The Political Martyrdom of Donald J. Trump

 

Thursday’s impeachment inquiry vote went down as expected – the only crack in the partisan divide came on the Democratic side where two representatives, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Collin Peterson of Minnesota voted “no.” The frothing-at-the-mouth opponents of President Trump were downright gleeful. But the anti-Trump forces might be well to heed the immortal words of Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes, Minister, “If you’re going to do this damn silly thing, don’t do it in this damn silly way.”

The closed door, locked in the basement, no questions allowed from the other side is a bad look. If they wanted to design a procedure to bolster the President’s witch hunt claims they couldn’t have done a better job. Then there’s the Bulwarkian cheerleaders on the Right, awash in the money of Leftist activists such as Pierre Omidyar, cementing the view that his foes within his party hold the ordinary voter in disdain and only cater to the donor class. “They’re coming after me,” Trump said at the recent Values Voter Summit, “because I’m fighting for you.”

So far, the only thing that these unlikely political bedfellows have accomplished is to take a man of limited political skill and limited political capital and turned him into a martyr. Instead of cleaving his supporters away from him they’ve merely cemented the “them vs us” appeal of his presidency.

Then there’s the timing of everything. One of the unintended consequences of the 22nd Amendment was to more than triple the length of the quadrennial campaign season. Where once an Eisenhower could declare in June of an election year, now challengers start debating 18 months out. So why not just wait another six months and take the President on in the electoral arena? Probably because his opponents realize the current generic polling that has so many amateur observers in a froth are meaningless. At this point in the 2012 race the Quinnipiac University poll showed that a solid majority of 54% said Barack Obama did not deserve to be re-elected. Yet he won by 4 percentage points and a hefty 126-vote margin in the Electoral College.

The words “binary choice” are the things that make up the nightmares of the President’s foes. Impeachment would not only remove Trump, but part of the punishment could be making him ineligible to run again. They know that the Sanders/Warren economic plan is not the winner the true believers think it is. If the choice is between another four years of Donald Trump and replicating the Venezuelan disaster on the world’s largest economy, Donald Trump wins hands down.

Impeachment makes sense for the Democrats if it’s successful. If it fails it will fail spectacularly. For “Never-Trump,” it is an exercise in self-righteous stupidity and is a lose-lose proposition. If the President’s most ardent supporters – the ones they label “cultists” – only make up one-third of the electorate, then permanently alienating them is a path to permanent rump status. Politics of principle without ever having the means to govern reduces those principles to a useless mental parlor game. Their fantasies of a reconstituted Bush/Romney party in the post-Trump era are just that – fantasies.

So, here we go. They’re going to do this damn silly thing in this damn silly way and take a flawed and wounded President and make him a martyr. You can wish for an event but you can never control the outcome. And one should always be careful of what one wishes for as you just might get it.

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  1. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    The difficult thing for me personally, and I would think it exist in some form among many others, is why we don’t see a division in some form in the population of Democrat voters similar to what we have as Republicans. Why do Democrats unify in causes, such as impeachment because we don’t like ‘orange man bad’, when there must be large numbers of them who acknowledge there is no redeeming principle to support such a stand?

    • #1
  2. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Bob Thompson: The difficult thing for me personally, and I would think it exist in some form among many others, is why we don’t see a division in some form in the population of Democrat voters similar to what we have as Republicans.

    You don’t see it because the media doesn’t want you to see it. Word is this morning that a New York Times reporter received through an FOI request documents that show Elizabeth Warren has lied about her “pregnancy dismissal” some months ago and decided not to publish. It’s not about the truth, its about the narrative. And what you’re asking for goes against the narrative.

    • #2
  3. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    The difficult thing for me personally, and I would think it exist in some form among many others, is why we don’t see a division in some form in the population of Democrat voters similar to what we have as Republicans. Why do Democrats unify in causes, such as impeachment because we don’t like ‘orange man bad’, when there must be large numbers of them who acknowledge there is no redeeming principle to support such a stand?

    My guess.  Democrats are an aggregation of small interest groups.  They only have power as a bloc, so they are well used to supporting the ‘decision’ of the bloc, made for them by the party leadership.  They do so in order to guarantee that the bloc will support their issue when their turn comes.

    • #3
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    I am suddenly picturing another possible outcome to impeachment and removal. The GOP dies because of the traitors in the Senate who voted for conviction. Trump starts a new party, and while he cannot run directly, he can be the power behind the throne for decades to come. Boss Trump will be running the MAGA Party and speaking with the figurehead President daily.

    Put that vision out there for the Progressives. Trump as a right-wing Soros.

    • #4
  5. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    My guess. Democrats are an aggregation of small interest groups. They only have power as a bloc, so they are well used to supporting the ‘decision’ of the bloc, made for them by the party leadership. They do so in order to guarantee that the bloc will support their issue when their turn comes.

