Wow. It's like Gevlon never left.
 

I agree with Tobold; it's a farcical, toothless show trial. Trump could never be convicted on the charges in any legitimate court of law. The Republicans will grit their teeth and get through it. Four years is a long time in politics; Trump will be history then.
 

Gevlon probably thinks that Trump holds no moral responsibility for the riot at all, or that the riot was organized by Antifa. The problem is that the two partisan delusions are so far apart, that any centrist looks like an extremist to both sides. Thus for example the Trump supporters who think that Mike Pence should be hanged for treason, and that Fox News is left-wing liberal media.
 

You put it in a more cynical way then I would but you aren't wrong.

I do think some Democratic politicians really believe they needed to impeach Trump to send a message that his behavior shouldn't be normalized.

But everyone knew going into this that they weren't going to get 17 Republicans on board just like you would have serious trouble getting 17 Democrats to vote against a Democratic President if the situation were reversed.

Its political theater.

As a side note I find it humorous that Trump being banned on social media has been a huge boon to Republicans and allowed them to continue to embrace Trumpism and win over his supporters now that he can't damage the party by tweeting at 3 AM.
 

Tobold has a much firmer grasp of US politics than almost all of the vocal US citizens.
 

Imagine being a "centrist" and actually believing that Democrats and Republicans are lying/delusional in equivalent ways. You have basically thrown yourself out the Overton Window at this point.

This Impeachment is happening for the same reason the first one happened: it had to. Will Republicans close ranks in a nihilistic attempt maintain their own power, again? Yes. But to do nothing, not even go through the motions of indicating that a President soliciting foreign nations to interfere with an election, and then fomenting his supporters into a frenzy with objective lies in an overt attempt to overturn an election, would be to simply give up and acknowledge that democracy is dead in America.

Is this liberal hyperbole? You tell me what would have happened if Pence actually did what Trump asked. What should be clear to everyone by now is how utterly fragile the entire democratic edifice really is, in that it relies on people "doing the right thing" when they can, in fact, do anything they want apparently. All you need are 34 senators from your own party (and scared that your supporters will Primary them) and you become immune to prosecution and impeachment. And, possibly, immune to being voted out.

But "both sides," amirite?
 

I agree nearly 100% on what he said. Just wish more Americans understood it that way.
 

@Azuriel: I didn't say "equivalent ways". Democrat lies and delusions are more sophisticated, because Democrats are now the party of the educated elite. Republican lies are more basic, because they are now the party of the less educated rural population. With that gap in education also comes a greater propensity of right wing supporters to violence, but left wingers aren't immune to that. And they aren't immune to pretending to fight for a higher purpose, while actually just pursuing their partisan goals.

If Democrats believed that Trump had committed an actual crime, and not just been the root cause and morally responsible for the riot, but actually criminally responsible for it, then why don't they let the DOJ indict Trump and have him be judged by a court of law?

While I would disagree with Republicans saying that impeachment after leaving office is unconstitutional, I would say that it is unnecessary. Impeachment exists because otherwise a sitting president is mostly immune from the law. Impeachment exists to rob him of that immunity, so he can be judged for his crimes.

Impeachment to "save democracy" is a lie. It will achieve absolutely nothing, legally speaking, and everybody knows that and knew it from the start. The sole purpose is clearly to score points against the other party, because they are unable to cut Trump loose. I'm not saying that impeachment is a bad idea, because obviously you *want* the other party to look like the party supporting the rioters (which is somewhat ironic, because Republicans tried exactly the same scare tactic on the Democrats during the BLM riots). But you shouldn't be a sanctimonious prick about it.

The only thing you are doing by perpetuating those lies is getting America closer to the next civil war; a war in which both sides will have "we are here to save America" written on their flags, while spilling the blood of their countrymen.
 

I believe that everybody who has stopped believing that there are good people on both sides is lost for democracy. Democracy relies on the realization that a few years from now it will be the other side's turn to govern. Which is exactly where Trump did wrong.
 

If the left can kill God in America, they can most certainly cancel Trump in achieving the next step of their agenda. You make good points in your post, Tobold, but never forget that partisan politics aside, the greater issue at stake here is the amazingly stupid amount of hypocritical actions taking place on both sides that weaken our Constitutional processes.

