My favorite arguments against impeachment:
1. The Dems can’t defeat Trump in 2020 so they have to resort to impeachment. REALITY: All of the leading Democrats currently lead Trump by nearly TEN POINTS.
2. There is no direct evidence against Trump; it’s all hearsay. REALITY: There are multiple testimonies of direct evidence witnesses from Sondland to Vindman and many others. In addition, there are multiple corroborating and contemporaneous documents that also are direct evidence. Finally, this argument is absurd, since Trump confessed publicly (legally, an ‘admission’), and also released the call notes, which show an obvious act of extortion.
3. Trump was just concerned about corruption in Ukraine. REALITY: Trump showed no interest in corruption in Ukraine in 2017-18, but of all countries and people on earth, it’s a coincidence that he happened to focus on his domestic political opponent. ABSURD. Finally, Trump and Giuliani are aligned with the forces in Ukraine that are aligned with Russia and are corrupt. Anyone with any knowledge of the region knows this.
4. Trump did not have a chance to defend himself. REALITY: Trump refused to provide documents or witnesses to Congress, stating publicly Congress would literally get NOTHING. No other President has ever shown such disrespect for a co-equal branch of government.
5. No aid was withheld. REALITY: the aid was withheld for 77 days, during which time Ukrainians died. In any case, this is actually about an abuse of power affecting all Americans: his attempt to corrupt our right to a free and fair election in 2020.
6. Democrats have just wanted to impeach Trump because they hate him, many calling for impeachment from the moment he was elected. REALITY: This is irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is Trump’s abuse of power and subsequent failure to support our Constitutional separation of powers by refusing to respect congressional subpoenas. (It is also not true. The Democratic Caucus rejected all earlier calls for impeachment.)
7. Trump committed no crime. REALITY: This is not the point. If a president refuses to follow the constitution, he must be impeached. Furthermore, he DID commit a crime. It is called extortion. And because this extortion involved a foreign country intervening in our election, it is exactly the kind of abuse of power the Founding Fathers feared and established the remedy of impeachment to address. Finally, Nixon also faced impeachment for the very same offenses: abuses of power and obstruction of Congress.
8. Zelensky said he felt no pressure from Trump. REALITY: Zelensky was utterly dependent on the US to get the javelin missiles. Of course he’s not going to say out loud that Trump is inappropriately pressuring him; extortion victims without power are not going trash their abuser. He has to protect his country.
9. Ukraine did not know about the blocking of the aid, so it doesn’t matter. REALITY: The evidence showed clearly that they knew the aid was being held up because the Ukrainians ASKED about it. (It should be noted that this is irrelevant to whether Trump violated his oath and attempted to extort Zelensky.)
10. There’s no harm no foul because the aid was released by Trump. REALITY: In addition to the delay which was a big deal for Ukraine, the evidence showed that Trump knew about the whistleblower two weeks prior to the release of the aid. In other words, he only released the eight because he got CAUGHT.
Regarding point 10 I’ve seen it reported that Ukraine actually still does not have all the aid that has been appropriated for them.
We had a house guest a few days ago who voted for Trump and probably will again in 2020. She wanted to talk to me because, as she put it you’re not one of those really crazy Democrats (no, I do not know what she was thinking but I decided not to ask).
In any case, her defense of Trump was that:
1. We knew he was a NY real estate developer before we voted for him and he’s just being what he is.
2. They all go after the money, look at the Biden arrangement.
I was not going to argue with her on those two points, in fact, I agreed with her on the second point. Has the Biden family not taken the bait of big money from overseas interests, no matter how legal is is, Trump and the Republicans would not have the chance to say “well, they all do it”.
I said to her, “Did either of your sons get a cushy job because of connections you or your husband had?” to which she replied, “No they worked for it, and worked hard”. I mentioned that was the same with our two sons.
I went on, “Do you think it’s fair that the American taxpayers is paying the millions of dollars each year so that Trump, a billionaire, can play golf every week?” She said, “No, that’s not right”. I followed with, “Do you think it’s fair that the American taxpayer is paying President Obama $200,000 a year in retirement and paying millions for office space, security protection while he just spent $12 Million on a vacation home?” She said, “No, that;s horrible!”
