Whatever anyone says, impeachment is a political rather than a judicial process, and that is never more true than when the majority in the Senate is controlled by the president’s party. The Senate has the responsibility to decide whether a president should be removed from office, and with two-thirds requirement, it almost always requires that the president lose significant support from nominally aligned senators. As of today, Trump can lose the support of nineteen Republican senators before he crosses the threshold for removal.
That sounds impossible, and maybe it is. But if there is going to be a critical loss of support, it’s going to be a political decision by the senators that they cannot withstand an acquittal. How they calculate that will be partly individualized to their own particular circumstances. It will be partly an assessment of what is good for their party as a whole. And, yes, there is a component that involves what is best for the country.
The Kurdish fiasco is hurting Trump in each of these areas and making his removal from office much more possible than it otherwise would be. The problem is that things have turned to shit so quickly and so indisputably, and with such obviously negative consequences for the country, that the Republican senators are just as angry as the Democratic ones.
There are Republican senators who want Trump gone for this reason alone, and there is a real limit to how much shit they’re prepared to eat to pretend otherwise.
I’m betting that if there are 100,000 Kurds murdered – there STILL will not be a single Republican defector.
Don’t get me wrong, they will bitch and whine publicly, but when the vote comes they will vote straight Republican.
I wish I could say I had even a small amount of confidence that Senators were movable based on these sorts of circumstances. My bet, though, is they simply “let it ride”. I have always considered it 98% likely that any decision concerning Trump would have to happen at the ballot box. There is little incentive for them to rock the boat.
The day after the Turkish invasion, I emailed a friend and told him that I was changing my bet from Trump Survives to Trump Won’t Survive.
I still think that he would be acquitted by the Senate. But, probably like Nixon, they won’t let it get so for. The “signal” will be a number of Rs in the House voting to impeach. Then McConnell and Graham march down Pennsylvania Ave and try to convince Trump that he needs to leave.
I don’t know. How do you convince of that?
Offer to pardon him, I suppose.To be honest, this whole scenario probably reflects nothing more than a lack of imagination on my part. This is what happened with Nixon, so I’m assuming that it will happen with Trump as well. In fact, my logical side says that it will never be to the republican’s advantage to abandon him. But my gut says…how much more failure can they take?
And I’ve never bought the line that “Trump will never quit.” Look at his history. He gives up on things all the time. If it is to his advantage to do so. he’ll quit.
This. Which means the real challenge is getting 30 or so Republican senators (because none of them wants to be a “key vote” in convicting Trump; only in numbers is there safety) to agree they’ll vote to convict Trump.
Now, go take a look at the roster of Republican senators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/116th_United_States_Congress#Senate_4
The only scenario that seems remotely possible (to me) is if 1) the Senate impeachment trial takes place after the primaries in most states (so incumbents up for reelection in 2020 don’t draw/lose to a primary challenger), 2) Trump’s scandals continue to dominate the news and his approval ratings drop another 10+ points, and 3) there’s polling that suggests Republicans on the ballot next fall would do better if President Pence topped their ticket.
But I’m open to other theories.
If the Senate votes to remove Trump, that’s the end of the Republican party, period. The Trumpenvolk will see it as the ultimate betrayal and the GOP will have a prominent place on their list of enemies. I think the Republican calculation at this point is that whatever electoral damage they suffer by riding this out will be less than extinction. I don’t think McConnell will even allow a trial. Not because he fears GOP defections, but because he won’t allow the evidence to be put before the American people.
They don’t care about the damage this will cause to the country. They’ll burn it all to the ground if they think they can rule the ashes.