Nothing new - Republicans will gradually fall off the Trump bandwagon as they did between the 1972 election and his resignation.
Look at the 1974 election results for evidence of why.
Nixon’s last supporter, long-time House member Jim Grover R-2nd was slaughtered by 25-the-week-before-taking-office Tom Downey.
Trump’s likely last supporter, Pete King, who knocked out Downey with the Reagan landslide, and who nearly lost in 2018 to a candidate running a terribly underfunded campaign, has announced he won’t be seeking another term in a district gerrymandered for him (almost a decade ago, it cut across Long Island the width of a south-north expressway, from his home to LI’s northern “gold coast”.)
Now King Peter gets to play the role of his GOP predecessor without worrying about going down in flames.
One-by-one they’ll say something like “to settle this matter, it must go to the Senate for trial.
By which time, it seams, Rudy Giuliani will himself be indicted, and Trump will have to find himself a new “my Roy Cohn”, one of the slimiest, lowest, most evil men ever admitted to the NY Bar.
In the Senate, a lot of the outcome will be determined by the Chief Justice of the US, and how much he is willing to say to fellow conservative Republicans that the President is trying to destroy the nation, and the power of both the Legislative and Judicial branches to try to become this nation’s first king.
If he says it’s time, enough of the GOP will follow, and justice will be done.
3
The GOP endorsed Trump, a candidate who criticized people from all walks of life including women and a Gold Star Family and a former POW. Trump's criticism of Decorated Veterans has continued to this day with his verbal abuse of Col. Vindman. Even Fox News anchors have done the same.Yet today Trump and the GOP and Fox will be celebrating the service of our Vets on this Veteran's Day .All the while we have lost our standing among our Allies around the world and our Allies the Kurds have been abandoned and left running for their lives. Russia has now taken our place in Syria which even the GOP must acknowledge is a tragjic consequence of Trump's brash Diplomacy and impulsive decision making ! In spite of all this and an administration with an 80% turnover rate...there is still support even among some Veterans for a President who has no successful policies to date. Mexico never paid for the Wall, NK did not denuclearize,the Gov't Shutdown Failed. The China Trade War has resulted in taxpayers paying our farmers and the added taxes as prices have risen. He's golfed more than any President and cost us a fortune in Security not to mention the cost of all the continual Investigations etc. How there can be any Trump support when he has failed us in so many ways is troubling. Trump Support is simply UNAMERICAN....and his promised MAGA has failed to materialize. No criticism here..May all Veterans whether former POW's, Decorated or not...your Service to our Country is appreciated !!
3
Two reasons the GOP doesn't need to concern itself with the majority of Americans:
1. The fate of the country is really dictated by a few states of which the GOP has a firm stronghold.
2. THEY ARE the deep state government: what I label as Foxlandians.
We keep calling our country America and pretending there is a constitution that the GOP SHOULD be adhering to. Let's call it out for what it is - the GOP abide by Foxlandia's constitution. It's autocrat and permeable. Whatever Foxlandian's want to do is acceptable because, hey, no one can do anything about it anyway.
So, what can we do to try and reclaim our beloved America? Some thoughts I'll lay out - two alternatives and one fantasy:
1. A concerted, mass, relocation program to move people into the states that control the nation. Once there, and once new, true Americans are elected, rewrite laws so this craziness can't happen again.
Unfortunately, this will take too long and should have started years ago.
2. I really feel the furor rising and I think a real civil war is not unfathomable. I say this with a sinking heart.
3. The fantasy - Let's split this country up into two - America and Foxlandia.
I'm so tired of fighting. People like me just want to live peacefully. We're not filled with hate and we don't need to target 'others'
To Foxlandians - once you have your own country, you'll only have yourselves to blame when you start looking for new targets for your unhappiness.
4
Over the past two/three decades, Republicans have been evolving from a political party (takes public opinion into account) into more of an ideological cult (positions count more than people). That's why their stances on various issues are so inflexible, unrealistic and intractable. And that's why they've become so nasty about it, oftentimes hysterically so.
All that's missing here (so far) is the Kool-Aid. And that will be drunk when white supremacy finally disappears, as it will. At this point, the Republicans no longer show any capacity to adapt to the changes taking place in the US. Only a new party can pick up their fallen mantle.
10
The only time the Republicans will listen to polls is if and when the polls tell them that they themselves are in danger of losing their own seats in Congress! Sadly re-election is the primary aim of rather too many of these “honorable” men and women!
4
Well, except that the Republicans repeatedly won elections in this period, and not all of them resulted from structural factors. A more likely reason is that people aren't always entirely honest in opinion polls, esp. those conducted by the mainstream media. I guess we'll find out this year won't we?
33
@Michael Livingston’s The polls predicted an overwhelming victory for the Democrats in the House elections. They got one, but the margin wasn’t as great as the polls or the total vote count itself (9.7 million votes, or 8.6%) would have suggested, because of...structural factors like gerrymandering. It’s been estimated that these reduced the Democratic victory by 16 seats (https://apnews.com/9fd72a4c1c5742aead977ee27815d776). So in the last major election, the polling was just fine but structural factors did indeed have a big impact.
25
@Doug
Did you refer to the 2010 Congressional elections as an overwhelming victory for Republicans?
The Democrats lost far more seats in Congress after Obama had been in office two years than the the Republicans lost after Trump had been in office two years.
4
@Ian
This kind of proves the point. According to Wikipedia, the Republicans in 2010 by 6.8%, resulting in +63 Republican seats.
In 2018 the Democrats won by 8.6%, resulting in +41 seats.
