Originally Posted by
Skroe
I'm going to put this very straight-forwardly for you. You can either accept it or not. There are a lot of reasons to impeach Trump, especially knowing that the Senate is almost certain to vote along party lines to let him off the hook.
But let's be clear about one thing: there is nobody here, and very, very few people on our side as a whole, who think this effort has a realistic chance of garnering a successful Senate conviction. That is not the end goal of the game. It is not our plan. I'd call it at best, a wildly optimistic stretch goal, akin to raising $2 million for a $50,000 kickstarter. Removing Trump is not the point. Trump will stand in the 2020 election. Personally, right now I give him a 60% chance of winning it too.
So what is the point? Multifaceted, but the overarching goal is to effectively destroy President Trump and render him impotent as a President. The nature of this specific impeachment effort, as opposed to the Mueller investigation, is uniquely suited for this goal.
So here I will lay out out to you.
(1) The Constitution and rule of law requires it.
The legal consensus is clear. What Trump committed is bribery under what the founders would have defined it and a definition that is still relevant given that political information is considered a "thing of value". His associated actions constitute obstruction of justice as we know it.
Adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law therefore requires the democrats to act as they are. If Democrats elected not to, they would be selectively enforcing both. This is crucial to our system of government which is based around rules that we live in and around, and are not tied to a specific purpose. To put it straightforwardly, because Donald Trump did something, the Constitution and rule of law demands a response for both to have any legitimacy.
Because we have moral and ethical responsibility to attempt to hold wrong doing accountable. If we don't try, then we only further undermine the rule of law. Not pursuing wrong doing because "conviction is difficult" is every bit as bad as the wrong doing. And opens the door to further acts of wrong doing.
(2) History demands it and it will set terms of post-Trump reform efforts.
Trump too, will pass. In 2020. In 2024. The day will come where he will be gone and his supporters will retcon their support for him and hide their MAGA hats in the attic next to their post-9/11 pro-War on Terror T-shirts and their "I love me some Freedom Fries" buttpacks. The clean up job for this administration will last a decade. Many people involved will go to jail. There will be a comprehensive (and overdue) reform effort.
Trump's crimes being a matter of legal record, having gone through the constitutional process for only the third time in history will define his administration and define a lower bound for Presidential behavior for many decades to come. Consider, even 50 years later, we still talk about Watergate despite most of the country not even being born at that time. Trump's actions in 2019, along with Trump-Russia, will be an object of law and history deep into the 21st century. Long after you and I are gone. It will be Trump's legacy to this country.
Had impeachment not moved forward, our children and successors would ask "how could you let this injustice happen?" much as we condemn our parents, grandparents and others for their grave misjustices. This effort though, along with Trump's anticipated clearing by the Senate, puts that question squarely in the hands of people like you and the Senate Republicans. The majority of Americans and Democrats as a whole are on board with bringing Trump to justice. That it didn't / doesn't happen, therefore, is on you not us. So our successors, who will judge you and your kind very harshly, will know who to point the finger to.
And going with that having defined specific crimes and unacceptable behavior, it makes reforms and banning practices or codifying procedures far easier than it having been hypothetical. For example, Congress could pass in the 2030s a law that would explicitly outlaw what Trump did here. Without it being a matter of record through impeachment, the theoretical argument it would otherwise be might lead to the effort dead ending. People would say "well a President would never do that". Turns out, this one did.
(3) It completes the breaking of Trump's power.
What's the point of being President if you really can't do anything other than engage in regulatory enforcement hijinks? Because that's the situation Trump faces. Domestically, his achievements so far are: (1) Nominating judges on courts that any Republican President would have named and (2) the Trump Tax Cut. That's it. Historically a President's most effective years are his first two. His White House's ineptitude, smart plays by Democrats and the Mueller investigation all worked together to basically make his first two years a bust.
