Redacted Mueller report to be released tomorrow.

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump won't only be impeached- he'll have the biggest, best, most-viewed impeachment ever!

[The Romulan Republic]

There seems to be a frustrating deficit of polling information on public support for impeachment since the release of the Mueller Report. I can't find a single poll taken this month- the most recent (which show support of around 36% and independents being mostly opposed) date to just after the Barr summary came out, if not older, even though its been several days, and at least one poll has been done post-Report showing a small but noticeable dip in Trump's approval ratings.

This is a really odd and frustrating gap in polling data. Especially when the main argument being advanced against impeaching a clearly despotic and criminal president, after Mueller laid out clear grounds for impeachment and practically invited Congress to do it, seems to be "voters won't support it, so it will help Trump".

Has anyone else found a credible post-Report poll on public support for impeaching Trump, and if so, can they please link it?

[Zaune]

Put it this way: Suppose we hold off on any threat to prosecute Trump because it might make him more likely to resist a peaceful transition of power. Well, what happens if, being a thin-skinned egomaniac who knows he's also got state governments out to get him, Trump refuses to leave power peacefully anyway? If Democrats are unwilling (hypothetically) to prosecute Trump because he might resist leaving office peacefully, what will they do if he does refuse to leave office peacefully? Will they decide that then, finally, when it is literally down to a choice between dictatorship or war, that its time to draw the line? Or will they back down and concede the election that they rightfully won, accepting dictatorship rather than conflict? Can we trust them not to, if they're afraid to prosecute Trump?

Hmmm. Perhaps we should consider a third way: Offer Trump a deal -he likes deals, right?- in which he hands over authority to the incoming administration without making a fuss and quietly withdraws from public life to spend more time with his unreasonably large personal fortune and never get involved with politics ever again for the rest of his miserable life, and in return his many and varied enemies in government promise to refrain from digging up every single questionable thing he's done since he told a little white lie to get out of being drafted and hauling him up on so many different charges his lawyer will rack up six figures in billable hours just reading the list.

That approach has the advantage of largely neutralising Trump as a threat to the stability of the US while hopefully giving him enough incentive to behave himself without backing him into a corner.

[The Romulan Republic]

Put it this way: Suppose we hold off on any threat to prosecute Trump because it might make him more likely to resist a peaceful transition of power. Well, what happens if, being a thin-skinned egomaniac who knows he's also got state governments out to get him, Trump refuses to leave power peacefully anyway? If Democrats are unwilling (hypothetically) to prosecute Trump because he might resist leaving office peacefully, what will they do if he does refuse to leave office peacefully? Will they decide that then, finally, when it is literally down to a choice between dictatorship or war, that its time to draw the line? Or will they back down and concede the election that they rightfully won, accepting dictatorship rather than conflict? Can we trust them not to, if they're afraid to prosecute Trump?

Hmmm. Perhaps we should consider a third way: Offer Trump a deal -he likes deals, right?- in which he hands over authority to the incoming administration without making a fuss and quietly withdraws from public life to spend more time with his unreasonably large personal fortune and never get involved with politics ever again for the rest of his miserable life, and in return his many and varied enemies in government promise to refrain from digging up every single questionable thing he's done since he told a little white lie to get out of being drafted and hauling him up on so many different charges his lawyer will rack up six figures in billable hours just reading the list.

That approach has the advantage of largely neutralising Trump as a threat to the stability of the US while hopefully giving him enough incentive to behave himself without backing him into a corner.

That makes a certain amount of practical sense, although the thought of that man walking free for any reason sickens me, and the thought of the message it would send and the precedent it would set frankly scares me.

Though I honestly don't know that you could make a deal, and I can't help but think that such a deal would be unlikely to be taken, because if its signed, on paper, with witnesses, then its all but an admission of guilt and an admission of defeat on Trump's part (which his ego would rebel against), and if its not signed, but just an "agreement between gentlemen"... well, Trump would probably break it at some point and deny it was ever made.