Had they gained at the same rate as the Republicans in 2010 this would have been 80 seats.
32
It's no surprise that ideology is a better test of a Senator or House Member's votes than what his/her constituents want. For Republicans in thrall to Trump, however, what is the ideology exactly? Isn't it just pure fear of his bullying. Oh, plus they have a lock now on the federal judiciary!
So, it's just pure power that unites all these grown men standing in the Rotunda solemnly denouncing the partisanship of today's Impeachment moves. How else, for instance, explain the cow-towing of Wm Barr -- once a more or less respected lawyer now an all purpose monkey wrench for the President? He is too old to be an attractive candidate for the SCT, so what's in this for him-- the will to power. Power is its own juice and justification, some one has written.
4
Republicans know that elections and polls don't matter until we get our voting machines secured. Our voting machines are hack-able. High-schoolers did it in 1 1/4 hours. Just hack a few counties in a few swing states and the electoral college allows elections to be stolen. The Mueller report showed Soviet breaches of our voting machines. Why do Republicans fight efforts to improve our voting systems? Why should they change a winning strategy?
7
Oh please. The Democrats constantly point to polls on the "large print" for their policies and then cry foul when Republicans run against the "fine print" of the same policies and win. A prime example is that while "Medicare for All" polls fairly well on its own, as soon as voters are told it means ending private health insurance and raising taxes, support drops below 20%. When it comes to impeachment the Democrats have done nothing but preach to the choir and attack anyone who dare dissent for 3 years, yet y'all are shocked that you haven't changed Republicans' minds.
5
The primary reason Republicans have won elections in the face of unpopular policies is the creative use of the tenacious remnants of racism to create fear. That and cheating.
As long as they have big-money donors supporting them, they continue win by dividing us against one another.
The reason Republicans won't support impeachment is that impeachment and all the facts likely to be revealed would destroy their party. It might also leave a number of them in jail.
3
Here's a novel idea. Listen to the evidence before deciding which way to vote.
2
To be honest I think there is a segment of the population that is very willing to be convinced that black is white, up is down and in is out.
Visit a state that is Republican during an election year and you see television ads insisting on all of these things. Once in Missouri I witnessed an ad that blared that Democrats wanted to get rid of Social Security. How would people not be confused?
Whenever I meet an average person of some ethnicity or a race other than Caucasian and they are Republican, I always ask them if they understand the platforms of the two parties. And invariably they do not. They have no idea their chosen party is actively out to get them.
There is a bell curve of intelligence. Some people just fall down on the low side of it.
5
So, do we believe this spaghetti bowl of lies from the Administration and it's fanatical supporter, or our own eyes and ears of the facts? It seems impossible to me how anyone could actually make these spins in light of cold hard truth, but, there are those that do. I still think Public opinion can do things, in spite of the arguments presented here.
Eventually, the overwhelming amount of truth will keep changing voting Public opinion, and demand for impeachment will hit 60% and higher. When that happens, my guess is, the 'Republican rats' will be fast getting off the SS Trump, as that ship is going down, and no way to save it .
I'm just going to sit back and wait for that percentage. As they say, "You can fool some of the People all of the time, and all of the People some of the time, but you can't fool ALL of the People All of the time!'. WE DO STILL VOTE! The Repubs can all still lose their jobs, and unless Trump can somehow dissolve the Constitution, it's gonna happen!
1
No Republican minds will be changed by polls, reason, facts or logic. This is particularly so for the 40% of the electorate who will not budge, as per the Dunning-Kruger Effect and a quote from Twain: "It is easier to fool someone than to convince them they've been fooled."
3
After what happened in Nov., 2016, I find that I just can't trust polls!
2
The motivation for action taken or (more often) action stonewalled is based on one litmus test. Does the action maintain Republican power? And will it increase the number of guns in circulation? And will it limit everyone who isn't a white evangelical male and diminish their opportunities and citizenhood? This is an extremist Republican party today that wants to restore Jim Crow and the rest of the "good old days". They just aren't honest about it - or much else for that matter. They want an old fashioned male dominated theocracy. As long as the males are lily white,
3
If Trump's base is so easily manipulated that they can believe an obvious fraud and conman like him might be on their side, then maybe it's not that difficult to convince them otherwise.
1
What a disquieting article. Our "democracy" is not democratic. Republicans , pursuing unpopular politics, have nevertheless been able to win the presidency many times (as in 2016) without getting the popular vote.
Why should a minority rule in a democracy? I can thing of three factors (correct me if I'm wrong) : gerrymandering, an extremely conservative judiciary, and most responsible. an Electoral College that favors small states and rural areas. This results in power being controlled by the least educated and least sophisticated among us--essentially rural rednecks--and the urban educated, crowded together and losing impact for each voter's vote--are relegated to second-class voters. The university professor in the crowded city counts for less than than the hard-working rustic on the farm. It's not really fair; it should be, one voter, one equal vote.
1
You would think they would like to get this 'monkey' off their backs.
To the best of my recollection no former occupant of the White House held party members hostage. This is highly unusual.
Russia,Russia,Russia... normal American leaders wouldn't be aiding and abetting this situation.
1
I generally find that far too many of us like the data when we like the data, and don’t like the data when we don’t like the data. That facts are great, as long as they back us up.
2
I got an email from a liberal organization a couple of weeks ago asking me to call my senators and tell them to do the right thing when it comes to trying the impeachment case.
I just shook me head.
Both Missouri senators are GOPers and Always Trumpers. Every single voter in this state could call or sign a petition to these two guys to do something anti-Trump and they would still vote pro Trump.
