The Tyrannical Minority

[_honorentheos]

You seriously think we are where we are with public opinion because of the effort and not the content? That were we going down this path with the Mueller report rather than the Ukraine investigation the results would be the same? I find that to be an amazing misread.

[_EAllusion]

You seriously think we are where we are with public opinion because of the effort and not the content? That were we going down this path with the Mueller report rather than the Ukraine investigation the results would be the same? I find that to be an amazing misread.

There were just as accessible examples of gross abuse of power in the past. That people follow the queues of political leaders in polls is not an exotic claim. It's well supported in the political science literature. It's also why, for example, huge numbers of Republicans have decided that what Trump did is actually good. It's not an opinion they would've purported to hold until recently.

[_honorentheos]

At the end of the day it doesn't matter much what you think on this as the case being pursued has the best chance of persuading voters it wasn't a partisan issue but one of gross wrong doing on the part of Trump. You want to argue Democrats played it poorly and it's just the force of progressive outrage that got us here, argue away. It doesn't change anything of substance. It does make me think the world is best off not having too many EAllusion types in office, though. Or is it that the forces of evolution-like selection have resulted in such being unlikely to be good at the job? Meh. Chicken and egg.

This post is gonna age well if Elizabeth Warren wins the Democrat nomination. Anyway, it's a minority of Democrats who are forcing the majority to behave this way because Democrats can't do anything without their support.

I suspect that a Warren nomination could be one of those great What If moments where we find out how well Sanders would have faired in place of Hillary. I kinda hope we don't and think the media is doing the Democrats a disservice right now by basically saying the Democrats have Biden, Sanders and Warren and then a bunch of also rans so they are in a pickle but that's politics in 2019. And you are right, it's being brought on by an active minority in the party competing against a less enthused segment that is checking the Biden box right now. Biden winning could be a positive for Trump, too, given the all or nothing attitude of your branch of Trump opposition. I'm sure you'd vote for just about anyone other than Trump especially with Wisconsin being a necessary Democrat win but both Biden and the Sanders/Warren wing aren't necessarily the obvious path to victory the Democrats want or need overall. So if I end up eating my comment come election day I'll take that. It could be infinitely worse. But I won't cede that point just because Warren wins the nomination. There's this issue with needing to win national opinion in a way that aligns with, you know, actually winning and not moral wins like the popular vote that actually matter.

[_honorentheos]

Uh, yeah. The issue with Republicans right now is the politicians are on board with Trump in terms of sharing his ideological views and their voters are cueing up behind them. Sounds accurate. Being primaried for stepping out against Trump is only a concern for cowards who don't realize they'd win over other voters who are known for showing up at primaries even in states where you have to be registered to the party to participate so...good catch.

[_EAllusion]

I suspect that a Warren nomination could be one of those great What If moments where we find out how well Sanders would have faired in place of Hillary.

I don't buy that. They have different strengths and weaknesses. While they might both be in the more leftward part of the political spectrum, they draw their core support from different coalitions. And if you really want to get into the weeds of it, they're ideologically distinct with different approaches and priorities. The fact that Warren is a woman is pretty salient, especially when you consider that measures of sexism was one of the best Obama-Trump voter predictors. Also, it's entirely different election conditions. People who were willing to take a chance on Trump have seen the near worst case scenario play out. Maybe at least some of them decide differently in a do-over? Each election is its own thing.

Biden winning could be a positive for Trump, too, given the all or nothing attitude of your branch of Trump opposition.

Biden seems extremely ready to do a repeat of Obama's "Let's look forward, not backward" move that has contributed to our present moment of unaccountable authoritarians ransacking the country. If a Democrat is going to actually win, Trump and his cohorts best chance to escape serious consequences is probably a Biden victory.

In terms of whom to run against. I don't know. Biden has led in head-to-heads consistently for long enough that it is at least some weak evidence in favor of him being one of the stronger candidates.

I'm sure you'd vote for just about anyone other than Trump especially with Wisconsin being a necessary Democrat win but both Biden and the Sanders/Warren wing aren't necessarily the obvious path to victory the Democrats want or need overall.

I don't think Wisconsin is a necessary Democrat win. I think Arizona and Wisconsin are interchangeable and, given current demographic trends, about equally swingy.

Biden and Sanders are reasonably popular in Wisconsin. Warren is meh. They're all capable of winning because candidate differences in election outcomes are marginal. That's ultimately why we're talking about a President Trump in the first place.

So if I end up eating my comment come election day I'll take that.

Warren supports all the arguments I'm saying here. I just think your point would look especially bad if the standard bearer of the party holds views that you think are a those of a radical minority that can only rarely get elected. I'm reasonably confident a lot of people in office don't disagree with me. They're chained to a group of people that have power because 1) their votes are needed and 2) they're mostly, though not exclusively old people who have senior positions.

...actually winning and not moral wins like the popular vote that actually matter.

I think you are very wrong about what gives the best chance of "actually winning." And this is before we consider the fact that President Trump's actions show a lot of circumstantial evidence he plans on benefiting from foreign election interference he's egging on. It might be a good idea to try and uncover what you can. Nothing helps you lose an election quicker than when the President is using his vast powers to cheat. We have one instance in which the President illegally hid an attempt to extort a foreign nation into creating propaganda against his opponents. We have another instance in which a hostile power helped him get elected while he knowingly ran interference for them. We have another instance where he went on live TV to implore a hostile power to go after his political opponents. Maybe at least try to look at what's happened in those other foreign calls that were also illegally hidden? Maybe?

