Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part III - A Democratic House

[brian]

Trump's meltdown when questioned by press corps after should show this was NOT anything good for Trump.

I expect public support for impeachment (still lagging in the 30s for those who like to pile on the Dems for not "doing what the public wants") to tick up into the fall and there's a chance we could get some impeachment hearings then.

Again, the idea is to make this like Chinese water torture for Trump, if nothing else because it's petty as fuck to mess with him. No crystal ball and I'm not taking bets, but we moved closer to impeachment today.

[mister d]

Again, the idea is to make this like Chinese water torture for Trump, if nothing else because it's petty as fuck to mess with him.

[brian]

Sorry to have to tell you this, but impeaching Trump tomorrow isn't bringing those food stamps back. Hell, even if the Senate went ahead and convicted him Pence is probably just as happy to fuck with poor people. So I'm not sure the point you're trying to make is the one you're making.

[mister d]

In nine months when the next dozen awful things have happened and you’re saying “acting today wouldn’t stop _______” you’ll likely see the point I was making today and a year ago?

[Ryan]

In nine months when the next dozen awful things have happened and you’re saying “acting today wouldn’t stop _______” you’ll likely see the point I was making today and a year ago?

Depends on the wifi in Thailand

[Giff]

Man, who knew impeaching Trump makes Republicans want to help out the poor and needy! Maybe if the Senate convicts him somehow, they'll be cool with abortion too?

[Joe K]

I can’t believe people still think Pelosi and House leadership isre playing some type of coherent “long game” instead of just enjoying the perks of being very rich, very powerful people who do not upset the apple cart. I bet that Pelosi and Schumer were doing some intense strategizing last night before heading over to Maureen Dowd’s party in Georgetown.

[mister d]

Going to do that asshole thing where I quote myself ...

Who is going to be a better speaker than Pelosi? And what is the evidence they will be a better speaker than Pelosi?

Isn't this just the political equivalent of "which coach would do better with this roster and also somehow prove it" when you're sitting outside the playoffs but hypothetically could be worse? I can't fathom, after the election we just saw and the candidates who just won or nearly won, thinking a legacy Dem with a net worth well into eight figures who was part of the leadership that lost to Donald Fucking Trump is worth taking another trip with. That's Biden 2020 logic.

[brian]

So the argument is that Pelosi doesn't want to impeach because she's (checks notes) friends with Maureen Dowd?

Isn't the more likely reason that she's concerned that impeachment could imperil the chances of defeating Trump in 2020? I mean, you can disagree with her assessment if so and I do, but it's not exactly a ridiculous notion either. No one knows would that would do to help or hurt Trump's chances next November. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying or is trying to sell you something.

ETA: In case I'm not being clear or forceful enough, I think Pelosi sucks for slowplaying this, whether it's a strategy or not. Impeachment is the correct moral decision and in the end, the moral decision is usually the right one. But a from a purely political perspective, not impeaching (if that's in fact what ends up happening) is rooted in a fairly straightforward realpolitik (the public support isn't there and the unknowns are unknown. Isn't the first thing they teach lawyers in law school to not ask a question you don't know the answer to?)

[Joe K]

For Brian: I originally posted this in early June and it makes the point I was getting at. Pelosi’s entire career is based on restraining the Democratic Party’s more progressive elements. That’s why she won’t impeach and why she’s been repeatedly bashing AOC, Omar, et al. (including in a recent Maureen Dowd column). Maybe that world view made sense in the 1980s but it’s entirely counterproductive now.

This is an interesting interview with Ryan Grim, who just wrote a book on the modern history of the Democratic Party that has been getting great reviews.

Here’s an excerpt of Grim’s take on Pelosi. The main takeaway is that her pushing back on impeachment isn’t part of some master plan. But rather, it’s part of her 30-year long view that the Progressive wing of the Party needs to be reined in.