They answer not to the voters, to morality, to the Constitution, to the oaths they took. They answer Trump, the right-wing money machine and right-wing lobbiests and super PACS.
5
It's actually helpful to have this pointed out, because this country has got to quit thinking that Republicans are EVER going to see reason. They won't. So don't bother to look back and most importantly don't pause to make them see. They will never. We have to keep the pedal to the metal and fight hard. Jeez, sometimes I think I'm in Thunderdome.
3
Simply doing the correct thing - making the decision that is best for all Americans and the future - is forever gone from the GOP manifesto. Not a single Republican anywhere has said in public that they endorse "doing the right thing" for the country.
3
The problem many have with the impeachment inquiry is that it started the day Trump won the election. So 2.5 years later, one might be a bit exhausted with impeachment. I was shocked, like most, that Trump won. Found out that many millenials stayed home; didn't vote. The man can't even talk in complete sentences.
This latest chapter and push for impeachment has some questionable activities. Seems that neither the Dems or Reps want to look at events in an honest way. That shuts many down from the whole discussion. Please, give us a candidate that will lead, that will compromise, that will help bridge this divide. I'm tired of impeachment, tired of the smug Schiff; I want to vote! Please?
2
@ Ma
I agree with almost all of your comment. What I think should not be forgotten is that trump won the 2016 election with the help of at least one foreign government Russia. That was known early on, which is why impeachment talk started early on.
The other, more important issue which must not be forgotten - the election in 2020 will “fixed” (as trump loved to say himself) if Russian interference occurs again. Our vited will be next to meaninglesd. This is the essence of the impeachment hearings: trump asked a foreign government to interfere in our elections. That is unconstitutional, corrupt, and illegal. It threatens the integrity of the election process.
2
@Ma Democracy can be tiring. That's not a good reason to circumvent it.
3
The electoral collage is not "tilted towards the republicans". The Democrat presidential candidates blew it by not appealing to voters as per the rules of the game. They win big in Calif and NY and gave up their own "blue wall" willingly. It was only four years ago that pundits were saying the Republicans would never win Presidential elections again.
1
Correct in all counts: the GOP has managed to win elections while constantly presenting to the public a platform that should be – and is – unpalatable to the vast majority of voters.
How? Part of the explanation lies in their successful electoral strategies: focus on adding up lots of states with only a few electoral votes each, rather than the large states with many. (Although that analogy only goes so far: Texas and Florida have gone Republican for a while.)
More importantly, voter suppression has been critical, even as it is completely unconstitutional. The GOP cares nothing for rule of law, or the Constitution, or, for that matter, for the country. They only care about their own power and money.
However, a key ingredient here is missing in your discussion: the facilitating roles that a completely dysfunctional Democratic party and piqued liberal voters have played. Gore lost Florida (and the election) by about 500 votes. However, 100,000 liberals in Florida voted for Ralph Nader. Trump won by tiny margins in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, but minority and young voter turnout was terrible: Hillary was widely disliked and Bernie supporters stayed home – guaranteeing Trump victory, regardless of the popular vote.
Yes, the GOP has used very shady tactics to stay in power. AND that is only possible because the Democrats repeatedly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
8
The new Republican party operates like Trump himself - one way loyalty above all else. But it raises a question: when does defending the indefensible become a bridge too far? For many of us, a revelation of his tax returns showing Trump to be not only a tax cheat but a money launderer would have the best chance of qualifying. It would negate the GOP argument of Not Worthy of Impeachment which is their final fall back. That is the Trump card that must be played in the impeachment game if justice is to be served. John Roberts, where are you?
1
Republican politicians (who, as Dr. Hemmer points out, are not the same as ordinary Republican voters) care about the opinions of their donors. Many of their donors are opposed to democracy (which is "less important than capitalism"). If the donors require policies that lose votes, the politicians must find ways to keep their jobs anyhow.
2
I agree with whoever proposed that when, or if, the Democrats win the House, the Senate and the White House in 2020 their agenda should be 1) Abolish the filibuster, 2) Grant statehood for Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, 3) Choose Supreme Court Justices randomly on a revolving 4 year basis every year from the Judges on the Circuit Courts Of Appeals and 4) Reauthorize the enforcement provisions of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts that the SCOTUS recently struck down. These reforms will force the GOP to be more responsive to the population in view of the 4 additional Senators Democrats will most likely get; and, there will be less voter suppression if the enforcement provisions are reauthorized not on the basis of racial discrimination but on the basis of Congressional findings of partisan, arbitrary and capricious state legislation which produces voter suppression. Removing the filibuster will allow statehood to be granted. Constitution amendment isn’t needed. And a succeeding legislature cannot take away statehood. The Supreme Court would no longer be ruled by the same nine Justices for decades as the arbiters of constitutional issues. The yearly random and revolving choices of Circuit Court Judges will broaden the views of the Court and make them more acceptable to all.
2
I strongly disagree. According to polls and recent experience, if a GOP Senator or member of Congress supported impeachment or removal, then s/he would be primaried and face Trump's wrath. If they happened to represent a purple state or district, however, then they would also face strong pressures from the left, and a few of them might risk voting against Trump.
3
This is a shallow analysis that ignores the primary reasons Republicans have generally been able to retain control of the federal government despite unpopular positions: the Electoral College and a system of representation that appoints two senators per state regardless of population.
These two distinctly non-democratic institutions have awarded the White House to Republican presidential candidates who did not win the popular and allowed Republicans to control the Senate despite garnering millions fewer votes than Democrats.