I also honestly don't know if you legally can require someone to refrain from all future political involvement as part of a deal not to prosecute, or if that would violate their First Amendment rights.

[Gandalf]

Trump won't only be impeached- he'll have the biggest, best, most-viewed impeachment ever!

Best impeachment. Tremendous. Did you see Clinton's impeachment? Small. Sad. We're gonna have a great impeachment, big numbers, lots of charges.

[Elheru Aran]

There seems to be a frustrating deficit of polling information on public support for impeachment since the release of the Mueller Report. I can't find a single poll taken this month- the most recent (which show support of around 36% and independents being mostly opposed) date to just after the Barr summary came out, if not older, even though its been several days, and at least one poll has been done post-Report showing a small but noticeable dip in Trump's approval ratings.

This is a really odd and frustrating gap in polling data. Especially when the main argument being advanced against impeaching a clearly despotic and criminal president, after Mueller laid out clear grounds for impeachment and practically invited Congress to do it, seems to be "voters won't support it, so it will help Trump".

Has anyone else found a credible post-Report poll on public support for impeaching Trump, and if so, can they please link it?

It only just came out last week, didn't it? And on Thursday to boot, before a holiday weekend. People have been busy. Give it time to really percolate.

[The Romulan Republic]

There seems to be a frustrating deficit of polling information on public support for impeachment since the release of the Mueller Report. I can't find a single poll taken this month- the most recent (which show support of around 36% and independents being mostly opposed) date to just after the Barr summary came out, if not older, even though its been several days, and at least one poll has been done post-Report showing a small but noticeable dip in Trump's approval ratings.

This is a really odd and frustrating gap in polling data. Especially when the main argument being advanced against impeaching a clearly despotic and criminal president, after Mueller laid out clear grounds for impeachment and practically invited Congress to do it, seems to be "voters won't support it, so it will help Trump".

Has anyone else found a credible post-Report poll on public support for impeaching Trump, and if so, can they please link it?

It only just came out last week, didn't it? And on Thursday to boot, before a holiday weekend. People have been busy. Give it time to really percolate.

Said release date no doubt being a deliberate tactic to try to muffle the response to it and public awareness of it. IIRC, its fairly common practice to release a damaging story you want buried one or right before a holiday or long weekend, when most of the public's attention will be focused elsewhere/Congressfolk will be on vacation.

Just one more little way that Barr is a fucking stooge.

[The Romulan Republic]

While the debate over impeaching Trump continues, some are making the case for impeaching his lap dog, William Barr:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04 ... -barr.html

House Democrats are going to face a difficult decision about launching an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Balanced against the president’s impressive array of misconduct is the fact that several more criminal investigations that may add to the indictment are already underway, and that impeaching the president might jeopardize the reelection of red-state Democratic members. But in the meantime, Attorney General William Barr presents them with a much easier decision. Barr has so thoroughly betrayed the values of his office that voting to impeach and remove him is almost obvious.

On March 24, Barr released a short letter summarizing the main findings of the Mueller investigation, as he saw them. News accounts treated Barr’s interpretation as definitive, and the media — even outlets that had spent two years uncovering a wide swath of suspicious and compromising links between the Trump campaign and Russia — dutifully engaged in self-flagellation for having had the temerity to raise questions about the whole affair.

Barr had done very little to that point to earn such a broad benefit of the doubt. In the same role in 1992, he had supported mass pardons of senior officials that enabled a cover-up of the Iran–Contra scandal. Less famously, in 1989 he issued a redacted version of a highly controversial administration legal opinion that, as Ryan Goodman explained, “omitted some of the most consequential and incendiary conclusions from the actual opinion” for “no justifiable reason.”

And while many members of the old Republican political Establishment had recoiled against Trump’s contempt for the rule of law, Barr has shown no signs of having joined them. He met with Trump to discuss serving as his defense lawyer, publicly attacked the Mueller investigation (which risked “taking on the look of an entirely political operation to overthrow the president”), called for more investigations of Hillary Clinton, and circulated a lengthy memo strongly defending Trump against obstruction charges.

