McKay Coppins reports for The Atlantic that Republican strategists are planning to pretend that the presidency of Donald Trump never happened. If that’s true, it seems like an impeachment conviction is a prerequisite. If you don’t believe me, consider that Eugene Debs, running on the Socialist Party ticket, won nearly one million votes in the 1920 presidential election, and he was locked up for sedition at the time. If convicted by the Senate, Trump could be denied the right to ever hold another federal position or office. If acquitted, he could run for president again even if he’s in prison.
It won’t be possible for the Republican Party to get beyond Trump if he’s still a candidate for their nomination. In fact, even if he just floats the idea, it will be paralyzing for the GOP. But if he’s precluded from serving, that will make it possible to pretend he never served in the first place.
I honestly can’t see any reason for Mitch McConnell to leave the door open for a Trump comeback, but if he makes that mistake he’ll deserve what comes next. I’m not certain, but I believe McConnell retains enough power and influence in the Senate Republican caucus to get a conviction if he wants one. I think the logic laid out above is pretty compelling and will make sense even to folks like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley who sided with Trump and helped incite the Capitol insurrection. They did so because they have presidential aspirations, and Trump stands in the way of those aspirations.
I don’t know that Cruz and Hawley would pivot on a dime and convict Trump. In truth, they may have destroyed their political careers irreparably, and can’t solve their problems no matter how they vote. The rest of the Republican caucus, however, can strategize more freely, and they can’t get beyond Trump by defending him and keeping his future political prospects alive.
If Republican senators are going to convict Trump and bar him from future office, the first few votes are easy to guess:
*Collins
*Murkowski
*Portman
*Romney
*Sasse
*Toomey
It’s hard to imagine getting to 68 votes (nobody want to be the pivotal vote) without *McConnell. But then who are the other 11?
I would bet against getting enough Republicans to impeach, but after the six you’ve mentioned, the Bernstein whiner list plus McConnell (obligatory).
I have seen reports that even if acquitted he can be barred from ever running for office in the future in by a separate vote requiring only a simple majority.
Cruz and Hawley would be best off if Trump were convicted but they voted against it. That’s what I imagine those opportunists will angle for.
As for the Republican party, I don’t think there’s an obvious path forward. Either path could prove really damaging. You made the case for convicting Trump. The downside is Trump’s supporters may not get over it and may come to see the entire party as an apparatus of the “deep state”. We’ve had cycles in which too many on the left behaved as through both parties were essentially the same and it hurt us. Both W and Trump were elected only because Democrats didn’t stick together. Same thing could easily happen on the right. There’s no constituency for what Republicans truly care about. We all know that. So they need to have a significant number of dupes and it can be hard to know what strings to pull.
The conviction in the Senate requires 2/3rds of all Members PRESENT. So Hawley and Cruz can launch a boycott of the “fake trial” and drag 15 other cretins and cynics out with him, reducing the number needed to get to 2/3 and saving their credibility with the Moron Labe crowd.
Also, if Trump is in jail, he can’t tweet, and we are discovering just how dependent his movement is on his twitter feed.
True enough but I still find it hard to believe they could find the votes to convict. OTOH you make a good case to convict and then vote him out forever. Trump has some magical grip on the party. It may be the party has to be rebuilt from the ground up. As it now looks it is a hodge podge of political perspectives that don’t fit. The dems are giving them a chance to move on. If they don’t take it, oh well.