Friday, May 31, 2019

How Many Seats Will Democrats Lose If They Impeach Trump? How Many Seats Will They Lose If They Don't?

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In his NY Times column yesterday, Charles Blow came out strongly for impeachment. Of the redacted Mueller report-- I assure you that unlike most Republican members of Congress, that Blow has read it-- he notes that "it is a damning document. Not only does it detail Russian efforts to attack our election to help the Trump campaign and the Trump campaign’s eager acceptance of that help, it paints a picture of Donald Trump as an unethical man with no regard for the rule of law. In this report, we see a president who doesn’t deserve to be president. We see attempts over and over to obstruct justice, which in some cases succeed. The question is: What are we going to do about it?"

Yes, that is the question. "Obstruction of justice is a crime," he reminds his readers. "If Trump committed that crime, he’s a criminal. Are we simply going to allow a criminal to sit in the Oval Office and face no consequence?" We? We can't do much about it besides trying to influence our members of Congress to go for impeachment. If Pelosi and Hoyer bring it up, they would need 118 votes to begin the process. Pelosi knows how to count votes. She's says there aren't that many behind it yet. I believe she could whip her caucus and get the votes, but there are an awful lot of Democrats who will vote with the Republicans against impeachment. You think Pelosi wants a situation where all the progressives and activists decide to not vote for dozens of her incumbents because they voted against impeaching Trump? She doesn't.

Let's look at some of the worst Democrats in the House, freshmen Kenda Horn (Oklahoma City-- R+10), Joe Cunningham (Charleston, South Carolina-- R+10), Jefferson Van Drew (South Jersey-- R+1) and Ben McAdams (Salt Lake City area-- R+13), all of whom have tough reelection races coming up in red or in Van Drew's case, red-leaning, districts. Imagine they voted against impeachment. Let's start with McAdams, a Blue Dog like the other 3, he's tied with Van Drew and Cunningham of having the worst voting record in the House. Of the 269,234 votes cast in his district in 2018, he won 134,964, 694 more than his Republican opponent. He basically got slaughtered in Utah, Juan and Sanpete counties. All his votes came from Salt Lake County where a very significant number of Democrats are extremely progressive and already hating him. In the 2016 Democratic caucus in Salt Lake County, Bernie won 84.9% of the votes. Stop and think about that for un momento. Hillary-- who beat Trump 42.8% to 32.6% in the general election-- only took 14.1% of the vote in that blue county. People have to hold their noses and get drunk before voting for McAdams as is. Do you think they would if he voted against impeachment? Some would. How many wouldn't? More than 694? I think so. In fact I'm 100% positive than way more than 694 Salt Lake County Democrats would come out to vote for Bernie or Elizabeth Warren against Trump and not bother to vote for McAdams.

Do you want me to do this for all 4 of them? It's easy. I do one more-- Kendra Horn. Friends of mine in her district are already saying they won't vote for her in 2020. There were 238,960 people voting in 2018 and she took 121,149 votes (50.7%), 3,338 more votes than her Republican opponent. Nearly all her votes came from Oklahoma City. Pottawatomie and Seminole counties went massively for the Republican. Democrats in Oklahoma County are split between progressives and centrists. Trump beat Hillary in every single county in Oklahoma but she did less horribly in Oklahoma County than anywhere else-- 112,661 votes (41.2%) to Trump's 141,429 (51.7%). Primary time was a pretty even split in the district. This is how Hillary did in each of the 3 counties that make up the district:
Oklahoma County- 50.1%
Pottawatomie County- 37.5%
Seminole County- 39.1%
I can tell you, some of those Bernie supporters-- and some of the Hillary supporters for that matter-- want impeachment more than Bernie does. If Horn votes against it, she'll lose enough of her base to lose the general. Besides, Republicans are already excited about former OK City mayor Mick Cornette and two state senators likely to run, Greg Treat and Stephanie Bice.

And so on. So, Pelosi is walking on thin ice-- I love this song and I can't help myself-- and she's screwed no matter what she does-- or doesn't do. Let me get back to Blow for a moment. He writes that his mind is made and he knows all the arguments: "I say impeach him." He lists all the wrong pros and cons though-- the solipsistic, intellectually sloppy ones-- and isn't looking at Pelosi's-- really, the House Democratic caucus'-- dilemma at all. "House Democrats, at least the leadership, are afraid of looking like they have a blood lust and inadvertently increasing Trump’s chances of re-election." But he's compelling:
I worry that inaction enshrines that idea that the American president is above America’s laws. I worry that silent acquiescence bends our democracy toward monarchy, or dictatorship.

As Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, “In America the law is king.” He continued: “For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

Who will we let be king in this country, the president or the law?