Since then, he's done nothing domestically. Most notably, he's played no role in the budget other than as an obstructionist who caves. Every budy he has signed, and will continue to sign, is a modified version of the Bipartisan consensus budget (the 2 year deal model) that has passed every year since 2015, and likely will continue deep into the 2020s. The increasing weakness of Presidents over what goes into a budget is not a Trump thing. It actually started with Obama after the Budget Control Act of 2011 lead to Sequestration in 2013. I have documented how this came about and the ramifications extensively on this forum. I've applied it to the wall, and Medicare for All. But the short of it is, there is exactly one budget that can pass both chambers. Big new programs and Presidential initiatives are basically non-starters in them. So domestically, Trump is a President in name only. He can engage in mischief in enforcement - and then lose in the courts 93% of the time. But he is resigned to signing budgets Democrats and Republicans put on his desk in a bipartisan basis.
Or let me put it another way: President Hillary would sign basically the same budget and same bills.
Typically when Presidents find their domestic power curbed, they look internationally. And that is where the unique nature of this impeachement effort comes into play. It's FANTASTIC to the cause of neutering Trump because it involved another country.
Do you realize what it does? It's made Trump radioactive. Ukraine would rather be anywhere than an object of tug of war between two political parties in the US. Its government would rather be anywhere than fending off questions about meddling in US affairs. Not government in any country would want to be in their position, least of all for what the effects may be in their own Domestic politics.
This makes Trump a pariah. No government will get close to him. No government will bend over backwards for him. They will not (and do not) seek meetings with him. They deal with other US intermediaries, but not the upper echelon of his White House. They stay as far away from him as possible. We saw it at NATO in just the last couple of days, where the elected leaders of Canada, the UK and France were laughing at Trump. They think he's a joke. They do not respect him. And a person they don't respect, they won't work with. They'll avoid.
This is occurring across the planet. Trump is the most isolated and internationally impotent President of the United States since Calvin Coolidge. Not the US though. The US is doing mostly fine. But Trump has zero international power. He's either squandered all of it, or events have made him untouchable.
And here is the fun part, especially for you: even if he is re-elected, this will not change. Back in 2017, the question was among foreign leaders "is Trump an abberation? Should we wait him out? Or does he represent a fundamental and lasting shift?" The answer is yes, yes and no. They are clearly waiting Trump out, content that he is absorbed with domestic political intrigue. And so far that's been a reliable bet. He's only been a problem internationally a couple times a year.
No one wants to be in Zelensky's or Ukraine's position, and nobody wants to get pulled into a sequel to this. So as long as Trump is President, be it another 5 years or 1 year, he will find his ability to act internationally basically zero'd.
You want some practical effects? Every international leader will avoid talking to Trump whenever they can. Every international leader will minimize the topics and scope of the conversation when they have to have one, in order to not get pulled into some scheme by Trump. And every international leader will record their conversation so that if something comes up, they have a means to protect themselves from Trump (and domestic political criticism).
The impeachment process has also blown open the lid on confidential conversations. They effectively don't exist between Trump and any foreign leader anymore. Which means they won't take the POTUS into their confidence. Which further undermines Trump's power.
So put this together: domestically, he's a non-factor, signing bills the bipartisan consensus puts in front of him... internationally, he's a plague carrier. So what precisely is the point of Trump as President? What is a President who can't President,anyway? That is why impeachment has been so successful. Beating impeachment will not change this one bit because Trump is now tainted and will remain tainted as long as he is President.
So what is the point of Trump as President? What is he hoping to do in a second term considering he can't act in either domain? That's why this has been a major strategic victory for anti-Trump. You can win re-election. You can get him off the hook. it does not matter. Thus Presidents power has been permanently broken.
(4) To act as a deterrent against future behavior of this type by future Presidents.
Even if he isn't removed, who wants to go through an impeachment process? We are creating a precedent. Also combine with the above. That will be with FUTURE US Presidents too. Thanks to Trump.
(5) To make Republican Senators and Swing-district congressmen have to go on record as excusing Trump's clearly unconstitutional behavior.
This may complicate their election chances in 2020, but more broadly will damage their professional reputations and prospects for many years to come. Trying to take a bullet for THIS President is ultimately extremely short sighted for them. But many of them will do it and will pay for it. Where they stood on Trump impeachment will be a key litmus test among the general electorate for years to come, including any with future Senatoral, Gubinatorial or Presidential ambitions. Or any that want to become an Ambassador or become "Secretary of X" in the Cabinet. Democrats will bring it up for decades to come. Think of how the Iraq War and the vote for it damaged countless politicians careers. This will be that, but worse. And they all know it. That is why they dread impeachment. That's why most of them HATE this. Because most of them they secretly hate Trump and hate how they have to keep sticking their necks out for him. And they know it one day will catch up with them.
