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BiturbowagonMichael Harriot
4/23/19 2:29pm
If I were an undergrad, I could write an entire 100 page thesis on this one topic.
Since I’m not about to do something so grand, I am going to throw out several thoughts, to get the ball rolling.
I think that the use of Dr. King’s quote about the white moderate addresses the moderates of his day, rather than today’s moderates. The moderates of his day may have been “the Negro’s great stumbling block” and “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.” Many of today’s moderates, I like to believe, at least the ones in Congress such as Speaker Pelosi, want to be able to achieve obtainable goals through deliberate means.
My assumption is that Speaker Pelosi secretly would love to impeach and remove the lazy corrupt racist orange santorum-covered enemy of the people. I assume that the question for her is not *if* the Frothy One is worthy of removal, but *how* to do so if it can be done; and if it can’t be done, *what* can be done.
Democratic leaders contend, without a shred of evidence, that impeachment proceedings could backfire and help Trump become president by dividing the nation with a partisan political process, thereby coalescing Trump’s supporters.
What could happen if progressives were to move ahead too rapidly? Well, history gives us an example: the end of Reconstruction.
Radical Republicans pushed through excellent and necessary reforms, from the end of slavery to the rights of citizenship for former slaves and freedmen.
Then the backlash set in, and Jim Crow was the law of the South and discrimination was the law of the land for the next century. We still live in the country created by the ignominious end of Reconstruction.
So, how do we keep history from repeating itself?
Pelosi is playing three-dimensional chess. The Frothy One plays checkers, but has minions who cover for his bad moves, rearrange the pieces on the board, and egg him on.
Pelosi could ram articles of impeachment through the House in short order. Impeaching the Frothy One is the easy part.
Remember who controls the Senate, the chamber where the removal trial would take place: Mitch McConnell.
Imagine all the mischief he can do in an impeachment trial.
Majority Leader Turtle could:
- ignore the impeachment
- table or sit on the proceedings, as he did successfully with the Merrick Garland nomination
- manipulate the trial, to the best advantage of the Frothy One and his minions
- in the end, make sure that the Republican caucus held firm and voted no
- use the failure of the impeachment to maximize Republican gains in elections.
He probably can do even more than what I have thought of.
Removal will never happen for as long as at least twenty Republican senators remain firmly against it. Absent the Frothy One being proverbially caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy, it just isn’t going to happen.
And yes, this failure would run the very real risk of a backlash worse than doing nothing.
So, how does Pelosi handle an erratic and unworthy President, restive progressive members of her caucus, and a recalcitrant and hostile Senate?
We are observing this in real time.
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  blackjackBiturbowagon
  4/23/19 2:44pm
  Very well said. The reality is the dems are ready for impeachment, but even if every single one of them voted to impeach Trump, we wouldn’t have enough votes, we need a considerable amount of republicans to vote for it as well since they have a majority in the senate, and that’s what these hearings for-to convince them to vote Trump out, dems don’t need convincing.
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  Raineyb1013Biturbowagon
  4/23/19 3:41pm
  Oh for fuck’s sake not the 3 dimensional chess bullshit!
  This is an excuse. The only way all of the crimes of the grifter squatting in the White House will be exposed is by impeaching the motherfucker. Dems need to have something to show for their majority in the House and we all know it won't be any damn legislation. Congress needs to do their motherfucking job.
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blackjackMichael Harriot
4/23/19 1:07pm
Don’t worry too much:https://twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff/status/1120450533591060480

Really this is all about people not understanding how Congress actually works, there have to be hearings first before impeachment gets discussed(and it will)

Trump won’t be around in the 2020 election, even if he’s not in prison by then(which is highly unlikely) he’ll have too many primary challengers to fend off, and with how many people regretted voting for him, it’s unlikely he’ll win against more formidable opponents.
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  Noisy Pipblackjack
  4/23/19 1:24pm
  Even if I feel too defeated to share it, I love your optimism and the confidence in your statement.
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  EvenBaggierTrousers7blackjack
  4/23/19 1:41pm
  he’ll have too many primary challengers to fend off,
  Hahahwhat? No conservative of any real gravitas is going to challenge Trump. The entire party is lockstep behind him. Only Maryland Gov. Hogan and former governor Bill Weld are even considering running and they’re far from anyone who might put a dent in him with the cult. And i don’t see anyone else of significance running against him. As for people who regretted voting for him, they’ll do it again despite their reservations. Believe it.
