Let’s take a look at the latest survey data on the subject of President Trump’s potential removal from office for committing high crimes and misdemeanors.
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I guess the president can be grateful for that Quinnipiac outlier that is bringing the overall RCP average below fifty percent. But I think it should be bigger news that the consensus of recent polls finds that a majority of registered voters already support the impeachment—and conviction—of Donald Trump.
Republican lawmakers are certainly nervous when they see numbers like this, but we’ve seen them ignore far more overwhelming public opinion shifts during this session of Congress. For example, as the Washington Post reported in September, the GOP appears impervious to the voters’ desires with respect to gun control.
Democrats and allied activists have been trying to kick-start a national push for new federal gun restrictions for weeks, since mass shootings last month in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio. Urgency dissipated as a six-week congressional recess wore on, but a deadly rampage in West Texas on Aug. 31 has reignited the issue.
The Post-ABC poll finds 86 percent of Americans support implementing “red flag” provisions allowing guns to be taken from people judged to be a danger to themselves or others. And 89 percent support expanding federal background checks to cover private sales and gun-show transactions. Both measures are supported by at least 8 in 10 Republicans, white evangelical Christians, members of gun-owning households and other traditionally conservative groups.
In theory, then, we could reach a point in which 89 percent of the public wants Trump removed from office and the Republican-controlled Senate will still acquit him.
Yet, I don’t think that is the true state of affairs. Republican senators are furious with the president for a host of reasons, including his recent green lighting a Turkish invasion of Syrian Kurdistan. And, unlike with proposed gun control legislation, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can’t refuse to take impeachment up or avoid a roll call vote. The political costs of acquitting the president will be more immediate and severe than the costs of doing nothing on guns.
Still, the public is going to need to be substantially more emphatic than they are currently if they want the Senate to do the right thing. To get an idea of what I mean, look at this reporting from Rachael Bade and Erica Werner of the Washington Post on the closed-door weekly luncheon the Republican senators held on Wednesday:
During the meeting, [Sen. Lindsey] Graham lobbied his colleagues to consider a public declaration in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), which would describe Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seeking an investigation into a domestic political rival as “unimpeachable.” Some senators, however, pushed back against that idea, arguing that Trump would assume that those who did not sign the document would be persuadable on a vote to oust him.
If this reporting is correct, there are two groups of senators in the Republican caucus. One is willing to sign a letter saying it is not an impeachable offense to withhold congressionally authorized military aid until a foreign country agrees to manufacture evidence against a potential political rival. The other is unwilling to sign something like that but, more importantly, doesn’t want to give anyone the impression that they might be persuaded that it’s an impeachable offense.
That’s not an encouraging and open-minded mentality on display there. It seems quite possible that the Republican Party is simply wrecked and beyond fixing.
Don’t you think it is meaningful that McConnell is doing all this talking about the logistics of a trial? Strikes me as a big nudge to Trump: “hey, don’t think we are going to bury this if it comes here.” Nevertheless, it sounds like at least some R senators are pretty terrified of being put on record either for or against Trump. I don’t think either party is likely to want a trial, so the key thing is to figure out a way to get Trump to resign before that happens.
Just curious: why do you think Democrats don’t want a trial?
Because if it comes to a trial and a public vote, there is a reasonably good chance that Trump survives. I expect that we could get 5-10 R senators to vote for conviction. But I don’t think we can get 19. No matter how bad the offenses, they can always say “we want the voters to decide” while voting to acquit.
Maybe I should have said that Democrats *shouldn’t* want a trial. What we should want is to use the threat of a trial to get Republicans to nudge Trump to resign. That’s the best thing for them, so they don’t have to take a vote, and don’t have to defend him. It’s also the best thing for the country, as it would get Trump out of there.
Moody’s has a model that says Trump will win re-election by a landslide.A recession or large democratic turnout could change it. I don’t know about turnout, since the other side can also turn out where it matters. Trump also has lots of money and as the Times is reporting today Trump is flooding social media. And it is still unlikely we can get enough senators to remove him.
Polling-free models are basically worthless.
Even when they “correctly predicted” the results of prior elections that just means they fitted their parameters to that (small n) dataset.
“The Republican party is simply wrecked and beyond fixing”
After the upcoming senate trial and vote, this should be the unified message of all Dem candidates for every seat in every state. No quailing from the reality: the Repub party (as controlled by the “conservative” movement) is the nation’s foremost problem.
As for the senate vote, simply recording and memorializing the Repub party’s abject moral and governing failure for posterity is very important, whatever the result, since Der Trumper’s mental disability, grotesque willful incompetence and serial abuse of office is clear for any non-cultist to see–as polls already show. But Repubs have evinced a categorical disinterest in what “the people” might want (from campaign finance reform to gun control), as well as what might be in the “common good”, for decades now. Hell, they continue to freely and boldly yap that “the American people” voted for Trumper, he “won” the election, “[anti-democratic] elections have consequences”, etc., etc.
Not that the Dem party does anything to counter these lies and misrepresentations, or (Heaven Forbid!) start a consistent rhetoric that persistent reliance on the anti-democratic electoral college to obtain power does not result in a “mandate” for anything. Frankly, it’s an anti-mandate! But that would require having a long term rhetorical and political strategy. Yes, indeed, Repubs, “elections (should) have consequences”–especially when one party makes no attempt to obtain a foundation of democratic legitimacy. It is abundantly clear that in the 21st Century, “conservative” governance is (actually) not legitimate.
“It seems quite possible that the Republican Party is simply wrecked and beyond fixing.”
That’s where I’m putting my money. Hopefully they won’t take the entire country and world down the drain with them. We’ll see.
It’s a bit disorienting—in a good way—to feel that all the Democrats have to do now is keep moving steadily in the direction they’re already moving, and they’ll both have a decent chance to save the republic, and to win a bunch of elections next fall.
It’s not just that a majority of Americans *already* favor removing Trump from office, before the House Judiciary Committee has even commenced formal hearings. (And that a higher percentage of Americans favor removing Trump now than favored removing Nixon in July 1974.)
It’s also that the “Trump effect” is starting to show up in Senate races. Collins’ polling is so bad that a growing number of Maine political observers expect her to announce her retirement early next year. Gardner’s numbers in Colorado are almost as dismal. McSally (AZ) already was vulnerable, but now Tillis (NC) and Ernst (IA) have numbers that are slipping significantly.
If that trend continues, Republicans are looking at losing 5 seats and only gaining 1 (Jones-AL), and losing their Senate majority.
Even if you disagree with someone, if they boldly do someyhing they think is right you can respect them a bit.