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Originally Posted by bobman0330
I know it's kind of conventional wisdom that impeaching Trump is not a great plan for the Dems, and I know I used to believe that too, but I'm struggling to remember why exactly. There's no point to passing legislation, so there's not an opportunity cost. I guess you could worry that winning the removal vote has a tendency to clear Trump's name (lol!), but that seems a little far-fetched, and it seems likely that Trump will lose anyways. In addition, there's a benefit to forcing GOP members to taint themselves by voting to keep Trump in office even with smoking-gun evidence of crimes (which I assume exists).
If they impeach him in the House and the Senate does not convict, there's a fear that all it would do is rile up Trump's base and drive their turnout up in 2020 on the basis of, "The liberals are coming for our guy!!!!"
You could argue it would also drive turnout on the left/center, but that should be happening anyway. Thus, it's a pretty big loss for Dems if they impeach and the Senate Republicans throw up their hands and cry partisan foul and don't convict.
Quote:
Originally Posted by econophile
**** that noise. dems should at the very least start investigating and stop kicking the can to the mueller report.
I'm confident they'd be investigating loudly if they weren't in the midst of a shutdown. One of the benefits for Trump is grinding that process down to a halt.
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Originally Posted by Trolly McTrollson
I kind of assume there will be some kind of backroom deal where Dems agree to approve of Chris Christie or whoever as VP in exchange for Republicans voting for impeachment. I cannot possibly imagine a situation where even a singe Republican votes to kick out Trump/Pence and make Pelosi president. That would be suicidal.
I was basically going to post the same thing... Senate Republicans would be like, "Listen, we're never convicting Pence on anything if Pelosi is next in line. You want Pence out, confirm a VP..."
At this point, Dems would probably cave and confirm a moderate politician they considered to be relatively harmless as an incumbent in terms of 2020 (or who promised not to run). Ideally you'd be looking for a retired, moderate Republican over the age of 70 who's not particularly charismatic and came out early against Trump. Perhaps John Boehner, although he took a while to turn on Trump.
Problem for Dems in this scenario is that anyone who fits that description can help to heal the Republican Party after it's rocked by this, but by the same token they can also help heal the country so... What Dems should be screaming for is like a Joe Lieberman type... Our base hates him, your base hates him, thus he should be palatable for both of us for a year and a half. He's not going to do anything either base loves. (And I'm no fan of Lieberman, especially after the AOC comments, but I'll take him over the alternatives in such a scenario, and there's zero chance you get anyone left of him in that situation.)
But we're getting reaaalllly hypothetical here. Like West Wing Reboot written while Aaron Sorkin is high as a kite hypothetical.