2018 US Midterm Elections and the Push for Impeaching Donald Trump

[CostinR]

Note: This thread is about discussing the 2018 US Mid Term Elections and how Trump could be impeached as president in the aftermath and NOT about any scandal that would actually lead to that impeachment. There are other threads for the Trump scandals, including the Russia one.

I also make a plea for a fact based discussion not an impulse driven one. This is a thread for adults not crying school children angry that their side lost an election.


Impeaching the US President:

Impeaching the President of the United States requires three things: A simple majority vote in the House of Representatives that then sends the matter to the Senate. A trial, yes trial not just a vote, in the Senate and finally a two thirds majority vote in the Senate to actual impeach the president.

In theory what this means is that the Democrats could try and push for impeaching the president if they took the House, in practice however given the requirement for a two thirds majority vote in the Senate it would require over half the Republican senators to vote on the trial for impeachment assuming the Democrats even took back the House and were unified enough for all of them to vote on it:

Impeaching the president also requires a scandal that sinks a president approval rating in his own party. Nixon was close to being impeached after his popularity crashed in his own party. In contrast Trump has an 80% to 90% approval rating among Republican voters.

The point is this: Without a substantial number of Republican senators and even some House Members the chance of impeaching Trump is zero.

The Most Important and Powerful Politician is Kevin McCarthy - Republican House Majority and top Trump ally.

For all the talk about people like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi the reality is that the single most important and powerful politician in ALL of Washington D.C. is Kevin McCarthy of California. A person you won't hear about on the news all that much.

To give you an understanding why: With regards to the recent Jeff Sessions episode and Russia it was not the criticism or demands of the Democrats that forced his recusal, nor the criticism from people like Lindsey Graham but rather it was the call from McCarthy to Sessions that pushed the issue. It was also McCarthy that convinced Trump to support Paul Ryan as Speaker.

From Politico: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...ccarthy-234623

While the rest of the Republican establishment was in full-fledged panic that Donald Trump was marching to the nomination, Kevin McCarthy made a different calculation altogether.The “intensity” of support for Trump and his appeal to new voters could help the GOP win, the House majority leader mused in the heat of the presidential primary in March. “Trump’s message ... if you look at different pockets, he brings Democrats over,” McCarthy said at a policy forum in Sacramento, California.

Those encouraging words — and continued loyalty, as the affable 52-year-old Californian stuck by Trump when other Republicans bailed in the final weeks of the campaign — has produced one of the most unsung alliances in Washington these days.
McCarthy speaks with Trump several times a week by phone. And Trump dotes on McCarthy, too, even referring to the No. 2 House Republican as “my Kevin.”
“They have a good relationship: Trump trusts Kevin,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who’s close to McCarthy. “Kevin reached out early on to have a dialogue … and they just developed a trust over time.”

McCarthy made a gamble on supporting Trump and it paid off and as a result of it he has become the single most influential Republican politician. He's also one of the most important figures when it comes to keeping the party unified and he is FIRMLY behind Donald Trump. He stood behind Trump during the Access Hollywood time.

If one wants a measure of whether or not the Republican party is really wavering when it comes to Trump these days, look at where McCarthy stands and you'll have your answers.

P.S. Don't make fantasy scenarios about removing McCarthy. He's in a deep red district and won with over 70% of the vote. He ain't going anywhere.

The Unity Republican voters and donors vs the Democrats.

During the 2016 election there was a great rift within the Republican party between the various factions and this rift was one of the greatest problems that Donald Trump faced with numerous Republican politicians and major donors refusing to get behind him. In point of fact Trump raised 70% of his campaign money from small donors with a large portion of the remaining 30% from his own pocket and just a couple of major donors.

Trump also has on average close to 90% of Republican voters supporting him.

In contrast the Democratic party was firmly behind Hillary as were the vast majority of the media, donors and party politicians. She outspent Trump 2 - 1, had a far larger and better run campaign staff and had endorsements from the vast majority of media outlets.

That is no longer the case. The Republican donors have come onboard the Trump train as it were while the Democratic donors after pouring money for Hillary are quite frankly pissed.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...ney-got-burned

Although that was from December the donors have not changed their minds and this can be seen in the fundraising efforts of both sides so far.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/politic...illion-january

House Republicans raised over 10 million in January while Democrats raised close to 8 million. It also applies to the Senate:

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3...ion-in-january

4.2 Million Dollars for the Republicans vs 3.6 Million for the Democrats.

Finally there's various factions in the Democratic party: Some advocating the status quo, others advocating cutting off donors completely especially in the Bernie Sanders wing. There's also a split on resisting Trump from complete obstruction to trying to push him towards the center.