The events since Barr’s letter have incinerated whatever remains of his credibility. The famously tight-lipped Mueller team told several news outlets the letter had minimized Trump’s culpability; Barr gave congressional testimony hyping up Trump’s charges of “spying,” even prejudging the outcome of an investigation (“I think there was a failure among a group of leaders [at the FBI] at the upper echelon”); evaded questions as to whether he had shared the Mueller report with the White House; and, it turns out, he’s “had numerous conversations with White House lawyers which aided the president’s legal team,” the New York Times reports. Then he broke precedent by scheduling a press conference to spin the report in advance of its redacted publication.

It is not much of a mystery to determine which officials have offered their full loyalty to the president. Trump has reportedly “praised Barr privately for his handling of the report and compared him favorably to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions” —whose sole offense in Trump’s eyes was following Department of Justice ethical protocol. Trump urged his Twitter followers to tune in to Barr’s conference, promotional treatment he normally reserves for his Fox News sycophants.

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The press conference was the final disqualifying performance. Barr acted like Trump’s defense lawyer, the job he had initially sought, rather than as an attorney general. His aggressive spin seemed designed to work in the maximal number of repetitions of the “no collusion” mantra, in accordance with his boss’s talking points, at the expense of any faithful transmission of the special counsel’s report.

Barr’s letter had made it sound as though Trump’s campaign spurned Russia’s offers of help: “The Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,” he wrote. In fact, Mueller’s report concluded, “In some instances, the Campaign was receptive to the offer,” but that the cooperation fell short of criminal conduct.

Where Mueller intended to leave the job of judging Trump’s obstructive conduct to Congress, Barr interposed his own judgment. Barr offered this incredible statement for why Trump’s behavior was excusable: “[T]here is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks,” Barr said. “Nonetheless, the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation,” and credited him further with taking “no act that in fact deprived the Special Counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation.”

Sincere? How can Barr use that word to describe the mentality of a man whose own staffers routinely describe him in the media as a pathological liar? Trump repeatedly lied about Russia’s involvement in the campaign, and his own dealings with Russia. And he also, contra Barr, repeatedly denied the special counsel access to witnesses by dangling pardons to persuade them to withhold cooperation.

It is true that many of Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice failed. As Mueller wrote, the president’s “efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

This is a rather different gloss on the facts than the happy story Barr offered the press. What’s more, it is a pressing argument for Barr’s own removal. Next to the president himself, the attorney general is the most crucial actor in the safeguarding of the rule of law. The Justice Department is an awesome force that holds the power to enable the ruling party to commit crimes with impunity, or to intimidate and smear the opposing party with the taint of criminality.

There is no other department in government in which mere norms, not laws, are all that stand between democracy as we know it and a banana republic. Barr has revealed his complete unfitness for this awesome task. Nearly two more years of this Trumpian henchman wielding power over federal law enforcement is more weight than the rickety Constitution can bear.

In addition to it being justified by his actions and the need to protect the Constitution, it could also be a less drastic, lower-stakes way to test the waters on impeaching his boss, and in the process of taking down Barr, build a case for taking down Trump.

[Zaune]

That makes a certain amount of practical sense, although the thought of that man walking free for any reason sickens me, and the thought of the message it would send and the precedent it would set frankly scares me.

I'm not overjoyed at the prospect either, but I'll take that over another War of Southern Aggression.

Though I honestly don't know that you could make a deal, and I can't help but think that such a deal would be unlikely to be taken, because if its signed, on paper, with witnesses, then its all but an admission of guilt and an admission of defeat on Trump's part (which his ego would rebel against), and if its not signed, but just an "agreement between gentlemen"... well, Trump would probably break it at some point and deny it was ever made.

At which point there's no reason not to hit him with so many charges both real and -heh- trumped up that he'll celebrate his hundredth birthday in federal prison if even a tenth of them stick.

