re: #144 lawhawk

Devil’s Advocate on impeachment - the pros/cons of impeachment (and removal)

The case for impeachment: prevent Trump from sending more right wing extremists into the judiciary for a lifetime of rolling back civil/voting rights. Senate Dems can’t block nominations, but should be making the case that all nominations should cease based on impeachable acts by Trump and that McConnell is defending and protecting a corrupt and criminal Trump.

The case against impeachment: political expediency to prevent GOP from using this to rally around Trump. Election is 18 months away and you don’t want to muddy whatever vision the Democrats have for post-Trump administration.

Impeachment is a punishing tool - and helps cleanse the WH of criminal misconduct (Graham’s own words). Leaving Trump in place would allow the harm to continue.

I get some Democrats’ reluctance to go after Trump and impeach, but there’s a solid case on impeaching (removing again falls short thanks to McConnell and the GOP who may not even take up the case for trial in the Senate claiming that they’ve done a head-count and they wont get 2/3 to convict).

Every Democrat needs to make it their mission to hold the entire GOP accountable for this mess - and to defeat Trump and every GOPer at every level from now til forever.

I forget the rules exactly, but I vaguely recall during the Clinton Impeachment the rule was that the trial superseded everything else on the Senate calendar. If that’s still the case, it would at least stop confirmation votes for a little while.

I think even if there’s no chance to remove Trump from office, from a moral perspective I think the House has an obligation to say that this isn’t acceptable behavior of a president.

And from a purely political one, force every Republican in Congress to go on the record saying that this kind of action is acceptable. Then beat them over the head with it during the campaign.