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IT’S IMPEACHMENT DAY

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The House of Representatives has begun its historic day of deliberations which is likely to end in President Donald Trump being the third President in American history to have been impeached. It could well end in a “split screen” TV moment: where votes are cast on impeachment while Donald Trump appears at a campaign rally reacting to it. Acquittal in the Senate is certain and if you don’t believe that I have a company called Microsoft that I can sell to you for $400.
CNN:

The votes mark the culmination of a rapid three-month inquiry into allegations that the President pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals and withheld US security aid and a White House meeting. The inquiry led to charges that Trump should be removed from office on two impeachment articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Trump’s impeachment is slated to be bitterly debated on the House floor, and the votes are expected to fall almost completely along party lines. All Republicans are expected to oppose impeachment, and only three Democrats have signaled they will break ranks to vote against one or both articles, including one, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, planning to change parties.

It’s been 85 days since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that Democrats would launch an impeachment inquiry after an anonymous whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump had solicited interference in a July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to help his 2020 reelection campaign. Democrats say their investigation revealed a months-long campaign directed by the President and carried out by his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani for Ukraine to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, along with the 2016 election. The President withheld US security aid and a one-on-one meeting that Zelensky sought, they say, and then obstructed the investigation by defying congressional subpoenas across the administration.

….Trump and his GOP congressional allies have slammed the impeachment proceedings, accusing the Democrats of rushing to impeach the President ahead of the 2020 election.

The House will debate the impeachment resolution for six hours…before taking a separate vote on each impeachment article. There are just a handful of undecided Democrats remaining, as most of the Democrats representing the 31 districts Trump won in 2016 have said they will vote to impeach the President.

The House vote will shift the impeachment proceedings to the Senate, where Republicans control the majority. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday predicted that the Senate would have a “largely partisan outcome,” after saying last week that he was coordinating with the President’s lawyers….

Meanwhile, the vote will come in the context of a new Gallup Poll that finds Trump’s approval rating going u p while impeachment support is dipping. One key reason: Trump enjoys solid and increasing support by Republicans, and scant support among Democrats. What we are seeing is a further solidification of a)tribal political sides b)two differing perceptions of reality and acceptance/nonacceptance of facts (which is a manifestation of our tribal politics and the impact of the social and news media people choose for keeping informed).

Trump’s job approval rating has ticked up 6 percentage points since the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry began, according to a new survey.

The Gallup poll released early Wednesday found Trump’s approval rating at 45 percent, up from 39 percent when the inquiry was launched in the fall. The new findings mark the third-consecutive increase in Trump’s approval rating, Gallup noted.

Trump’s growing approval is buoyed by Republicans who give him high marks. Almost 9 in 10 GOP respondents — 89 percent — support Trump, compared to just 8 percent of Democrats who approve of the job the president is doing.

Trump has reached 45 percent approval or higher in Gallup’s poll five times since taking office, the survey giant noted. He reached 46 percent only once in his presidency: in May on the back of strong economic reports and the culmination of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russia’s election meddling.

Gallup’s new poll found that 51 percent of respondents say they oppose impeachment and removing Trump from office, an increase of 5 percentage points since the Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the impeachment inquiry into the president’s dealings with Ukraine. By contrast, 46 percent of respondents now support impeachment and removal, down 6 points.
85 percent of Democrats want Trump impeached while only 5 percent of Republicans do. Independent voter support for impeaching and removing Trump has fallen to 53 percent from 55 percent.

The Christian Science Monitor notes that political combat has historically been a feature of impeachments:

Fierce partisanship is a thread that has been woven into every presidential impeachment in U.S. history. It has shown itself in different ways, and had different effects, in the different eras of Presidents Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump.

The partisan discipline of Democrats and Republicans and the shouting and prevalence of the partisan media environment are new and different today. But the sharp party split isn’t unprecedented. In the few impeachment data points the nation has, it’s been always thus.

“The impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were largely partisan events. … In the current case, what is being played out is a highly partisan event again,” says former House of Representatives historian Ray Smock.

And today?

…the parties are much more ideologically distinct than they were in the mid- to late-20th century. That makes their conflicts sharper, and in Congress, makes it easier for party leaderships to control votes and enforce party discipline over largely like-minded troops.

With the Trump impeachment inquiry, that’s become even more obvious as the proceedings have moved from the relatively controlled environment of the House Intelligence Committee to the slam-bang roller derby of the Judiciary, a committee populated by “ready-to-rumble folks,” says Casey Burgat, a resident senior fellow in the Governance Project at the R Street Institute.

“They’ve become more party-line supportive than they were 100 years ago,” says Dr. Burgat.

One other big difference affecting the partisanship surrounding the inquiry is the media environment. Conservative talk radio, Fox News, and social media news aimed at all parts of the political spectrum have created a loud, opinionated, inescapable national conversation.

Fox News barely existed at the end of the Clinton impeachment, noted Brian Balogh, a historian at the University of Virginia, during a special impeachment-themed broadcast of the BackStory history podcast. But if Fox News had existed during the 1970s presidency, it’s likely Nixon would not have had to resign, Dr. Balogh said.

“I do think we are operating in a very different world and I do think the existing of that partisan allegiance, at least going into this impeachment, means it’s going to be a lot harder for folks to change their views,” Dr. Balogh said.

The inability of people to now process new information and allow it to influence their views and future actions doesn’t bode well for American democracy — or, at least, for democracy as we have long understood it.

Get live updates on the impeachment HERE.