Flinging Democrats Into the Impeachment Briar Patch

Jun. 04, 2019

1:49 p.m.

Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead

Of all the deranged ideas gushing out of what Donald Trump describes as the awesome mind of “a very stable genius,” one of the looniest might be Trump’s apparent belief that goading Democrats into impeaching him will help assure his re-election.

It’s only because Democrats are still shell-shocked someone so obviously unfit for office could win the presidency in the first place that many of them worry about whether he might be right. That’s why Trump is doing Democrats a big favor by leaving House Speaker Nancy Pelosi little choice but to reluctantly agree to open an impeachment inquiry.

Anyone who’s enjoyed watching Pelosi constantly outplay Trump recognizes just how methodically she is allowing Trump to fling Democrats into the impeachment briar patch where all the evidence of Trump’s corruption of the presidency can be exposed on live TV.

What choice do Pelosi and Congress have? Trump breaks laws and defies subpoenas for documents and testimony from witnesses that our elected representatives need to carry out their constitutional responsibility. He brazenly violates the federal law requiring his tax returns be provided to Congress to assure the American people Trump isn’t using the presidency to loot the public treasury to expand his own personal wealth. His luxury real estate business is ideally suited for criminal money laundering.

The Constitution Requires Impeachment

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russia’s interference in our democracy to elect Trump over Hillary Clinton and Trump’s multiple attempts to obstruct that investigation (including trying to fire Mueller), said last week that Department of Justice rules prevented him from filing any charges against the president. “The Constitution,” said Mueller, “requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.” That process is a congressional impeachment investigation.

But could Trump, one of the most ignorant, irrational individuals ever elected president, possibly be right? If Democrats begin the impeachment investigation required by the Constitution to investigate criminal activity by a president, could it backfire by pushing more voters toward Trump and reelecting one of the most unpopular presidents in American history?

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Trump shouldn’t bet on it. Many forget that when the Senate Watergate Committee began its investigation into President Richard Nixon’s connection to the Watergate burglary of Democratic National Headquarters, most Americans considered the break-in trivial. After two weeks of televised committee hearings in 1973, 67% believed Nixon had participated in the cover-up of a serious crime.

Mueller’s 448-page report detailing how joyfully Trump’s campaign welcomed Russia’s election interference and Trump’s multiple attempts to halt the investigation caused barely a ripple in public opinion after Trump and Attorney General William Barr lied for weeks about the conclusions before partially releasing them. America doesn’t read anymore. But there’s nothing like a sleazy true-crime show on live TV to rapidly shift national opinion.

Forget About the Vicious 30%

No, it won’t change the alleged minds of the 30% of red-hat crazies who would support Trump even if he murdered someone in the streets, preferably someone black or brown. Anyone who has seen their twisted, screaming faces at his rallies knows impeachment couldn’t possibly get his supporters any more fired up about voting for Trump than they already are. But, so what? The most vicious 30% of Americans can’t elect anyone. However, Watergate proved that many respectable, decent Republicans are embarrassed about supporting a Republican president whose criminality is splashed all over television.

In fact, in Wisconsin, the alienation of previous Republican voters from Trump’s party helped defeat Gov. Scott Walker last year. There’s little reason to believe Republicans in Waukesha and Ozaukee counties, two of the most overwhelmingly Republican counties in the nation, loved Walker any less in 2018 than they did in 2014. Yet Walker won Waukesha County by 46 points in 2014 but by only 34 points in 2018. In Ozaukee County, the drop off was from a 41-point Walker victory margin in 2014 to only 27 points in 2018.

Those are among the state’s most Republican counties. But you know what else they are? They’re also among the state’s most highly educated counties. It’s no secret Trump’s strongest supporters are America’s least educated voters. Educated voters fleeing the Republican Party led directly to Walker’s defeat. Walker lost college-educated voters by 13 points in 2018 after winning them by one point in 2014.

Lower turnout among Republicans embarrassed by Trump combined with energized, anti-Trump Democrats in the midterms elected Democratic governors and senators in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania—three traditionally Democratic states in presidential years that narrowly voted for Trump. If that midterm pattern holds, or more likely increases, in 2020, Trump’s gone.

Senate Republicans could play right into the hands of Democrats by refusing to convict a corrupt Republican president. The juicy revelations of the best televised crime show since “The Sopranos” could result in complicit Republican senators getting whacked in 2020 as well.

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Comments (1)

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What Hillary called "Deplorables" don't care if Trump breaks rules

All they care about is that someone like Trump restores their idea of good old days, when "the poor" were the designated "race" that were denied jobs as a way to keep them poor and both laws and traditions kept them bottled into a ghetto. The fear of a lynching was what kept these "designated poor" in there.

Now, I think Democrats could win lots of these "deplorables" back simply by granting a clear "citizen benefit". That means using a flat tax taken from everybody, including Romney's "47% who do NOT pay taxes", and paying it out as a flat, monthly benefit that ONLY goes to bona-fide citizens, the kind that were born to 2 US citizens only. (That would have exempted Barack Obama himself, and also exempted every last "anchor baby" from ever receiving this benefit.)

Maybe some of my Conservative readers think of this like Bernie's "Medicare for all", hated ONLY because of the political leanings of the man who uttered those words, not because of the reality that Medicare taxes everybody, even those who make less than the standard deduction, which means it even gets money from Romney's 47% who do not pay taxes. People think that Bernie was only going to pay for this from the upper, tax-paying half, like Medicaid does, but Medicare taxes everybody at the same flat percentage, whether you are stoner who only worked one day all year or Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and the Koch Brothers. -- Isn't "flat tax" what the Conservative always wanted?

Now, this idea of "Citizen Benefit" might allow 2 very good benefits:
- people who really cannot handle the job won't need to work.
- whites who hate to serve black customers won't need to work.
All it needs to be is something like $1000 per month for every adult citizen. That means both husband and wife, and also all of the adult children still living at home.

I don't know what kind of flat tax rate would be needed on those people who would be working, working only because they want more than $1000 per month, but even if it was something like a flat 25%, getting 75% of your pay in the normal way is still better than not working at all. Best thing is no cheating, because even the ambitious go-getter earning 6 figures would also be getting this benefit, it won't be taken away like welfare was.

Question is, would excluding all those 1-parent citizens and 0-parent citizens be seen as a constitutional violation? It won't be because of race or nationality or religion, or even because of gender or gender identity.

And if this passes muster, nobody will be crossing borders legally or illegally to get that benefit. The only incentive to immigrate here would be to 1) have babies who become citizens... but these kids won't get this benefit. It is when these citizen babies have babies with another citizen baby that it finally pays. It means the immigrants grandkids will get it when they grow up, 2 generations AFTER the immigrant sets foot on American dirt. That makes them spend 30-40 years paying that flat tax.

SE Wisc. Citizen more than 5 years ago