“There is a school of thought that you shouldn’t talk about impeachment and instead talk about infrastructure and health care, as if they’re mutually exclusive. You can’t shy away from the most obvious threat to this country, and if you do, you accept Donald Trump, and then we become complicit in it and we won’t win the next election.
Many are tempted to despair right now with the president being acquitted or this freak show of a presidency and the cult of personality that the Republican Party has become. But if you give into that, it’s over.”
I think it’s donate money, vote, knock on doors, text bank, do anything/everything possible for the general election candidate, no matter who it is. If it’s someone shitty (define however you each want), do the same thing to beat them in a primary in 2024 or grit your teeth and bear it until AOC 2028.
Are you sure we just weren’t frothing about this current right thing you’re frothing about while you were explaining how they should impeach Barr, Pence, Pompeo AND Trump?
We can still win in 2020, even though it’s going to be somewhat stacked against us. If we don’t win this election, then it’s a wrap on democracy and it’s on to a full-bore authoritarian regime with effective single party rule. Dems may be able to take the House and put the brakes on here or there, but it’ll just be slowing down a runaway train for a moment… and it’ll be a matter of time before he starts jailing Democratic leaders for opposing him.
It’s currently 53-47 GOP. We’re losing Doug Jones’ seat, so it’s 54-46. Collins and Gardner can be somewhat easily flipped, now we’re losing 52-48. Tillis, Ernst and McSally are in play, but in states where there could easily be extreme shenanigans from GOP control. I see a best case scenario of 51-49 Dems. I’m not sure what these other two you’re bringing into play are? Georgia x2? Kansas? Texas?
At least the ones who’s votes got counted fairly.
But the extra hilarious thing is that they’re completely incompetently running the country.
I agree that Carville gets this, I don’t know that Pelosi, Schumer, Perez, etc get this. I think a lot of them think it’ll be like Dubya all over again, and we’ll just take everything in 2022 and win in 2024 and all will be well.
While the party may not want to ratfuck him at the convention given what’s at stake, this will depend heavily on just how much he wins by… and there’s approximately a 0.0% chance the party rallies behind Bernie on Super Tuesday.
He won the right to do whatever the fuck he wants between now and November to try to win by abusing the power of the presidency. Now, the counter point is that not impeaching him just gave him the same green light. I agree with that, and it’s why I supported impeachment.
If you’re reading JT as minimizing the attack on the Constitution, you’re definitely misreading his posts.
They got nothing at all done, if you don’t count a $2 trillion tax cut for the rich, two Supreme Court justices, internment camps at the border, chopping away at and weakening the ACA, a Muslim ban, a shit load of federal judges, massive deregulation and grifting out the wazoo.
Plus this.
She’s a big business liberal. She’s a corporatist liberal.
Yep. Agree with all of this.
More like 100% chance. They’ll delete voters from the rolls, they’ll do all kinds of things to make it harder to vote in majority-minority areas in red states (move polling places, make them too small, don’t give them enough power cords, etc), they’ll do intimidation, they’ll send out mailers to Democrats telling them to remember to vote on Wednesday 11/4 and try to confuse people, there are all sorts of things. They’ll investigate the Dem nominee right before the election, they’ll try to hack the voting machines or have Putin do it for them, they’ll be hacking anything and everything in their favor.
They’ll be funneling in illegal donations from all over the place to all over the place, there’s effectively no FEC so fuck it.
It doesn’t really matter if they get caught, as long as at the end of the night he has the most electoral votes.
So what? What really came out of that that damaged Trump or the GOP?
Sure, but it’s never going to happen.
There’s not a chance in hell they’d remove any of them.
They needed 4+ Articles in my opinion. It makes it sound worse to the general public and gives GOP senators more cover to vote no on 3 and yes on 1, in theory - not that it was going to happen other than Romney. Also the downside is Manchin probably votes yes on 3 and no on 1, then Trump beats you over the head with that stick for a year.
Not. A. Chance. In. Hell.
Which is also exactly why he won’t be removed by this Senate. He’s doing exactly what they trusted him to do.
