Presidential Impeachment

I have been hearing a lot of news about impeachment lately. Over the past few years the term has been tossed around. I was born in ‘93, and I can’t remember any such sentiment gaining this much support in the presidencies I’ve experienced.

I am not particularly interested in discussing the specifics of this case. Rather, from those old enough to remember previous impeachments, is this a comparable case? In those cases, did the news media cover it as they are now? What were people’s attitudes towards the idea of impeachment, and is public opinion similar today?

The right was just as rabid and irrational in its hatred of Bill as the left is in its hatred for Trump. The media was well into the "entertainment era" by that point and delivered the same unending stream of bobblehead commentators with obvious political biases. People were just as much caught up in the mood of pitchforks and torches back then as they are now. So yeah, plenty of similarities.

The charges levied in the most recent impeachment proceedings are more grave than the ones levied against the next most recent impeachment proceedings, which might affect coverage.

In a lot of ways the impeachment of Bill Clinton was worse. And in the case of Trump the Democratic leadership is constantly thinking about previous impeachments and using that to inform their actions. It's caused them to go painfully slow up to this point because the Bill Clinton impeachment backfired.

First of all, The special counsel they had for Clinton was acting under a different version of the law. His name was Ken Starr. After 1975 He was a Republican. So as special counsel you had a republican with broad powers going after a Democratic president.

"You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office." - Lindsey Graham (R)

I agree with old Lindsey Graham who was probably more idealistic at the time he said this about Bill Clinton. It should be about honor and integrity because it's supposed to mean something that this person is the president of the United States. It's the highest PUBLIC office and should therefore aspire to the highest degree of public trust and confidence. That's why we have national elections for president while every other elected official is localized.

When it was Bill Clinton it backfired because people didn't care that he had an affair. Violating your marriage vows isn't against the law and when your wife still supports you then how much can anyone else be outraged? And yes he lied about it, but not very many people thought a lie to cover up a non-illegal affair was the same as, for example, "weapons of mass destruction" which costed American lives and I don't know how much money. I don't want to contrast red vs blue here but sometimes there is a stark contrast from one case to another.
And because Iraq and many other things happened people get more used to lies from politicians. Clinton lied under oath though, and for that he did get impeached. However, impeachment doesn't mean removal. It just means you basically get judged. Not impeaching Trump, for the myriad of crimes, was always a political calculation because more centrist democrats like Nancy Pelosi didn't want to risk an impeachment backfiring like it did with Clinton. Clinton's economy was strong. There was a surplus. So as long as people thought Trump was doing a good job with the economy it would be hard to shake his support. So even trying to prove to the American people that he was a crook is something they could only really do in the judicial committee with Nadler. But she didn't want the democratic party at large to look like they were simply being sore losers or treating Trump the same way Republicans treated Obama, obstructing everything he was trying to accomplish. Because somehow they've cracked the code on hypocrisy. It's okay when they do it but when democrats do it they rail against them and their base nods along and turns further against the democrats, becoming more and more partisan. So Nancy is afraid of that; afraid of losing support among the more moderate center-right voters. The voters to the left, they don't have to worry about because they're going to vote against the right. Same way people don't have to worry about the far right the way Trump does because the far right will always vote against the left. Trump is... special. The way he appeals to the far right helps to isolate them and loses support from the moderate left and moderat right.

All of this political calculus is important because the end result of impeachment is based on votes that represent public support. And if republicans OR democrats believe their district wants to impeach then they will vote that way. The fear is voting based on principles and based on the facts because the public cannot see all the facts and doesn't have time to analyze all the evidence. And there's a ton. Trump breaks rules and laws so often its hard to keep up because as soon as they get into dissecting one there's another and another. And people get burnt out on it. So politicians have been holding out for something overwhelming where Trump can't say "sike! I was just kidding" and where his instructions are more than winks and nods and "oh but I really didn't tell him to do it. I just said if you did it I would pardon you." Trump really does operate like a mob boss. And it can be hard to get evidence to stick to a mob boss. That's why they're a mob boss.

This is the same reason why, although I wasn't around in Nixon's time, that's how Nixon was forced out. He wasn't removed. He resigned. And it wasn't the crime that forced it. It was the cover up. And the cover up is how you prove intent. You KNOW it's illegal if you take steps to hide it. They released the transcript of Ukraine, I believe, they knew it was going to come out anyway and because hiding it would be 10 times worse. But it's already bad enough that they moved the transcript/call to a "private server" that's only used for code word level documents. And it wasn't the only one.

So basically we have what amounts to the "Nixon tapes" and as this impeachment inquiry goes on we're going to see more incriminating evidence. Because that's why those things were hidden. They're incriminating. I don't say that lightly. This administration has gone way overboard in boasting about how expansive presidential powers are. Wrongly, I might add. So the fact that they would hide what their president has done is extremely telling. It means that even his own people, who argue about how much power Trump LEGALLY has, believe that his actions are sometimes illegal. And that's most likely why Dan Coats and so many other have left the White House with resignations. I wouldn't be surprised if every single one of them had knowledge of some part or aspect of one of Trumps criminal activities while acting as POTUS.

ZealotX wrote: In a lot of ways the impeachment of Bill Clinton was worse. And in the case of Trump the Democratic leadership is constantly thinking about previous impeachments and using that to inform their actions. It's caused them to go painfully slow up to this point because the Bill Clinton impeachment backfired.

First of all, The special counsel they had for Clinton was acting under a different version of the law. His name was Ken Starr. After 1975 He was a Republican. So as special counsel you had a republican with broad powers going after a Democratic president.

"You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office." - Lindsey Graham (R)

I agree with old Lindsey Graham who was probably more idealistic at the time he said this about Bill Clinton. It should be about honor and integrity because it's supposed to mean something that this person is the president of the United States. It's the highest PUBLIC office and should therefore aspire to the highest degree of public trust and confidence. That's why we have national elections for president while every other elected official is localized.

When it was Bill Clinton it backfired because people didn't care that he had an affair. Violating your marriage vows isn't against the law and when your wife still supports you then how much can anyone else be outraged? And yes he lied about it, but not very many people thought a lie to cover up a non-illegal affair was the same as, for example, "weapons of mass destruction" which costed American lives and I don't know how much money. I don't want to contrast red vs blue here but sometimes there is a stark contrast from one case to another.
And because Iraq and many other things happened people get more used to lies from politicians. Clinton lied under oath though, and for that he did get impeached. However, impeachment doesn't mean removal. It just means you basically get judged. Not impeaching Trump, for the myriad of crimes, was always a political calculation because more centrist democrats like Nancy Pelosi didn't want to risk an impeachment backfiring like it did with Clinton. Clinton's economy was strong. There was a surplus. So as long as people thought Trump was doing a good job with the economy it would be hard to shake his support. So even trying to prove to the American people that he was a crook is something they could only really do in the judicial committee with Nadler. But she didn't want the democratic party at large to look like they were simply being sore losers or treating Trump the same way Republicans treated Obama, obstructing everything he was trying to accomplish. Because somehow they've cracked the code on hypocrisy. It's okay when they do it but when democrats do it they rail against them and their base nods along and turns further against the democrats, becoming more and more partisan. So Nancy is afraid of that; afraid of losing support among the more moderate center-right voters. The voters to the left, they don't have to worry about because they're going to vote against the right. Same way people don't have to worry about the far right the way Trump does because the far right will always vote against the left. Trump is... special. The way he appeals to the far right helps to isolate them and loses support from the moderate left and moderat right.

All of this political calculus is important because the end result of impeachment is based on votes that represent public support. And if republicans OR democrats believe their district wants to impeach then they will vote that way. The fear is voting based on principles and based on the facts because the public cannot see all the facts and doesn't have time to analyze all the evidence. And there's a ton. Trump breaks rules and laws so often its hard to keep up because as soon as they get into dissecting one there's another and another. And people get burnt out on it. So politicians have been holding out for something overwhelming where Trump can't say "sike! I was just kidding" and where his instructions are more than winks and nods and "oh but I really didn't tell him to do it. I just said if you did it I would pardon you." Trump really does operate like a mob boss. And it can be hard to get evidence to stick to a mob boss. That's why they're a mob boss.

This is the same reason why, although I wasn't around in Nixon's time, that's how Nixon was forced out. He wasn't removed. He resigned. And it wasn't the crime that forced it. It was the cover up. And the cover up is how you prove intent. You KNOW it's illegal if you take steps to hide it. They released the transcript of Ukraine, I believe, they knew it was going to come out anyway and because hiding it would be 10 times worse. But it's already bad enough that they moved the transcript/call to a "private server" that's only used for code word level documents. And it wasn't the only one.

So basically we have what amounts to the "Nixon tapes" and as this impeachment inquiry goes on we're going to see more incriminating evidence. Because that's why those things were hidden. They're incriminating. I don't say that lightly. This administration has gone way overboard in boasting about how expansive presidential powers are. Wrongly, I might add. So the fact that they would hide what their president has done is extremely telling. It means that even his own people, who argue about how much power Trump LEGALLY has, believe that his actions are sometimes illegal. And that's most likely why Dan Coats and so many other have left the White House with resignations. I wouldn't be surprised if every single one of them had knowledge of some part or aspect of one of Trumps criminal activities while acting as POTUS.

Adding into the above mix, that Clinton was also charged and tried for editing secure systems, records, and documents related to the aforementioned affair.

To be fair, there isn't an impeachment writ yet, so we don't know why or how it will turn out.

This is significantly higher level than Clinton's. People didnt support Clinton's impeachment, they knew he had a tendency to stick his thing in crazy because he already was married to Hillary when he became president.
There'd be just as much interest in impeaching trump for grabbing them aides by the pussy.

Trump is at Nixxon level, probably higher. Use of foreign powers to interfere in the democratic processes of the US has been a recurring theme of the trump campaign and presidency, and represents a crime committed against Joe the plumber himself.

I read this article earlier and thought it'd be relevant to this thread.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/03/clintons-impeachment-barely-dented-his-public-support-and-it-turned-off-many-americans/