October 9, 2019
What if the Senate really does produce a supermajority to convict Trump and ousts him from office? What happens next?
I think the entire theater of impeachment is taking place within the false security that the Senate will never be able to convict. But what if the momentum gets going and 2/3 of the Senators vote to convict? Yes, Pence becomes President, but what I mean is: What happens to the American people who voted Trump into office and who — from the moment they won — have had the experience of seeing their President treated like a big, horrible mistake? Their choice was never honored, never treated as respectable. They got to see that their opinion never mattered and was never supposed to prevail. And what will Trump do? Freed from the responsibilities of the presidency and past all the fighting of the impeachment battle, he won't hide away. He will be out and about, energized and inventing more new ways of being a politician in America, and he will have an immense audience, overshadowing what any other political candidate can do. The new temptation will be to prosecute him for crimes, but, again, how will this affect the millions of people who thought they won the election and then saw their victory taken away?
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216 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 216 of 216DeVere said...
I think we'd enter an era of political assassination, mostly by lone gunmen, since people acting in concert would be rolled up via surveillance.
10/9/19, 4:39 PM
The logical primary political targets would be any Senate voters for conviction, whose replacements would be appointed by Republican governors or legislators. Those could all be lone gunman jobs. Harder once they appoint themselves taxpayer-funded security details, which I think should be illegal.
The logical primary media targets would be the broadcast studios of the major networks in midtown Manhattan, or major papers or news agencies there, but there is heavy security in Manhattan, public and private. Some organization/cooperation would seem wise if it could be done securely, which seems hard in this day and age of our every comm being hoovered. But no doubt something could be done.
No doubt people more closely invested in the matter would have other ideas as well.
Ultimately I don't think there are enough domestic Security Forces to overwhelm a determined response to such tyrannical sedition. Besides, any number of those security forces might be susceptible to subversion.
Anyway, I should add, never happen. I don't believe the house will even vote to impeach.
As a note, they aren’t out to get Trump. They are out to get you; Trump is in the way.
Agreed, Nichevo. They don’t even have the guts to call a vote to open an impeachment inquiry. So far there’s been nothing but poorly staged theater.
Blogger Nichevo said...
Anyway, I should add, never happen. I don't believe the house will even vote to impeach.
10/9/19, 11:59 PM
Have they voted to start an impeachment process/investigation? Do they not need to do that, or can anyone in the house just start impeachment proceedings?
but there is heavy security in Manhattan, public and private.
__________________
THEN infiltration and subversion.
Bodyguards turned asssasssinssss
Blogger Rory said...
I think impeachment misses the point that we're not one country anymore. The urban crazies are not going to change their minds, and the rest of us are not going to kill 100 million people.
Wrong.
1: It won't take 100 million before the rest discover it's better to live quietly, than die loudly
2: The Left didn't build this country, they can't have it.
Blogger Bill Harshaw said...
I would hope the die-hard Trump supporters would recognize that he was impeached and convicted by a constitutional process, and they would redouble their efforts to elect him in the fall.
If Trump is impeached, it will be by criminals protecting other criminals. That gets no respect
"The logical primary media targets would be the broadcast studios of the major networks in midtown Manhattan, or major papers or news agencies there, but there is heavy security in Manhattan, public and private"
That's why Molotov Cocktails were invented
What happens to the American people who voted Trump into office and who — from the moment they won — have had the experience of seeing their President treated like a big, horrible mistake? Their choice was never honored, never treated as respectable. They got to see that their opinion never mattered and was never supposed to prevail.
Newt Gingrich can answer that question.
