To impeach, or not to impeach

[pbrower2a]

(10-01-2019, 09:37 AM)David Horn Wrote: This is one area that polling seems to handle poorly.  Impeachment is a political death sentence, so supporters (especially Trump supporters) are uniquely unwilling to agree to it ... until they are.  That's the rub.  The change of heart is unpredictable, and tied to emotional rather than intellectual evidence.  Is a supporter shocked or sufficiently dismayed by some aspect of or action by POTUS to push him (less likely) or her (more likely) over the edge?  Once moved, does that person simply withdraw from the arena or become an active antagonist?  Impossible to know until it happens.

We're still in the early days.  I suspect that the temperament in the Democratic Party makes impeachment unavoidable, but the aftermath is still unknown and, frankly, unknowable.  Public opinion can be driven as much as it can drive others to action or inaction.    In another month, we'll have a better feel for where this is going, if anywhere.

I concur on the consequences of an impeachment. Bill Clinton was impeached, but not removed; it could be that enough Senators thought the allegations either frivolous or irrelevant. 

We have little experience with impeachment. The glacial pace of American politics in recent years can change quickly into something rapid and definitive, and impeachment can move fast... and shake up American political life. It may be that the elected Republicans are slower to see a Trump collapse than elected Democrats who see misconduct that would be horrible if by one of their own. But for Republicans who have their own agenda, basically an America great for those who already live like sultans on the assumption that what is best for such people is best for Humanity as a whole.

This said, the allegations of gross misconduct of this President have been building steadily until (1) the exposure of the Air Force refueling at a Trump resort -- which is when I started to believe that the President must be impeached -- and then (2) the President of the United States trying to get the President of Ukraine to do political dirty work for him against a potential opponent. 

We can read all the polls that we want -- but here is some historical perspective. To be sure, the process that led to the resignation of Richard Nixon took more time from a "second-rate break-in". But let us remember the differences. 

1. Nobody ever accused Nixon of any financial misdeeds.
2. Nixon's misdeeds started to appear late in his first term and at first seemed trivial and incomprehensible; Trump has been corrupt and despotic from the start of his term in office.
3. Trump is much more personally erratic.
4. Nixon had more political savvy, likely because he had more experience in elective office.
5. America was not as politically polarized in the early 1970s as it is now. When Nixon was President, the bulk of the American public concentrated around the center in a near-normal distribution. Since about 2000, American political life has developed a clear bimodal distribution with little activity near the political center. In 1973, John Stennis was a Democrat and Edwin Brooke was a Republican.    

bimodal distribution:



normal distributions:

  
Normal distributions can be highly-peaked or rather flat.  The bimodal distribution of political orientation  suggests little room for compromise as a technique of achieving the needs of the time --- and both sides say "My way or the highway!" -- and we have gridlock on the metaphorical highway.  

We can all go into long discussions of why American political life is so polarized -- political failure? Arrogant cultures?  You look at the 2008 election and you see Barack Obama winning with margins that one associates with Ronald Reagan in some states and losing with margins that one associates with George McGovern in others. You look at people who see Donald Trump as the most wonderful thing to have ever happened in American politics and a huge number who see Donald Trump as an unmitigated disaster. 

Beyond the generalities of history and formal rules I do not predict results of jury trials, court rulings, and polling results. Usually such is simply premature, and short-term prophecies that can easily go wrong are pointless. This said, history has moved slowly throughout this 4T, and indeed unusually slowly. But every 4T has had a swift and sudden culmination. This could have the rise and fall of the Trump Presidency as its focus. The economic downturn of 2007-2009 did not cause fundamental change in our political and economic system, so something else must. Apocalyptic war? God forbid!

To the extent that the process that took down Nixon has any relevancy to what we now (that was 2T and this is 4T, and we are in nearly-opposite points in the Saeculum, which matters greatly). The political structure is the same, if political life is very different. The Religious Right is much more potent now than it was in the early 1970s, and it has committed deeply to the President whose personal life is as pure a mockery of Christian values as is possible. The erosion of Nixon support came from a higher level (he did normalize relations with China, and he did start a peace process in Indochina) and looks like a slow grinding-down. Trump support looks to be the result of identity more than principle. Maybe the identity politics that started in the 1970's must give way to something more pragmatic and just (an odd combination, but such is possible and even necessary in a 4T that goes well).

Support for Trump has been grinding down slowly. But it is not headed in a good direction for him. 

   

Obviously this is not 1973-1974 anymore, and Trump is not Nixon. Trump has fanatical supporters who can seemingly excuse anything, which may explain why he has yet to get approval numbers below the mid 30's. Again, that is identity more than anything else. This, I believe, will not be enough to rescue Trump.