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Split Thread A second impeachment

Given that Clinton quickly conceded after the election, your point loses all sharpness. Trump however continued to say the election was rigged and that the next one would be too. You're trying so hard to make it look like Republicans aren't the only ones declining to participate in the democratic process, why?
 
I don't know if he wanted them to storm the Capitol. I seriously doubt that he wanted them to smash windows to get in. On the other hand, I know that when I heard him say those words, I feared that they would storm the Capitol. I was not at all surprised when it happened, because I could infer that as a likely outcome of what he said.

If he made the same inference, and knew it was likely, that's enough. I don't know how to go about proving he knew that. He might be so incompetent and self-absorbed that it never occurred to him to consider the impact of his words on the crowd. They were cheering for him, and that's what matters to him. I think the only way that a legal case could be made is if he made a comment to one of his advisors along the lines of "That crowd is really angry. Pence better send this back to the states or they might end up storming the Capitol." I think that would meet the legal bar, but I doubt if it actually happened.



But is it enough for impeachment? is that a low bar? I don't think so. I think the election results are clear and he is trying to get them overturned in an extra-legal process. I think that's a pretty high bar, and he has cleared it easily. I think he should be removed from office.

However, it seems extraordinarily likely that he won't be removed, except through the normal means of Biden being sworn in next week. I think the Senate show trial after he is out of office seems pretty dumb. These folks must think pretty highly of themselves if they think the most important thing is that they stand up and make speeches and force someone to vote yes or no on a question that has no legal effect.

He, his aides and his 'crime family' had a small party to watch proceedings. Don Junior's g/f was shimmying around, everyone looked very jolly like it was the Eurovision Song Contest or a Royal Jubilee party. Not once did Trump appeal to his supporters to stop what they were doing ...until long after they had gone home and even then he said how much he loved them.

That has to count as circumstantial evidence of incitement.

He as POTUS had the power to call for more police and the National Guard, and as the rioters all had their phones, he could have halted it in its tracks.
 
You're trying so hard to make it look like Republicans aren't the only ones declining to participate in the democratic process, why?

Because he's yet another butt-hurt Progressive that's mad that getting rid of Trump didn't come with a socialist uprising and more concerned with poo-pooing the Democratic establishment for the sin of being centrist then with stopping Trump.
 
I'm not playing devil's advocate - I genuinely think it's a dumb move.

And I'm not the only one - here's a lifelong hard-left columnist from The Guardian saying the exact same thing, for the exact same reasons:



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/11/democrats-impeach-donald-trump-exile-base



There you go - you nailed it on both counts.

Trump is an extraordinarily stupid and self-absorbed person. The idea of cause and effect is beyond his brain, and he was just playing the same game he's been playing since "Lock her up!" chants started. "Hey, they're cheering while I'm talking, I'll keep talking!"

As I keep saying, and as the Guardian bloke says, you can rise above it or sink down to his level and Democrats have chosen the latter.

Trump is not the sharpest knife in the drawer but he has political acumen. He knows about populism and speaking the same language as your audience. Using words such as 'bad' instead of 'disgraceful' or 'big' instead of 'historical'. He is sly, shrewd and cunning and he has studied the art of acting dumb and getting the blue collar guys to like him This is how the Nigerian scammers work. They deliberately include poor grammar and spelling mistakes because, amazingly, it endears them to the gullible. Cassius Clay had the same gift. People loved his silly rhymes.
 
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Because he's yet another butt-hurt Progressive that's mad that getting rid of Trump didn't come with a socialist uprising and more concerned with poo-pooing the Democratic establishment for the sin of being centrist then with stopping Trump.

You...... do know that TheAtheist is Australian, right?
 
No, I specifically pointed out it isn't equivalent.
Fair enough, my mistake.

The point is that Hillary and many Democrats still insist she should/would have/did win in 2016 because Russians/Assange/FBI...

And they carried out violent protests, in case you forgot:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_riots

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ing-donald-trump-is-not-their-president-video

https://theconversation.com/after-t...ection-fear-protest-and-what-comes-next-68778.
”They” is pretty broad, it looks like it’s just “elements of the left.” That’s a difference that doesn’t apply to Trumps or any other POTUS” situation. But see below.

Seems to me both sides have their problems
This is trivially true. But the differences between what Trump has done since the 2020 election and what the left has done is as wide as a mile.

and maybe if the leaders took the lead and showed how to win gracefully, at least some Americans might respect that.
Impeaching Trump can be properly done with regard to nothing regarding winning gracefully.

Try asking yourself what the best outcome for Xi, Putin and the mad Mullahs is here - an implacably opposed and divided country, or one where both sides can show at least some minimal cohesion?
Holding POTUS accountable constitutionally has to be part of having a cohesive country. If we can’t cohere around that, cohesion is fake. Appeasement because the other side will be upset in the face of such gross high crimes and misdemeanors is just that.
 
Rachel Maddow made an interesting observation: Conviction by the Senate after impeachment requires a vote of two-thirds of the Senators present, not of all Senators. Republicans could support/allow conviction if 20 or so Repubs just stayed away from the Capitol during the vote.
 
If there isn't any sanction on Trump then it is legitimising his actions and it will become just another tactic.
Lose the election, invade the Capitol, there's no repercussions, it might work next time.
 
Lindsey Graham tweeted

@LindseyGrahamSC
1h
In light of President Trump’s Thursday statement pledging an orderly transfer power and calling for healing in our nation, a second impeachment will do far more harm than good.

I’m disappointed to hear the House is proceeding with a second impeachment given there are only nine days left in a Trump presidency.

It is past time for all of us to try to heal our country and move forward.
Impeachment would be a major step backward.
 
