@Robby:
Trump should have been impeached a dozen times over by now. It's not just "it makes me feel good" it is their actual JOB to confront presidents that are abusing their authority and endangering the country and committing crimes. It shouldn't be political theater.
Impeachment was not very popular with Americans, believe it or not, the more times they try to impeach and it starts to lose meaning and probably results in Trump winning re-election. It's a tool that has to be used the right way or it will lose even more meaning than it already has. It finally got used because the support finally came in and it was super easy to understand what the crime was. Yes it's their job to make the statement of charges, you're not wrong. But it's all political as well. Nixon, who was about to be impeached, would have been impeached and removed from office due to the fact sticking by him would result in the GOP losing seats. You're not wrong about what it should be. But we have to deal what it actually is and it's very deeply political which means it either helps or hurts either party depending on the support or lack thereof for it. People are mad at this impeachment because Nancy didn't magically remove Trump. As long as she didn't remove him it was always going to be viewed as a failure. But again, not in her power to do that.
@Robby:
Every single case puts the facts in front of the american people, and makes them go "Okay, the republicans are blocking THAT too?" "Here's the crimes as we know them" over and over and over again.
As long as they clear enough and people don't get board with it. People got sick of Bill's impeachment by the end of it too.
@Robby:
The public at large didn't understand the Mueller report because it was too huge, too long, too legal, with way too many parties and countries involved over too many years. They DID understand "Trump strong armed the Ukraine into bribing him to get political dirt." because that was an easy one sentence crime, easy to understand a single direct phone call. And there's lots and lots of those.
This is very true. The Mueller report was a very hard thing for folks to grasp. Big reason I bet impeachment was not popular too was because of that. But this was a very easy to get, quick support incoming for impeachment all because Trump did that to try and beat Biden because he is rightfully scared of him. All the others? Maybe people will get it or not, but we know impeachment will not remove him at this point so it's all moot imo. Because again, people will view it all as failures as long as it does not remove Trump.
@Robby:
They put on a show and it did nothing BECAUSE it was performative. They waited for one thing to line up properly and then did nothing with it. Impeachment brings with it subpoena power and the ability to put people in jail if they don't cooperate and get more evidence and had they done it sooner, don't you think that might have helped the Mueller investigation? WHich explicitly said it was blocked on basically all fronts and needed the congress to bypass the blocks
Trump is now an impeached president. A black mark he can't get rid of. This drives him nuts. Which is nice itself but also, it got all these Republicans on record of defending him. You can say they did nothing with it but with Collins' poll numbers in Maine, I say it did a lot more to hold the GOP as a whole accountable than people give it credit for.
The Muller investigation was always on thin ice and died a dog's death the very moment the Democrats won the House and actually could do an impeachment (once there was a clear thing with enough support to impeach) so no I don't think it would have helped there because there was no way at all to get an impeachment going while it was at its height. And even then? With how confusing it was to people? It probably still would not have worked out in the way people wanted it to.
@Robby:
Instead, they ordered people to come in and testify, people refused, and then they… did nothing. No holding them in contempt, no fines, no putting them in jail. No risk, no danger, no reason to comply. If Trump uses his power to bail someone out? Then they hold THAT against him on the next indictment, or make him spell out very clearly what exactly he is doing.
They were never going to get Trump to do that without control of the Senate. This is a losing argument. People would just say the Democrats failed to put his people in jail and the media would call it a victory in Trump's favor. They didn't bother because this results in a Trump win here.
@Robby:
The did an impeachment to show they were doing an impeachment, they didn't actually DO anything with it or the power it provided opr give republicans any reason to cooperate. It's a check and balance, its something they had as a tool, and they failed to use it.
They used it far better than people give them credit for. It destroyed Trump's only point to use vs Biden and now he is failing at every level of attack on him because he only had the one plan. And again, got all the Republicans on record as defending him while the Dems did everything they could to make the case Trump committed a crime. Trump is an impeached President, he got impeached.
@Robby:
Republicans took Clinton getting a blowjob and made that the only news story for nearly three years. Dems impeached Trump on actual crimes and made a deal about it for about two weeks.
And people got sick of it. The media would have ensure what you're calling for would blow up in the Dems' face. Nancy handled this far better than the GOP did with Bill.
@Robby:
It didn't matter that the senate was going to vote against, impeachment is probably never going to go through when the accused party has the majority somewhere, its about declaring officially that the president has committed a crime, and using new powers to investigate that crime. But the powers of an impeachment were squandered and they weren't going to jump into another one no matter how proper because "it's an election year."
And it's been declared, he is impeached and the only way he is going out is via this election. An investigation of the crime was never going to happen.
@Robby:
Now we're four months out and its likely we still won't see his tax returns until well into next year, if ever, just for starters. Even though the SC has ruled on it now.
That's going to take months if not longer no matter what. Nothing the Dems can do about that.
@Robby:
Why the hell is he not under investigation right this minute for delaying his reaction to covid because of the quid-pro-quo that he had with China in November? Did you know that was a thing? Of course not, because no one pressed on it or made a deal out of it. Nevermind the 140,000 deaths and counting that might all be just because he wanted China's help, there's no point in looking into that because its an election year.
Because Republicans and the media.
@Robby:
Why hasn't the bar association stripped Barr of his credentials yet?
Because Republicans and the media.
@Robby:
"We'll vote him out in 4 months, and then hope he doesn't nuke the planet with the remaining 2 months" is a really terrible policy to have when there's no telling what kind of October surprises he might pull and the damage in the meantime.
Take it up with the Republicans and the media because the only way to rid of him is the election.