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FreeRonMichael Harriot
4/23/19 1:25pm
Folks who are parroting this centrist, established Democratic talking point really need to face reality here. Think back to November 2018 and understand that if Dems did not win the House, there is an extremely good chance the Mueller Report is never made public. We would only have seen Barr’s 4 page cover up, assuming he doesn’t add even more bullshit to it with the added cover of a Rep-controlled House.
Michael makes an important point here - failure to impeach now (or at least sooner than later) will ensure no future President’s actions ever justify impeachment. We have more than enough to impeach right now, as I type, but I’ll go a step deeper: if we don’t impeach this fuckface, the precedent will be set that it is okay to know about a hostile foreign power’s interference in our elections, be accepting of that interference, strategize to leverage that interference for maximum effect, continuously lie about that interference, and criminally obstruct the federal investigation(s) into that interference. Pelosi, ma’am, you only got one bullet in that gun. I know you are scared that you might miss the only shot you have, but the opportunity to shoot him won’t come again. By not shooting now, Trump will be emboldened to not only accept foreign interference in 2020, but he will likely seek it out - I’d bet money that’s the unofficial campaign strategy. Trump has a whole lot of criminal liability waiting for him the moment he leaves office, so he is incentivized to remain President, by any means necessary. By cowardly pointing to the vote in 2020, you naively assume that the vote in 2020 will be protected and secured - this shit is not guaranteed, clearly. Act accordingly and respond with urgency and moral, legal clarity. Now.
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  blackjackFreeRon
  4/23/19 2:38pm
  Pelosi isn’t scared, she’s just following procedure-you need to hold hearings first before Impeachment is discussed.
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  FreeRonblackjack
  4/23/19 2:47pm
  Impeachment is initiated by the House Judiciary Committee. The Chairman of that committee, Jerry Nadler, has subpoenaed the full, unredacted Mueller Report (and all underlying evidence & documentation, especially with relation to the open counterintelligence investigation against Trump) from DOJ. DOJ will fight that, and AG Barr has already stated so. The only way Nadler’s subpoena will be upheld, based on previous court rulings on the matter, is if the House is in the process of taking up impeachment. Simply stating you want to hold hearings and gather more evidence (which are simply retreads of what Mueller has already done) isn’t enough to force the DOJ to comply. Trump is suing Elijah Cummings for info about his finances, the White House is blocking a guy from complying with a subpoena to testify about Jared Kushner’s security clearances, and CBP is working with white militia groups in border states to kidnap migrants at gunpoint. Procedures are worth the price of an R. Kelly feature at this point.
  Also, all these hearings and evidence gathering efforts are fruitless if not backed up by the full, unredacted Mueller report. So, no full Mueller report w/o Impeachment and no substantive hearings or fact-finding missions w/o the full Mueller report means you must being impeachment to meaningfully hold this administration accountable. It’s the only smart chess move at this point.
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Pedantic PontificatorMichael Harriot
4/23/19 3:55pm
Someone pointed out in a podcast I was listening to, and Mitch McConnell confirmed today, that not one progressive item of legislation is going to pass the Senate so long as he remains Senate Majority leader.
The House Dems have nothing else to do. Nothing. They should investigate the fuck out of this administration. They should constantly keep the crimes of this administration in the news. And they should keep investigating until the public screams for impeachment. It’s literally the only job they have right now.
Or, as Mr. Harriot put it so aptly, “Do your fucking job.”
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  Rooo sez BISH PLZPedantic Pontificator
  4/23/19 6:36pm
  Mitch McConnell confirmed today, that not one progressive item of legislation is going to pass the Senate so long as he remains Senate Majority leader.
  That’s both why he needs to be removed (he’s compromised by Russia & China, and Dallas Morning News reported on it almost two years ago, and only the corrupt GOP-influenced CEOs are keeping it out of the mainstream media) and also why Democrats needed — and could have had (and why they don’t is another mystery) — a party majority in the Senate after the ‘18 races.
  Also, it is important for a whole bunch of political reasons as well as actual policy-related reasons that the House continue to pass legislation and resolutions even if Yertle won’t bring them to a vote (even if he did bring them to a vote they’d still have to be passed by veto-proof majority, but the House doesn’t want to be perceived as not having done anything else but the relevant Judiciary hearings while in office even if they make the most news. There’s no way I wouldn’t have wanted Kirstjen Nazi Barbie Nielsen in front of Lauren Underwood on the Homeland Services Committee. All Nielsen’s waffling on the issue of human rights violations is a matter of public record now; that kind of thing doesn’t just matter for the little piece of time it’s on TV).