    But, in many cases, their turn never comes, and who addresses the issue? Donald J. Trump. The criminal justice system and punishment in the Black Community, for instance. Obama never got anything done there. Trump did.

    • #5
  6. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Arahant (View Comment):

    I am suddenly picturing another possible outcome to impeachment and removal. The GOP dies because of the traitors in the Senate who voted for conviction. Trump starts a new party, and while he cannot run directly, he can be the power behind the throne for decades to come. Boss Trump will be running the MAGA Party and speaking with the figurehead President daily.

    Put that vision out there for the Progressives. Trump as a right-wing Soros.

    That would be more like a right-wing Putin.  Remember when Medvedev had the job, but was reporting back to Vlad?

    • #6
  7. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    a man of limited political skill

    Why do you say this?

    • #7
  8. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    a man of limited political skill

    Why do you say this?

    I think it can be applied sometimes to his words, rarely to what he does.

    • #8
  9. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    EJHill: And one should always be careful of what one wishes for as you just might get it.

    “More tears have been shed over prayers that were granted than over prayers that were denied.”

    • #9
  10. RyanFalcone Member
    RyanFalcone
    @RyanFalcone

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    The difficult thing for me personally, and I would think it exist in some form among many others, is why we don’t see a division in some form in the population of Democrat voters similar to what we have as Republicans. Why do Democrats unify in causes, such as impeachment because we don’t like ‘orange man bad’, when there must be large numbers of them who acknowledge there is no redeeming principle to support such a stand?

    First, it is a defining characteristic of the right that we are individualistic just as the defining characteristic of the left that they are collectivists. Thus, we’ll have divisions where they wouldn’t exist on the left.

    Second, the vast majority on our side are devout adherents to a Judeo-Christian religious world-view, religious lifestyle. On the left and among most never-Trumpers, humanism and a public policy driven autocracy is their religion. Their politics is their religion. On our side the two are distinct with more room for conflict.

    Third, lets be honest, anyone who doesn’t acknowledge that there are enemy plants here and on other sites who are designed to divide and destroy our culture from within are naive. I don’t think the same thing happens in reverse.

    • #10
  11. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    I’m assuming there’s going to be a lot of projection by Democrats in the coming months, in that they are going to try and selectively limit information and testimony coming out of the impeachment hearings, and then if the charges go to the Senate, immediately claim a whitewash, so that any information that has been hidden by Schiff, Pelosi, Nadler and others is now framed as disinformation.

    The spin is going to be that the partial information is the full information, and any efforts to release more information is going to be portrayed as releasing false information. It’s going to be a very Orwellian-effort, to where the Democrats hope their supportive media still retains enough control that people won’t be able to get past the spin, but that’s going to run into the fact that to do that, Jack Dorsey’s going to have to shut down Trump’s Twitter feed, and even that would be unlikely to keep him from getting his side of the story out.

    • #11
  12. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Jon1979 (View Comment):

    I’m assuming there’s going to be a lot of projection by Democrats in the coming months, in that they are going to try and selectively limit information and testimony coming out of the impeachment hearings, and then if the charges go to the Senate, immediately claim a whitewash, so that any information that has been hidden by Schiff, Pelosi, Nadler and others is now framed as disinformation.

    The spin is going to be that the partial information is the full information, and any efforts to release more information is going to be portrayed as releasing false information. It’s going to be a very Orwellian-effort, to where the Democrats hope their supportive media still retains enough control that people won’t be able to get past the spin, but that’s going to run into the fact that to do that, Jack Dorsey’s going to have to shut down Trump’s Twitter feed, and even that would be unlikely to keep him from getting his side of the story out.

    I wonder if a Senate trial, or maybe even a just House impeachment proceeding, would present an opportunity to lock some of the Russia hoax participants such as Brennan, Comey, and Clapper into perjury raps they couldn’t squirm out of?

    • #12
  13. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Well written, EJ.

    • #13
  14. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    RightAngles:

    a man of limited political skill

    Why do you say this?

    Because there are two types of political skills – campaigning and governing. Trump’s pugnacious and combative style is a lot better on the campaign trail than it is in the governing.

    This is the trouble with Trump’s business mentality: In business negotiations his adversaries don’t want to be him. The contractor or the politician doesn’t want to be the real estate developer. But every two-bit politico that comes into the Oval Office fantasizes about being on the other side of that desk. That changes the equation in the negotiating. He needs the pressure of personal approval from a majority of the electorate to make his style work and forces on both sides are hard at work to make sure that doesn’t happen.