That’s where I left it. We agreed. Now I need to let all that settle in and approach her about the possibility of a Warren presidency, a woman who did not rely on her parent’s for a job and whose own children are not using her for a job…..and hopefully, once elected, a woman who will live within her means and be a public servant.
Time will tell.
A job offer based on family connections is MUCH different from extorting a political hatchet job over duly appropriated aid. The bothsiderism has to stop, especially from Dems. Neither Biden nor Obama insisted another country investigate an opponent as a condition for aid or WH visit.
What part of “appearance of impropriety” don’t you understand, Christopher?
The “appearance” part. I believe I have been pretty consistent with my impatience regarding arguing over “appearances”. My mantra has long been don’t tell me it LOOKS bad – prove to me it IS bad.
Exchanges like this — not to mention the entire GOP mantra about Hunter Biden — are all the proof I need that Hunter Biden’s no-show job with Burisma has been a disaster to his father’s campaign and to America.
Had Joe Biden recused himself, Donald Trump and his thugs would have needed to find some other lie. It is the APPEARANCE of corruption that has made this group of lies so devastating to America.
There is a difference between “criminal” and “bad” — the courageous Democrats leading the charge against the corruption of Donald Trump and his GOP Collaborators have been talking about that difference for months.
An act does NOT have to be criminal to be impeachable. An act does NOT have to be criminal to be “bad”. The Probation Department scandal was a DISASTER for Massachusetts government, and showed an enormous number of Massachusetts voters how corrupt Bob Deleo and his co-conspirators were and are. The fact that an appeals court ultimately determined that their’s was legal corruption does not make it any less corrupt. Such scandals are the first reason that comes up in polls of Massachusetts voters who are asked why they oppose new taxes.
That one scandal set back good government by years. Isn’t that “proof” enough?
Joe Biden should have recused himself after learning of his son’s acceptance of the offer from Burisma. That was the ONLY reasonable thing for an elected official who actually cares about corruption to do.
The fact remains that Hunter Biden’s corruption is incidental to the empty defense offered by the Trump supporter in question. The two points she made are reasons to remove Mr. Trump from office — they do not argue against his removal.
Recused himself from what? VPs don’t have any power except as messengers for the President they serve with. With the Bidens we appear to be in a tautology trap – it looks bad therefore it is bad. The “disaster” you claim as far as I can tell is ONLY about appearances, especially when it seems that if anything if the elder Biden got his way regarding Ukrainian prosecutors it would potentially expose the younger Biden and his employer even more.
Oh, come on Christopher, you’re being obtuse.
He should have recused himself from situations like the one he describes in his now-famous appearance where the describes demanding that a Ukrainian prosecutor be fired for corruption (starting at 1:36 in the clip).
It appears to me that you are caught in a denial trap. You’re trying so hard to defend the appearance of corruption that you’re denying facts that all of us know.
Joe Biden wasn’t just involved, he was asked by Barack Obama to LEAD the effort against Ukrainian corruption. He should have said “I can’t accept this assignment given my son’s close ties to Burisma”.
Except my understanding is that by demanding the Ukraine prosecutor be fired he actually may have exposed his son more. If anything that seems to be acting against interest.
@ he actually may have exposed his son more …
That’s not the point. The prosecutor who was fired says he was fired because he was reopening the investigation into Burisma. Because of Hunter Biden’s corrupt relationship to Burisma, nobody involved can credibly refute that prosecutors assertion, even though that prosecutor is a known liar.
Once his family was involved, he should have had nothing to do with it. The moment Hunter Biden’s son took that lucrative no-show job, it tainted everything his father did and said about Ukraine from that point onward.
Joe Biden could not have been neutral towards Ukrainian corruption knowing that his son was benefiting from that corruption. That is a fact that everyone knew, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden — that’s why they talked about it at the time.
Legality has nothing to do with it. Joe Biden was compromised.
You’re both right. I think Christopher is right that he actually made it harder for his son, even obtuse outlets like CNN and FOX have made that point. I think Tom is right that the mere appearance of corruption looks far worse here than what actually happened.