Nancy Pelosi likes to say that she’s from the Bay Area and so she understands the left. That’s true in the sense that she beat the left to win her seat. It’s not that she organized support among the left, but she barely won. If they were using the current top two system, I think she would have lost her first seat and there would be no Nancy Pelosi.

But she wins in 1987. She joins Steny Hoyer who’d been there for a while already and a class of Democrats who came in in the late 70s and 80s, just as the party was ending. And in 1980, not only did you have Ronald Reagan elected and have him re-elected in 1984, but in ’80, a whole slew of liberal lions who’d been running for president just four years earlier, who’d been serving five, six terms, famous people at the time like Birch Bayh, Frank Church all upset by these upstart, insurgent Republicans.

And so, you’ve got this rise of the new right. Newt Gingrich elected in ’78 and then Reagan in ’80 and it teaches people like Pelosi that liberalism is going to cost them elections, that if they let the country know how progressive they are, then there’s going to be a backlash. And they learned that lesson over and over throughout the ’80s as Reagan kept pounding them. ...

But as you watch Nancy Pelosi trying to navigate Trump, all she’s thinking about is the Reagan era. If she says that she’s for impeachment, if she says she’s for Medicare for all, if she says she’s for a Green New Deal, that the country is going to recoil at their progressivism and they’re going to be thrown out.

[brian]

Even that theory -- a suddenly unrestrained progressive Democratic party steamrolling over Republicans everywhere oiled by the blood of the bourgeoisie -- is still just an opinion. Who's to say that there won't be a pushback to a presidential candidate running on Medicare for all or a $15 minimum wage next November*?

It's not exactly like you need to solely use Reagan as an example either. What about McGovern in 1972? Nixon was unpopular and seemed eminently beatable until a fake resolution to Vietnam and all of the turds in this country fell in line.

I'm more convinced than ever this is a racist, reactionary, conservative country. Christ, people want to blame Hillary Clinton still when these fucking rubes turned out with erections to vote for Trump, just dreaming of all of the horrible shit he would do to the poor and minorities. You think these fucking Trump turds would have been excited to vote for Bernie instead? I'm not buying any bullshit about turnout either considering turnout was the highest in this country for a presidential election since before World War II and Hillary got more votes than anyone not named Barack Obama.

Given that reality, it's all theoretical. There's no one right way. But everyone wants the same thing -- Trump out of the White House. So I expect everyone to be pulling their weight come next summer no matter what.

* (we're probably going to get to find out, so that's probably a good thing)

[brian]

The other problem here is the reality that no one seems to want to really face and that's the Democrats aren't hunting for votes in New York or California or even really Texas unfortunately.

Our fucked up Constitution ensures that the only votes Pelosi and Democrats really care about are in about 10 states. And I'm sorry to have to tell you after having lived in one of those states for 30 years that most of the people there are fucking idiots. I suspect the other 9 or so are similar.

[Johnnie]

Fox News is evil, man.

[The Sybian]

Fox News is evil, man.

Eh, I bet you could make the same video with MSNBC and CNN hosts posing questions and Dem Reps asking the same questions.

[brian]

Fox News is evil, man.

Eh, I bet you could make the same video with MSNBC and CNN hosts posing questions and Dem Reps asking the same questions.

I dunno. I don't think there's the same level of adherence to crazy conspiracy theories like there is with some of these whackadoodles like Nunes and Jim Jordan. Everyone has their talking points, I get that, but this is some next level shit to be parroting already debunked conspiracy theories.

[The Sybian]

Fox News is evil, man.

Eh, I bet you could make the same video with MSNBC and CNN hosts posing questions and Dem Reps asking the same questions.

I dunno. I don't think there's the same level of adherence to crazy conspiracy theories like there is with some of these whackadoodles like Nunes and Jim Jordan. Everyone has their talking points, I get that, but this is some next level shit to be parroting already debunked conspiracy theories.