We all knew he did it, we all knew he wasn’t getting convicted for it. I went to a big impeachment demonstration in Philly, but I knew it ultimately wasn’t going to matter - it was just doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing, which is fine I guess. But as for me, I tuned out the House Manger’s case cause I already knew what he did, why he did it, why it was wrong, etc… I didn’t need to hear their case.
This means plenty of power for Trump, unless the Dems have the numbers in the Senate to remove him from office, which they won’t. He can still effectively do whatever he wants and all they can do is impeach him, and vote like 53-47 at best to remove him.
The GOP is depending on the election to go the exact same way people thought about impeachment. It is the only shot they have that can make the cheating easier for them. If they think the Dems aren’t up in arms about Barr, they won’t do anything about him, and neither will Pelosi. We have to depend on the people whose Constitutional duty it is to defend the Constitution from foreign and domestic enemies. Barr is the epitome of a domestic enemy. The House will do that if they can, and there are zero of the legs the GOP stood on related to impeachment available for the Senate related to Barr and Pompeo. This is a winning issue, I guarantee it. They need to find out how much the GOP was willing to shred the Constitution. Trump’s team has zero interest in protecting Pence as an important FYI. They’ve been throwing him under the bus in court for months.
Here’s a little fan fic script of the behind the scenes wrangling of a GOP Senator and his strategist.
August, 2019
GOP Senator:
What are you hearing about impeachment?
GOP Strategist:
Some people are screeching loudly on the internet (mostly former GOP people) and on TV, but the vast majority of people we see engaging those types who also want him impeached say there’s no way the GOP convicts. Pelosi won’t budge, and all we have to do is make a wall, like my pun, of GOP Reps not voting for impeachment. Then we can bludgeon her with her comments about the need for bi-partisanship. She’d do just about anything not to impeach him, and those people on the internet who want impeachment but won’t fight to make it happen are proving her right. They beat down those who think this should be fought tooth and nail into submission. Many of those same types think impeachment’s a losing issue because the acquittal is pre-ordained. if you can’t get people who want it to happen riled up that it’s not, then we got this. We can use them not impeaching in the election to our advantage, because it proves they didn’t think he really did anything wrong.
October, 2019
GOP Senator:
What Trump did is so bad. Really really bad. He seems like a danger, and I’m terribly concerned.
GOP Strategist:
Yeah, this is pretty bad, but this public has no attention span. We’ll just throw a hundred non-defenses up at the wall, and something will stick well enough with your colleagues. I will admit it’s pretty hard to defend. But you know the Democrat Party will eff it up somehow. We got this.
December, 2019
GOP Strategist:
Well, it’s almost time, I wish they’d send the damn articles over so we can get rid of this.
GOP Senator:
Yeah, Mitch told me there’s no chance in hell he’s giving even one Democrat what they’re hoping for…in the Senate. Imagine the House trying to negotiate this. Sure seems urgent to remove Trump, huh?
GOP Strategist:
Like I said, they’ll find a way to eff it up. We can now complain about the speed of sending it over and they pushed it into an election year. Everyone knows you’re supposed to have a speedy trial in due process, but we’ll tell them they went too fast. So what if Trump murdered Zelenskyy in front of a cop and confessed to it on national television. This investigation needed to take a year. BAHAHAHAHA.
GOP Senator:
It’s still a gamble, because I don’t really want to know what he’s gonna do next if he gets away with it.
GOP Strategist:
Well, he’ll come after you and send his base after you if you don’t vote for him. Is it really worth the risk? Remember, we got this.
January, 2020
GOP Senator:
It seems like a really bad idea not to bring Bolton in. Americans love CSI and NCIS, they know what a trial looks like, and man were they pissed about O.J. Are you sure it’s the right move to block witnesses?
GOP Strategist:
Look what the Democrat Party is doing over Medicare 4 All. We got this.
GOP Senator:
I hope you’re right about this, because what we are about to do is really not a good idea.
GOP Strategist:
Trump’s base is a cult, we have them forever. If we cut Trump loose, they cut us loose and we lose forever. If we don’t cut Trump loose, we still have that base, and it’s enough to win if the Democrat Party turns on itself. Plus, the added bonus is these Trump voters are stupid af. He could rape their wives, and they would still vote for him. Look at the Democrat Party, they aren’t even gonna notice when you acquit him. We got this.
