Impeach Trump Y/N

There is literally no other way in which this impeachment process will have any impact on anything.

The next election will be held inside (what's left of) our current political system.

Currently, elections determine who has power to do shit. Including fix/change the political system.

People who want more good things to be done (and fewer bad things) need to obtain the power to do those things. The means of obtaining power will likely be... an election.

Also, if better people don't get elected, worse people continue to hold power. And hurt people with it!

i mean i feel like the best thing such people can do for Democracy is developing a sudden all-consuming yen for Japan World Cup videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oui9Xdh6r0

...or perhaps writing extensive exegeses on progressive rock.

i mean, whatever, people are going to do whatever makes them happy, i guess, even if it makes some of the rest of us very, very tired, and it's not like i'm actually helping by posting Japan World Cup videos to one of the proliferation of I Love Politics clusterfuck threads. at the same time, i guess i'm really only hurting myself. i suppose one day i will finally learn once and for all to not talk politics ever, and then the internet can have its perfect punditocracy, the Imperial Senate it so deeply desires.

Maybe we just need more people to remind us that the Senate is really unlikely to vote their guy out

People who want more good things to be done (and fewer bad things) need to obtain the power to do those things. The means of obtaining power will likely be... an election.

Also, if better people don't get elected, worse people continue to hold power. And hurt people with it!

― Instant Carmax (Ye Mad Puffin)

that's a great point, ymp, i definitely would suggest you vote in the next election, preferably for whatever candidate is not named Donald J. Trump. i would not suggest anybody worry about how what you or anybody else does will affect what _other people_, people whose decisions and opinions you have no control over, will do in november of 2020, because that way lies madness.

when roberts cj shows at senate pulls off his mask and it's the joker, then shrugs and yells "WHEN EVERYONE IS GUILTY IT'S JUST TIME TO CALL FOR A DO-OVER WITH PRESIDENT FOR LIFE DONALDO" i won't be surprised really.

A doodoo over

a re-pee-t performance, if you will

i agree with rushomancy. everyone's favorite hobby over the past three years has been making predictions about how such and such an event will affect votes well down the line. almost always, these predictions are wrong.

I don't know--how many times have we voted for President in the past three years?

The 2020 Democratic primaries thread has a lot of discussion about what might happen in future elections, but that is what that thread is for. The other US politics threads don't fit that description very closely.

afaics, the most common remark about 'how an event will affect future voting' is someone saying that, no matter what horrifying thing Trump did or idiotic thing Trump said, it won't faze his base or make them vote against him. That seems like safe enough prediction, but until there is an election, it hasn't been proved either right or wrong.

it's been a while, my recollection is the reason people used to give for paying attention to polls is that once the president's approval ratings hit 30% the republican party was going to start abandoning him

i'm not going to foreclose on the theoretical possibility that the president's approval ratings might get as low as 30% but it's pretty clear at this point that nobody knows if or what might possibly cause that to happen, god the president's approval ratings are the most stable thing in this entire fucking country right now. maybe that's what annoys me, it's not people treating politics as a game, it's that it's the most boring game in the goddamn world next to "what if the nazis won world war ii"

none of us will ever be as good at being paranoid liberal whitey as pkd was, at our best we can approximate david crosby, and honestly does anybody really want to be david crosby?

You're worrying about this shit, i.e. approval ratings, more than is necessary. Think of 2018 and voter turnout.

i'm not _worried_ per se i'm trying to understand people who give any sort of a shit about approval ratings, and the best i can get is that if you're bound and determined to see a repeat of 1974 (i'm not) the only way that will happen is if the approval ratings hit 30%. personally i'm not looking for "principled" republicans to "save democracy". nothing wrong with waiting for godot, as long as every other word out of your mouth isn't something along the lines of "I just heard a noise, is that Godot? I feel like he's going to be here any minute now."

Wait, did you hear Godot coming?

Pelosi will hold a news conference Wednesday to outline the immediate steps Democrats plan to take during the House’s two-week break, which lasts until Oct. 15.

Wait, did you hear Godot coming?

― plax (ico)

i farted

i'm embarrassed that i was fooled by mcconnell's recent statement that the senate would have "no choice" but to take up impeachment hearings if the house votes to impeach.

WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell’s comment this week that the Senate would be forced to “take up” articles of impeachment from the House had the capital in a swirl, bracing for a full-blown Senate trial of President Trump. But as things now stand, any trial would likely be swift, ending in dismissal of the accusations.

