Here’s my take on Impeachment. I welcome your push-back, support, thoughts, comments, and pie (feel free to throw in a milkshake).
The facts in the Mueller report leave absolutely no doubt in our minds about whether an impeachment inquiry is the right thing to do. So, should it be now or...when?
We (as in—people who come to this site and people who don’t who actually read the Report) know Trump’s guilty as hell of criminal behavior both before and after he was elected. We know he’s been running a criminal enterprise for decades. We know he shouldn’t just be impeached, he should be indicted under RICO and soon wearing clothes that match his hair color (until it runs out at least) in a Supermax.
Who are “we”? We’re high-information, politically active Democrats, with more than a few Dem Socialists thrown in. Let’s be charitable and say we’re 40% of the electorate. What about everyone else?
For starters about 35% of them (the absolute floor of Trump’s job performance rating) will never be convinced of anything anyone says about Trump nor will evidence matter. If the Pee Tape comes out, futures for Russian Prostitution services will skyrocket and we’ll be seeing MAPA hats (Make America Pee Again).
Another 10% (who sometimes support Trump) will never favor impeachment; they love that steady stream of Bible-thumping, Dark-money-loving, Voter-suppression-fluffing gaggle of new Federal judges, and other Republican soul, human, and planet destroying endeavors.
That leaves about 15% who are Never Trumpers, suburban former Repubs, Indies and Conservadems. Most have never even read objective summaries of the key findings of the Mueller report (e.g. all the specific acts of obstruction that would have sent anyone other than Drumpf to a Federal Pen by now).
Furthermore, they get their news from places that basically glomed onto the Barr Bypass of the report’s clear indictment (in substance if not in fact) of Trump’s actions. They exist on a different plane of reality from us. This is why impeachment still isn’t supported by a majority of Americans. It’s a no-brainer for us, and for them, no part of their brain has really absorbed the enormity of what the TrumpCo has done to America and the grave threat posed by its continuing to remain in power.
Now these folks are as persuadable as Americans during Watergate were; yet, they’re either on the fence on impeachment or currently opposed to it. What’s more they believe that it’s politically motivated, rather than the logical and, in fact, ONLY reasonable course of action to stop this full-time Dick and wanna be Dick-tator.
The testimony of Mueller and others will bring Trump’s conduct front and center and will (hopefully) turn a majority of the American people against him, something that’s not happened yet, mainly because it hasn’t been presented to them in a galvanizing way.
Whether Mueller likes it or not, he’s a rock star—people will tune in, and those who didn’t have strong convictions about impeachment will hear Mueller explain in a clear narrative form, not a 4 page “NO COLLUSION!” spin how Trump engaged in an undeniable concerted pattern of obstructive behavior and how he jumped at the chance to be a traitor by “loving” and taking very concrete steps (e.g. sharing micro-targeting data) to facilitate the intrusion of a hostile power into our electoral process.
Impeachment hearings should await the critical mass of support necessary to carry the load all the way through its inevitable failure in the Senate. We’re actually quite close to it now—we just need to get as many of these undecided people on board as possible first.
That failure to convict will then be every Republican Senator’s dilemma, because it will cost them crucial votes in purple (and trending purple—TX, for example) states.
I wanna see this turd of a president impeached as much as you, but making it a political Waterloo for Republicans is equally important to me.