I agree, I was partially playing Devil's Advocate, but I do think many of the questions would have been asked regardless of FoxNews, but I also believe the RNC and FoxNews conspire to create and mercilessly repeat talking points. In the Bush years, the RNC delivered a "Talking Points memo" to Fox and other Conservative outlets, and they would allow say the same exact thing, word for word, and even when they logically made no sense or were proven false, I would still hear/see people quoting the same lines and that would be their entire argument. It works, and yet the people that blindly parrot this shit love to call Liberals sheep.

[Johnnie]

You're possibly right, but Hannity had a literal "tutorial" segment on Tuesday night for the 'weak' Republicans to mooch off of.

[Nonlinear FC]

Fox News is evil, man.

Eh, I bet you could make the same video with MSNBC and CNN hosts posing questions and Dem Reps asking the same questions.

I dunno. I don't think there's the same level of adherence to crazy conspiracy theories like there is with some of these whackadoodles like Nunes and Jim Jordan. Everyone has their talking points, I get that, but this is some next level shit to be parroting already debunked conspiracy theories.

No, you couldn't. Because barring a few extremely fringe people on the left, Democrats still feel beholden to some semblance of the truth and some tenuous grasp of a commonly agreed upon set of facts. They don't literally conjure up fantasies and conspiracy theories.

And if you're talking about sticking to talking points, sure you could splice together cuts of Dems all saying roughly the same thing. But that's not the same thing as what the GOP and Fox News have been up to for 15-20 years.

[mister d]

So the argument is that Pelosi doesn't want to impeach because she's (checks notes) friends with Maureen Dowd?

No, my theory was and still is that Pelosi doesn't want to do anything that could be viewed as a political loss for Pelosi and that she's the absolute wrong person to lead opposition to all the horrible shit going on right now because she's too comfortable. At the end of the day, unless she suffers a massive political defeat, none of what's happening changes her life. That pic was simply an illustration of the clearly larger point.

[mister d]

I mean, isn't a wait-and-see or slowplay approach almost 100% done from a position of strength? You don't slowplay cancer.

[brian]

I'm agreeing she should impeach, but I'm also saying it really probably doesn't matter and the reasons why she isn't don't matter either. What's gonna happen in November 2020 is gonna happen regardless. You wanna make an argument she should be be replaced if the Dems are fortunate enough to win the House again next year, I'm right there with you.

But I'm not wasting any mental energy on stupid bullshit like worrying about Nancy Pelosi or what fucking parties she goes to when there's concentration camps at the border and (as you noted) the administration is trying to literally starve poor people to death. The truth is impeachment is a sideshow. I wish that weren't true but it's the way it is.

[mister d]

No, what's going to happen in 2020 is in part shaped by what happens right now and passive opposition will, 100%, be used as absolution for Trump. And unlike a Trump tweet serving as proof of no collusion or of his own genius or of him having a 15 inch dick, passing on impeaching will serve as definitive proof the Dems didn't think he was worth acting on. That will be devastating, both in congressional races and in the presidential race. It will depress turnout from the affected middle and the could-be rallied left and it will lead the idiot middle to think maybe the Dems are just whining about Trump like the Republicans whined about Obama.

[brian]

No, what's going to happen in 2020 is in part shaped by what happens right now and passive opposition will, 100%, be used as absolution for Trump. And unlike a Trump tweet serving as proof of no collusion or of his own genius or of him having a 15 inch dick, passing on impeaching will serve as definitive proof the Dems didn't think he was worth acting on. That will be devastating, both in congressional races and in the presidential race. It will depress turnout from the affected middle and the could-be rallied left and it will lead the idiot middle to think maybe the Dems are just whining about Trump like the Republicans whined about Obama.

And I don't think it's quite as clear cut as that. I don't know why the polls show such tepid support for impeachment, but that's a reality. I don't think there will be any significant negative repercussions to impeachment, but I'm not sure there's a great many positives either.

Put another way maybe -- if a theoretical voter out there needs impeachment to get excited about getting out and voting in 16 months then the election is already lost.