  They can do both.
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sTalkinggoat, first and last of his nameMichael Harriot
4/23/19 1:24pm
Trump is busy transforming DHS into his own personal Gestapo but Pelosi, Schumer et al believes he’ll leave quietly if he’s not re-elected? This must be that faith.
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  avocadoandrichfucksandwichsTalkinggoat, first and last of his name
  4/23/19 2:28pm
  That rotten orange already said, the cops, the military and biker gangs are on his side and the mainstream media just laughed it off.
  And he’s given the head of CBP the go ahead to do whatever he wants by promising him a pardon for any charges brought against them. Turning them into what you said, his Gestapo.
  But the media has forgotten about that too.
  Everything is just fine though. Just make sure to vote for Biden or one of the other white saviors ready to make us feel safe again.
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Manitos, The Tiny Hands of TrumpMichael Harriot
4/23/19 1:20pm
It takes a 2/3 vote in the Senate to remove a sitting president. You’re not going to get that. In the end, you will have wasted millions of dollars, created nothing but taking points and ended up in the same place as you started.
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  otterbirdManitos, The Tiny Hands of Trump
  4/23/19 1:40pm
  Except that when Clinton was impeached, it absolutely hurt the Democrats. In 2000, the GOP got the House, the Senate and the Presidency. And yes, I know they got the WH due to the USSC (hi, Sandra Day “I wanted a conservative in the White House” O’ Connor! I see you!), but it should never have been close enough to get to that point.
  As has been said before, it’s investigations and hearings, and then a move to impeach. All of that keeps his scandals front and center before an otherwise very distractible audience (the endless Benghazi hearings were really damaging to HRC and the GOP started them up at about this point before the 2016 election). And where Trump’s scandals are concerned, there’s actually some there there.
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  selburn6Manitos, The Tiny Hands of Trump
  4/23/19 1:52pm
  I understand this point and I know it will never be successful. However, Michael’s point is valid:
  “if Trump cannot be impeached, then no president is worthy of impeachment”
  The impeachment process must be started, just to get it into the historical record that a large proportion of the country viewed Trump’s actions as corrupt, illegal, wrong, unconstitutional, an affront to democracy, whatever you want to call them.
  If no official action is taken, all of this crap will be brushed under the rug. Generations to come will view us as complacent and complicit. This high level of grifting will be normalized.
  “Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”
  Do I fear a backlash? Yes. Will some Trumpists get violent? Probably. Will Trump use this to rally his base/get sympathy votes/earn those donations? Absolutely. Do I worry that this tilting at windmills will hurt the Dems in 2020? Yes. But....a clear, official, legal process of a statement has to be made.
  
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GPMichael Harriot
4/23/19 4:22pm
Well unless there is a 2/3 majority vote in the Senate this is just talk.
Continue with gearing up for 2020 and keep the house committees on his orange ass.
Stop the damn infighting support who you want in the primaries, back the nominee, keep your eye on the prize and get your ass out and vote November 2020.
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  JonsLegionGP
  4/23/19 5:34pm
  This needs 10000 more stars. Mitch McConnel will not allow Trump to be Impeached. When the proceedings go to the Senate, it becomes his ballgame and he’ll turn it into a shit show. They will turn it into a woe-is-me victim fest just like they did with their rapist jaggoff SCotUS nomination. And like that farce, Trump will be handed all the lovely free press telling him what a poor, down trodden person he is and isn’t he a big boy for being so scrappy against the Mean Bad Democrats. That will be the closing argument of the 2020 elections.
  And like in 2016, Trump will win with that.
  It is a Far better play to let the House run the ball. Pull a page from the Rethuglican playbook and hold endless investigations and meetings and subpoenas and hearings etc. Make all the Rethuglican’s tired of seeing his fat, screaming face.
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  GPJonsLegion
  4/23/19 6:07pm
  You need a 1000 stars yourself you summed up what needs to happen next.
  I like the enthusiasm of some of the new players are bringing but they seem to lack some of the basics of how Washington works. That’s why youth is great but it seldom trumps experience.
