he did. on national tv.
still, i 100% agree with your assessment, it won't move a single cultist, and senate will never vote to impeach a republican president (probably with nixon they would have, but ever since corporations took ownership of american politics, it's just unthinkable) - but that is not at all my argument here.

all i'm saying is that reasonable people should be careful to buy into those kinds of narratives. it's commendable trying to be realistic and objective, but abandoning nuance in order to appear so, is not.

that said, i don't think that any democrat seriously expects to remove trump via this process, but as despicable as i think the dems establishment is for doing it only after biden was targeted, and not for the countless impeachable offences before, it is still the right thing to do, even though it's much too late and without any chance of success. political (mis)calculations aside, congress (even if it's just one side) simply HAS to send a signal that they are taking their oversight role seriously - and just for the record, i think the democrat establishment has done a terrible job at that. speaks for itself WHAT convinced them to finally impeach...

i think in the post-mueller era they couldn't impeach him for obstruction. otherwise it would look like they used an investigation, failed in that investigation, but impeached anyways. so anything under the purview of Mueller wouldn't have gone over well with the public. they'd have looked desperate. they still look desperate, but at least it's not a chain of events like it would have been if they impeached over obstruction.

in general i think it's good to paint Trump as just another lying politician, even if he's far worse. because his followers think he's a new type of politician, some truthful messiah. when trump uses "president's do this all the time" that's a good chance to go "look he's just like all the other crooks". his followers will react to that type of messaging better than something more aggro. Trump himself said it. they're not going to stop voting for him, but at least they might shut up a bit.

Even if he wont get removed from office by the Senate, I truly believe that the more meat there is to the allegations brought up against him during the impeachment proceedings, the more his approval ratings will be hurt, and the higher his chance of losing reelection becomes.

So no, this is not a futile exercise, this whole process is important. The swing GOP senator needed for removal from office represents a R+15 state or something like that, the Democrats will never convince the constituents of this senator to abandon Trump unless there really is a smoking gun on more substantial accusations.

But the impeachment also serves as a platform to try and convince the nationwide public of how bad Trump is. At the end of the day, the 2020 electorate will be the judges deciding the verdict on Trump. They are the ones that the Dems really need to convince, and the impeachment might very well be effective at doing that - IF (and only if) there is enough meat to the allegations.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 4 2019 01:54pm

there's tricky math. if trump beats impeachment it will motivate his voters. so it's motivating his voters vs some attempt to sway moderates. personally i think Trump comes out ahead in this math.

republicans in general, and specifically trump's base, have demonstrated their willingness to switch narratives more than once already - from basically day one of his presidency btw. whenever trump's lies and crookedness became undeniable, they embraced the 'that's just what politicians do' narrative - whenever his incompetence and lack of leadership became apparent, they effortlessly jumped on the 'he's simply not your standard career politician' train.

so unless he defies the donor class and thus undermines his political support within his own party, there is literally nothing that could endanger his presidency. the country is simply too divided, and his base too conditioned into accepting even the most blatant corruption and policies that benefit trump and his millionaire buddies, while screwing over the rest of america, as the 'lesser of two evils', because the alternative is 'socialism' and 'immigrants' - and that puts the fear of god into them.
that's not me advocating for a 'moderate', corporate owned democrat to win over the 'centrist', that's me advocating for clear and simple messaging to destroy those decades old myths and lies that were established to protect corporate interest and divide the nation.

Well, sure, if the attempts at impeaching him are too clumsy or seen as not having a factual basis, then it will motivate his supporters. But if there is enough meat to the allegations, then impeachment will only fire up his most ardent supporters, those who would turn out for him anyway, while simultaneously depressing enthusiasm among his more reluctant supporters (moderate republicans, conservative-leaning independents, certain establishment anti-trump conservatives).

So yeah, going for impeachment can backfire for Democrats, but I would consider Trump coming out of it bruised and battered to be the significantly more likely scenario.


And as I've written in the impeachment thread: the additional pressure might cause him to make mistakes that his opponents can capitalize on. And impeachment will drown out potentially good news cycles for him, and distract from a disastrous Democratic primary.
So if I were to guess out of my ass, I'd say there's an 80+% chance that pulling through with impeachment ends up being a net positive for the Democrats.

what i mean is that WHEN it fails, clumbsily done or not, Trump's approval rating will rise. and his potential voters will be more motivated.

this also empowers Trump's witchhunt narrative. they tried mueller, it failed. they tried to scrutinize mueller to see if it would still work, it failed. they've challenged him in every court they can, with very limited success. they tried him at Kavanaugh, failed. they're impeaching, it will fail.

at some point some people will look at this and see Trump as the victim.

now, i dont think the needle will move much in any case. for either party. but i think Trump gets a slight bump in any result, and the dems get nothing in any case. i do not think these impeachment hearings will bring any more lasting bombshells than Mueller did. just a bunch of smoke with no fire.

every day the media takes the same sentence someone else reported the day before, adds a single word, then rereports it as a bombshell. (i mean this metaphorically, not literally). i've seen non public swaying material thusfar, but i think beating impeachment is somewhat public swaying in and of itself.

you are the textbook example for exactly that. while pretending to be 'reasonable' you keep making statements like "IF (and only if) there is enough meat to the allegations" when trump and his toadies actually already admitted to it on national tv, when even the polished 'transcript' of trumps 'perfect call' documents how he asked a foreign government for help with his elections. so where is the 'IF' there? what else do you need to be convinced? oh right, there simply is nothing...

the accusations in Ukraine are just not substantial enough to matter for the public. those who hate trump anyway will use it as a welcome confirmation of their opinion of him and as a welcome excuse to vent their frustration with him. but those who support him do so for a reason, and the ukraine accusations, as they stand today, just dont carry enough weight to outweigh any of these factors. that's what I meant when I repeatedly said "... enough meat to it". I didnt mean this phrase in the sense of "credibility of the already known charges", I meant it in the sense of "... they need to come up with more serious charges (and base them on sufficient proof/facts)".


furthermore, rooting out the corruption of an important political figure in american politics is in and off itself in the public interest. no matter how obvious it is that Trump only cared about Biden's corruption because Biden is a threat to him, this gives his attempts at going after Biden a justification which is hard to brush aside. Trump would be in trouble if he had been trying to manufacture dirt on his domestic rivals out of thin air with the help of a foreign government. but he didnt, the Ukraine dealings of the Bidens are clearly shady as fuck. this is what will allow Trump to save his neck in the end.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 4 2019 05:55pm

how is 'violating federal election law AGAIN' not 'substantial enough'? also, which 'public' are you talking about? all americans or just trump supporters, because the former are in favour of impeachment and even removal, only the latter act like trump repeatedly, knowingly, and deliberately breaking the law is somehow not a convincing reason to be removed from office.

again, asking a foreign government for dirt on your political opponent is a violation of federal election law - the obvious quid pro quo (which trump and mulvaney already admitted btw) does not even have to be 'proven' to hacks who pretend to be open to 'facts and evidence', while blatantly ignoring even direct admissions of guilt, pretending that somehow doesn't meet the requirements of solid proof.

the whole 'there is no(t enough) meat to the charges' talking point is pretty stupid when you go by cult standards. there will never be enough meat to ANY charge that would distract them from their simplistic 'witch hunt / hoax' narrative - he could sell california to saudi-arabia and literally kiss kim jong-un's exposed ass on camera, and they would claim he's just playing 7D underwater chess - and you know that.

This post was edited by fender on Nov 4 2019 06:22pm