[brian]

Related:

[Johnnie]

And Charles Manson is dead!

[mister d]

And I don't think it's quite as clear cut as that. I don't know why the polls show such tepid support for impeachment, but that's a reality.

Its also a reality that politicians and their message framing affects polling. The active middle of the 40% impeach and the whatever percent loyalist is the news-as-entertainment dipshits. There's no better way to get in front of them.

I don't think there will be any significant negative repercussions to impeachment, but I'm not sure there's a great many positives either.

It would put a senile bully on the defensive. If people thought Mueller was too old and slow to handle yesterday, what would happen to Trump?

Put another way maybe -- if a theoretical voter out there needs impeachment to get excited about getting out and voting in 16 months then the election is already lost.

This seems to imply faith an election tomorrow would have Trump as the underdog.

[brian]

The midterm election results and the current polling suggest Trump is the underdog to almost every Dem challenger, so that's a reasonable assumption.

I think where you and I probably agree is that Pelosi and the Dem House leadership see that as well and don't want to rock the boat. I don't agree with that strategy (nor do you), but it's not exactly ridiculous either.

[Nonlinear FC]

Polling has Trump trailing the top 4 Democratic candidate head-to-head.

It's not a slam dunk, lot's bullshit in those numbers, and incumbents win 85percent of the time.

But it's not like Trump is good shape right now.

[degenerasian]

My fear is that while Trump may be the underdog now, he's not running against anyone and the next 12 months of Democratic candidates pulling out each other skeletons will make voters stay home.

[Joe K]

Polling has Trump trailing the top 4 Democratic candidate head-to-head.

It's not a slam dunk, lot's bullshit in those numbers, and incumbents win 85percent of the time.

But it's not like Trump is good shape right now.

Problem is that Trump can lose the popular vote by 3-5% and still win the Electoral College. So the head-to-head polling I’ve seen is close enough that I’m hardly reassured.

[mister d]

(And just to be a complete dick, but saying this not really all that facetiously either, I don't think its a terrible idea to heap a lot of additional stress on someone with his profile.)

[brian]

(And just to be a complete dick, but saying this not really all that facetiously either, I don't think its a terrible idea to heap a lot of additional stress on someone with his profile.)

That's the main reason I think the Dems should impeach to tell you the truth. I think it can't hurt to keep poking sticks at him.

I don't know if this is the best analogy, but it's the one I've been thinking of for the last hour. Think about a football game where you have a lead, but not an insurmountable one, but you have the ball. Let's say a 7-point lead with five minutes left and possession of the ball.

There are two separate bits of strategy there involved with the coaching, both are critical. The first is how aggressive you're going to be on offense with that lead and the ball. The second is the actual, specific plays you call based on what your strategy of aggression is.

In that analogy, Pelosi is probably like Lloyd Carr, Kirk Ferentz or Joe Paterno. Those are Big Ten-specific examples, but the analogy works if you replace them with whatever coach you want that fits that archetype of someone used to playing old-school, conservative football and someone who is not going to want to take too many chances at the end of the game at throwing an interception or making a critical mistake. That strategy can be debated, but it will only really ever be known if it was the right strategy or not until the game is over.

The second part of the analogy is there I feel the Dems fall down in our current predicament. In the example above, neither one of those aggression strategies is "wrong". You can win the game just as easily by running the ball 10 times for four first downs as you can by throwing the ball down the field and scoring another touchdown.

But you still need to execute the strategy you've chosen to perfection and for whatever reason, no one seems to be on the same page about what the hell the Dems are doing. Maybe that's Pelosi's fault, maybe it isn't (it probably is).

I'd like a more aggressive strategy and I'd like the threat of impeachment hanging over Trump's head through the fall until just before the primaries start. (At which time I would like the Dems to impeach).

If they don't end up going that route, we won't really know until November if it was right or wrong. But it isn't demonstrably, provably wrong right now. Nor can it be proven that impeachment wouldn't be the equivalent of throwing an interception.