The Lack of Democratic Party Self Criticism is Hurting it.

Following the 2008 and 2012 presidential election the Republicans swallowed some harsh truths and worked to create plans to win. Two of them ultimately were devised.

The first one was to appeal better to minority voters with conservative ideas and win just enough of a percentage of them to get through, the other one was to appeal to the lost white voters that the Democratic party had been taking for granted for so long.

Trump did both. He appealed to the working class through his talk on trade, immigration, infrastructure and protecting medicare and social security - something no other Republican he ran against did, while also working to expand the Republican minority voters which he did with his visits to Black cities, neighborhoods and churches.

The real issue Trump had is that he lost a number of regular Republican voters, in particular the fiscal conservatives were not fans of his plans on medicare/social security or his hard line immigration policies. Still he kept enough of them on his side to win the election thanks to Mike Pence.

The reason all this is important is because the Democrats have NOT engaged in self reflection, there's a large swathe of them that believe they don't have to change anything: After losing over a 1000 seats and in places the Democrats have always won this changing nothing won't work.

The Democrats used their bag of tricks with identity politics to great success in the past, it simply no longer works.

Trump's polling myths and controversial actions

Trump's not doing well in the polling, or at least the average of polls but there's a catch, there's always a catch as it was during the 2016 election.

From Five Thirty Eight: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ps-popularity/

What’s the real story? The differences between the polls aren’t random, or at least they don’t appear to be based on the relatively limited amount of data we have so far. Instead, Trump’s approval ratings are systematically higher in polls of voters — either registered voters or likely voters — than they are in polls of all adults. And they’re systematically higher in polls conducted online or by automated script than they are in polls conducted by live-telephone interviewers. Here’s every approval rating poll that we can find for Trump so far this month:

This is an extremely consistent point about Donald Trump and has been consistent for well over a year.

As for Trump's controversies. Well the single biggest controversial thing that he's done. The Muslim Travel Ban, is far more popular then you might believe. This ban brought people on the streets but it's popular as are all his other executive orders.

http://static1.businessinsider.com/i...0028b4e4e-1958

Trump, Pence and Paul Ryan are far more popular then any Democratic Party Leader.

...with the exception of Bernie Sanders who isn't even a Democrat, let alone a party leader.

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster

That will show you the national polls. For Sanders: https://elections.huffingtonpost.com...vorable-rating

Looking at those figures, and whatever your thoughts on Huff Post is those are polling averages, you can see the following:

Mike Pence has the highest approval rating and the best ratio of approval and disapproval.

Trump has the second highest approval and disapproval rating.

Paul Ryan beats Nancy Pelosi by close to double digits in terms of approval rating while in terms of disapproval rating Nancy Pelosi has the single worst rating when considering ratio of approval/disapproval.

Finally: The Republican Party approval rating as a whole has steadily increased in the average of polls since the election while the Democratic Party has diminished. I consider this most important as in the 2016 election many Republicans were able to distance themselves from Trump with great success.

House Mid Term Elections: They Favor the Republicans and the Democrats are more Vulnerable.

The Democrats need to win 24 seats to gain the majority in the House. That's a fairly tall order.

One of the great myths that sprung up lately is that mid term elections favor the party in opposition, that is untrue. In every single mid term election since 1994 the Republican party has won or held on to their majority in the House. The only exception: The 2006 Mid Terms, but it took more then just the deep unpopularity of George Bush to sink the Republicans. It took a thoroughly competent campaign waged by Howard Dean with a firmly unified party AND the disaster of Hurricane Katrina to unseat the Republicans.

Also for all the talk of there being vulnerable Republicans the majority of vulnerable House Members are Democrats.

https://ballotpedia.org/United_State...gin_of_victory

As you can see the number of Republicans that had a margin of victory of less then 5% is 5 members with Darrel Issa barely winning by 0.5%. The number of Democrats that won within a margin of 5%? 12.

With the fundraising being as it is and with a major split in the party between total resistance and pushing for compromise it's highly the Democrats can win in 2018. Winning requires a coalition, a united party with a unifying figure as a leader as well as a high competent campaign.