Republicans have learned to play to the minority opinions held by voters in small, less populous states, while at the same time stoking anger against "coastal elites" and fear of immigrants who may be changing the demographics of those places.
It's potent combination, and it's exactly what's given us Trump, a Supreme Court stacked with neanderthals like Kavanuagh and Gorsuch, gridlock on issues like guns and immigration, and other problems.
At some point, this needs to be addressed. If we want democracy, we need to get rid of the Electoral College and introduce proportional representation to the Senate.
6
A sobering analysis but way too pessimistic for me...
A political party that is shrinking its base from within as well as coping with demographic changes from without, all the while ignoring the will of the people, cannot sustain power as we move into the future. And we don't have an option to move into the past, slogans about making the country great again notwithstanding.
Living in Virginia I was privileged to witness (and participate in) a Blue Wave one year in advance of the 2018 national election. Frankly, the size of that wave surprised even the most partisan Democrats here. This year we got another preview of what's building and preparing to crash ashore next year. And it is not just in Virginia.
We will need to work taking nothing for granted, but if we do that we can close the gap between our people and our government from sea to shining sea.
Register. Show up and vote. That is how this cumbersome and imperfect and wonderful American experiment works!
4
We are again at the mercy of a few states with ill informed and misinformed angry voters a who want to express their anger and stop their fears rather then solve problems and recognize reality.
Trump has groomed them for 3 years to do what he tells them.
The antiquated electoral college is our biggest enemy to saving democracy. Ironic in that it was proposed with the idea of saving democracy from the whims of the uninformed and uneducated.
1
Why would a poll change a mind? The Republicans have demonstrated day after day that there is nothing too craven or destructive or illegal or criminal or obstructive that they won't support in Donald Trump and his administration.
The only thing that matters is that this particular GOP and its leaders from bottom to top be voted out in November 2020. VOTE.
2
As for changing republican "minds" if you mean the members of the base - as we say in the law-that assumes a fact not in evidence.
3
@Hazel
Funny
Thx
1
Citizen’s United further opened the door for the corrupt and amoral authoritarian personalities to take over. We have been a passive populace. We need to take lessons from the citizens of Hong Kong. Otherwise, we get what we deserve.
5
Sad, but true. Voter suppression and gerrymandering enable Republicans to ignore the polls. Democrats rarely engage in voter suppression, but they are not without guilt when it comes to gerrymandering. The Republicans are the masters of dirty tricks and social media has handed them a megaphone.
2
Who is the intended audience of this article? The Republican who changes his mind is a mythical beast. It does not exist. Everyone knows this. Most students of history also know that the Cold War and the Red Scare was a Republican lie invented by the Dulles brothers and promoted by Eisenhower. When we lost Vietnam nothing happened. China and Russia are a greater threat to our democracy now that they are capitalist dictatorships than they ever were when they were Communist dictatorships. The Conservative media's job is to prepare another field of fear in order to sow hatred and trick voters into electing Republicans so they can grab more money and power. I remember Reagan well, and how we despised him. His victory was the worst day of my life, until November 2016. Those days are connected though. We're a nation of scaredy cats and suckers, who too often don't bother to vote.
5
Ike was the last republican with a sense for the country. The downhill slide started with goldwater and has gotten worse through the years.
1
I'm beginning to think the only thing that will change Republican minds is a ravening mob screaming for the heads of lawmakers who put party above country and and try to maintain minority rule against the wishes of the majority.
4
Wow. Not one mention that what keeps the repubs going so strong, getting what they want but what the people do not want. It's the the Republican donors for gods sake -- the buying of Republicans by the donors. As if you do not know that!
Not one mention of this. Very, very strange and ignorant indeed.
"It's not that democratic" you say about American democracy! Wow! You give a few mickey mouse examples of why -- not one is the main reason -- corruption in the so called campaign finance system.
2
The Republican Party of today has no scruples and certainly no loyalty to the Constitution. It exists solely for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful. As we have seen numerous times over the past couple of years, Republicans believe that anything done—legal or not—is okay so long as they retain their power. The reason so many House Republicans are choosing not to run in 2020 is because they lost their power to force unpopular tax cuts and social policies on the American public. Republicans use their mouthpieces on Fox News and hate radio to spread their lies and conspiracy theories that demonize minorities and immigrants, warning white people that they should be angry and fearful that their culture is being ruined and that these lazy, useless minorities and immigrants are living off their tax dollars. The Republican Party of today is a destructive malignancy on our democracy. If they are allowed to retain power in 2020, we may no longer be a democracy.
2
Belief-based politics--like religion--is a powerful delusion. "In God We Trust?" I don't think so.
1
Shocking but this rings true. Country is very Nondemocratic and with republicans in power it grows so everyday. Profound structural changes are required. Unlimited, invisible $ in elections? No! Electoral college giving us the less popular agenda? No! Gerrymandering, voter suppression? No. And what to do about the Murdoch curse of DoubleSpeak (fox)!
3
Healthcare or in other words for democrats and repubs is top of the list. Before the ACA there were millions of Americans without healthcare.
BTW Nancy Pelosi lost her job because she got the ACA passed. Speaker Pelosi chose country over party and had more courage than all the repubs members combined. She knew her job was over if she got the ACA passed but she did it anyway.
Now millions of us have healthcare who couldn't otherwise, and repubs voters who now have healthcare wouldn't like to admit it that it was because of Pelosi's love of country first!
4
Although there is the sense that we pay far too much attention to polls, we appear addicted with no way to stop: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/politics-and-the-new-machine ("Are Polls Ruining Democracy").
