Charlie Cook/National Journal:
Why House Dems Shouldn't Impeach the President
It would likely hinder their ability to remove him from office, not speed it up.
Public opinion on this issue is pretty straightforward. Most people disapprove of the job that Trump has done, which nearly every major poll has shown for the entirety of his presidency. But with only 17 months to go before the next election, the public does not want to remove him from office through impeachment. A May 28-31 CNN national poll of adults showed 41 percent favoring impeachment and removal from office and 54 percent opposing it, which were better numbers for the pro-impeachment side than most other polls have found.
Some seem to ignore the all-consuming nature of the impeachment process. Even if they think it’s unlikely to undermine their chances of beating Trump in November, perhaps these advocates should at least consider the possibility that it gives him the foil he needs for the battle.
So why do they persist? The answer, of course, is that many Democrats and liberals despise Trump so thoroughly that it has clouded their judgement, just as a similar hatred among Republicans and conservatives toward Bill Clinton affected theirs 20 years ago. Emotion and logic are not two things that typically go hand-in-hand.
The House Democrats who have come out in favor of impeachment reflect the base of the party, but not many rank-and-file members and certainly not those freshmen who gave them the majority have done the same.
Age of voter has a lot to do with things. If younger voters outnumbered older voters, it would be a different country. Older folks vote with regularity. “Well, if it doesn’t go my way, I’m not voting” loses every single time (and so does “only the WH matters”). We’re getting there, but not at the pace everyone is happy with.
Josh Marshall/TPM:
I continue to believe, more strongly than you can imagine, that impeaching President Trump is silly and a waste of time. That’s not because I think the politics are bad, as people always seem to assume when you say you don’t support an immediate move toward impeachment. I simply think it doesn’t accomplish anything. So it really doesn’t matter what the politics are. The only real question to me is whether Democrats succeed in their real shot at ending Trump’s presidency, which is in November 2020. It’s an existential challenge for the whole country.
...
But here’s the thing. You need to bring people along if you think your strategy is the right one. And here we have to admit there’s been a real shortfall. This started to click for me in early May when there were the first signs Robert Mueller or his handlers at DOJ were resisting his testifying. I don’t know just what Jerry Nadler’s attitude was. But as it showed up in the news write-ups it was basically, we couldn’t agree on ground rules for testimony. Oh well. Sad trombone, basically.
That just doesn’t cut it. If the most aggressive stance toward President Trump isn’t impeachment but aggressive investigation – which I firmly believe – then you actually have to be aggressive and show you’re being aggressive.
John Ziegler/Mediaite:
A Great Country Would Have Already Impeached Trump, But Maybe We Should Just Admit We No Longer Qualify
When it comes to the great “Impeachment Debate,” I come at the subject from what is a literally unique perspective. For instance, there is surely not another delegate to the 2008 Republican National Convention who has successfully publicly lobbied a prominent Democratic Congressman to change their mind in favor of impeaching a Republican president.
Jill Lawrence/USA today:
6 ways Democrats can ease America into thinking about impeachment and Donald Trump
Democrats can't let Trump run out the impeachment clock as he laughs all the way to the bank and maybe even the polls. Start preparing the public now.
Watergate veterans. Start by inviting John Dean, President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel who famously told Nixon that there was “a cancer within, close to the presidency, that’s growing.” Also: David Dorsen, a former assistant chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee under Sen. Sam Ervin; former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, who was elected in 1972 at age 31 and participated in the Nixon impeachment hearings as a member of the House Judiciary Committee; and Jill Wine-Banks, an assistant Watergate special prosecutor who is now working on a book about “Watergate and Trumpgate.” The parallels between then and now, including charges of obstruction of justice and abuse of power against Nixon, would demystify the impeachment process. And the outcome — Nixon's resignation — would show that political opinion can be swayed and that results are possible.
CNN:
Biden continues to lead crowded Democratic field
The poll finds 32% support Biden, down from 39% saying they supported him in an April CNN poll. That survey was fielded in the days immediately following Biden's formal entry into the race. Since then, the former vice president has been
running with an eye toward protecting his early advantages, making fewer public appearances than his fellow candidates even as they begin to turn their fire on him.
But none of the other candidates have shown notable gains in the last month. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to stand alone in second place with 18%, followed by California Sen. Kamala Harris with 8%, 7% for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and 5% each for South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker comes in with 3% support, with former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 2% each. The remaining 14 candidates tested in the poll landed at 1% or less.
David Brooks/NY Times:
The Coming G.O.P. Apocalypse
Stumbling blind into the age of diversity.
As Ronald Brownstein pointed out in The Atlantic, older Democrats prefer a more moderate candidate who they think can win. Younger Democrats prefer a more progressive candidate who they think can bring systemic change.
The generation gap is even more powerful when it comes to Republicans. To put it bluntly, young adults hate them.
In 2018, voters under 30 supported Democratic House candidates over Republican ones by an astounding 67 percent to 32 percent. A 2018 Pew survey found that 59 percent of millennial voters identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, while only 32 percent identify as Republicans or lean Republican.
Will Bunch/Philly.com:
Mitch McConnell’s democracy-crushing smirk is why just getting rid of Trump isn’t enough
But May 28, 2019 should be marked on the calendar of American history as the day that democracy was taken off life support and officially declared dead — because there’s no longer even the slightest pretense of pretending that the ancient words of the U.S. Constitution, fealty to the rule of law, and 243 years of imperfectly upheld democratic norms matter anymore. McConnell and Trump — soon to be helped, no doubt, by the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court — are now in an arms race to see who can blow up America’s founding documents faster, through illegal wars and arms deals, tariffs by dictatorial fiat, ignoring subpoenas and now judicial orders ... all with that same knowing smirk.
Let’s quickly review a couple more of McConnell’s past and probable future crimes against democracy, lest you think that was an exaggeration: