I have already written about how I feel Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi should be credited for playing superb political chess outfoxing McConnell and Trump by delaying the articles of impeachment.
And I have already written about how I feel McConnell throughout it all has played his cards in this game of impeachment poker rather horribly.
The case in point being that, as I am writing this diary, now that Trump’s impeachment team has closed out the “best” (and I use the term loosely) argument they had in his defense, news is currently spreading that McConnell may NOT have the votes to avoid calling for more witnesses in Trump’s impeachment.
I feel like it should be worth pointing out, that those last two points are not un-related.
While objective observers may rightly point out how flimsy and lacking much substance Trump’s defense team offered at the trial, it makes sense, considering that they feel they this is basically an easy win for Trump, as removing him from office would require a two-thirds Senate supermajority, which is virtually impossible with today’s Senate. It is hard to put up much defense, when your client’s behavior is largely indefensible, after all, but again, as far as his grip on the office is concerned, it matters little.
However, because Trump’s defense team did so poorly at, well, defending his behavior, this leaves little cover for those vulnerable GOP Senators facing large swing-state electorates in November of this Presidential year. Senators like Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner of Colorado, whose states voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Then there are Senators like Martha McSally of Arizona, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Joni Ernst in Iowa, and Georgia’s David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, whose swing states were close to being won by Clinton. Perhaps even South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, Texas’s John Cornyn, and even McConnell himself, might be feeling a little nontrivial pressure this Presidential year, especially if the Trump boost they are banking on, fails to materialize, or downright backfires, as it seems to have done several times in the mid-terms, such as with Kansas’s Kris Kobach, AL’s Roy Moore, and PA’s Rick Saccone.
Had Trump’s defense offered up a better performance than a sick fish filling in for Gordon Ramsay, these Republican Senators would be in a much better position to convincingly say they do not need to hear from more witnesses, give Trump the exhonerating votes he is looking for, and be on their merry ways to their lobbyist-catered brunches and second homes.
Instead, because Trump’s defense apparently felt little need to offer up an actual defense, we are now seeing the result, with the mutiny against McConnell. Those GOP Senators know that if they do not build up enough of a image of a fair and impartial trial before voting to keep Trump in power, it will be harder to separate themselves from Trump’s coattails. With quite a few of those Senators facing considerable swing and undecided voters, part of an American electorate that has shown time and time again that they will punish corruption at the ballot boxes, it should be growing increasingly, painfully obvious, the deal they are making: protect Trump, at the risk of losing your own seats in power.
You know how bad the Trump defense’s performance was? We are talking about the same Republican Senators who were so outraged by a single hyphenated word that they were essentially spewing fire out of their nostrils to acquit Trump and get back at those foolhardy lower-chamber House upstarts. But Trump’s team was so bad, they actually forced the GOP Senators’ hands to push for witnesses as part of the trial — pretty much the one thing Trump and McConnell were trying to prevent.
Honestly, it is a sight to behold, how poorly Trump, McConnell, and the Republican Party have played their impeachment hand.
And if the upcoming questioning, and strongly possible additional witness testimony are about as disastrous for the GOP as anyone can easily predict — they face the last logical political choice: continue to protect Trump’s grip on power, or save their own — by pushing for Trump’s resignation.