So how good is public opinion for democracy? Maybe not so much--not there is any way to refocus our political attentions. One poll give rise to another, then another...
I do not know how to fix this, if we can, but I suspect that if we poll the public as to whether we focus too much on polls...
“When it comes to impeachment (and pretty much everything else), the G.O.P. is no longer driven by public opinion.”
Drive the Republicans from power! We must teach them that ‘public opinion’ is the ONLY thing that matters.
Vote ELIZABETH WARREN!
Take back the power!
Tax the corporations and the rich progressively based on their income!
Make them pay their fair share!
Finance public, universal healthcare!
Take back your wages, your benefits, your schools, your water, your infrastructure, your dignity!
Vote Democrat today, tomorrow, and next year!
Remove the Republicans from power! FOREVER!
Or at least until they get the message: the American People run this country. Not the rich!
1
Following polls is like driving on the Interstate highway looking only at the rear view mirrors. You won't last very long. Yet, that seems to steer many politicians. Every GOP represented district contains Democrats, just as every Democrat represented district contains Republicans. Yet you wouldn't believe this based upon their voting records. One party rule will destroy this democracy; plain and simple. We have been fortunate this political atmosphere hasn't resulted in a second Civil War (an oxymoron if I've ever seen one), but until we all seek compromise, and listen to our neighbors, find our common ground, that's where we are headed.
This impeachment is due to an ignorant, narcissistic POTUS, who seeks to divide us, not unite us. I am ashamed for the GOP colleagues who ignore the mountain of evidence and facts to continue to support this devil, totally unworthy of any support. To what end I ask? 2020 cannot come soon enough.
3
I was often confused as to why my "conservative" relatives voted consistently republican even while professing to support most of the same progressive policies that I did: higher taxes on rich, expanded social security, single payer healthcare, free college, even abortion rights. For a long time I bought into the common liberal argument that these folks were being tricked by republicans, whose motives were simply to protect the privileges of the wealthy few, into voting "against their interests."
After 2016 I realized that this was wrong on both points - they weren't being tricked nor were they voting against their interests. Both the republicans in government and their voters hold one interest above all - the defeat and humiliation of the "liberal" enemy. Trump was their avatar in an endless spiritual/cultural war against their know-it-all kids who went off to college, moved to the city, stopped going to church, whatever. They see the culture moving away from them and take it as unforgivable declaration of their own inferiority. Enough of them feel this so deeply that they will happily raise their own taxes, get rid of their own healthcare, pollute their own air and water, live poorer and unhealthier and die sooner, as long as they can "own the libs." They are not unaware of what they're doing.
In this context, destroying democracy is relatively trivial. They hate us more than they love themselves. That's it.
3
I carry in my purse a pocket-sized Constitution of the US. It was printed in 2009, by the 111th Congress, under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing, of which Kevin McCarthy was a member at the time. His name appears on the first page next to Charles E. Schumer, Tom Udall, Susan A. Davis, among other Committee members.
I wonder if Kevin McCarthy has ever read the Constitution, given his comments about the impeachment inquiry, calling it a "sham" and "botched."
Article I, Section 2. The House of Representatives shall chuse (sic) their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Article I, Section 5. Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
Article II, Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article I, Section 3. The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments....
...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.
2
The Republican Party, principally the republicans in the White House and the republican members of Congress, controls our government much as a Mafia chief and his mob would run their business.
Mob members show fealty and loyalty and obedience to the “Boss.” In return they are enabled to carry out lawless enterprise protected by gang enforcement. This is the “quid pro quo” the boss offers his members under mob rule.
In those states run by republican Capos, program spending is cut and voting rights are choked. Business and municipalities pay dues and customers are gouged. Taxes are disregarded.
In the current House and Senate standoff, Nancy Pelosi is fighting the mob and Mitch McConnell is backed by the mob.
It appears the outcome of this standoff will be that the House may impeach and the Senate will not convict.
And so the sitting president and Republican Party candidate for President on November 3, 2020 will be Donald J. Trump.
1
Why are you surprised that the Republicans don’t care about polls?
They don’t care that their leader breaks the law and worse they’re cheering him on.
1
Republicans have learned that they can sell, literally, any argument to their target voters, who will simply parrot the latest iteration without question or thought. This is especially true with the many voters who regard politics as sport, and wear their red jerseys stamped with the big ‘R’ when they go into the voting booth.
There is no reason to cater to voters who are so easily manipulated.
1
I thought I am Republican.
My leaning? Center right.
I am a moderate. I am
conservative but “lite”.
Not any more. The GOP
has pushed me to the left.
I am pro-choice. Set women free.
Pro-corporate, not pro-theft.
I am pro-guns but with control.
Ban war weapons at once.
Free market, yes, but with some soul.
I’m not a Trumpian dunce.
There’s something we Americans
should have that’s not for sale.
Integrity. Republicans
sold out. I hope they fail.
1
The author provides a clue about Republican disdain for the "will of the people" when he poinbts out that, "in fact, they’ve won the popular vote for president only once in the last 30 years."
The Republican attitude is that the public's will is something to be overcome, not responded to. they represent the interests of only about 2% of the total population, so the people's will is something that will seldom serve their needs.
To prevail, the Republican powers-that-be have to attract the most ignorant, information-resistant factions in society and browbeat them with appeals to fear and resentment. They have to drive wedges between us based on race, religion and/or ethnicity. They pander to bigotry and xenophobia, and demonize their opponents with false characterizations and innuendoes, and they cast blame on the opposition for everything that is less than perfect in their lives.
