you think there's a possibility a genuine change agent would get in, well, I'm sorry to tell you, but...
they got a plan for that.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Only with Clinton did impeachment help...
but that's only one way to think about this latest attack on Trump. Should we categorize it with "all the other impeachment attempts in U.S. history" or should we categorize with "all the other attacks the Dems have made on Trump?" Which one is likely to be uppermost in the thoughts of the populace? The hapless Andrew Johnson or Russiagate?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Pages