    • #14
  15. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Jon1979 (View Comment):

    I’m assuming there’s going to be a lot of projection by Democrats in the coming months, in that they are going to try and selectively limit information and testimony coming out of the impeachment hearings, and then if the charges go to the Senate, immediately claim a whitewash, so that any information that has been hidden by Schiff, Pelosi, Nadler and others is now framed as disinformation.

    The spin is going to be that the partial information is the full information, and any efforts to release more information is going to be portrayed as releasing false information. It’s going to be a very Orwellian-effort, to where the Democrats hope their supportive media still retains enough control that people won’t be able to get past the spin, but that’s going to run into the fact that to do that, Jack Dorsey’s going to have to shut down Trump’s Twitter feed, and even that would be unlikely to keep him from getting his side of the story out.

    I wonder if a Senate trial, or maybe even a just House impeachment proceeding, would present an opportunity to lock some of the Russia hoax participants such as Brennan, Comey, and Clapper into perjury raps they couldn’t squirm out of?

    There, I’m assuming there’s going to be a lot of media cajoling/warning to John Roberts, in hinting to him what they want him in the name of comity to allow and prevent from being explored in any Senate trial.

    For the Chief Justice — who famously flipped his Obamacare decision in the name of maintaining the image of the Court, the shot-across-the-bow will be play ball with the Democrats or be framed as a hyper-partisan judge whose actions in conjunction with Trump and McConnell are making a mockery of the trial (which wouldn’t bother either Trump or McConnell. But Roberts might see himself being defined as another Clarence Thomas or Brett Kavanaugh and flinch).

    • #15
  16. Goldwaterwoman Thatcher
    Goldwaterwoman
    @goldwaterwoman

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Put that vision out there for the Progressives. Trump as a right-wing Soros.

    Considering the gigantic and effective support given over the years to the liberals by Soros, we could most certainly use a right-wing Soros.

    • #16
  17. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    Arahant (View Comment):

    I am suddenly picturing another possible outcome to impeachment and removal. The GOP dies because of the traitors patriots in the Senate who voted for conviction. Trump starts a new party, and while he cannot run directly, he can be the power behind the throne for decades to come. Boss Trump will be running the MAGA Party and speaking with the figurehead President daily.

    Put that vision out there for the Progressives. Trump as a right-wing Soros.

    Fixed it for you.

    The Republican Party is too small for Trump and me.

    The thing I like about this is that we would get to retain the Republican name.

    Teddy Roosevelt’s “Bull Moose Party” died after the 1912 election, Trump’s MAGA Party will likewise die.

    • #17
  18. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    Teddy Roosevelt’s “Bull Moose Party” died after the 1912 election, Trump’s MAGA Party will likewise die.

    Don’t get your hopes up, Gary. The only way there would be such a party is if the GOP first commits suicide.

    • #18
  19. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Gary Robbins: The Republican Party is too small for Trump and me.

    Gary, if you have your way the entire Republican Party will fit into a phone booth. And will be just as relative to the electorate as said phone booth.

     

    • #19
  20. DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    The Republican Party is too small for Trump and me.

    Bye!

    • #20
  21. EDISONPARKS Member
    EDISONPARKS
    @user_54742

    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    The Republican Party is too small for Trump and me.

    Bye!

    The Bulwark Party can have their convention in the Muncie, Indiana Hampton Inn continental breakfast lounge just off the lobby near the front desk.   Gary and the guest speaker can share a toasted bagel, then the two of them can decide which of them should run as President and which should be VP.

    • #21
  22. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    I am suddenly picturing another possible outcome to impeachment and removal. The GOP dies because of the traitors patriots in the Senate who voted for conviction. Trump starts a new party, and while he cannot run directly, he can be the power behind the throne for decades to come. Boss Trump will be running the MAGA Party and speaking with the figurehead President daily.

    Put that vision out there for the Progressives. Trump as a right-wing Soros.

    Fixed it for you.

    The Republican Party is too small for Trump and me.

    The thing I like about this is that we would get to retain the Republican name.

    Teddy Roosevelt’s “Bull Moose Party” died after the 1912 election, Trump’s MAGA Party will likewise die.

    My feeling is Trump’s style is sui genris in that you can’t have a regional or even a second tier politician in the futre come on the scene and act right out of the starting gate like Donald Trump.  The one major thing Trump and Reagan have in common in that both were in the public spotlight for about 40 years before they won the White House — the Democrats and the media couldn’t define them, because they had defined themselves over that time period, so attacks on them by the Dems and their supporters in the media didn’t work as well as when they attacked candidates like Dole or Romney.

    You get a politician on the GOP side in 2024 who is not already some sort of celebrity who comes in and tries to win as the angriest guy or gal in the room and they’ll get a certain level of support. But they’re going to define themselves as angry candidate, where Trump in 2016 was angry guy, but with a 38-year back history in the public spotlight. That was the part that allowed him to beat Hillary (and even when the media likes you, as with Bernie, angry guy only goes so far with the majority of voters).

