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Impeachment
Sep. 25th, 2019 08:21 amThe Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy called and said I had to write an article on impeachment. (BTW, I'm still waiting for the check for the last time they called.) So herewith, thoughts:
1) Regardless of what the Bidens did, it's an abuse of power for a sitting US President to call a foreign leader and press them to investigate US citizens. This is especially the case if those US citizens are not fugitives from justice or otherwise can't be tried in US courts.
2) Again regardless of what the Bidens did, it's an abuse of power to have your private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, work with the State Department to set up meetings to press said foreign power to conduct an investigation.
3) "But what about what they did?" is not an excuse. That excuse stopped working for me in first grade.
4) John Scalzi is on-point about the political calculus on why the Democrats were slow-walking impeachment. Basically, it's highly unlikely Pelosi will get enough Republican Senators to vote to remove Trump from office. But if the Senate doesn't vote to remove with these allegations, it will be clearly partisan politics.
5) Various alt-right types are cackling that the Democrats have "walked into an impeachment trap." Given that to them, Trump can literally do no wrong, I'm not sure I agree. The key point here is that this is not the Clinton impeachment. We're not trying to remove somebody for cheating on his wife. This is more like Nixon, where felonies were committed to fix an election.
6) Some have speculated that Trump either wants to be impeached and/or is playing some multi-dimensional chess game to manipulate events. I am dubious. I think he is a narcissist and engaged in classic gaslighting. This is learned but semi-conscious behavior aimed at getting what the gaslighter wants done in the moment. After all, there were dozens of more subtle and more importantly less traceable ways to get the message to the Ukrainians that they needed to find dirt on the Bidens if they wanted the money.
7) Finally, I think this whole process will be slow, messy as hell and unpleasant. I am looking forward to it with all the eagerness and joy I look forward to my next colonoscopy.
1) Regardless of what the Bidens did, it's an abuse of power for a sitting US President to call a foreign leader and press them to investigate US citizens. This is especially the case if those US citizens are not fugitives from justice or otherwise can't be tried in US courts.
2) Again regardless of what the Bidens did, it's an abuse of power to have your private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, work with the State Department to set up meetings to press said foreign power to conduct an investigation.
3) "But what about what they did?" is not an excuse. That excuse stopped working for me in first grade.
4) John Scalzi is on-point about the political calculus on why the Democrats were slow-walking impeachment. Basically, it's highly unlikely Pelosi will get enough Republican Senators to vote to remove Trump from office. But if the Senate doesn't vote to remove with these allegations, it will be clearly partisan politics.
5) Various alt-right types are cackling that the Democrats have "walked into an impeachment trap." Given that to them, Trump can literally do no wrong, I'm not sure I agree. The key point here is that this is not the Clinton impeachment. We're not trying to remove somebody for cheating on his wife. This is more like Nixon, where felonies were committed to fix an election.
6) Some have speculated that Trump either wants to be impeached and/or is playing some multi-dimensional chess game to manipulate events. I am dubious. I think he is a narcissist and engaged in classic gaslighting. This is learned but semi-conscious behavior aimed at getting what the gaslighter wants done in the moment. After all, there were dozens of more subtle and more importantly less traceable ways to get the message to the Ukrainians that they needed to find dirt on the Bidens if they wanted the money.
7) Finally, I think this whole process will be slow, messy as hell and unpleasant. I am looking forward to it with all the eagerness and joy I look forward to my next colonoscopy.