Besides, it's not like he's any less likely to barricade himself in the Oval Office and call the troops out if a few of the saner Republicans in Congress decide their sick of his shit and vote for impeachment than if he loses the election fair and square.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

One could argue that the GOP has already lost all the capital its going to. The remainder are the die hard Trump loyalists who will stick with him until something truly catastrophic happens. The question is whether the Republicans can cheat/vote suppress/divide the Democratic base enough to win with a dedicated minority of the electorate.

Not exactly. The odd thing is that this sort of thing kind of happened before, not the exact circumstances but it did happen before. It didn't end well for the Dixiecrats and got them kicked out of the Democratic Party. It also happened during the Gilded Age and it didn't end well for the political machines in general.

[The Romulan Republic]

That makes a certain amount of practical sense, although the thought of that man walking free for any reason sickens me, and the thought of the message it would send and the precedent it would set frankly scares me.

I'm not overjoyed at the prospect either, but I'll take that over another War of Southern Aggression.

Though I honestly don't know that you could make a deal, and I can't help but think that such a deal would be unlikely to be taken, because if its signed, on paper, with witnesses, then its all but an admission of guilt and an admission of defeat on Trump's part (which his ego would rebel against), and if its not signed, but just an "agreement between gentlemen"... well, Trump would probably break it at some point and deny it was ever made.

At which point there's no reason not to hit him with so many charges both real and -heh- trumped up that he'll celebrate his hundredth birthday in federal prison if even a tenth of them stick.

Besides, it's not like he's any less likely to barricade himself in the Oval Office and call the troops out if a few of the saner Republicans in Congress decide their sick of his shit and vote for impeachment than if he loses the election fair and square.

The problem with making concessions to avoid conflict is that it sends a message- that we're scared of Trump and his base, that if push comes to shove, we'll back down. He'll know that. Men like Trump, and his allies/enablers, sense weakness. Concede now, and they'll just push the envelope even further.

In a sense, this is the history of the Democratic Party for the last few decades: making concessions on principles to try to appear bi-partisan and conciliatory, and being rewarded for it by ever-more extreme partisanship from Republicans and ever-greater alienation of our own base, because everyone expects the Democrats to cave. We'll have to draw a line one day, and the longer we wait, the worse its going to be when we finally do draw that line.

As Lincoln said shortly before the outset of the War of Southern Aggression: "Stand firm. The tug has to come, and better now, than any time hereafter."

[Ziggy Stardust]

Not exactly. The odd thing is that this sort of thing kind of happened before, not the exact circumstances but it did happen before. It didn't end well for the Dixiecrats and got them kicked out of the Democratic Party. It also happened during the Gilded Age and it didn't end well for the political machines in general.

I'm a little confused about what parallel you are trying to draw between the Dixiecrats and the Republicans? I don't really see it. Besides, the Dixiecrats were never "kicked out of the Democratic Party", so I can't tell whether you have a good point that I am missing or if you are just mistaken.

The political legacy of the Dixiecrats is that they were part of the cultural shift that led to the Democrats and Republicans essentially swapping places on the political spectrum. Are you saying that Trumpism is going to lead to another such shift?

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

I'm a little confused about what parallel you are trying to draw between the Dixiecrats and the Republicans? I don't really see it. Besides, the Dixiecrats were never "kicked out of the Democratic Party", so I can't tell whether you have a good point that I am missing or if you are just mistaken.

The political legacy of the Dixiecrats is that they were part of the cultural shift that led to the Democrats and Republicans essentially swapping places on the political spectrum. Are you saying that Trumpism is going to lead to another such shift?

The thing with the Dixiecrats was that by the 1960s, the Dem leadership finally had enough of the Dixie's bullshit (remember, this is the portion of the Dems that decided to break off and make their own party during the Great Depression because the Dem leadership wasn't racist enough and allied themselves with the US Nazi Party before groveling before the Dem leadership to be allowed back after WW2) and basically ejected them from the party during the mid to late '60s. While the inertia persisted after that, it wasn't until Reagan that the GOP made them part of the base.