Or better yet Hunter should have just done his old man a favor and stayed the bleep home. I think Joe did the right thing with that prosecutor, but the optics are lousy and it is Hunter who should have had nothing to do with Ukraine rather than trade on his dads name. He is truly the Billy Carter, Neil Bush, or Roger Clinton of Bidenworld.
Oh, it is clearly Hunter Biden that is corrupt here. Hunter Biden has been openly selling his access to his father since his first job from college — a position with MBNA. MBNA was, at that time, the single largest contributor to the campaign of Senator Joe Biden. The sardonic joke of the time was that Mr. Biden’s actual title was: “Joe Biden, D-MBNA”.
Unfortunately, as his father has pointed out, Hunter Biden is a grown man who makes decisions that his father has no control over.
Hunter Biden absolutely IS corrupt (and all of that corruption is legal). Hunter Biden is not running for any public office.
Elizabeth Warren is better suited to lead our party in 2020 and does not have to overcome this glaring weakness.
The sins of the son should not fall upon the father any more than the sins of the father should fall upon the son.
@sins:
You’re talking “should”/”should not”, and I’m talking about “is” and “are”.
Whatever should or should not be, the corruption of Hunter Biden meant that his father was unsuited to lead the anti-corruption effort in the Ukraine. That’s just basic.
If the son of your town’s police chief has a long history of tagging buildings in town, then that police chief is not suitable to lead the anti-graffiti program of the town.
“Should” and “Should not” is irrelevant.
After her observation about “crazy Democrats”, did you share with her your opinion that Mr. Trump ought to be impeached and removed from office?
I’ve argued with you at length about your response to her item 2. The description of your exchange here seems to confirm the heart of my criticism of your stance: you encourage Donald Trump supporters in their dangerous delusions.
When you say “I was not going to argue with her on those two points”, then you’ve already conceded the 2020 outcome, or at least you’ve conceded that you don’t oppose her decision to support Donald Trump.
Your two questions pretty much define the false equivalence that is so destructive in today’s dysfunctional environment. No, Mr. Trump’s behavior is NOT the same as Mr. Obama’s. Mr. Trump is President, Mr. Obama is not. That is a HUGE difference.
When your guest answered your first question, then a more appropriate response from you might have been “If you feel that way, then why on Earth would you vote for him again?”
When you repeat the GOP party line about Joe Biden, replete with references to her family and yours, you reinforce her opinion about the 2020 election. I suggest that LONG before you have a chance to “approach her about the possibility of a Warren presidency”, she will have heard and enthusiastically internalized whatever lies the GOP will be telling about Ms. Warren by then.
Instead of going down the Hunter Biden rathole, you might have instead asked something like “Have you or anyone in your family ever loafed on the golf course instead of doing your jobs?”
Once you solicited her disapproval of the ongoing behaviors of Donald Trump, you could have focused on that for your followup. Did you ask her if she thinks it’s ok for Donald Trump to be repeating Russian propaganda about Ukraine?
I might have said something along the lines of “I don’t like the Hunter Biden deal either. I think Mr. Biden should have recused himself, and I think Elizabeth Warren will be a better President than either Donald Trump or Joe Biden.”
I think that your choice to talk about how awful Barack Obama is rather than how much you like Elizabeth Warren, together with your embrace of GOP lies about Joe Biden, resulted in your interaction with your guest reinforcing her delusions about Democrats and Donald Trump.
And you can continue to argue your position. I don’t buy it. It’s not a “working class party” if its leaders lounge in multi-million dollar vacation homes.
Trump is cashing in while in office, Obama is cashing in after office….a distinction without a difference to the average working class voter. .
“To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead.” Thomas Paine
Your claim that that is “a distinction without a difference” to the average working class voter is an insult to those voters.
One electrical inspector won’t issue an approval until a $100 cash deposit is left for him in the downstairs breaker box. Another inspector offers his services as a consultant to electricians and property managers after leaving office.
The overwhelming majority of the average working class voters that I’ve known all my life are acutely aware of the distinction between those two inspectors. They are equally aware of the distinction between corrupt and honest elected officials, including presidents.
