One of my favorite, must-read bloggers, Martin Longman, raises the issue of whether Donald Trump is winning on impeachment in a post on his website Progress Pond.
First of all, my own firm belief is that (1) the GOP Senate will never ever convict him, no matter what comes out about him on Ukraine or Russia. We are in a era of acute political tribalism, virtual propaganda and profiles in political cowardice and (b) he will be nominated and will win (partially due to voter suppression, bungling by Democrats, Democrats who stay home or find a third party to vote for, the strength of the right wing political entertainment media and perhaps some later-to-be-discovered help from a foreign power.
Longman raises another issue. Here’s the crux of it:
The Democrats have done an adequate job of gathering the evidence to prove their case against the president. But they’re not done yet. The case will move to the Judiciary Committee and there will be more hearings. It remains to be seen if the Intelligence Committee will continue to conduct their investigation and interview new fact witnesses, but we’ll definitely get more of the story as well as testimony from historians and legal scholars who will explain the impeachment process to the American people.
Whether or not any of this convinces some Republicans to vote to impeach or remove the president, the president will be impeached and stand trial. That’s at least a permanent scar on his record that is at least as much of a precedent as an eventual acquittal will be a kind of vindication and precedent.
In the end, the conduct could not stand. And if the Republicans want to overlook or excuse it, then it should be as painful for them as possible. If the American people see them giving Trump a pass on this, they’ll be able to go to the ballot box and register their displeasure. I think the likely result will be familiar. Trump will have done something bad and someone else will lose their job or go to jail for it. Maybe that’s the best we can do. But, if it is, it’s certainly not our fault. It’s not for lack of courage or lack of trying.
And, again, it’s still early in this process. All the facts have not come out. The true extent of the Republicans’ pain is not yet on display. Ultimately, it’s the GOP’s grave, and if they want to do all the digging, that’s on them. In this context, I don’t know that it makes a lot of sense to say that they, or Trump, is winning.
Is Never Trump GOPer Rick Wilson right?
We are way far away from the election, but I’ve wondered if it’s possible we see another outcome: Trump wins, Democrats handily win the House and get just enough votes to take over the Senate. I’m sure Trump’s advisers and strategists (Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs) are preparing for all possible outcomes.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.