GOP Senator:
I hope you’re right. I’m going to lose anyway, but I’ll save us having to get witnesses. Whatever happens to me is going to happen to Trump, but the only chance I have of winning is to gamble that you’re right.
February 5, 2020
GOP Strategist:
Wow, what did you think of that speech? I told you we got this.
GOP Senator:
It was…something. There were a lot of lies in it, but yeah, Trump’s base ate it up. Pelosi ripping up that thing…hoo boy Trump’s people were so mad.
GOP Strategist:
Yeah, just amazing stuff. They don’t get any of this at all. We. Got. This.
GOP Senator:
What are you seeing on the internet about the vote coming up today?
GOP Strategist:
Almost nothing! Hahaha. All they’re talking about is that clusterfuck in Iowa. That Democrat Party is so amazing. We got this!
GOP Senator Cory Gardner:
Maybe you’re right. Fuck the Democrats anyway, I hate them just like that Bernie base does. Wait til you hear my acquittal speech. It will be such an eff you to them.
A few days after the acquittal:
GOP Senator Gardner:
I really am concerned this was a mistake. Look at what he’s already doing. Lisa was so mad at me for making her number 50 on that witness stuff. I think she might campaign for Hickenlooper now. Who was the last campaign you worked for again?
Uh, no, I knew exactly what was going to happen. I just wanted ANYONE to act like it matters that this historic stain on our country happened and acknowledge it when it was happening. Everyone here went meh, but lost their minds about a Caucus that doesn’t matter, in an election where we need every vote possible to stop a guy who is going to burn this country down if he gets re-elected.
Quoting locked threads is a bit of a pain, all quotes from this thread. Context is that there were rumours back then (November) that Vindman was getting fired.
Hey let’s check in on what Graham thinks about the Vindman firing
Boy, this must be reflecting terribly on the GOP! Probably the public are up in arms and ready to throw these bums out of office!
These are the seats I think are in any sort of play:
Arizona
Georgia x 2
Colorado
Iowa
Kansas (open, the GOP has royally effed up Kansas)
Maine
Montana
North Carolina
Worst case to me is GOP 51-49 (which would be a nightmare), and I’m including Jones as a loss, though Alabama did shock the world once (lol). Hopefully they put up Jeff Sessions, he might be a Republican who could lose there.
You should have provided proper context for what you quoted. I actually left the site after that Vindman thing. It turned out to be a false story, and everything I said was based on that story being true (because it didn’t happen none of that meant anything). Why do you think Vindman didn’t get fired until Friday, when the GOP had already acquitted? Same with Sondland.
Good job posting an article from The Washington Examiner, I sure as fuck am not reading however they’re skewing the truth there. He probably said something like, ‘he’s the president he can do what he wants’. He wouldn’t have said a damn fucking thing about before or during the impeachment. Did he call Vindman deep state in it?
Really have no idea why you’re wasting your time here. I guess you just want me to leave.
I know you seriously didn’t think I thought the Senators would convict him, right?
Yeah, sure is, completely devoid of actual context that completely misrepresents why that discussion was happening. Your favorite type of post. It’s a favorite type of post for a lot of people here.
Do you even look at the polls, or just look at the graph? Everything in that approval rating is skewed because of Harris, Rasmussen, and a new blue moon Gallup poll. People love Emerson polls here, but I’ll agree with wheatrich that they’re terrible. I’m an alumnus of that school, and they are verbatim like Rasmussen. Trump’s approval will not move below 42 percent ever, and anything nearing 50 percent is absolute horse shit.
Here’s a link to the impeachment polls, why don’t you take a look at that?:
I did provide that context, it’s right at the top of my post.
I don’t think you were convinced they’d convict, but you definitely thought it was a possibility:
I think even these scumbag GOP senators are going to understand the gravity of this to their re-election chances by the time it gets to the trial (even if they acquit), and if the Vindman firing is real that will accelerate.
The entire thrust of your posting was that GOP Senators would have to care about Vindman because he was a war hero and that if they didn’t, it would create a firestorm of bad press around the GOP that would hurt their re-election chances. None of that was true. Everyone said so at the time.