The fact that you hold a particular bias does not make it universal nor correct.
I’m just reporting what I hear in the trenches….they see Obama cashing in while their wages are meager. They see Trump cashing in while they still go without health care. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss….Trumps kids are cashing in on dad’s office. Hunter cashed in on his dad’s office. Nothing illegal…..but then, it;s the rich folks that make the laws….
Is any of that what is keeping the wages meager? Would your friends be better off somehow if Obama swore off making money post-presidency?
It appears to me that “they” are a projection of you, even a literary device.
However real “they” are, no actual Democratic campaign will reach them. “They” are ignoring reality in favor of their own fears and prejudices. Humankind has been doing that for as long as humankind has existed. The various disciplines discovered during the 18th century — the disciplines that led to our system of government and to what we today call “science” — blazed the path out of the dark ages by rejecting such biases in favor of the beacons of data, fact, reason, and logic.
We still claim to be a nation governed by the rule of law. “They” are able to conflate Donald Trump and any of today’s Democratic candidates only by ignoring that.
There IS a difference, whether you admit it to yourself and “them” or not.
I wonder if John and I are the only people on this website who have friends, colleagues, and family who are not die hard progressives or Democrats. I have heard story after story about how people think Trump is above or outside the swamp. The Democrats have done a poor job countering that. There has been no effort to amplify the voices of ordinary people Trump screwed over with his bad dealings or point out how he is personally profiting from the presidency. We are really in a bad place with a media landscape and apathetic populace incapable of understanding high level high minded arguments about saving the climate, or feeling bad for immigrants, or big structural change. People are hurting and the want the government to have their back. We haven’t made that case yet.
@ friends, colleagues, and family who are not die hard progressives or Democrats.
This sub-thread is about two very specific assertions:
These are both canards. They remain canards regardless of the political bias of anybody.
It is impossible to make any case to an audience that flatly rejects truth itself. In the exchanges described here, the person interacting with the Donald Trump supporter here not only does not make any effort to “point out how [Donald Trump] is personally profiting from the presidency”, he goes beyond that to tar Barack Obama with the same brush. That can only hurt a Democratic campaign.
Here is his own summary of his role:
The exchanges depicted here, and the commentary that follows, make the case for the GOP complete with its utter lies. Then he elaborates that to assert that Barack Obama is similarly corrupt.
There is no universe in which that will ever be helpful for Democrats.
Tom exposes the Puke ‘bothsiderism’ false equivalency lie.
We have for those with ears to hear, though we could do a better job with press releases for the 400 or so bills House Dems have passed which go to McConnell’s legislative graveyard. I do hear from people who aren’t progressive Dems and sometimes all I can do is shake my head. Anyone who still thinks that Trump is draining rather than restocking the proverbial swamp clearly has not been paying attention and I’m not sure how to help them. Just start ticking off the names of his appointees.
By what authority do you speak for all working class voters? I guess FDR and JFK could not possibly be working class advocates in your mind on account of being personally too rich:(
I never said I speak for all working class voters. Do you know someone who does? I only speak for myself and the working class voters I have met over the past 50 years that I have been working as a clerk, waiter, truck driver, car salesman, you know….those people. FDR was before my time, but I seem to recall that he was born into a wealthy family and did not leverage the office of the presidency to become a multi-millionaire, as Obama and Clinton have done.
You made the comment about a distinction without a difference to the average working class voter, as if you were privy to the attitudes of the average working class voter, yet you did not cite any polling to back that up. Meanwhile unions, which CAN make some claim to actually representing the working class, remain consistently loyal to Dems including those you call out.
Here are your exact words (emphasis mine):
The phrase I emphasized most certainly is an assertion about the average working class voter. A false and insulting assertion at that.
I know a great many of “those people”, I’ve known them all my life. Most all them have been Democrats and most have rejected GOP lies just like I reject them.
Whatever it is that makes you so hostile to BIll Clinton and Barack Obama has everything to do with you, and so far as I can tell nothing at all to do with working class voters.
It was your choice to share the anecdote about your house guest. From everything you’ve written here, the effect of your interaction with her was to reinforce her delusions and her support for Mr. Trump.
