The September 2019 US Politics Thread is great Great GREAT GR8

shut your goddamned mouth

(my mentions of other ilx posters are always meant with affection btw. should have asterisked that on my last two posts)

treeship generally otm

Always hard to tell with u, treesh, you radiate such a vibe of unrestrained malevolence.

SAD... SO SAD

What would trump’s handle be on ilx?

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Friday, September 27, 2019 11:37 AM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

esby

he's always insulting the politics threads cause he knows we're onto him

impeachment support still below 50%

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/463408-support-for-impeachment-rises-12-points-in-new-poll

I wouldn't spin it that way, not when it's risen 12 points.

we wanted him impeached bc of our feewwwings and we'll regret it i guess

feel like a lot of the anti-impeachment sentiment is "Pence would be worse"

I kinda wonder how many people polled actually know what the impeachment process is.

it's likely to go higher, and GOP Senate is currently keeping their mouth shut to see if that happens. If it goes up close to 60%, I think we'll see "swing" votes (Sassy Sasse, Mindy Moderate, maybe Murkowski, probably Deeply TroubleMan) start to break

Pence would not be worse

would be funny if Cruz or Paul decided to leap in and twist the knife, I could see it

Some dumb liberals like Doug Henwood's followers keep loling on Twitter PRESIDENT PENCE as if they haven't read a book in thirty years.

xp lol a moment cruz has lived his whole life for

it's disturbing to realize how many people have absolutely no fucking clue how impeachment works (which is fine) and put zero effort into taking the 2 minutes it would take on wikipedia to have a basic understanding of it (which is not)

At the time the Watergate hearings began, 19% of americans polled thought Nixon should be removed from office.

And yeah, impeachment isn't removal from office. Can definitely lead to it, though.

lol a moment cruz has lived his whole life for

he just won re-election, so he has some complex calculus to work out - 5 years from now will it be better to be seen as the moral arbiter of the party that bravely stabbed Trump in the back (as he would no doubt personally love to do), or to have stuck by Trump and somehow emerged unscathed?

xp fwiw at the time they actually recommended impeachment hearings, it was closer to 50%

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

heh

I just keep picturing Trump locked in his bedroom refusing to open the door after it's clear he's getting kicked out

Many people's conception of what the notion of impeachment does and does not necessarily encompass, as with the 1st Amendment, evokes a very inigomontoyaaddressingingvizzini.jpg response.

it means he can't eat peaches any more iirc according to the "no-cling" amendment

Not sure how this is "risky" for the Dems. If they impeach him, they impeach him ... but he doesn't go anywhere unless the GOP convicts. Ergo, it would be risky for *the GOP*, which is why the votes aren't there yet. But if the Dems impeach him and nothing else happens, then nothing changes, and they've just tagged Trump with another asterisk.

lol in just like a day or so Tulsi Gabbard changed her mind and is now pro impeachment.

^she probably read david brooks' column arguing that it was a bad idea

Hypothesizing, but I wonder if the "failure" (by standards of public reaction) of the Mueller investigation was not that people thought "collusion" wasn't wrong, but that there wasn't an absolutely clear illustration of collusion on Trump's part, which of course was debatable but could have been clearer. But in this case, there is clear, explicit proof of collusion that you can't chalk up to anything but the worst assumptions of intent. Which smartly imo is the tack being taken by the Dems, stressing that this is easy to follow and much less muddy/ambiguous. Considering the only alternative explanation is InfoWars level conspiracy theories.

Not sure how this is "risky" for the Dems. If they impeach him, they impeach him ... but he doesn't go anywhere unless the GOP convicts. Ergo, it would be risky for *the GOP*, which is why the votes aren't there yet. But if the Dems impeach him and nothing else happens, then nothing changes, and they've just tagged Trump with another asterisk.

the GOP can literally do anything without ever alienating anyone, while anytime a Dem strays from the twin ideals of Decorum and Bipartisanship an entire Denny's full of coal miners vote red forever. I read it in the New York Times

The takeaway of the Mueller report is that Mueller was not allowed to charge the President with anything, so he instead laid out a billion lines of inquiry for others to pick up and run with.

But in this case, there is clear, explicit proof of collusion

Uh, have you met 40% of the morons on my newspaper's comments page?

the comments section, the true pulse of america

I mean, based on my hometown that is OTM

Please do not underestimate how egregiously stupid the majority of people are.

lol frogbs

it was a joke that was also completely serious lol xp

Hypothesizing, but I wonder if the "failure" (by standards of public reaction) of the Mueller investigation was not that people thought "collusion" wasn't wrong, but that there wasn't an absolutely clear illustration of collusion on Trump's part, which of course was debatable but could have been clearer. But in this case, there is clear, explicit proof of collusion that you can't chalk up to anything but the worst assumptions of intent. Which smartly imo is the tack being taken by the Dems, stressing that this is easy to follow and much less muddy/ambiguous.

I think this is pretty much right - the Dems are clearly rattled by the "y'all wanted to impeach him since Day One!" line of argument and therefore might not want to bring 7 different articles at once, fearing the public will just look at it like "Orange Man Bad" or whatever. I think it'll backfire since he really has committed a dozen obviously impeachable offenses right in front of our very eyes, but that is the sort of political miscalculation that the Dems are famous for

DJP they should post that at all entries into the country

lol Brad

xpost Oh, that's right, almost forgot about bipartisanship.

Seriously, though. Dems impeach, goes to Senate. Senate can just ignore, which at the least lets the Dems off the hook (what, is the GOP going to run on lol we simply ignored the impeachment?), or Senate fails to convict (in which case lol this crooked dude that no one likes was impeached, and we saw all that shit, but think it was OK, and ignore the handful of GOP members who agree with the Dems, but vote for us!). I think the risk is all in the GOP camp. Per your post, Dems worrying about losing support over impeaching this asshole whose impeachment prospects more or less got them in the majority in 2018 is like hand-wringing over fictional swing voters.

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Fucking Stupids

and lol comments sections are a pretty self-selecting pool. There was a good exchange in that Vulture Bill Burr interview:

Look online at anything you’ve ever done and it’s loaded with comments about how you much you tell it like it is.

Can I ask you a question? Do you comment on YouTube videos?

I don’t, no.

So why would you read that shit? You don’t have to get very far down before somebody drops the N-word or says Obama ruined the country. Half the people making comments are just trolling the other half. So to go on YouTube and read comments and think that you’re picking up on the pulse of anything…

It must be nice to be white and male and not have this shit ever seriously encroach upon your real life

Dems worrying about losing support over impeaching this asshole whose impeachment prospects more or less got them in the majority in 2018 is like hand-wringing over fictional swing voters.

I don't think the Dems are worried about much except the scenario of depressed Dem turnout + increased GOP turnout in the election

Bill Burr is married to a black woman fwiw

xp

Hypothesizing, but I wonder if the "failure" (by standards of public reaction) of the Mueller investigation was not that people thought "collusion" wasn't wrong, but that there wasn't an absolutely clear illustration of collusion on Trump's part, which of course was debatable but could have been clearer.

This is Pelosi's gamble now.

(full disclosure: I do not like Bill Burr)

xps

The problem I could imagine is that whatever happens in the Senate will be painted as total exoneration and proof that Trump was 100% innocent the whole time and plenty of people will buy it.

^^^

But the Senate will not exonerate or even try to exonerate. They don't need to. They just need to not vote or vote against. And then gamble voters like their decision.