Huh? You’re declaring victory because somewhere around 50% of the country supports impeaching him? That number is worse for you than the one I posted. That’s LESS than the percentage of people who have consistently said they disapprove of the job he’s doing over the course of his whole term in office. How is impeachment a win for the Dems when not even everyone who explicitly disapproves of Trump agrees he should have been impeached?
That’s like saying, ‘nukes have been launched according to Twitter person’. People react to that report saying all kinds of stuff, but it turns out not to be true. And you’re treating it like it’s just a normal post. It wasn’t. I was super pissed that I fell for misinformation, and generally am saying there’s no verification of this sort of thing. I’m pretty sure I said multiple times that anything I said was void if it didn’t actually happen, because nothing had actually changed. And again, I left the site with that particular conversation as one of the instigating factors of it.
About acquittal, come on. I have plenty of posts on here about that. All of my speculation was related to whether the House would impeach, which almost no one on here thought would ever happen before the Ukraine scandal. That was despite constant and sustained momentum for it in the wake of Mueller’s testimony. I even predicted when it would happen within a matter of days (no matter what they impeached over they were never voting after the beginning of the year).
Microbet used me as an example when I said I didn’t think there was barely even the slightest chance one Senator could move over or whatever the post was. My stance was that I wouldn’t speculate on the Senate until they took their oaths. The final witness vote told you all you needed to know. If there were no witnesses, nothing was going to change. He used it to say the person who thinks he should be impeached the most on this site says it’s not gonna happen and that no Senators might cross. I don’t think that was a post about acquittal, but about any GOP Senators voting to convict (I’m not going to look to find out).
I said nothing could move the needle if the Vindman thing happened and no one had a problem with that. Too bad we didn’t get a chance to find out before the acquittal. There was a reason he didn’t do it at that time. It wasn’t because he changed his mind, he did it fewer than 48 hours after he was acquitted. He fired the two first hand witnesses to the incidents he was impeached over who said anything about it (one after he had perjured himself)…lol.
Pulling that post out is shameful, sorry. You’re just trying to shame me, and that’s not gonna play (there were way easier targets to find on me). You’ll eventually get your wish that I’ll leave again, because this place is a cesspool of negativity, apathy, and wrong priorities. It’s why we’re going to lose if it happens.
Nearly 50 percent of the country wanted him removed from office, and 41-42 did not (and there were hardly any impeachment polls that came out during the trial). Before the Ukraine scandal, I think that number was around 32 percent. Nearly 10 percent of Democrats said they did NOT want him removed. That’s fucked up.
If 50 percent of people want him removed from office, how is he possibly going to win the election outside of massive cheating? Think of what you’re saying. How is he going to win with 42 percent support? Oh yeah, the recipe is what’s being done on this site. It really pisses me off how you can sit over there in Australia and shit on people who are actually living it while you sip your tea or whatever.
You’ve been minimizing a whole lot of stuff in a bad way lately. I’d suggest you stop doing that unless your goal is to put enraged people in even more of a rage.
Honestly I don’t even know what you think these “priorities” you’re so worked up about should be. What, concretely, should the forum be doing right now? Getting worked up about the corrupt Republicans, for some reason? How will that help?
Here’s the thing: everyone already knows Trump did the Ukraine crimes. People don’t care. They don’t care because they view the entire system as corrupt. The voting base of GOP Senators don’t care that they acquitted Trump because they’d have done the same.
Glad you’re in the here to watch it burn camp. Your arguments are garbage. Easiest way for nothing to happen is to give a pass on it as what can be done? I’m so fucking tired of this mind set. I’m going to go ahead and gird up for the big loss in 2020, the coronation of our King, the destruction of the Legislative Branch, and start counting down the clock until the genocide on a wide scale happens. That’s where we’re headed. If you’re looking anywhere else, you’re complicit. If you don’t do your part to vote him out, you’re complicit. I will not be complicit.
If this site is any kind of microcosm of the real world (it’s not), we are absolutely doomed. And with that I say a merry ‘fuck off’ to you and anyone else who thinks the way you do. You’ll get what you deserve.