Such lies and delusions are how Donald Trump will be reelected.
Don’t shoot the messenger people. I think more folks on this site should talk to Baker voters, let alone, Trump voters. This bubble is toxic and it keeps progressives suggesting unrealistic things. Ask the Labour party how their bubble got popped by reality. So let’s be reality based.
John’s anecdote is very similar to something relatives and friends who voted for Trump or third party tell me frequently. That in some ways, Trump is less tainted since he made his money before he became President and not after like the rest of this Democrats cashing out to corporate clients. It’s more hypocritical when our people who run as champions of the right to organize, fair trade, and universal health care start shamelessly lobbying for foreign governments like Gephardt or shady corporations like Evan Bayh. Even the speaker fees are suspect.
Obama endorsed Medicare for All in 2017 and then backtracked in a speech in 2018 which was in front of an insurance company convention. Locally it’s why they do not trust Beacon Hill Democrats and think Baker is the lone honest cop in a corrupt system. It’s why the Hunter Biden stuff stinks, even if it is not illegal and even if it comes nowhere close to the amount of money the Trump Organization is making by trading off his name.
@ Don’t shoot the messenger:
When the messenger is repeating propaganda and lies, then the messenger deserves to be ostracized even if not shot outright.
Donald Trump supporters in the red-state heartland have nothing to do with Charlie Baker supporters in Massachusetts. You are familiar enough with Chicago politics to know that lifelong Democrats can abhor corrupt Democrats holding elected office while not embracing GOP lies.
Working-class voters are just as capable as Massachusetts voters in rejecting the corruption of Bob DeLeo without embracing the lies of Donald Trump and his GOP Collaborators.
Bubble or not and toxic or not, it is not “reality based” to repeat the lies, hate-speech, bigotry, and explicit Russian propaganda of Donald Trump and his supporters.
Russian troops are not yet occupying portions of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or England while Boris Johnson repeats Russian propaganda. Representatives of Boris Johnson’s government are not tearing babies from the arms of their mother and locking those babies in cages in defiance of court orders. Your attempt to conflate Boris Johnson with Donald Trump flies in the face of reality.
Your defense of Trumpist lies minimizes the awful and shameful reality of what EVERY person who speaks in support of Donald Trump encourages.
The first thing a cult (as in Trumpist) does is claim everyone else is lying to you.
Lincoln nails it again : “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”
Tyranny defined in Federalist No. 47 : “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
What Trumpist lies am I defending now? It’s flinging around accusations like that keep long time posters away from this site. Elsewhere on this very thread you rightly decry the Hunter Biden conflict of interest as a problematic. All John was doing is extrapolating that same standard to former presidents (and Vice President Biden it must be said) from the Democratic Party who cashed in on their newfound fortune.
The presidential pension was created to keep Harry Truman out of poverty after he nearly lost his family farm, now it seems no former president or government official no matter how low ranking can go into poverty. It’s the revolving door of the swamp Trump successfully ran against, despite all his lies and hypocrisy. I think we should all be mindful of that.
Similarly Corbyn with his smugness, his cycling, his composting, and his flirtation with broad anti-Western groups like Hamas and the IRA led to the same coal towns Maggie shut down voting for an Etonian phony. I think we should be very mindful of this if we want to govern again.
Here’s an example of what I mean:
This is a Trumpist lie. It is the same lie that led to the endless cavalcade of lies about the Clinton Foundation, with crickets about the Trump Foundation.
That too is a lie, and an egregious one at that. Surely you do not also claim that there is no difference between the corrupt inspector that demands a bribe and the retired ex-inspector who profits from his experience after leaving public office.
The premise that it is corrupt for an ex-President to enjoy the benefits of eight years of performing arguably the most difficult job in the world in exchange for a pittance is another lie.
“All John was doing” is inflaming and pandering to the delusions of an already delusional supporter of Donald Trump — then bragging about it here.
Are you really suggesting that you think the exchanges he describes will ever do anything but strengthen support for Donald Trump?
I was simply summarizing and analyzing an argument non-Democratic voters I talk to are making, I am not endorsing that argument. I think we need to understand the other sides arguments in order to beat them. You were making the same arguments about Hunter Biden. I know you have a soft spot for the Clintons, but I see no difference between what Hunter did and what they did.