By attracting and holding onto this fiercely ignorant and emotionally-driven base, they can pursue policies that are highly unpopular and damaging to their supporters, confident that they can use their tools of control, like Fox News (or Newsmax, or One America), talk radio and social media to shift the blame for the results of those policies onto the opposition.
Republicans thrive on ignorance, fear, resentment and appeals to tribalism. Republican governance is NEVER beneficial, but they get away with it by attracting a base that doesn't notice nor want to.
1
We live in times crafted by the Republicans since Nixon when he recruited southern bigots to begin to build the deathlock Republicans now have over our government, and thus, The People of this country. Why would they do this? To recover the power and control the elite white male and his white male servants have not had since the Civil War went the North's way. There is a very interesting book, https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/master-passions, that describes the emotions that buoy up and inform our conscious minds. In this case, we are talking about revenge. The North beat the South down in many ways during the Civil War. Lincoln's murder was one consequence. The other has been a generations' long battle to undo the North's victory and to punish those who dared to destroy slaver civilization in the South. Nixon linked Republican success at the ballot box to southern anger against whites, especially after the Civil Rights era further eroded southern male hegemony. Who populates Republican political posts now? Southern men and their sympathizers. What do they espouse? All the things white slavers espoused: NO immigrants (they dilute the purity of white male society’s purpose), women’s freedom, black freedom, anything that does not aggrandize the white male. Until the power of this system of thought is broken, this will be our fate: to be ruled by the descendants of white male slavers. Their lust for power far outstrips their allegiance to this country or the rights of The People.
1
All the more reason to get non-voters to vote and remove the McCarthy's of this world.
1
"That the party has seldom paid a price for that unpopularity points to a troubling feature of modern American democracy: It’s not that democratic."
Therein lies the critical problem. Our system of government is too weak to prevent blindly partisan people from holding the nation hostage. And while this excellent analysis explains the Republican transformation, both parties get tempted by these tactics.
We need to reform the rules and structure of government for the next century. Change the rules of Congress, especially the autocratic Senate. Reform the electoral college. Set terms limits on Supreme Court justices. Eliminate gerrymandering and vote suppression. And most of all, amend the Constitution to allow the regulation of political spending. Money is what drives the bad behavior, and it's the cancer killing our democracy.
OurImperfectUnion.blogspot.com
1
Republicans are terrified of emerging demographics, as illustrated in the recent votes in Virginia. The country is headed blue as a result of population changes.
Barring the thrust among Republican leaders to create a Plutocracy in law and in fact, the Party is eventually toast. Too many immigrants, and millennials, "OK boomer", will begin to vote in numbers after they see their world disintegrate into floods and forest fires.
Republican leaders are doing their best to create that Plutocracy or, better yet, Dictatorship before demographics catches up. So of course, they don't give a damn about the people.
1
I don't know why you buried the lead so deeply here. The reason Republicans no longer pursue popular politics is because — as you finally point out near the end of this piece — *they no longer have to*. They have been spending the last several decades gaming our political system with gerrymandering and voter suppression laws so that they can enact an unpopular agenda that enriches them and grants them enormous power, despite losing the popular vote over and over again.
This is what so many opinion writers and talking heads in the pages of this paper don't seem to understand. All talk about enacting policy, about the relative "electability" of this or that candidate... it's all useless blather when there is a system in place that absolves one of our two parties from giving even a tiny damn about the wishes of the majority.
Right? The point of democracy is that if a majority of voters dislike you, they can kick you out. That's what keeps politicians' natural inclination towards corruption in check and gives them a reason to care what the people think. Well, right now the GOP doesn't *have* to care what the majority of people think. And until they do — until, as you say, our democracy becomes democratic — all talk of change in this country is moot. For the people to be able to hold their leaders accountable, their votes need to actually count.
1
The Founders feared a popular legislature might lead to rule by mob. Because of this, they weakened the legislature by dividing it into two bodies, checking the popularly elected House with an undemocratic Senate, and by expanding the powers of the executive. As Madison explained in Federalist 51:
"In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified."
The consequence of these choices is a government that is unaccountable to the people and where the popular will can easily be thwarted by a President and Senate who wish to do so.
Our Constitution and our system of government are failures. It's time to change them. More here on our Constitution and its fatal flaws:
https://medium.com/@r.s.lewis.jr.1960/the-constitution-isnt-the-solution-it-s-the-problem-8364fb70c3b4?source=friends_link&sk=2637a714cdb6021e7b1946f389b3ee1f
When I was in the Army, my commander in chief was covering up an attempt to plant microphones inside my presidential candidate's campaign office. To get dirt.
My candidate was George McGovern who was a WWII bomber pilot.
The current commander in chief seeks dirt on Hillary and Joe from foreign governments.
Republican playbook. Republican puppets do nothing.
3
The masses are fickle and sometimes foolish... Democrats have a history of foolishly basing their political opinions on polls!!..Following the public herd is marginally useful for the ignorant and potentially dangerous for everyone else...Certainly not a Progressive way of determining poltical policy....But certainly acceptable with progressives as long as the polls are favorable!..
Republicans would be wise to ignore these simplistic polls in determing their analysis and think for themselves.
@Lindsey E. Reese
Didn’t your cult leader rail against elites? Your comment smacks of elitism.
1
Trump supporters are the proverbial frogs in boiling water.
For decades, libertarians and John Birchers spoke of the frog:
The boiling frog is a fable describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death (Wikipedia).
Trump supporters are now in boiling water. In order to deny it, they refuse to see their president as a groper of women, they refuse to see the cronyism and corruption, they refuse to see the bullying and intimidation.