[_EAllusion]

With respect to the Ukraine scandal, we were not that far away from the plot succeeding. Ukraine was poised to shortly give the announcement the President was pressuring them to. What stopped that from happening was the whistleblower and subsequent news reports. That's killed the value of the announcement, so it isn't happening. While Trump might not ultimately be removed from office for this, at least the plot was thwarted.

You are extremely naïve if you think other plots aren't afoot. We already know there are people in the Whitehouse that are reluctant to come forward on their own, but will come clean if pushed. It's probably a good idea to use the full investigatory powers of impeachment proceedings to deter other attempts for as long as you can. Call the careerists in and ask every question you can. Even if you don't remove the man from office, there's a lot of value in just retarding his efforts to corrupt the election.

[_honorentheos]

With respect to the Ukraine scandal, we were not that far away from the plot succeeding. Ukraine was poised to shortly give the announcement the President was pressuring them to. What stopped that from happening was the whistleblower and subsequent news reports. That's killed the value of the announcement, so it isn't happening. While Trump might not ultimately be removed from office for this, at least the plot was thwarted.

To quote myself from this thread, whether or not the odds were always out there Trump would eventually take something too far, his own hubris would result in his undermining himself, and surrounding himself with sycophants would ultimately undermine his need for loyalty to protect himself because he no longer had people of principle working for him is another question. But it appears with the Ukraine scandal all three have finally overlapped. This one seems like it has the evidence, the sources, and the credibility to overcome the sense that witch hunts against political opponents are the norm in modern Washington and something is different this time.

You are extremely naïve if you think other plots aren't afoot. We already know there are people in the Whitehouse that are reluctant to come forward on their own, but will come clean if pushed. It's probably a good idea to use the full investigatory powers of impeachment proceedings to deter other attempts for as long as you can. Call the careerists in and ask every question you can. Even if you don't remove the man from office, there's a lot of value in just retarding his efforts to corrupt the election.

I don't think the major hurdle is convincing people Trump is up to dirty shinannigans. It is that these shinannigans are different and should concern all Americans. People seem to take it as given politicians are up to no good but as long as it's for the overall benefit of their so-called side they don't get too wound up over it. This current moment has advantages to that end so many other legitimate concerns regarding Trump lacked. One risks losing those advantages trying to throw the book at him when the equivilent of tax evasion is the chance to get something to stick.

There is also a certain irony not lost on me that of the two of us, I am fairly confident I would be the more satisfied with a Warren/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led Democrat party being in power but since we are arguing with pistols at dawn or whatever this is, feel free to cheerlead for the Democrat extremists, EA. I'm kinda indifferent as long as Pelosi keeps them from damned the bigger game up. She seems to be doing that quite well, too.

[_EAllusion]

[
To quote myself from this thread, whether or not the odds were always out there Trump would eventually take something too far,...

The problem with this quote is Trump took things "too far" and was caught red-handed many times before this. It's not that this one example is so much more egregious than the others that it got attention where others didn't. Further, just because one person out of dozens who has touched Trump's corruption in this one specific instance blew the whistle doesn't mean nothing else is going on where the number of people choosing to remain silent is 0 as opposed to near 0. Might want to investigate that and see what's going on. Or maybe look a little more into previous instances that we already know a lot about, but the public hasn't fully absorbed.

I don't think the major hurdle is convincing people Trump is up to dirty shinannigans. It is that these shinannigans are different and should concern all Americans.

President Trump ran interference for a Russian attack on our election systems and then systemically tried to obstruct investigations into it. He has taken every action available to him to wither defenses against future Russian attacks. He's using government largess to personally profit at a mind-boggling scale while foreign actors pay him barely concealed bribes.

I think these things should concern all Americans.

There is also a certain irony not lost on me that of the two of us, I am fairly confident I would be the more satisfied with a Warren/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led Democrat party being in power but since we are arguing with pistols at dawn or whatever this is, feel free to cheerlead for the Democrat extremists, EAllusion.

"Extremist"

I'm kinda indifferent as long as Pelosi keeps them from ____ the bigger game up. She seems to be doing that quite well, too.

In the abstract, it's hard to even imagine who thinks Pelosi is being shrewd here even though you know this is a middlebrow journalist take. I think I'll call this Maggie Habermanning.

[_honorentheos]

Not borrowed or elaborated on, just my take over time. The resistance to chasing impeachment that allowed this particular instance to receive the bridge too far treatment is legit but that doesn't make it less shrewd. It seems to have been the right read, and given Trump's attempt to paint Pelosi as going to pieces backfired hard, coming to symbolize men trying to bully women in the workplace, he is left to trying to paint Schiff as the black guard holding secret hearings intent on undermining his presidency. Of course that's got a shelf life of however long it takes to start holding public hearings which is, to be fair, a tactical issue that is possibly tricky to handle well so we will see how they manage that transition. But either way, I'd say the Democrat Congressional leadership has been doing rather fine. Schiff had the only legit bobble off his shoe on an easy inbound pass when he stopped looking professional for a moment but hopefully that served as a lesson early enough on to learn from rather than regret.

[_EAllusion]

Trump has Bill Cosby / Harvey Weinstein levels of evidence against him as a serial sexual predator too. The news cycle is so insane that dozens of new women credibly accusing the President of assault was a 3rd tier story that barely registered.

This has crossed over into instances in which he has likely engaged in crimes to conceal his sexual impropriety from the public. The odds that Republicans would be investigating the hell out of a Democrat in this circumstance is approximately 1,000,000% given that they are willing to do that for ginned up pseudo-scandals. And it seems to be good electioneering. Donald Trump is President right now directly because of endless Benghazi fishing expeditions with no meaningful evidence of underlying wrongdoing.

For a certain type of Pelosite, this is a "distraction" that they're fearful will somehow make them lose.