These activities are perfectly normal in the Beltway and legal, but they look incredibly suspicious to ordinary voters who lack the context to understand them. We could argue with them about the intricacies of this or we can call on our own leaders to be twice as good and to do better. No doubt we are dealing with a new Teflon Don, but we also have to understand where his appeal comes from in order to defeat it.
Calling me a Trumpist is like saying I’m a Nazi for reading Mein Kampf and trying to figure out why ordinary Germans fell for it. I’m being a historian and political scientist in trying to study the attraction of ideologies I profoundly disagree with. It’s a new form of McCarthyism saying we shouldn’t try to understand our ideological opponents, it’s also as Sun Tzu would argue the best way to beat them.
Fred has accused you of repeating Trumpist arguments about his candidate and now you’re lobbing the same accusation against John and I. Both registered Democrats and fellow Warren supporters. It’s profoundly anti-intellectual. I fear we are becoming the mirror image of the stupid party around here.
Hunter Biden accepted a fifty thousand dollar a month no-show “job” for which he had no qualifications from a CEO and company at the top of the list of corrupt firms in the Ukraine while he knew his father was being considered as the leader of America’s anti-corruption effort in Ukraine. He did so knowing full well that it was an attempt to influence his father, the Vice President of the United States. This was just the latest in Hunter Biden’s career of selling relationship with his father to the highest bidder.
Please tell me any remotely comparable behavior by either Bill or Hillary Clinton.
There is a world of difference between quoting passages from Mein Kampf to an academic audience and quoting those same passages to a Hitler supporter in 1939.
I consider you a friend, and I certainly understand the importance of understanding the arguments offered by reprehensible forces like Trumpism, Stalinism, and Nazism. I respect your credentials as both a historian and also a political scientist.
I hear you, and to a much greater extent John, going well beyond that academic exercise and voicing those same arguments in support of election strategy and, in John’s case, of totally unsupported attacks on two Democratic ex-presidents (I am glad that John has so far resisted the temptation to bring the Clintons into this exchange).
McCarthyism was, at its core, all about making vicious and knowingly false public accusations against innocent people for private political gain. Neither Fred’s misguided attacks on me or my criticism of your commentary comes close to that.
There is ZERO evidence that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or even Joe Biden ever did any corrupt act, legally or otherwise. There is a compelling mountain of evidence that Donald Trump and his cabal have done illegal and even felonious acts for decades, continued to do them after he took office, and continue to do them now.
When a supporter of Donald Trump argues that Joe Biden is just as corrupt as Donald Trump, that supporter is either ignorant, lying or both. The recent questioner at the campaign event is an example of what I mean.
In his words, John not only repeated but elaborated the lie about Joe Biden. Then he expanded that attack to include Barack Obama. He concluded that narration by saying that he agreed with that supporter of Donald Trump and told her so.
There is no way to characterize that narration as some sort of intellectual exercise in understanding the opposition. When you allege that there is “no difference between what Hunter Biden and the Clintons did”, you are similarly going well beyond that intellectual exercise.
You are each repeating utterly false and baseless Republican and Trumpist lies as your own. That’s what I’m calling out.
I know that you’re not a Trumpist. That’s why I don’t understand what motivates you to offer commentary such as that lie about Hunter Biden and the Clintons.
I find it interesting that you are calling out the bubble today when sometimes you seem to be the one that doesn’t realize we can’t elect a progressive Dem to every district in the state.
I’ve never argued that Christopher anywhere on BMG.
What I have argued in the past is that I would rather those seats “where progressives can’t get elected” go to actual Republicans. I think a slimmer majority might actually accomplish more than a supermajority that repeatedly does nothing but buck pass. A supermajority now notably to the right of Charlie Baker on T funding.
What I have also argued is that solidly Democratic districts like Nangles or Timilty’s should be represented by progressives and not conservatives. If voters replace the Garry Democrats with Baker Republicans it’s a net win for the state in my view. Joe Manchin is needed at the national level, his local equivalents are not needed in the statehouse.