You can't argue with any of that. Maybe you can. I can't. Ask yourself this though. Is it worth impeaching Trump-- who won't be found guilt by the Senate-- at the cost of losing the House majority?

So what about censure-- a public reprimand or condemnation? The idea is being bandied about on Capitol Hill now. The Constitution defines impeachment-- and conviction-- powers but doesn't mention censure. Congress adopted a resolution allowing censure-- stronger than a simple rebuke, but not as strong as expulsion and either House can do it on their own. In 1834, the Senate censured Andrew Jackson-- although when the Democrats won back the Senate the censure was expunged from the record. In 1842, after the House failed to impeach John Tyler, a select Senate committee censured him. (He may have been a worse president than Trump-- maybe; we'll see-- and after his presidency he led Virginia into secession and then served in the Confederate House of Representatives.) In 1848 the House should have impeached James Polk for starting the Mexican-American War unconstitutionally, but they censured him instead. There was a half-assed attempt to censure Clinton that failed and there have been two censure motions introduced against Trump that have never been voted on, the first buried by Paul Ryan and the second buried by... Nancy Pelosi.

Is censure a viable option to use against Trump? A few congressmen have told me it is and it would pass. I think Trump would laugh it off, but that's better than nothing if they can't get the votes for impeaching him, which I don't think they can.


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4 Comments:

At 5:28 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Any democrap who would vote to NOT impeach needs to be exposed. This is where bustos is helping Pelosi, who doesn't want to impeach anyone for anything because it makes the democraps look like meanies.
bustos' refusal to fund good primary opponents for shitty whores serves to make Pelosi's refusal look like a whip count thing when it really is not.

if Pelosi said vote to impeach or we'll defeat you, she'd get to 118 faster than light speed.

Also, if Pelosi said she would detail the charges and proof to the public before the impeachment vote, and that their refusal to vote to impeach would expose their cowardice and/or Nazi tendencies, and THAT would probably insure their defeat anyway... she'd get to 118 faster than light speed.

But Pelosi is totally averse to any such thing. she prefers to let the Nazis cut their own throats and keep her caucus as pure as possible with corporate whores.

at this point, if they do impeach they might lose more seats as the voters see just how much criminal activities were tolerated for 3 years. see, these dumbest fucktards in the history of earth haven't read the Mueller report either and are not capable of reading between the lines even when they do read. make it clear to these idiots that their party is shit and even more may abdicate than did in 2010.

 
At 7:50 AM, Blogger Matthew Saroff said...

There are 2 questions, a moral/constitutional one, which clearly calls for impeachment, and a political one.

The political question is, "Is this 1998, or 1974?"

I think that this is clearly 1974, meaning that Dems benefit from public impeachment hearings.

However, I would argue that the political calculus is IRRELEVANT.

This is about the basic function of the United States of America, electoral considerations be damned.

 
At 8:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Short Bursts:

"...[the redacted Mueller report] paints a picture of Donald Trump as an unethical man with no regard for the rule of law."

We didn't need the Mueller Report to know this. All we'd need to do is track the news story topics about him and THINK a little. Clearly, most Americans can't do that.

"The question is: What are we going to do about it?".... We can't do much about it besides trying to influence our members of Congress to go for impeachment.

As Gilens and Page reported, We the People don't have enough money to attract the interest of most Congress critters. Money talks and the people walk.

"You think Pelosi wants a situation where all the progressives and activists decide to not vote for dozens of her incumbents because they voted against impeaching Trump?"

How else are we to rid our nation of the scourge of Neo Dogs?

"Is censure a viable option to use against Trump?"

Like he's going to care? PLEASE!

Since it's clear that the democraps WON'T do anything about Trump, all that remains is to figure out how one is to survive in a post-democracy America. Few of us can emigrate to sane nations, but with the influence of the US so pervasive across the globe (as Julian Assange is discovering), there is no safe place on the planet.

The only good news is that Mother Nature will end all of the misery before too many more years pass. It will, however, be a rather painful process.

 
At 4:47 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

1) the title implies that the democraps lose seats either way. this is probably not true since their voters can't muster a dozen functioning synapses between the 65 million of them.

2) short bursts is all over it again. clearly the democraps won't do shit. and since their inaction (or action) pretty much guarantees another trump admin, the question about how to survive a post-america america is a valid one. The first to go will be the blacks and latins and islamics and women and poor and elderly and kids who are not billionaires. But white male heterosexuals will not have to wait long. what'll you have after all your jobs are sent overseas and they eliminate every single sustenance program?

will you sicken and die before you die of hunger or thirst or exposure? that's about the only question.

 

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