---

Problem is that pushing for impeachment now is likely to backfire because right now it's practically guaranteed to fucking fail, which would increase R turnout, depress D turnout, and would screw the chances for the Dems to get the independent vote. You have to look at US politics less as chess and more like Go. One wrong move and you'll have numerous pieces flip. At this time we can't make that wrong move or we'll get creamed in the 2020 senatorial elections which are plain ass horrible for the GOP right now. That will change if the impeachment trials backfire and we'll likely see a situation where the US will finally have a joint military/IC coup on it's hands...

Also, we need more information including the grand jury material, witness testimony, evidence pertaining to the still ongoing counter-intelligence investigation, a Supreme Court ruling requiring Trump to testify before Congress for sure, and possibly impeachment proceedings for Barr. The problem is that if the House does it’s due diligence with formalized Impeachment Inquiry, the election is liable to unseat Trump before the Senate holds a trial.

[The Romulan Republic]

People just keep asserting that impeachment will inevitably lead to fewer votes for the Democrats. Seldom do I see anyone make a serious effort to back this assertion up. Its speculation which is treated as though its self-evident fact.

I think perhaps refusing to impeach risks lower turnout from a base who sees Democrats who once again won't stand up for their principles, but will always swing towards the middle/right. And that perhaps the Dem leadership would do better to think about appealing to their base, than about appealing to an increasingly imaginary undecided center.

[Gandalf]

Indeed. If the previous few years of Trump don't turn out the Democratic vote, I don't see how a failed impeachment would either.

[Zaune]

The problem with making concessions to avoid conflict is that it sends a message- that we're scared of Trump and his base, that if push comes to shove, we'll back down. He'll know that. Men like Trump, and his allies/enablers, sense weakness. Concede now, and they'll just push the envelope even further.

In a sense, this is the history of the Democratic Party for the last few decades: making concessions on principles to try to appear bi-partisan and conciliatory, and being rewarded for it by ever-more extreme partisanship from Republicans and ever-greater alienation of our own base, because everyone expects the Democrats to cave. We'll have to draw a line one day, and the longer we wait, the worse its going to be when we finally do draw that line.

As Lincoln said shortly before the outset of the War of Southern Aggression: "Stand firm. The tug has to come, and better now, than any time hereafter."

You're damned right I'm scared of Trump and his base! I haven't been advocating for left-wing activists to form armed militias because I think gunning down neo-Nazis is good sport. I don't think they have a hope in hell of winning some sort of putsch, not unless a statistically significant fraction of the Army side with them, but they can sure as hell kill a lot of innocent people and do massive economic and social damage to the US before they're put down for good. If they ever are, because this shit does not go away just because everyone who remembers why it got started is long dead.

There's a time and a place for standing on principle, and there's a time and a place for not antagonising the crazy person with the live grenade.

[The Romulan Republic]

And do you honestly believe that sending the message "We will let you off for serious crimes because we're scared of you" make the fascists less likely to push the envelope even further? If they know we'll back down at the threat of violence, they'll threaten violence every time they want something.

Its the same reason Pelosi couldn't back down on the Shutdown, no matter how many people it hurt: Trump had to blink first, or he would know that he could use that tool again and again to get what he wants, and he would shut down the government every time the Democrats didn't capitulate to him. And guess what? He did blink first. Sure, he followed it up with an (in my opinion) unConstitutional declaration of a State of Emergency, but he ended the shutdown much more on the Democrats' terms than his own.

This is basically the entire reasoning behind "We don't negotiate with terrorists" as well.

[Tribble]

The problem with making concessions to avoid conflict is that it sends a message- that we're scared of Trump and his base, that if push comes to shove, we'll back down. He'll know that. Men like Trump, and his allies/enablers, sense weakness. Concede now, and they'll just push the envelope even further.

In a sense, this is the history of the Democratic Party for the last few decades: making concessions on principles to try to appear bi-partisan and conciliatory, and being rewarded for it by ever-more extreme partisanship from Republicans and ever-greater alienation of our own base, because everyone expects the Democrats to cave. We'll have to draw a line one day, and the longer we wait, the worse its going to be when we finally do draw that line.

