Independent voters and the possible consequences of a failed impeachment

This post is motivated by my puzzlement at several recent exchanges.

I have commented, in multiple contexts, that Democrats cannot impeach Donald Trump without recreating the 1998 midterm election.  Donald Trump wants to be impeached because he knows it will help him, electorally.  The normal pattern in midterm elections is that the party of the president loses seats.  There have been two exceptions in modern history.  In 2002, George W. Bush's approval rating was still riding high from 9/11, and the GOP gained seats.  Aaaaaand, in 1998, the Republican impeachment of Bill Clinton backfired, and the Democrats gained seats in the House.  My consistent argument has been that if the Democrats impeached Trump, the Senate would acquit him, likely holding the votes to convict below 50%, far below the 2/3 threshold for removal, and the electorate would respond with an anti-Democratic backlash.  Trump would point to the Senate's acquittal as another demonstration of his vindication, accuse the Democrats of still whining about the 2016 election, in which he won THE GREATEST ELECTORAL COLLEGE LANDSLIDE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Barr will drum up charges against Strzok and Page to turn it around on the Democrats and say that the whole investigation was a "deep state" conspiracy, and a coup attempt, and as far as any independent voter will be concerned, they'll see partisan squabbling.  Partisan squabbling, by definition, is not something that is impeachable.  That automatically makes the Democrats wrong.  All the Republicans have to do to ensure a backlash is hold the line and make it look like a partisan squabble.

I have gotten some pushback on this, and with plenty of Democrats talking themselves into initiating impeachment proceedings, I guess it is time to address this.  Right now, I'd still say the odds are against impeachment proceedings.  For what it's worth, here is the PredictIt market on impeachment in Trump's first term.  Right now, nearly 40 cents on the dollar.  I doubt it, but there isn't really much precedent here.

Anyway, there have been two types of responses, both having to do with how independent voters would respond.  First, the difference between Trump and Clinton is that all Clinton did is have sex with an intern and lie about it.  Trump's campaign colluded with a hostile foreign power, and then Trump personally interfered improperly with the investigation in order to shut it down and protect himself, his family and his cronies.  I am using the terms, "colluded," and, "interfered," rather than the criminal terms, "conspiracy," and, "obstruction," because of the questions of the legal thresholds, but as I have written repeatedly, I think that the publicly available evidence is overwhelming for both, and any serious reading of Robert Mueller's report is on my side.  See, for example, Mueller's assessment of the Manafort-Kilimnik meeting, or his reasoning for his inability to bring charges against Don Jr. for the Trump Tower meeting.  Collusion, but not conspiracy because of the evidentiary requirements for conviction.

So, the pushback goes, when presented with the overwhelming evidence that Trump is horrible and guilty and whatnot, impeaching Trump will not look so bad.  Clinton?  That caused a backwash backlash because it was an objectively bad idea to impeach the guy for, um... ruining a dress.  Crimes against fashion, or something, don't constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.  Trump, though, really is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Do you see the problem here?  This is a line of reasoning based on the premise that independent voters will make an objective assessment of facts.  Any line of reasoning dependent on that assumption falls apart at the starting gate.  Is Trump guilty of worse crimes than Clinton?  Yes.  However, the premise that we live in a fact-based world in which independent voters, of all people, make reasoned judgments on the basis of actual facts is a premise so laughable that I'd laugh if I were still capable of laughter.  But, I'm not because Trump killed comedy when he took the oath of office and turned reality into something too bizarre to satirize.

There is a long-running theme on this blog, as it relates to Trump and the denigration of democracy.  Whatever we take democracy to be, it requires facts and fact-based dialog.  However, no human being in history has ever lied more than Donald Trump.  I phrased that sentence with care so that it would be, I hope, literally true rather than exaggeration.  I have never seen anyone, ever, in any context, who lies more than Donald J. Trump.  However shameless, craven and malicious a liar you think he is, he is worse.  Whatever words are coming out of his mouth are false.  If you think you have found someone, anywhere, who is more dishonest than Donald J. Trump, you haven't.  He is the upper-bound, in mathematical terms, of human dishonesty.  It is not possible to be more dishonest than Donald J. Trump.  He lies needlessly, pointlessly, shamelessly and above all, stupidly, because he truly does not know how to tell the truth.  About anything.  Ever.

Or, to use another of my favorite phrases to describe him, he is the lying-est liar who ever lied a lie.

Every single thing he says is a lie.

To make matters worse, his entire party backs him on nearly everything, and he has a major media operation to amplify him, while simultaneously feeding his own lies back to him in a perverse feedback loop.  The lies didn't start with Donald Trump.  He rose to the top of the Republican Party by assuming the mantle of birtherism, which should probably be credited to Orly Taitz, and then there are lies like the "death panel" lie, which should be jointly credited to Betsy McCaughey and Sarah Palin.  There's a long history, and all of this predates Trump, and really, he is merely the logical conclusion of the direction the Republican Party was already heading:  all lying, all the time.