How far does it need to go before Graham grows some balls?
If violence erupts during the inauguration what will he say then?
 
How far does it need to go before Graham grows some balls?
If violence erupts during the inauguration what will he say then?

Trump has no spine and was castrated a long time ago. He's not like a lizard which can regrow a tail. Balls do not regenerate.

ETA: What galls me is that you KNOW Graham would be screaming for blood if a Democrat president had done what Trump has done. All these GOP hypocrites calling for "healing" would be.
 
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They will get the 51 votes, if it's in the senate later, not now. Possibly Romney and a couple more. But they would need 17 republicans to permanently ban him from office.

I would not rule this out, the math is very different this time than in the 2020 Impeachment.

So first, the idea that a second Impeachment will make Trump and Trumpist more popular is silly. This is a holdover from Clinton gaining popularity when he was Impeached, but the circumstances were entirely different.

Most of the US felt that the Whitewater investigation had turned into a witchhunt for the Clintons to get them on anything that Republicans could, They felt that the charges were minimal, had nothing to do with Clinton's running of the office, and frankly were none of the nation's business as to if he cheated on his wife or not. On top of that Clinton worked his butt off for the country while he was being impeached, he didn't whine and try and stop or delay it, he let the process happen and for the most part, at least publically, ignored it. This is why Clinton's popularity increased (though at the same time his numbers for honesty and integrity plunged).

This is a far cry from what Trump did in 2020, and the stats show it. According to 538, on Dec 17th, the day before the Impeachment was initiated, he had an average approval rating of 43.8%. On Feb 6th, the day after the Senate declared "Not Guilty", his average approval rating on 538 was 43.9%. Even if we waited a week for the news to filter through to the polls his average approval rating was actually down to 43.3%. There was a spike two weeks after where it bounced up to 44.3% for about three days before returning to 43.3%.

Now yes, his approval rating increased in the days before the start of the Impeachment vote, going from 41.8% to 43.3%, between the 13th and 16th, and then it fell again during the start of the Impeachment, dropping to a low of 41.8% on Jan 11th, before recovering back to the 43.9% by the end. It's not a lot of movement outside of his normal ups and downs.

The other thing to remember is that even though Clinton got more popular over his Impeachment, it wasn't a huge amount, 2-3% at most, and he was already wildly popular at the time with a +60% approval rating even before Impeachement.

Okay so now that we have dealt a death knell to the whole stupid, "It'll just make him more popular" claim, let's look at the "It'll end up the same way as last time" claims.

Again, the match is totally different this time.

In early 2020 Republicans were looking at a President who was wildly popular with Republic voters and they were fast coming into the primaries for the Presidential Election. They were being asked to not only remove what most of them considered to be their best chance of winning the 2020 Presidential Election, but also to put themselves in danger of reaping the anger whirlwind created by such a removal right at the time Primaries were about to be voted on, and their actions would have been fore-front if their voters' minds.

These are pretty major reasons to vote no to impeachment and Not Guilty to the Impeachment charges.

Now consider the math for the 2021 Impeachment. The election is passed, members of the House have over a year before they need to start campaigning again, senators have up to 6 years, and a number of the Republican Senators up to vote in 2024 are in what appears to be going to be hotly contested seats with Democrat advantage. That means they need to appeal to the centrists to retain their seats, not the alt-right. Also, they won't be voting to expel a President from office, but rather to determine if he can hold office again. Politically it would be beneficial to a number of them who might be considering a 2024 run to have Trump off the board. Finally, we see that a number of the top Republicans, such as Moscow Mitch and Graham, who were the ones leading the charge to acquit Trump in 2020, have publically broken with the President over a number of topics of late. They clearly are believing that his power and the power of his supporters is waning to the point that they can directly go against his wishes, and even call him and his supporters out.

So, when you put these factors together, no reasons not to find guilty, plenty of reasons to do so, and also that a number of Republican Congress Critters are absolutely livid over the insurrection and invasion of the Capitol, writing off any Impeachment attempt as doomed to fail from the start, is not actually a guarantee. I suspect that Republicans will be a lot more willing to do so because doing so will probably be better for their political careers than not doing so.
 
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Rachel Maddow made an interesting observation: Conviction by the Senate after impeachment requires a vote of two-thirds of the Senators present, not of all Senators. Republicans could support/allow conviction if 20 or so Repubs just stayed away from the Capitol during the vote.

I've been reading the Senate rules and this is correct. It's 2/3rds those casting votes. Abstentions do not figure into the vote positively or negatively. However abstentions do count towards the requirement for a quorum.

Also a Senator present cannot abstain without reason such as a conflict of interest. However he doesn't have to state that reason unless pressed to state the reason. And they usually are not pressed.
 
Try asking yourself what the best outcome for Xi, Putin and the mad Mullahs is here - an implacably opposed and divided country, or one where both sides can show at least some minimal cohesion?
That ship already sailed. In my view USA is already irreversibly divided. Only thing to do is excise republican tumor and their authoritarian degenerate ideology.

Right now you are trying to scare us with "let them get away with it or else" nonsensical drivel. As I said, it will have opposite result, since lack of punishment is taken as reward. For some reason you did not answered to this post, I wonder why?

What you call for is utter foolishness, to put it delicately.
 
I've been reading the Senate rules and this is correct. It's 2/3rds those casting votes. Abstentions do not figure into the vote positively or negatively. However abstentions do count towards the requirement for a quorum.

Also a Senator present cannot abstain without reason such as a conflict of interest. However he doesn't have to state that reason unless pressed to state the reason. And they usually are not pressed.

She wasn't suggesting they should abstain or vote "present." She was suggesting they should arrange to be out of Washington.
 
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