The Democrats at this time have none of these things. The threats they are recieving of primary challenges from far left figures will only make them look bad in the eyes of voters. The voters want compromise.

Senate Elections:

Mitch McConnell is very capable as a party leader and has kept a highly diverse group of people unified against the Democrats. Chuck Schumer has so far proven incapable of doing the same with his own party. One particular episode stands out: When the Democrats took a vote on legislation proposed by Bernie Sanders on drug prices and it failed not because of Republicans but because over a dozen Democrats voted against it.

Crucially in 2018 we have the following situation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...lections,_2018

The number of vulnerable Democratic Seats: 13 with five in Deep Red States. The number of vulnerable Republican Seats: ONE in Nevada.

The chance of the Senate flipping: ZERO. There's a high chance that the Republicans will win a number of seats and the real possibility that they could end up with a total of 60 seats in the Senate. The 2020 Map doesn't look better either.

Conclusion:

For all the talk of how obstruction worked for the Republicans it should be pointed out that obstruction only came AFTER the 2010 elections and obstruction failed to work. The intent behind the obstruction was to remove Obama from office. That didn't work.

It was competent leadership that kept the Republicans in the majority following 2010 not stupidity. Screaming like children will not win you elections. Pushing for a hard left, or hard right, agenda will not win you elections. Screaming Russia every day will not win you elections.

Trump won by opposing TPP, opposing Free Trade, pushing for a more moderate stance on most issues then all the Republicans he ran against. Vowing to protect Medicare and Social Security. His support base in the Republican primaries was made up of moderate voters. He won against Hillary with independents, Obama voters AND by winning a larger share of the minority vote compared to Mitt Romney.

The Democrats can win provided they push for compromise and make themselves look like moderates if Trump pushes a hard right agenda. However if Trump pushes for compromise he will win, especially if the Democrats continue acting like fools.

Trump has made it clear he will push for infrastructure, child care, fair trade and lowering of costs for prescription drugs. These are issues that the Democrats care about, as they cared about opposing TPP. To oppose everything Trump does and every nominee is not only ridiculous it's harmful to the Democratic party.

[Deleted]

Why is there always so much hate when a republican is in the white house. I remember stuff like this when George W. Bush was in the white house aswell.

I see myself as a democrat too, but some people spent their whole day on bashing republicans. I think that is pretty uncool tbh

[Theodarzna]

Democrats are also hoping that they can change nothing about the party whilst somehow capitalizing on Sanders' success with young people. Essentially the Democrat strategy is the Clinton 2016 strategy but said with more earnest and fervor.

[CostinR]

Democrats are also hoping that they can change nothing about the party whilst somehow capitalizing on Sanders' success with young people. Essentially the Democrat strategy is the Clinton 2016 strategy but said with more earnest and fervor.

Effectively yes. This is a major reason to my mind why they've taken the stances they have. They don't want to change anything since they figure they won the popular vote and Trump barely won in the rust belt.

The problem is that's just not going to work and many democrats in the House and Senate are not on board. They want a constructive opposition.

[NED funded]

Why is there always so much hate when a republican is in the white house. I remember stuff like this when George W. Bush was in the white house aswell.

I see myself as a democrat too, but some people spent their whole day on bashing republicans. I think that is pretty uncool tbh

George W. Bush brought upon himself all the hate he recieved.

[Deleted]

Those poor persecuted Republicans.

nah I just always used to say “What Susie says of Sally says more of Susie than of Sally"

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George W. Bush brought upon himself all the hate he recieved.

one could argue so about everything. "he got what he deserved"

I disagree with hate. I disliked George W Bush as a president, but I don't think he deserves hate.

One might disagree with me, but I never found space in my heart for hate and justifying hatred.

[LilSaihah]

Why is there always so much hate when a republican is in the white house. I remember stuff like this when George W. Bush was in the white house aswell.

I see myself as a democrat too, but some people spent their whole day on bashing republicans. I think that is pretty uncool tbh

They've been dressed up as racist sexist homophobes by academia and the media. Big surprise that people read from and act on their prior assumptions.

[Theodarzna]

Effectively yes. This is a major reason to my mind why they've taken the stances they have. They don't want to change anything since they figure they won the popular vote and Trump barely won in the rust belt.

The problem is that's just not going to work and many democrats in the House and Senate are not on board. They want a constructive opposition.