Why can't someone who believes in the Constitution, while protecting it and its processes, be seen as a good American, regardless of political affiliation? And no, I'm not talking about the Capitol insurgents here as being the representation of "good Americans". I'm talking about Americans who see our country heading into the exact same direction that you point out in your post.
 

"If the left can kill God in America"

Im sorry but this statement is so ridiculous I had to reply to it. Both the house and Senate are over 85% Christian. The majority of congress members on both the right and left are Protestant, Baptist, Methodist and Catholic. The next largest group are Jewish congressmen followed by Mormans.

There are only 19 members of Congress who classify themselves as unaffiliated to a religion or agnostic. Not a single member is a declared Atheist. (Unless one just got in this January but I dont believe any did.)

Christianity is baked into almost every single aspect of this country.

Just because politicians on the left don't subscribe to your specific flavor of Christianity doesn't mean they killed God in America.


 

Just because politicians on the left don't subscribe to your specific flavor of Christianity doesn't mean they killed God in America.

What part of my previous reply leads you to believe that I have a particular flavor of Christianity? I said what I did to underlie the machinations of what Tobold is describing in his post. The point is about how one side see's the other, and the general fears that one side has about what the other is trying to achieve, and the steps or processes being used by either side in support of their agendas at the expense of the Constitution.

Whatever the agenda, the onus of justification for any type of change is on those who would use coercion as a mechanism to limit freedoms, instead of Constitutional processes.

Now, which party did I just describe in my last sentence?
 

Compared to Europe, America is deeply religious.

Religion rarely plays a role in European politics. There was one rather remarkable exception in 2015, when the centre right German chancellor Angela Merkel allowed a large number of Syrian refugees into the country with the argument that it was the Christian thing to do. Which went completely against the right's usual anti-immigrant policies.

Unfortunately any politician doing the right thing because of his religion is a rather rare thing. Usually religion in politics is a crutch, an attempt to conjure a divine justification for something which is clearly wrong. Anyone telling you that you should vote for one party because "God told you so" is a charlatan.
 

It's easier to see the further away you are but hard when you are surrounded by it on a daily basis.
It's the nature of politics and it's worse in the US where with only two real choices. There is only the package deal of either party and the goal seems to be to make the other party look so bad that you want to oppose them - with the only other choice.

Tobold: "Democracy relies on the realization that a few years from now it will be the other side's turn to govern. Which is exactly where Trump did wrong."
Trump did a lot of bad stuff, but I would say that the democrats disregarded that rule from day one. I mean Hillary was a done deal for the world, business as usual - when it turned out differently, 'not my president' started and the left leaning media did their best to whip up emotions against Trump.
It all became a theatre to show who is morally superior. Might take a while to bottle that genie again.
 

My point is that it doesn't matter who started it. There clearly were differences in degree between "not my president" and "stop the steal", but arguing those differences and appointing blame leads nowhere. Just as I would argue that there is a difference in degree between an impeachment process for getting a blowjob under the resolute desk and an impeachment process for inciting an insurrection, even if in the end both of those impeachment processes lead nowhere and have no purpose other than damaging your political opponent.

A healthy democracy has different sides who have different political programs and goals, and over the span of decades those different sides each get the chance to implement their programs to some degree, giving the voters the chance to see what works and what not. An unhealthy democracy has different sides who can't even agree upon what truth is, who are permanently outraged about absolutely everything the other side does, and who consider the possibility of the other side being in power to be an existential catastrophe that will lead to the downfall of the country. There was more common ground on issues other than slavery between North and South just before the Civil War than there is common ground between Democrats and Republicans now. The killing has already started, it is just still rather small scale. But the trajectory clearly is one that will lead to much larger casualty numbers if the course can't be reversed.
 

I think you're broadly correct, Tobold, although perhaps slightly more pessimistic about the future than me.

My limited understanding is that impeachment is in principle a legal procedure, or at least the writers of the constitution intended it to be one. In practice, bipartisan US politics means that there is no way Trump is getting anything resembling a fair trial (I'm sure a small minority of senators will honestly attempt to give him one, but even they will have difficulty overcoming preexisting biases).