They've been bred by Fox News to believe that the rising temperature surrounding them is 'normal' - when the truth is, at a time when this country, and our planet, need the truth, vision, strength and courage, we have a C student who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and bone spurs in his feet.
Pathetic.
3
@David Roy
I'm sorry but I have to disagree. Giving Trump a "C" is far too kind.
1
"Republicans didn’t win every election — in fact, they’ve won the popular vote for president only once in the last 30 years."
That is an astounding statistic.
To think the U.S. used to lecture and boycott South Africa for denying the majority the right to govern with the apartheid system.
Today, our Electoral College at the presidential level, and gerrymandering at the congressional level, serve the same function.
4
Our situation is becoming close to what is happening in the Philipines, under Duterte... A vulgar President, Trump, full of wrath towards anyone who dares to offer even the smallest criticism, almost worshiped by 66 million followers who cherish his vulgar manners.
Any hope for Democrats winning 2020?
2
What if, during the inevitable Senate Trial to come, Republicans hold fast to pre-stated positions of voting for acquittal. Isn't that like a person saying I'll never vote for "guilty" no matter the evidence? If such persons are excused for jury duty, shouldn't we "excuse" such Senators from serving?
2
How can any poll be taken seriously when no articles of impeachment nor a trial have yet happened?
1
A statement long overdue, which ought to muffle the gurgling cheerleaders of fact and common sense. To defeat these zombies, they must be defeated.
2
There is no Republican party it is now called the Trump party. There is much evidence Trump committed a crime ,yet these spineless people say he did nothing wrong he lies, every day .Mike Bloomberg was right when he said " Trump is the biggest conman ever.
2
Set aside the incipient threat to democratic governance by minority rule; consider the much longer, 20-50 year misrule. Our country needs functional two-party balance, for now, one more generally conservative, the other more generally progressive.
Much more important, however, both parties must navigate policy using agreed-upon facts; Earth's climate is warming dangerously now; Nazis are bad; holding children in cages is wrong; foreign policy by extortion is unacceptable.
If the Trump party melts down following the 2020 election, leaving the Democrats unrestrained because no rational, fact-based alternative exists, then the Democrats will drive the country into a ditch at least as ruinous as the one we are in now.
For most people this entire Ukrainian impeachment is nothing more than a president asking the Ukrainians hey check into this joe Biden apparent self dealing for Hunter.
Is this enough to snuff out a legitimate 2016 election Just one year before another election. Smells a lot like Democrat’s overreaching.
@Jerry Davenport More like hey check into this Joe Biden or we will not release your aid, does breaking the law mean anything to Republicans? And who are these most people?
@Jerry Favenport
And who says the 2016 election was legitimate. There was massive Russian interference.
If 'not beholden to popular opinion' the who are they really beholden to? Right wing megafunders?
1
Democracy is not the rule by polls. Just because a majority approve of something does not mean it is democratic. Democracy means a set of principles, including protection of the rights of the minority, freedom of speech and occupation. Otherwise it becomes mob rule. If democracy is measured simply by popular support, then the most democratic countries in the last century have been Nazi Germany, Stalin’s USSR and Putin’s Russia today. Nowadays both the Republican and Democratic parties have mutated into ideological purity cults. The only thing that prevents the USA from sliding into ideological dictatorship is that the American people are divided - and hopefully will remain so in the foreseeable future. Better political paralysis than mob rule.
Whoa! That photo. A sea of white, male faces and one ponytail. Who is missing from this photo?
2
The Republican Party:
With voters? Not so popular.
With moneyed, vested interests? Their spokesparty.
3
I don't understand how a "Populist" party can maintain it's appeal when it disregards, lies to and insults the population. I was hoping to catch something you missed in your litany of offenses to the popular sentiments of a society but you cover all the head scratching ones. My own feeling on the subject is that the Republicans learned early that their supporters hate liberals more than they care about a fair and equitable society. And liberals are still slow to imagine such stupidity.
4
Indeed, Republicans are not being driven by public opinion; they are rigid, and disciplined, in remaining tribal to the end, as their party has become Trumpian all the way...to their shame. Perhaps once this oprobium Trump represents is gone, they may benefit from going back to school, and re-learn democracy's ABC's. This is what fascism may represent, an undivided hail to the chief, where the truth has nothing to do with the facts, but the 'dogma' truth of a dedicate demagogue, and now criminality under his belt, able to hold his minions under his brutish heavy weight. Ouch!
1
The author wrongly states that we all thought the Republicans were "driven" by the polls... Bill Mahr has talked about this more than once... That is... that the republicans make their own outcomes and results regardless of any polls... They've been rigging the game for years and the Democrats stammer but have not been able to change things... Gerrymandering, voter suppression, character assassination.... The Republicans play to win and play dirty... they cheat... lie... they eat their own... They're like a gang of hyenas or lions.... they work together up to a point but in the end, it's every man for himself... I only hope this is the straw that breaks their collective backs... That the House impeach and McConnell's Senate slap it down and bat it away like some kind of a slight annoyance... The outrage must be overwhelming or else we're toast... To not be will indicate that we are done with this experiment in law and democratic rule...
3
The problem is that the polls DID support Trump: they elected him.
Its true that to some extent we Republicans no longer feel
constrained or influenced bu many public opinion polls.
That's our greatest positive feature.
We believe in Democracy and the rule of law as put forth in our Constitution. The Democrat's and their followers do not.
The Democrats are trying to impeach Trump for supporting the rule of law.
1
@Doug McDonald
Really? How so? When has he ever supported the rule of law? When has he ever even suggested that he knew what it meant or that he believed in it?
