by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
We have not reached a tipping point yet. There has yet to be a sudden rush towards impeachment by the House Democratic caucus. If it happens at all, it appears it will happen later in the week, maybe in the Thursday – Friday time frame.
The desire to impeach is just about equal to the desire to “let the people decide” in 2020. Every day impeachment hasn’t officially begun is another day that Trump has won. If the articles of impeachment haven’t been sent to the Senate by around Jan. 15th, then all of this is a very moot point.
Mich McConnell is likely to invoke a rule that you can’t try a president in the Senate in the same year as presidential election. That will be the big shock of early 2020. Trump will see this as a gimme. There will not be a free and fair election if this happens.
At least on a Constitutional and strategic level, Nancy Pelosi is now complicit in not punishing Trump. If she doesn’t recognize this for the existential crisis it is and throw resources at the impeachment investigation immediately, history will not judge her kindly.
This is actually, at least superficially, a pretty jaw dropping scandal. Not just Trump, but Pence and Rudy are implicated in all of this. If we were a functioning democracy, they would all be at real risk of having significant legal jeopardy. As it is, lulz.
As mentioned, we’re long past the point where impeachment proceedings and the 2020 campaign don’t overlap. Both influence the other. So, really, the thing we would need to do for a proper impeachment proceedings — investigate every possible avenue of corruption, obstruction of justice, abuse of power and collusion / conspiracy, is simply not viable. Add to this that Pelosi has starved House Democrats of any budget and, really, things are rather bleak.
The only reason why impeachment suddenly came to the forefront in a big way was a massive unforced error on the part of Trump himself. And he is likely to slow walk and stonewall the whole thing as much as possible. Again, this makes the possibility of any sort of successful impeachment proceeding done in a timely manner (read, before mid-Jan. 2020) impossible.
Thus, the whole thing is likely be half-assed and half-hearted. And by the time the articles are voted on, the 2020 campaign will be in full swing. I honestly don’t know how all that would work out. As I said, I believe Leader McConnell is likely to make a big deal of “for the sake of the country” the Senate not try the president during an election year.
Two last things.
One, if I had limited funds and a short amount of time, I would have a day-long hearing with half-dozen psychologists to talk about the president’s state of mind.
House Democrats need to radicalize a little bit and be prepared to do things that might enrage the Right. Namely, I would suggest they use their ability to jail people for contempt in a gratuitous fashion. I saw someone on Twitter use some weird bullshit game theory reason why this would be a bad idea. Fuck that. Just do it. How else are you going to make the criminals running the government take things seriously?