I continue to believe that the main problem in US politics is that there are only two relevant parties. Bipartisan politics is rarely healthy. And US politics are bipartisan because the US political system appears (at least on casual inspection) to have been designed by someone who never considered the concept of party politics. In the absence of political parties, I think it could work very well; but there is no practical way to remove political parties from politics and retain democracy (if all senate and house votes were secret ballots, party politics would largely disappear, but then you wouldn't have democracy because voters wouldn't be able to assess their representatives in any way).
 

Impeachment to "save democracy" is a lie. It will achieve absolutely nothing, legally speaking, and everybody knows that and knew it from the start. The sole purpose is clearly to score points against the other party, because they are unable to cut Trump loose.

And why, exactly, are they unable to cut Trump loose? Does he have a gun to their heads?

Look, I get it. I used to be all about "Enlightened Centrism" too because it was easy to sanctimoniously criticize both sides. But like I said earlier, you're hanging outside the Overton Window at this point. Republicans stormed the Capitol building during a joint session of Congress, wearing tactical gear and carrying zip-tie handcuffs, chanting to kill the Vice President, all in an attempt to overturn the results of a free and fair election that the sitting President claimed was stolen (and was unable to prove in 50+ court cases even to judges he appointed). Those insurrectionists were within hundreds of feet of catching actual Congressmen and women. Does anyone have any doubt that Democrats would have been specifically targeted had the doors been breeched?

Ask yourself this question: had the rioters actually murdered a member of Congress, do you think 17 Republican Senators would vote to convict? Or would we still be where we are?

And yet, somehow, Democrats bear the responsibility for lies like "things should matter" and to not score points by saying "this is unacceptable behavior from a President." Who exactly made this an unhealthy democracy? Hint: it's the probably the same people who claimed a pandemic that has killed now 475,000 Americans a hoax. How do you reason with that? How do you, with no apparent sense of irony, say "there are good people on both sides"? More than 72% of Republicans believe that Trump won more votes in the election, from polling that happened after the riots. Perhaps you are referring to the fine 28% that may still have some grounding in reality.
 

How do you, with no apparent sense of irony, say "there are good people on both sides"?

Trump and his followers tried to steal the election. But who were the people who stopped them? Republicans, mostly. Not a single state gave in to Trump's demands to change the election results. Republican state officials all did the right thing, in spite of death threats and a more real threat to be attacked in the next primaries. Mike Pence did the right thing, in spite of a mob shouting "Hang Mike Pence!". How can you, with no apparent sense of irony, not count them as good people?

And what do you plan to do when in 2024 or 2028 a Trump or Pence or Cruz or Hawley is elected president? Do you propose not to count those votes? Do you propose armed resistance?

"Republicans stormed the Capitol" is about as true as "Democrats stormed Portland". The number of Republicans that actually wanted to overthrow democracy by violent means was obviously small enough for those plans to fail. And sorry, what struck most of the world was not how dangerous these people were, but what complete morons they were, posing for selfies and photos with stolen federal property, and posting on social media. Trump bears moral responsibility for the deaths and carnage that mob caused, but you are trying to represent this as if every American registered as a Republican was in favor of a violent overthrow of the government, and that is simply a lie. The numbers you cite only prove one thing: That Democrats believe Democrat lies, and Republicans believe Republican lies, and America degenerates into a post-truth society.
 

Two more random thoughts on impeachment, which might make you wonder what world we live in:

1) The arbitrary decision of a private company to ban Trump from Twitter has a bigger impact on his current and future political power than an impeachment trial (or two).

2) Impeaching an ex-president for incitation to insurrection assumes that American voters wouldn't mind that insurrection and could vote Trump back into office in 2024.
 

> The arbitrary decision of a private company to ban Trump from Twitter has a bigger impact on his current and future political power than an impeachment trial (or two).

Not that surprising, considering that his political power came from Twitter and other social media, and not from the Senate or the Republican party. "Twitter giveth and Twitter taketh away"


 

> Trump and his followers tried to steal the election. But who were the people who stopped them? Republicans, mostly. Not a single state gave in to Trump's demands to change the election results. Republican state officials all did the right thing, in spite of death threats and a more real threat to be attacked in the next primaries. Mike Pence did the right thing, in spite of a mob shouting "Hang Mike Pence!". How can you, with no apparent sense of irony, not count them as good people?

Agree, there were a lot of people in the party that did the right thing. And they have been called RINOs and threatened with primaries. So, let's see, in 2-4 years, how many of those will still hold any position of influence in the Republican party?