Should Trump be impeached?

[crazy canuck]

The Economist had a good piece on this question - essentially the drafters of the American constitution did not anticipate a rigid two party system and the impeachment process does not work well in this political environment.   If the proceeding is started the House will vote to impeach and the Senate will vote to clear the President.  In the end he will be able to claim he has been exonerated and the country will been even more deeply split.

[DGuller]

Impeachment isn't going to cure the fuckedupedness that allowed Trump be elected in the first place, or to still be supported as widely as he is while openly supporting authoritarianism.  If anything, it'll make it worse.

[jimmy olsen]

What exactly do you mean by impeachment?

Should the House vote today to impeach and have the senate start the trial tomorrow? No, they should not.

Should the House open a formal investigation for impeachment, and start calling witness, issuing subpoenas, etc. They should.

Uncover as much dirt as possible, while parading his wrong doing in public, bait him to publicly react and generally make it as politically damaging as possible, then after you've done all that vote to impeach.

[Camerus]

Beat him at the ballot box and smash Trumpism with an unambiguous victory, thereby avoiding Dolchstosslegenden.

[dps]

What exactly do you mean by impeachment?

Should the House vote today to impeach and have the senate start the trial tomorrow? No, they should not.

Should the House open a formal investigation for impeachment, and start calling witness, issuing subpoenas, etc. They should.

Uncover as much dirt as possible, while parading his wrong doing in public, bait him to publicly react and generally make it as politically damaging as possible, then after you've done all that vote to impeach.

That makes it sound like they're holding impeachment hearings as a campaign tactic.  That would set a terrible precedent.

[Oexmelin]

That makes it sound like they're holding impeachment hearings as a campaign tactic.  That would set a terrible precedent.

What terrible precedent would that be?
Is it worse than all other Trump-made precedents?

[Razgovory]

Beat him at the ballot box and smash Trumpism with an unambiguous victory, thereby avoiding Dolchstosslegenden.

If we defeated Trump in 2016 we wouldn't have avoided a Dolschstosslegend.  Trump was talking about it before the election.  Why would a defeat in 2020 be any different?

[Admiral Yi]

What terrible precedent would that be?
Is it worse than all other Trump-made precedents?

Surely we should be aiming for a slightly higher standard than "only as bad as Trump."

[frunk]

What exactly do you mean by impeachment?

Should the House vote today to impeach and have the senate start the trial tomorrow? No, they should not.

Should the House open a formal investigation for impeachment, and start calling witness, issuing subpoenas, etc. They should.

Uncover as much dirt as possible, while parading his wrong doing in public, bait him to publicly react and generally make it as politically damaging as possible, then after you've done all that vote to impeach.

That makes it sound like they're holding impeachment hearings as a campaign tactic.  That would set a terrible precedent.

Why would exposing actual wrongdoing by the president and the administration be any worse than the made up crimes of Obama and Clinton we've been hearing about for the past several years?  How many Benghazi investigations were there?  As far as I'm concerned Congress has a duty to expose any such activity.  The Senate not doing anything about it doesn't mean we should ignore it.

[Camerus]

Beat him at the ballot box and smash Trumpism with an unambiguous victory, thereby avoiding Dolchstosslegenden.

If we defeated Trump in 2016 we wouldn't have avoided a Dolschstosslegend.  Trump was talking about it before the election.  Why would a defeat in 2020 be any different?

All but the nuttiest fringes will accept electoral defeat as legit. An impeachment after the Mueller fizzle on collusion, less so.

[Admiral Yi]

Why would exposing actual wrongdoing by the president and the administration be any worse than the made up crimes of Obama and Clinton we've been hearing about for the past several years?  How many Benghazi investigations were there?  As far as I'm concerned Congress has a duty to expose any such activity.  The Senate not doing anything about it doesn't mean we should ignore it.

What such activity are you referring to?

[viper37]

So much discussion on this impeachment. Personally, while I strongly believe that Pelosi is waiting until after we know if Trump wins or not, I don't believe it's in the best interest of our democracy to wait. But then, I'm an idealist.

What say you, Languish?

It is not in the best interest of your democracy to wait after the election, because it will be too late then.  If he committed impeachable offenses and he gets re-elected, it means the electorate knew of the facts and decided it was ok for him to do it.

Judging by the standards of Bill Clinton, lying to the American public is an impeachable offense...

Trump went much, much, much further than that.

However, realistically, what are your chances of getting an impeachment vote in the Senate?  About nil, I'd say, but correct me if I am wrong.

With that in mind, why would you even try it?  It might even backfire against the Democrats.

[Valmy]

Yes I understand this sets up a situation similar to the Roman Republic in its decadence.

Exactly.

True. But I said it for the opposite reason, where you set up a situation where nobody is held accountable for their actions so long as they remain in office.

[Eddie Teach]

Judging by the standards of Bill Clinton, lying to the American public is an impeachable offense...

Under oath.

[Valmy]

Judging by the standards of Bill Clinton, lying to the American public is an impeachable offense...

Under oath.

Well it depends on how you define the word "is".