Like at the end of the football game, we just have to have some faith that the strategy will be executed successfully. It's hard to have faith in Pelosi, but she's gotten it done before. Think about being able to wrangle the Dem caucus to get the ACA passed. Whatever you think of her, that was not easy and not just anyone could have done. Maybe the game has passed her by, but we'll probably have to wait and see.

[brian]

Polling has Trump trailing the top 4 Democratic candidate head-to-head.

It's not a slam dunk, lot's bullshit in those numbers, and incumbents win 85percent of the time.

But it's not like Trump is good shape right now.

Problem is that Trump can lose the popular vote by 3-5% and still win the Electoral College. So the head-to-head polling I’ve seen is close enough that I’m hardly reassured.

I made this point before, but that is very true, but it also highlights the importance of making sure that the platform, whatever it ends up being, is done to maximize the votes from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, PA, FL, NH, AZ, NC and two or three other states above almost anything else.

Running up the popular vote score by convincing some guy in CA who was on the fence, but was swayed by free college tuition (just to pick a random issue) doesn't accomplish anything if it means two voters in WI and MI go to Trump because of it.

In this sense, the constant demonizing of the centrists in the party is not helpful if there's a chance more radical policy positions will make it harder to win those states above. I don't know if it will or not, I'm not saying it will. But hopefully there's some really fucking smart people with boots on the ground getting data and plotting a strategy. And being able to have a reasonable debate about the realities of the situation and not some pie in the sky fantasy about Issue X or Issue Y.

[mister d]

If I'm following the football analogy, Pelosi/Paterno is going into ball-protection, conservative play call mode to start the 4th quarter down 35-24?

[brian]

If I'm following the football analogy, Pelosi/Paterno is going into ball-protection, conservative play call mode to start the 4th quarter down 35-24?

Up 35-24.

[mister d]

The Dems are down. Like way, way down.

[brian]

The Dems are down. Like way, way down.

They just had a historic mid-term election and all of the top candidates are beating Trump in a potential matchup (despite a strong economy). I get being pessimistic -- I'm as pessimistic as anyone -- but that's hardly "way down".

Of course, none of that means that they're "way up" either.

[Ryan]

Final score will be 10-9 Dems but the GOP took 3 of the quarters 3-0 so they actually win

[mister d]

That sounds like the electoral college!

[The Sybian]

Taking Brian's football analogy, I think impeachment would be like choosing to throw the ball when you know in advance there is a 99.9999% chance of a pick six, with Mister D in the stands, going full kit wanker (with helmet and team logo receiver gloves) screaming throw it deep to prove we aren't pussies!!!

Do I want Trump impeached? Fuck yes, probably more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. If I was asked that survey question, I would say the Dems shouldn't impeach right now, because it will be a huge victory for Trump when the Senate votes with Trump. He will steal the narrative screaming from the rooftops that he was acquitted of all wrong doing, and proof that the Dems are so desperate they will try to impeach because Trump is winning so much and they hate America. The problem with this, is most swing voters and low information voters will come away thinking the Dems are just out to get Trump, and Trump must not have done anything impeachable since he was acquitted. I've heard lots of mildly anti-Trump people complaining that the Dems won't let the Russia thing go, saying Trump didn't do anything wrong. I've heard people saying the Mueller testimony was a stupid waste of time by desperate Dems who can't accept Mueller's investigation was a witch hunt that amounted to nothing.

Unfortunately, the key to victory in 2020 is winning the low info swing voter. While they may not like Trump, dragging us through an unwinnable impeachment proceeding will annoy them and make them thinks the Dems don't have anything on Trump. Until there is reason to believe a few Republican Senators will consider impeachment, starting proceedings is just handing Trump an enormous win. It's frustrating as fuck, and sickening that the GOP in Congress are such a pile of spineless fuckwits that they let waves on insanity, incompetence, ignorance and corruption occur in direct view of the world every fucking day without the balls to call it out.