While the focus was on the statement by Mr. McConnell, the majority leader, that the Senate would have “no choice” but to begin an impeachment proceeding, it was his next line that might have been more telling: “How long you are on it is a whole different matter.”

The fusty rules of the Senate make clear that Republicans could not unilaterally stonewall articles of impeachment of Mr. Trump as they did the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick B. Garland. But Mr. McConnell’s declaration suggests the Republican-controlled Senate could move expeditiously to toss them out if Republicans conclude the House impeachment is meritless, or a strictly partisan affair.

“I don’t think they could just duck it,” said Donald A. Ritchie, historian emeritus of the Senate. “It is a constitutional responsibility. When you look at the weight of history, I think they would feel they have to do something. They would have to decide how abbreviated they wanted to make it.”

these slimy bastards

From what I heard the Senate could hold a vote on whether to take the House indictment to trial, that this would be a 51-vote to win vote, and that in case there was a tie Pence would not be able to break it--CJ Roberts would decided whether the trial went forward.

I kinda don't see how that helps them or hurts us (at least in terms of November 2020), but okay.

Voting to quash the trial rather than voting to acquit Trump is probably a safer bet for GOP Senators

i think for the republicans it's the better of two bad options, politically speaking. they can either hold a weeks/months-long trial with the entire administration's crimes in the spotlight only to cravenly vote not guilty in the end, or they can cut the whole thing short and pretend it's not a problem. they can't vote "guilty" because trump is their party, now. better for them to head to 2020 elections with impeachment in the rear window and bullshit attack ads talking about the failed coup against trump, which will rile up a portion of their base, then to let dozens of republican administration stooges take the stand and embarrass themselves for weeks on end.

really, the only loser here is democracy, integrity, truth, bullshit things like that

maybe the democrats can convince clint eastwood to lecture an empty chair, standing in as trump and his associates, in lieu of a trial

trump said the s word

"sorry"?

snakes

bot will change to sharks

I see that he's calling it a coup now. Cool.

If for no other reason, we need to impeach the lobotomized six-year-old for repeatedly shouting 'FIRE!' in a goddamn crowded theater.

high pranks and misty diapers

bullsharks on the way

Confirmed: A source familiar tells me the State Department IG briefing on the Hill is about retaliation against State Department officials who are trying to cooperate with House Democrats.

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) October 2, 2019

as in, the IG is reporting on incidents of retaliation, or threats of retaliation against State employees from higher-ups at the dept? or as in "we're gonna retaliate like hell against anyone who opens their mouth?" haven't seen any clarification on that

he's the IG, so the former. unless the IG has gone rogue, which i would normally think is impossible, but in this dimension

LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH! pic.twitter.com/QQYTqG4KTt

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2019

holy shit

An aside: In the past two weeks, the future historical appraisal of Trump's presidency moved from 3rd worst to 2nd worst. It's going to take his own civil war before he dislodges Buchanan for the top spot.

I'm hoping its just a few nutters with ARs, and Trump-related domestic casualties will remain in 3-digit territory. I'm fearing worse.

Anyway, the sort of premonitions that have cost me sleepless nights finally leaked into the mainstream media with Thomas B. Edsall's Will Trump Ever Leave the White House? on the NYT editorial page.

never would have taken donnie for a nickelback fan

Trump sounded a lot like Jack Lemmon in The Out of Towners today, brandishing his list of people he plans to sue.

Xxpost do we have to see a OMG WILL TRUMP LEAVE IF HE LOSES hot take every month. Who enjoys being fearful of this shit daily when there's no possible way we can know until it happens

Solid gold comment Clementine - ‘Serpentine! Serpentine!’

Clemenza, I mean

Thanks, but I think you're mixing up The Out of Towners with The In-Laws.

Trump calling himself a "stable genius" (so we don't get him confused with the Delmore Schwartzes and Syd Barrets of the world) counts as the Maximum Possible Error, like when Sports Illustrated picked the '87 Indians to win the World Series and they finished with the worst record in baseball.

And weird is still possible: a tweet with "BULLSHIT" in all caps, but censoring himself on "blank-strap."

Like William Styron, Trump often fears he will meet the same fate as Delmore Schwartz.

He thinks about Delmore all the time.0

Wait i was thinking of randall jarrell

Oof. And i thought trump was the illiterate one.

Somehow it really bothers me he didn’t shake the Finnish president’s hand - oh, I guess about the same as when he crossed the NK DMZ - this dude is nutso.

Is he still doing the excessive handshake thing he was getting notice for a couple of years ago or are people avoiding it.

no, now he's patting thighs