They will simply reinforce the same problem that lost Clinton the Rust Belt. The belief seems to be they can kick the Sanders loving Youth vote, double down on all policies and simply expect power to be handed to them for being "Not-Trump." When that failed in 2016, you'd think people would realize this.

[Teevo]

Why is there always so much hate when a republican is in the white house. I remember stuff like this when George W. Bush was in the white house aswell.

I see myself as a democrat too, but some people spent their whole day on bashing republicans. I think that is pretty uncool tbh

In this particular case, I don't think it's so much that there's a republican. I think it's more that our president is a narcissistic reactionary time bomb. The man's nuts.

[JohnBrown1917]

Why is there always so much hate when a republican is in the white house. I remember stuff like this when George W. Bush was in the white house aswell.

I see myself as a democrat too, but some people spent their whole day on bashing republicans. I think that is pretty uncool tbh

You forgot all the shit that went around during Obama?
You live in Vienna, but see yourself as a democrat? How does that work?

[Deleted]

People talk about sweden without realizing that america already fucked itself royally by allowing unlimited amounts of money to pour into its political system, spreading corruption and preventing any serious alternative to the 2 parties establishment from emerging

[Deleted]

They will simply reinforce the same problem that lost Clinton the Rust Belt. The belief seems to be they can kick the Sanders loving Youth vote, double down on all policies and simply expect power to be handed to them for being "Not-Trump." When that failed in 2016, you'd think people would realize this.

She didn't lose because of Bernie or bust voters in the rust belt states. She lost because around 5 to 10% of black voters did not go vote and a lot of those are crying right now that Trump won. It's the same bullshit with American and British voters all the time, they want their specific winner but they can't be bothered to show up at a voting booth.

[Deleted]

In this particular case, I don't think it's so much that there's a republican. I think it's more that our president is a narcissistic reactionary time bomb. The man's nuts.

Don't have presidents or presidential candidates to go through psychiatric assessment? Quite often used for legal purposes. One might think that the most powerful person to be in the world has to go through something like that?

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You forgot all the shit that went around during Obama?
You live in Vienna, but see yourself as a democrat? How does that work?

Could you please stop following me around in various threads and attack me.
I do feel harassed by you.

Thank you

[Wyrt]

Why is there always so much hate when a republican is in the white house. I remember stuff like this when George W. Bush was in the white house aswell.

I see myself as a democrat too, but some people spent their whole day on bashing republicans. I think that is pretty uncool tbh

You obviously didn't pay any attention to Obama's presidency and the Republican reaction to it.

And Bush earned that negativity by driving us into the Iraq war.

[Theodarzna]

She didn't lose because of Bernie or bust voters in the rust belt states. She lost because around 5 to 10% of black voters did not go vote and a lot of those are crying right now that Trump won. It's the same bullshit with American and British voters all the time, they want their specific winner but they can't be bothered to show up at a voting booth.

As if the Democrats are going to turn around their chronic problem of having milk-toast uninspired candidates.

[Deleted]

People talk about sweden without realizing that america fucked itself royally by allowing unlimited amounts of money to pour into its political system, spreading corruption and preventing any serious alternative to the 2 parties establishment from emerging

Where there's power, there's money, and where there's power there is corruption. Those 3 work together.

It even happens in Sweden, it happens everywhere in the world, unless you live in an utopia.

What differs is the scale of corruption, in some countries it farse worse than others.

[NED funded]

nah I just always used to say “What Susie says of Sally says more of Susie than of Sally"

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one could argue so about everything. "he got what he deserved"

I disagree with hate. I disliked George W Bush as a president, but I don't think he deserves hate.

One might disagree with me, but I never found space in my heart for hate and justifying hatred.

I mean his presidency was marked by the Iraq war and the the 08 recession. Based on those two alone he pretty much got what he recieved, right now though he is much more likable, specially when he reflects on his presidency and the current situation in the US.

[Blueobelisk]

Subscribing to this thread. Will check back next year.

[JohnBrown1917]

Could you please stop following me around in various threads and attack me.
I do feel harassed by you.

Thank you

I'm sorry for posting in these forums.

[Skroe]

I disagree with MMO Champ's "year membership" thing under our avatars. THey need to go away. Certain forum members need "Eastern Europeans for Trump" though.

It's bizarre the guys pulling hardest for this clown don't even live here.

As always another selectively sourced and questionably interpreted bit of chaff by Costin.