    • #22
  23. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    The difficult thing for me personally, and I would think it exist in some form among many others, is why we don’t see a division in some form in the population of Democrat voters similar to what we have as Republicans. Why do Democrats unify in causes, such as impeachment because we don’t like ‘orange man bad’, when there must be large numbers of them who acknowledge there is no redeeming principle to support such a stand?

    I personally believe it is the continual brainwashing.

    Turn on Colbert, and he has continual fun fests over Bad Bad Leroy Trump. Saturday Night Live does the same thing. Our local newspapers have only negative opinionated accounts of Trump’s activities. The last time I purchased the Press Democrat out of Santa Rosa, Ca, Trump had just gotten off the plane over in Vietnam to meet with the No Korean dictator. The PD already labelled  this effort a failed mission – before it had even started. There was not word regarding what Trump’s mission statement for that meeting happened to be. Just “Stupid Bad Trump with tiny hands.”

    Even Fox News on Cable has many panelists who hate on Trump. Of course, with those on Fox who hate on Trump, they don’t mind getting VP Pence as the new President. Pence is a Globalist and will give the Elite exactly what they want.

    However it makes no sense for the Dems to want to impeach Trump… How will their lives be better under President Pence? (Seen from their perspective anyway.)

    The tide has turned for the Dems. If they impeach Trump and remove him from office, there will be a new contender. Who that will be, I don’t know. Another billionaire who combines the astuteness of James Woods with the feistiness of Jesse Ventura? It won’t get better with Trump gone. It will be different, but not any easier for their win in 2020.

     

     

    • #23
  24. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    The Republican Party is too small for Trump and me.

     

    • #24
  25. RyanFalcone Member
    RyanFalcone
    @RyanFalcone

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    The Republican Party is too small for Trump and me.

    Bye!

    The Bulwark Party can have their convention in the Muncie, Indiana Hampton Inn continental breakfast lounge just off the lobby near the front desk. Gary and the guest speaker can share a toasted bagel, then the two of them can decide which of them should run as President and which should be VP.

    Meh,we’re talking about 2-3 percent of the Republican Party and they are 2-3 percent that are so annoying that they probably repulse at least their number away from the party. Most were drummed out of camp in 2018. In a couple more cycles, they’ll  be voted into oblivion or dead. Time to spend less time grumbling about them and move on towards the future.

    • #25
  26. DonG Coolidge
    DonG
    @DonG

    EJHill: Their fantasies of a reconstituted Bush/Romney party in the post-Trump era are just that – fantasies.

    The fantasy of the NeverTrumper is going to a DC cocktail party and giggling with all their Leftist friends.  They are like vainglorious school girls that will do anything and say anything to sit at the popular girls table. 

    • #26
  27. Doctor Robert Member
    Doctor Robert
    @DoctorRobert

    Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

    Section 2. This Article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.

     

    Will someone tell me what in this amendment makes a person ineligible to run for POTUS after having been impeached in a first term?

    • #27
  28. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    @doctorrobert Wrong part of the Constitution. It’s in Article I, Section 3 on the power of the Senate:

    Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

    • #28
  29. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    I am suddenly picturing another possible outcome to impeachment and removal. The GOP dies because of the traitors patriots in the Senate who voted for conviction. Trump starts a new party, and while he cannot run directly, he can be the power behind the throne for decades to come. Boss Trump will be running the MAGA Party and speaking with the figurehead President daily.

    Put that vision out there for the Progressives. Trump as a right-wing Soros.

    Fixed it for you.

    The Republican Party is too small for Trump and me.

    The thing I like about this is that we would get to retain the Republican name.

    Teddy Roosevelt’s “Bull Moose Party” died after the 1912 election, Trump’s MAGA Party will likewise die.

    Gary! Trump is unique and temporary. You have said before that you like what Trump has actually done. Great. Let’s hope he keeps doing it, and when the relatively normal Republican party returns to business as usual in 2024, the country will be in better shape no matter which party wins the White House at that point—a stronger economy, more conservative judges, a weakened regulatory state, a healthy suspicion of savior-politicians and a chastened elite class. We could even hope that, should Trump truly trounce the Democrat next year, the Democrats will renounce socialism and move toward the center for another generation or two?  

     

    • #29
  30. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    The Republican Party is too small for Trump and me.

    Bye!

    The Bulwark Party can have their convention in the Muncie, Indiana Hampton Inn continental breakfast lounge just off the lobby near the front desk. Gary and the guest speaker can share a toasted bagel, then the two of them can decide which of them should run as President and which should be VP.

    Didn’t even know there was a Hampton Inn in Muncie. When I went bicycling in the area we usually stayed in Anderson, and once at a B&B out in the country.  

    • #30
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