  And many of the taking heads seem not to know a damn thing about this issue or history.
  Hell Watergate was going the same way with GOP backing Nixon until the tapes became known. Unless we get a similar thing in 2019 it’s going to be a shit show in the Senate.
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Nora MorseMichael Harriot
4/23/19 3:09pm
If the Senate votes aren’t there to remove Trump from office (and they aren’t), then impeachment is going to play like a vindictive (or petulant) political gesture from the losing party, Michael. Impeachment doesn’t mean automatic removal from office; it’s just the first step of bringing charges that could lead to removal. Clinton was impeached but not unseated (not even close). It’s not helpful to perpetuate a popular misunderstanding of what impeachment means.
I think the Democratic leadership is exactly right. It’s simply shortsighted strategically to force the impeachment issue. The fact is that Trump is a very popular president. Very. Maybe not in our demographic, but any serious effort to unseat him seen coming from our demographic is only going to rally the Republicans and their base—Trump’s strongest supporters.
I don’t think Trumpism is a problem that can be solved head-on. This obsession with winning the White House in 2020 suggests we’re not putting nearly enough effort into winning more House and Senate seats, which is where we’ll have the most impact in addressing some of the extreme decisions coming out of the White House.
Pelosi is right. Impeachment is a bad call and a distraction. It promises to lead us into exactly the kind of mud pit we can’t fight in but the other side can and masterfully.
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  Volante3192Nora Morse
  4/23/19 3:17pm
  I think a closer comparison would be the Scott Walker recall. He got more votes during the -recall- than the 2010 election.
  There’s nothing that unites conservatives more than feeling persecuted.
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LeonT, Kinja Ice Axed Me!Michael Harriot
4/23/19 1:56pm
I was just reading an article by a lawyer as to why we don’t impeach his orange ass next week. It makes tons of sense:
“The question is how to do it. Because if we force every member of Congress to walk the plank and vote on impeachment in July or August without laying the groundwork, the Senate will kill it and then the whole thing will be over. Trump will get to spend the subsequent 14 months saying the Russia/obstruction inquiry is settled and he was exonerated, like, even more than by the Mueller Report! Meanwhile, Democrats like Abigail Spanberger, Abby Finkenauer, Lucy McBath, and Colin Allred will have to defend their impeachment votes in swing districts. And Trump will have a clear field to dominate the nightly news howling about MS-13 rapists at his pitchfork rallies.
Or, we could drag this out for a year, permanently denying Trump a good news cycle by holding hearings at least once a week, force Evan to liveblog continuously, meticulously lay out a case for impeachment, and hang Trump like an albatross around the neck of every Republican, all while baiting that jackass into acting like a raving lunatic every day between now and November 3, 2020.”

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  sTalkinggoat, first and last of his nameLeonT, Kinja Ice Axed Me!
  4/23/19 2:47pm
  The problem with this line reasoning though is that there is no such thing as bad news cycle for Trump. His base does not care and his base is all the GOP has left. Holding hearings up to the election is about as likely to energize his base as not.
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  BanestarLeonT, Kinja Ice Axed Me!
  4/23/19 2:56pm
  This rests on the whole McResistance delusion that if we do nothing, Trump’s demise is just around the corner, something that has been said and proven wrong a million times from 2015 to now. Hell, you could go beyond that to RBG not retiring and Obama not using legal wrangling to get Garland on the bench because Dems were going to win in ‘16. Tbh I think right now based on historical and current data and gut feeling, if we continue on the path right now Trump gets reelected anyway, so might as well try impeachment.
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LawrenceMichael Harriot
4/23/19 3:26pm
Democratic leaders contend, without a shred of evidence, that impeachment proceedings could backfire and help Trump become president
Here is the evidence the Dem’s are not presenting... The Trump-Russia conspiracy does not have enough evidence. Impeaching Trump for interfering/obstruction in that case will not garner a lot of public support. Bill Clinton’s approval rating was 65% prior to impeachment and spiked to 73% immediately afterward. It’s like when police charge you with resisting arrest, without charging you for the initial cause of the arrest. The public doesn’t like to back the police in those situations.
...Republican politicians and voters could no longer turn a blind eye to Trump’s unprecedented misconduct.
Ni66a please... Have you met a Republican? They will blind their eyes, cover their ears, and pucker their a$$ cheeks not see what Trump is doing. Please be reasonable, Michael.
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