And there is a consequence, which I keep addressing here.  We no longer live in a fact-based political world.  When I respond to the survey prompts in Bright Line Watch, and write posts about each wave, this is one of my central observations.  I place a great deal of weight on the necessity of having a common understanding of fact.  Without that, nothing can function in a democracy.  Over the course of the last several years, the Republican Party, culminating in Donald Trump, has destroyed the American polity's ability to determine fact by lying constantly about everything.

We no longer live in a fact-based political world, nor anything close to it.  Any line of reasoning that depends on the assumption that independent voters-- systematically the least informed and least engaged-- will make a judgment based on objective fact should be disregarded.  Yes, Trump is obviously worse than Clinton, in terms of his record of the commission of anything that could be classified as high crimes and misdemeanors.  However, Republicans' heads are filled with lies, Democrats believe this statement already because of their partisan animosity, and independent voters cannot pick truth from fiction because facts no longer exist in our political world.  (Me?  I'm a misanthrope.)

This, after all, is central to how Donald Trump has put the final nail in the coffin of American democracy.  If you can lie with impunity, you can get away with anything, and Donald Trump lies with impunity.  How do I know he can lie with impunity?

Um... what consequence has he ever paid?

And don't tell me, this time he's going to suffer the consequences.  I've been listening to that line for years now.  Those consequences keep not materializing.  Every time someone says, "this time, it's different, and he has crossed an un-crossable line," I have said, nope.  He'll get away with this too.  So far, status quo.  Why?  Because facts don't exist in our political world anymore.  Trump killed them with constant lying, aided by a party and a media operation that believe their interests are better served by constant lying than by telling the truth.

So, what's the other pushback I have gotten?  Polling data.  Right now, if you ask independent voters how they assess impeachment, Trump, etc., the numbers don't seem to indicate a 1998-style backlash.

There's a big problem with this.  As a general rule, surveys that ask people about their hypothetical reactions to hypothetical events don't work so well.  Why not?  Because a) people don't necessarily know how they would react to future hypotheticals, b) people won't necessarily tell you if they do know, and c) those surveys can't factor in the intervening events that may be critical to what influences their opinions.

I'm going to focus on c.  What happens in the case of a failed impeachment, primarily, is that independent voters receive mixed messages.  Democrats will say that Trump is the guiltiest guilty person in the history of guiltiness, and Republicans will say that he is the most innocent innocent person in the history of innocence.  That's already sort of what's happening, so what then?  Well, Bill Barr via Fox News.  The full force of the DoJ will be turned on every Democrat in Congress, Robert Mueller, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Trump will lie his ass off, and I cannot predict precisely what the coalescence of this will be, but it won't matter.  All it needs to do is create a cloud of ambiguity.

Remember Comey making an announcement right before the 2016 election that he was re-opening the "investigation" into Clinton's use of a private email server as Sec. State?  He knew that the Weiner/Abedin computer wouldn't turn up anything, he was told he was violating DoJ policy by making the announcement that close to an election, and he didn't even like Trump.  He did it anyway.

What do you think Bill Barr will do, knowing what you now know about him?  Comey was at least bound enough by truth to limit it to a real investigation.  A stupid investigation, but a real one.  Barr?  That spineless, little flunky will do whatever Trump tells him to do, and Trump has no compunctions about spouting the most batshit crazy conspiracy theories around.

Trump himself wasn't a Pizza-gater, but he surrounded himself with Pizza-gaters, and he spouts plenty of other stupid, self-serving lies.  Yes, whatever Trump tells Barr to do in response to an impeachment will be utter lunacy, devoid of anything even remotely resembling truth.  Barr will do it anyway.  He is already going along with Trump's claims that the government "spied" on Trump's 2016 campaign, and while he won't use the word, "treason," for Mueller or anyone in the FBI, he echoes Trump's sentiments exactly as he initiates the "investigation" that Trump has demanded.  What do you think will happen with that?  Or shall I say, when do you think Barr will start making public statements about it?  He won't be able to get an indictment, thereby demonstrating that the FBI is completely devoid of ham sandwiches, but that isn't the point.  The point is to give Trump a counterattack.  Bill Barr is Trump's informal Campaign Manager, and he's walking right up to the Hatch Act and pissing across that line.

So I return to the question of what it will take to convince independent voters that impeachment is the right thing to do.  They would have to believe that whatever Trump did, it is beyond partisanship.  You know who determines that?  The Republican Party, by either going along with the impeachment, or not.  All they have to do to send the message to independent voters that the impeachment is pure partisanship... is not go along with it.  In order for independent voters to make an assessment beyond that, they'd need to have an understanding of actual facts, and, well, see my previous comments.

What happens if the Democrats impeach Trump?  He gets acquitted in the Senate, and the Republicans throw up so much obfuscatory counteraccusation, aided by the President's Attorney General-Campaign Manager that independent voters just see the whole thing as an impenetrable partisan squabble, unworthy of impeachment.  They look at what will probably be a strong economy, retaliate against the Democrats and reelect Donald Trump.

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