Through impeachment and making them vote to defend Trump in a vote that will echo through time, Democrats are making them pay for their betrayal of our shared American values and moral betrayal the Constitution.
(6) To damage Trump going into 2020.
The best argument Democrats can make to win in 2020 is that Trump is corrupt, self deals, put his own interest infront of the national interest and his very continuing on as President would only serve to undermine the legitimacy of the American system. Democrats are best served by pointing out the comparison of "while Trump advances himself and those of his friends, he is going to fuck up your healthcare and your retirements". Having Trump on record as being impeached, with clear charges of corruption, bribery, witness intimidation and extortion puts the onus on any swing voter thinking of supporting Trump to logic how all of this is not true, in the context of everything else we know about Trump. It's a tall order. Few will do it. It will also make Trump a liability to endangered candidates, and he will avoid campaigning with them, which will sap them of fundraising.
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From every angle it is a win for Democrats. Even the timing is perfect. The Trump-Russia investigation wrecked Donald Trump's first 2.5 years in office. He then had a summer where he engaged in these illegalities. Impeachment will consume, by the time its over, the window from September 2019 to probably around early-March 2020. Which will then lead into the election season. Which means Trump will have spent most of his 4 years entirely handcuffed by political and legal peril and otherwise unable to act effectively as President.
That is why we should bother. Removal isn't in the cards. The faintest of hopes. But that's not the point. This is a cudgel. And Democrats are breaking arms and legs.
This biggest scandal in American history. Bar none. Dwarfing Watergate. If we're to apply the letter of the law, this should basically decapitate the executive branch. Donald Trump never should have been President. He became President because of a confluence of factors: unresolved after effects of the financial crisis / great recession, generational turn over, an unpopular Democratic candidate, a talent drought in the Republican Party, the rise of right wing media, an national media that thought he was a lark and good for ratings, the loss of two wars in 15 years, but most of all an asymmetric attack on the United States by Russia.
We are here because of an accident of history that saw a racist, authoritarian hugging, un-American demagogue installed to the most powerful office of the most powerful country in the history of the world. The champion of democracy helmed by a would-be autocrat whose very presence defiles our national values.
The point isn't to remove Trump. The point is to break Trump's arms and legs and make him unable to be Presidenting. In that, while much of Trump's own ineptitude, the House-Senate 2 year deal model and the Mueller investigation have gone a long way in making that possible, this impeachement inquiry and the nature of what it is about, is the killing stroke.
It would be one thing if the impeachment inquiry were something like "Trump took money at a hotel in New York from a businessman from Toleodo". A purely domestic affair. But one of the few avenues of power Donald Trump still had open to him was foreign policy. By his impeachment being based in a foreign entanglement, he'll certainly find his routine foreign contracts zero'd. Leaders will not call him except if required to, and they'll be extremely careful with what they say. They'll also make their own records to protect themselves from being pulled into the swamp like the President of Ukraine was. Leaders will also not want to cut deals with Trump in order to avoid raising domestic questions about a quid-pro-quo, which is the basis of part of the whistleblower complaint.
So Donald Trump doesn't really have much to do as President anymore. He's not involved in budgets. He has no legislative agenda to speak of. His deregulatory agenda is basically non-existent outside of a some press releases. And he's internationally a pariah.
So what exactly is a President that can't be Presidenting? Well... nothing really. This is kind of the irony of it all. He's going to fight tooth and nail, and his defenders will organize in a phalanx to defend him... for what exactly? Because even if he wins re-election, none of this changes. Domestically, Pelosi will stay Speaker of the House, rendering dead his budgetary and legislative agenda. His regulatory agenda won't get better because the White House can't attract the right talent to handle it. Internationally, he's permanently tainted.
So what's the win condition here. The honor of remaining President? Pride?
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