Will The Republicans Really Impeach Trumpanzee? One GOP Ex-Congressman Says Yes
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| Remember, Trump is a venal, vindictive prick |
Pre-empting the threat of reprisal, Mr. McCain said he intended to be true to what he saw as his party and his voters: “Trump carried Arizona by four points. I carried my state by 14 points.”Robert Reich posted this on his Facebook page over the weekend:
Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who like Mr. McCain has repeatedly clashed with Mr. Trump, said that he was preparing for the president to back his opponent in a primary next year-- but that it would not dissuade him from putting up opposition on some issues.
“There are some of us who will be pushing to get back to the roots of the party: limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility, free trade,” Mr. Flake said. “Those are things that the party has stood on for a long time.”
Mr. Trump and some of his closest advisers say such resistance is not just futile but foolish. And they are already pledging to harness Mr. Trump’s following in the states and districts of recalcitrant Republicans to sound warnings of their own.
I had breakfast recently with a friend who's a former Republican member of Congress. Here's what he said:Or maybe they'll have him eliminated in some other, more unpleasant, less traumatic/less unpleasant, more traumatic, way. One Republican vote for impeachment would likely be Jeff Flake, who denigrated him all through the primary and beyond and who has told people he expects Trump to carry through with his threats to help fund a primary against him in 2018. On Friday, Flake referred it the band of kleptocrats Trump picked for his cabinet as "stellar." When asked, he told some religious right station that "if the president governs like he has picked his Cabinet, then we’re in for a good four years. I think they’ll all get through. I look forward to supporting them." Many predicted that Flake would rally behind Trump's horrendous cabinet picks as a peace-offering to the short attention span, easily manipulated new president.
Him: Trump is no Republican. He’s just a big fat ego.
Me: Then why didn’t you speak out against him during the campaign?
Him: You kidding? I was surrounded by Trump voters. I’d have been shot.
Me: So what now? What are your former Republican colleagues going to do?
Him (smirking): They’ll play along for a while.
Me: A while?
Him: They’ll get as much as they want-- tax cuts galore, deregulation, military buildup, slash all those poverty programs, and then get to work on Social Security and Medicare-- and blame him. And he’s such a fool he’ll want to take credit for everything.
Me: And then what?
Him (laughing): They like Pence.
Me: What do you mean?
Him: Pence is their guy. They all think Trump is out of his mind.
Me: So what?
Him: So the moment Trump does something really dumb-- steps over the line-- violates the law in a big stupid clumsy way... and you know he will ...
Me: They impeach him?
Him: You bet. They pull the trigger.
Earlier this month, writing for Roll Call, Alex Roarty speculated that Flake is the most vulnerable GOP Senate incumbent to a primary. If he loses a primary, Arizona becomes the top possible 2018 Democratic pickup. Some Republicans don;t like him because he's been critical of Trump's extremis, on trade and immigration. His allies fear-- possibly expect-- a Trumpist to run against him.
To many GOP officials, no Republican senator is more vulnerable in a primary next year than Flake. The 54-year-old, according to one strategist who reviewed polling data last month, is less popular among likely GOP primary voters in Arizona than even John McCain, who for years has had a famously rocky relationship with his party’s base. The poll showed almost as many primary voters disliked Flake as liked him.
And although he has already drawn a challenger-- former state Sen. Kelli Ward, who ran unsuccessfully against McCain last year-- his supporters are more worried about another foe, state Treasurer Jeff DeWit.
DeWit was a strong Trump supporter, serving as chairman of his Arizona campaign before becoming his national campaign’s chief operating officer. And people close to Flake worry that DeWit could potentially exploit the senator’s adversarial history with Trump. Flake routinely criticized Trump’s conduct during the campaign, culminating in a tense showdown on Capitol Hill in July.
An incumbent senator has many advantages in a primary, including institutional support, name recognition and money. But none of those things might matter if the combative Trump-- the leader of the Republican Party with an unrivaled bully pulpit-- becomes personally involved in the race, a possibility that scares Flake allies above all else.
“Obviously, you hope Republican presidents support their incumbents,” said Steve Voeller, Flake’s former chief of staff. “But … that remains to be seen.”
At the end of September, Flake had only $594,000 on hand. By comparison, GOP Sen. Rob Portman, who ran a model campaign en route to winning re-election last year, had $5.5 million on hand at the same point.
Officials are confident that Flake, who they say makes a point of avoiding fundraising events before his re-election cycle begins, will raise a lot of money fast.
Flake allies are also signaling that the lawmaker, who has frequently defied his party in the past, will look for areas of cooperation with the incoming administration. The first test comes this week, when Flake will have a chance to confirm Trump’s picks for his Cabinet.
...Republicans are also hopeful that Vice President-elect Mike Pence will help bridge the gap between the senator and the White House: Flake and Pence, who both previously ran conservative think tanks and served in the House together, are personal friends.
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| That's DeWit with a bunch of Trumps |
Labels: Arizona, impeaching Trump, Jeff DeWit, Jeff Flake, Robert Reich, Senate 2018
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 2:00 PM
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8 Comments:
They may like Pence, but not enough to impeach Trump -- that'd be way too big a blot on the GOP escutcheon. These Republicans are all about party before country. Watch and see.
I'm not so sure about that, Lex. Rs are far more doctrinaire than you might think. Sure, they were opportunists this time (to gain unfettered power), but now that they HAVE that power, if der fuhrer screws the pooch (maybe literally), they won't hesitate to "pull the trigger" (a phrase that might also be literal if he keeps dissing the cia).
And, yes, pence is the PERFECT R. Avidly doctrinaire; all the correct hatreds; and a proponent of changing the USA to jesusland... a white jesusland.
Der fuhrer might accidentally do a thing or two that aren't horrible, like today. There is absolutely nothing that pence would ever do that WOULD NOT BE HORRIBLE. He's like if Satan came to earth as Hitler and pretended to be the second coming. Americans, ever the dumbest species of human on earth, would fall for that shit in a second.
I want to believe that the Irish bookie who gives 4-1 odds on Trump being impeached within 6 months is correct. I don't, however, think that the Republican Party will ever "get enough" out of Trump until he's expendable.
But let's say that Reich's GOP friend is correct. How many of the GOP contingent in Congress are ready to face Trump's Tweet Twerps if he launches them against those seeking to impeach him? I doubt many will.
So as much as I'd love to see Trump impeached, I don't see it happening. I will admit to being wrong should it happen.
Side note: anyone know how well Pense and Ryan get along? I can see Lyin' Ryan sharpening his stiletto should Trump be impeached, because the desire to actually take over will be strong in him.
4:42, a good question about pence and ryan. pence is a Christian caliphate fascist. ryan is a Randian. Those 2 subspecies don't necessarily cross pollinate well.
Also unknown is their respective ambitions.
But I got another wild card for you. To reach the conviction number in the senate, they'll need democraps and many of them. It's entirely possible that the craps might prefer the low IQ drumpf to the concentrated evil of pence or ryan.
In a choice between drumpf and pence and ryan... you have to pick your evil very carefully.
Right now it looks like the craps are playing ball as they have confirmed everyone including putin's favorite oil tycoon and even the illegal one. If Sessions is confirmed with crap votes... maybe the blacks will HAVE to find themselves a new party. Might be the catalyst we need to rid ourselves of the craps pretending to represent us.
@8:53
You bring up some good points, particularly about the "Craps" (great name for them in my opinion) playing along with the GOP and confirming Trump's nominees by lopsided margins. There are two things I conclude from this detail:
1. Since there is clearly no Party "discipline" the Democratic Party is completely useless to anyone NOT a Republican. They vote as the GOP tells them.
2. If enough Republicans decide they want Pence over Trump, the Craps WILL go along. It's what they do. I'm sure that the GOP donors would be very glad to "contribute" to the hated Craps in trade for a vote to install Pence into his "right-full" place by removing Trump.
As for blacks needing to find a new party, they have had this advice from MLK himself in his Mountaintop speech, although the focus was on economic issues. As we've seen since 1968, economic issues need political muscle to defend the rights of corporations from the Will of the People and the GOP stepped up to serve that desire. This just happened in South Dakota, so the concept is still in force as a political strategy.
Tie this in with Trump's call for black voters to support him [paraphrasing] "What has supporting Democrats gotten you? Try ME!", and a rational person would see the means and motive for blacks to create their own version of the Tea Baggers at the very least. How else could they pressure the corporatist Democrats if they don't begin to oppose their lame lies and tired practices?
As I see it, the seeds have been planted. All we need is for Trump to not blow up the world before they can grow and be harvested.
Let us not forget that the Tangerine has his little finger o the nuclear button. This is the BIGGEST DANGER we face with him. Who would bet that he would not push it? His stupid tweets have suggested he would do so in a heartbeat. He needs to be removed for this reason alone. He is a vindictive, impulsive, thoughtless, ignorant man with no regard whatsoever for the consequences of his actions. This would be by far worth impeachment by the Republicans. Because if he pushes that button, we are all screwed and the Republicans will be held completely responsible, as they should be,
11:41, you are an optimist. Turns out the black electorate HAD their seed but they refused to water it. Bernie was their best chance to repudiate the Democraps' betrayals over the past 36 years, but they insisted, as they always have, on supporting the establishment Democrap neolib neocon corrupt Russophobe.
They ignored MLK. They ignored Farrakhan. They decided to FOLLOW Lewis, who, in a horrible irony, was a contemporary of MLK.
Blacks fucked themselves... again.
But even white women went drumpf... which is unfathomable to me. Women and blacks were $hillbillary's bffs during the primary.
Also good point about the craps. absent any conscience, they do tend to obey their orders from the money don't they. When/if the money decides pence is a better choice, the craps will absolutely listen to their donations for guidance.
I would add that unions, by remaining loyal to the craps, have rendered themselves inert as a political force over the past 35 years.
What can you say about a voting bloc of 70 million in 1980 that is less than 20 million today? All the money and manpower they wasted on democraps along the way? The fact that obamanation contemplated his navel instead of going to Wisconsin when walker stripped unions of all bargaining power?
You'd think that Charlie brown would have figured out Lucy and the football by now. Oh how we laugh at Charlie Brown's innocent naivete and optimism.
What can you say about blacks, whites, women and unions? They're dumber than fuck. That's what.
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