I write from the left, dismayed as so often to see how little agreement I have, even about basic matters of fact, with many millions of my fellow citizens. If Trump is removed from office, it will be because he is defeated in the election of 2020, or because the impeachment inquiry and trial produces such convincing evidence of wrongdoing as to alter the opinions of significant numbers of Trump voters and Republican senators--I don't think one would happen without the other. And if that happens, then I devoutly hope that nobody will convince him- or herself that that democratic result will somehow justify taking arms and attacking--whom, exactly? I’m alarmed by the gusto with which other commenters predict and advocate large scale acts of what would have to be called terrorist violence--attacks against media outlets, against fellow citizens who are guilty of profound disagreement with them about the facts of the Trump presidency. Should Fox News be shot up, too, if they change their party line, as there's some indication of them doing, and turn against Trump? Should you shoot people who support Kamala Harris, or only the ones who support AOC? There were apparently some non-trivial number of Sanders supporters in 2016 who voted for Trump in the general election. Who should they be attacking?
More generally, how are you to distinguish between a righteous revolt of the people against tyranny--a move that many celebrate here--and an armed insurrection of people who refuse to accept the results of a constitutionally sanctioned process? How many procedural irregularities does it take to justify armed violence? How about electoral irregularities? I understand--or I think I do--that in the view of many people here, the investigation into Trump's victory since 2016 seems virtually insurrectionary, somehow the equivalent of violent overthrow. But it isn't. I get furious, just as conservatives do, when I think that the other guys have violated norms and bent rules, as in the abuse of the filibuster to prevent judicial appointments under Obama, or the failure to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland, or the gerrymandering that prevents Congressional delegations from representing the popular will accurately. Conservatives will have their own list. But at no point have the proponents of impeachment suggested that Trump should be removed from office by extra-constitutional means. Or that the resistance of the majority who detest Trump should proceed by violence. Whether this impeachment is proceeding according to accepted rules is one of those large matters of fact that it's a mystery and a sadness to me to see that people can't agree on. But that any impeachment of a president would be the overturning of an electoral result is built into the process.
A quick sidenote: As a liberal, I've never felt sympathy with antifa (or with the SDS or Weathermen), nor have many (or any?) widely admired Democratic politician expressed admiration for such groups, who always hated Johnson or Clinton or even Obama at least as much as they hated Republicans. I don't recognize from any of the descriptions above a "well-organized" left or anything like it in a group that fractures constantly over policy details and political manners. I have always been envious of the organizing ability of the Tea Party and Phyllis Schlafly and the NRA and other groups that have successfully organized to win many elections and to move the needle on key issues such as gun rights which were much less widely construed several decades ago than they are now, and government activism, which was much more widely construed from the 30s to the 70s than in the Reagan era and since.
widely admired Democratic politician expressed admiration for such groups,<
Finished with a falsehood. Maybe you don't know any better,
Who do you have in mind, Michael K? Perhaps your lordly condescension is justified, or perhaps we've got different ideas about who are "widely admired Democratic politicians" or what other groups might belong in the category with Antifa or the SDS. In either event, a few examples would help me to understand what you have in mind.
twhp,
Maybe you really are serious, and what you write here actually does fairly represent your honest opinions.
but if you have the slightest bit of awareness, then surely you also know that your fellow leftists have poisoned the well for you, and nobody is going to take what you say at face value without a lot more proof of sincerity and just showing up as a new voice and making these claims
For an example of what I mean as far as demonstrations go, consider Matt Taibbi writing under his own real name in a national publication, saying some very sane let's-back-down-off-the-ledge stuff to his Lefty cohort.
narayanan said...
but there is heavy security in Manhattan, public and private.
__________________
THEN infiltration and subversion.
Bodyguards turned asssasssinssss
10/10/19, 9:11 AM
I'm sure I couldn't say. All that I will tell you is that the NYPD Hercules, Atlas, Samson, Nexus teams (outside of ordinary ESU) sweeping Manhattan for the next Osama Bin Laden are hard, are ready, are present. They're ready for the next 9/11 or the next Mumbai or the next Bataclan or the next Joker. I would advise you to not face them in pitched battle. They won't understand that you mean well.
Nichevo,
Yes, defense is inherently more difficult than offense: the bad guys only have to succeed *once*. (I know this because Indira Gandhi told me.)
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