General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis is a process, a continuum, not a one shot deal - and we ALL have a critical role
Trump is not going to be drummed out of office based on one thing or one process. Impeachment will not remove him. An election will. But in order to remove him via election, the House must take steps toward impeachment and they must do it thoughtfully and correctly and in the right order so that, not only will they uphold the rule of law and send a message to history that this will not stand, but do it in a way that will help us remove him next November.
None of this can be done in isolation and none of us can sit back and expect someone else to do all the work.
Right now, the House under Speaker Pelosi's steady hand is doing EXACTLY what it should be doing. They are laying the necessary predicate for impeachment by exposing to the country Trump's obstruction and lawlessness and that it goes well beyond just the Mueller Report. In the process, they are also provoking him into helping them make their case.
They are proceeding with all deliberate speed, with "deliberate" being the operative word. They are building the case and making it stronger. And they are also creating the dynamics whereby when impeachment inquiry is opened, the public will think it was THEIR idea, not something pushed on them by a partisan Democratic House.
And the closer to the election this occurs (and I don't mean next summer, which would be too late, but not the next few weeks either, which would be too soon), the more it can effectively be used against him in the campaign and the more likely it will be to affect the outcome.
Now, that's the House's job and they're doing it. But we have a job to do, too - actually more than one. One of those jobs is to take the information that the House is developing and help them educate the public (i.e., friends, neighbors, colleagues) about what's happening. This means focusing attention outward and not expend our energy turning inward to constantly harp on, criticize and second-guess our Democratic leadership.
And then we have to work our tails off to turn out the vote next November. That means not just doing GOTV in November but starting now to educate voters about the stakes, make sure they understand why they should be voting FOR a Democrat and not just AGAINST Trump.
We have to do all of this together, hand in hand.
We can do this.
dlk
(11,566 posts)We must stop them.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)it to get here as that.
But that does mean both we and he have more time, him to appall and hurt those who want to vote for him, us especially to work on those rural voters whose regions had already turned pink in the midterms. The presidency will very likely once again come down to which party wins the electoral college.
Step by step.
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)Even this one, which has absolutely nothing to do with them.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)If it were only about approving or disapproving Trump, we could impeach tomorrow and after his trial a few months from now supported by a huge majority of newly angered and confident Republicans, Trump would continue in office greatly propped up for 2020.
Pelosi has her eyes above all on gaining or losing control in 2020. And that's how we get to rural voters. At this point we're heading for a second electoral college loss to Trump. We must turn some low-population red/pinky-red states.
Btw, a full third of Georgians are black and a large number of those are both rural and conservative. The rest of the south is similar. NM is almost half Hispanic, many living outside the few cities and the same, TX and FL a quarter and the same, and AZ and NV @30% each and the same. Rural only mostly means white in the NE, midwestern and a few western states.