As Lincoln said shortly before the outset of the War of Southern Aggression: "Stand firm. The tug has to come, and better now, than any time hereafter."

You're damned right I'm scared of Trump and his base! I haven't been advocating for left-wing activists to form armed militias because I think gunning down neo-Nazis is good sport. I don't think they have a hope in hell of winning some sort of putsch, not unless a statistically significant fraction of the Army side with them, but they can sure as hell kill a lot of innocent people and do massive economic and social damage to the US before they're put down for good. If they ever are, because this shit does not go away just because everyone who remembers why it got started is long dead.

There's a time and a place for standing on principle, and there's a time and a place for not antagonising the crazy person with the live grenade.

… except if said crazy person hates you and will eventually throw the grenade at you no matter what you do. And as far as the crazy person is concerned, your inaction may be just another sign of weakness and why you deserve to have that grenade tossed at you. At some point you're going to have to decide whether its worth trying stop said crazy person before the grenade is tossed or continue to do nothing and just accept the fact that your going to have a grenade tossed your way.

[The Romulan Republic]

My point exactly. Fascists aren't going to meet you half-way if you extend an olive branch. They'll just see weakness, and react much like a shark that smells blood in the water.

I mean, we went through this eighty years ago with appeasement. To borrow a line from the Churchill movie "You cannot negotiate with the tiger while your head is in its mouth."

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

… except if said crazy person hates you and will eventually throw the grenade at you no matter what you do. And as far as the crazy person is concerned, your inaction may be just another sign of weakness and why you deserve to have that grenade tossed at you. If that's the case at some point you're going to have to decide whether its worth trying stop said crazy person before the grenade is tossed, or just accept the fact you're going to die.

Problem is that impeachment is a literal hail marry at this point, as Trump's base flat out is the GOP's base at this point (the lowest approval rating of Trump with the GOP is 72% and it's currently hovering around 89%). The one thing we can't do is give Trump something big and fucking obvious to focus on, so the dem's only chance at taking Trump down is to continue this 'death by a thousand cuts' and keep the investigations going while forming House committees around them as they're too nebulous for Trump or the GOP to rally around. Trump is a very crappy multi-tasker and is the sort of person that can't stop removing the bandages off of wounds, the perfect target for this sort of thing.

Impeachment is not on the table because the chances for this backfiring is far too high right now.

[The Romulan Republic]

… except if said crazy person hates you and will eventually throw the grenade at you no matter what you do. And as far as the crazy person is concerned, your inaction may be just another sign of weakness and why you deserve to have that grenade tossed at you. If that's the case at some point you're going to have to decide whether its worth trying stop said crazy person before the grenade is tossed, or just accept the fact you're going to die.

Problem is that impeachment is a literal hail marry at this point, as Trump's base flat out is the GOP's base at this point (the lowest approval rating of Trump with the GOP is 72% and it's currently hovering around 89%). The one thing we can't do is give Trump something big and fucking obvious to focus on, so the dem's only chance at taking Trump down is to continue this 'death by a thousand cuts' and keep the investigations going while forming House committees around them as they're too nebulous for Trump or the GOP to rally around. Trump is a very crappy multi-tasker and is the sort of person that can't stop removing the bandages off of wounds, the perfect target for this sort of thing.

Impeachment is not on the table because the chances for this backfiring is far too high right now.

Please, for the love of God, read that Atlantic article I posted a while back. It lays out in excellent detail why impeachment will handicap Trump and benefit the nation even if he is ultimately acquitted. And actually give us something to back up the claim that impeaching is too politically risking, rather than treating it as a self-evident assertion.

[Tribble]

… except if said crazy person hates you and will eventually throw the grenade at you no matter what you do. And as far as the crazy person is concerned, your inaction may be just another sign of weakness and why you deserve to have that grenade tossed at you. If that's the case at some point you're going to have to decide whether its worth trying stop said crazy person before the grenade is tossed, or just accept the fact you're going to die.

Problem is that impeachment is a literal hail marry at this point, as Trump's base flat out is the GOP's base at this point (the lowest approval rating of Trump with the GOP is 72% and it's currently hovering around 89%). The one thing we can't do is give Trump something big and fucking obvious to focus on, so the dem's only chance at taking Trump down is to continue this 'death by a thousand cuts' and keep the investigations going while forming House committees around them as they're too nebulous for Trump or the GOP to rally around. Trump is a very crappy multi-tasker and is the sort of person that can't stop removing the bandages off of wounds, the perfect target for this sort of thing.

Impeachment is not on the table because the chances for this backfiring is far too high right now.

On the other hand, by failing to impeach now the Democrats will come across as weak and inept, further demoralising their own base. This is potentially an even bigger problem than losing undecided voters since, as you noted, the GOP is more or less fully committed to Trump and will turn out in great droves come election time. And you can bet the GOP propaganda machine would make heavy use of it anyways by pointing out that if the Democrats really had a problem with Trump's behaviour they should have impeached him. Since they didn't impeach, Democrats clearly knew they were in the wrong / weak / petty etc etc.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Please, for the love of God, read that Atlantic article I posted a while back. It lays out in excellent detail why impeachment will handicap Trump and benefit the nation even if he is ultimately acquitted. And actually give us something to back up the claim that impeaching is too politically risking, rather than treating it as a self-evident assertion.

Problem is the fact that impeachment isn't just a vote in the house and a trial in the senate. To go through with the articles of impeachment you'll have to get all the bells and whistles for impeachment (gathering documents, witnesses, reports, so on and so forth) first before you even vote on impeachment, and with how Trump has been hemorrhaging independent voters, it is quite possible that Trump wouldn't be president after 2020.

On the other hand, by failing to impeach now the Democrats will come across as weak and inept, further demoralising their own base. This is potentially an even bigger problem than losing undecided voters since, as you noted, the GOP is more or less fully committed to Trump and will turn out in great droves come election time. And you can bet the GOP propaganda machine would make heavy use of it anyways by pointing out that if the Democrats really had a problem with Trump's behaviour they should have impeached him. Since they didn't impeach, Democrats clearly knew they were in the wrong / weak / petty etc etc.

Problem is that doing so now isn't in the cards. Impeachment proceedings have a lot of backlog to do first, which takes time as noted above. The Dems want to keep Impeachment in the quiver because they know that if they fail (and that is absolutely fucking certain thanks to Mitch) it would be just as likely to backfire on them as it is to hurt the GOP. They want to keep the option open for when they can/could need it.

So that is why the Dems are ensuring that the investigations continue and energize the base with rallying points outside of impeachment. The Dems can't allow something to overshadow the other shit that the investigations dug up or whatever bouts of stupid injuries that Trump would metaphorically do to himself...

[Tribble]

Problem is that doing so now isn't in the cards. Impeachment proceedings have a lot of backlog to do first, which takes time as noted above. The Dems want to keep Impeachment in the quiver because they know that if they fail (and that is absolutely fucking certain thanks to Mitch) it would be just as likely to backfire on them as it is to hurt the GOP. They want to keep the option open for when they can/could need it.

And when would that be, exactly? What are they waiting for, Trump deciding to start gassing the children he's putting into cages on live television?

So that is why the Dems are ensuring that the investigations continue and energize the base with rallying points outside of impeachment. The Dems can't allow something to overshadow the other shit that the investigations dug up or whatever bouts of stupid injuries that Trump would metaphorically do to himself...

Or in other words, they want to keep Trump in office because they think he'll do more damage to the GOP before election time. That's what this comes across as to me, at any rate. Politics at its finest. Yes, let's keep the fascists in office for awhile longer, surely they'll self-destruct before election time! Never mind their mass propaganda, voter suppression, gerrymandering etc. and the fact that they are already questioning the legitimacy of a hypothetical democrat win.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, thinking "Let's keep Trump around because it will be easy to beat in 2020" seems really fucking arrogant and short-sighted, considering how many people assumed that he'd be easy to beat in the primary, and again in the 2016 general election.