1
@ Doug MacDonald
Let me just remind you that trump and his cronies were conspiring with and asking foreign governments to interfere in our elections in 2016 and now in upcoming elections. That is corrupt and unconstitutional. It is a threat to the integrity of our election process and to our very democracy.
2
This is how the GOP has managed to so disable government that it can successfully run campaigns on shrinking bloated bureaucracy. They beat it up badly then jeer at it, saying Drain the Swamp. End of good government, cynicism forever.
1
And if not for repeated cheating, the Republicans would have been a footnote by now.
4
A bit off-topic here, but what really caught my eye was the photo at the top of the story. The House Republican Caucus surrounding Kevin McCarthy; with the exception of one woman in the foreground, the group consists of 100% white men. How can this possibly be right? Nobody but white men calling _all_ the shots in their party. Really?
3
@dtm
Representing all the other poor, picked on, persecuted white guys. It makes you wonder what they really think of their wives/daughters/granddaughters.
1
I have never in my entire life ever heard a Republican or Conservative say "I was wrong" ever. Facts simply do not matter.
3
I shake my head when I hear all these claims that amount to wishful thinking that the Republican Party that really doesn't exist anymore will turn vs Trump over public opinion. They could care less because a lot of Americans now feel the same way. I have no idea what will exist for American Democracy after another four more years of this commitment of a lazy and immoral minded America to support a lawless dictatorship of Donald J. Trump and all his gang in Congress.
2
This is the most depressing piece I have read this year. It reminds that a minority of "my way or the highway" extremist, bible thumping bigots have captured our nation.
Time to take it back.
I come from a family of Republicans whose best friends were Democrats. And now, if someone whispers that the guy at the party is a "Trumper", I steer clear of him - afraid that I will start screaming at him like some enraged beast. My anger is shared by a majority.
If there was ever a time for a peaceful, powerful revolution to restore the kind of decency that was the American Dream, it is now. Trump is a symptom of an illness that must be cured.
Debating the size of government, how much more to spend or tax, the nature of universal health care and universal education... these are all things that can be reasoned about and debated.
But there is no debate that a monster in the White House has hoodwinked Christians and is leading us to planetary destruction.
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@Bob Bruce Anderson
"This is the most depressing piece I have read this year. It reminds that a minority of "my way or the highway" extremist, bible thumping bigots have captured our nation."
Actually, it's extremist, bible thumping bigots that now lead the GOP around by the nose. Those bigots are found on Fox News.
6
Hopefully, when Americans go to the polls next November Republicans will pay the price!!
1
The photo says all that needs to be said. A bunch of white men staring intently at their "leader."
The silver lining is that women have the right to vote, and, in a majority of states, people of color may vote unimpeded by restrictions and barriers.
The risk is that this minority of white, privileged men will act like a cornered rattlesnake. As their president likes to day, "We'll see what happens."
2
The Republican Party no longer works for anybody --- even Republicans.
Republicans can pass all the laws they want against women ---- but women are still 51% of the population.
It can throw every poor person off the SNAP, school lunch programs, out of Ben Carson's housing, but every person in every city will still see the Tent Cities in their own city.
Trump can continue to hire the most incompetent, indifferent, has-beens and never-weres to be his little helpers, and the Republicans can never say a word, but, ultimately, when their kids are poinsed with rotten food and lead-laced water, then even the most profound supporter must move on.
The Republican Party has become a cult where facts no longer matter nor the quality of the man at the top that they worshipfully name their "Leader".
No, no one buys this clap-trap anymore.
The Cult has swiped all the money, and is dancing around, hooting and hollering pretending that they're having fun: But they are not. They live in fear that the party will end.
It will.
And no one will care when they crash and burn.
For 45 years they've sneered at every decent thing in this country.
Their only regret is that we smartened up and see them for "hollow men".
The Republican Party will thrash around for a while more, but, sooner or later, it will be pronounced DOA.
And they have earned their demise.
One more year to go.....
5
If Republicans were truly concerned with corruption, they'd start with their corrupt leader DJT. If Republicans truly cared about American citizens, they wouldn't sit silently watching their leader continue to divide the country while he spews his hatefilled rhetoric daily. If Republicans cared...oh what's the point! They put America up for sale with Citizens United and only care about reaping in the benefits for themselves! If the Constitution or anything else gets in the way they claim "victim" or "witch hunt". That is today's Republicans!
2
Of course the G.O.P. is driven by public opinion... the opinion of their ignorant, uneducated base. We can only hope that enough knowledgeable, educated people come out to defeat them in the only poll that counts... that of the Electoral College.
Dan Kravitz
2
Politics is now just our team vs your team. And it’s the final series. They will fight and cheer for their team down to the final moment, then go home and celebrate or set up for next season. It’s no longer about ideas or national benefit. The difference is one team is fine with cheating and unsportsmanlike behavior - only winning counts.
2
Warning, metaphoric strain ahead! Trump is the Komodo Dragon of our politics. When he latches on to you his bacteria filled saliva is introduced into the victims (Republicans) bodies. Sickened, the doomed Republicans feverishly delude that they are the greatest and represent our best. When really the fetid remains of a long ago spent force lies wheezing inside the elephant. Everything Trump touches, everyone who touches Trump become Santorum. No apologies to the former Senator from Pennsylvania.
1
Thsi is a pretty unsophisticated OpEd for the NYT to print. It all boils down to your district. And Of course these policies are wildly unpopular in CA and NY; Hilary could have run run up a 20 million plurality in those two states and still trump would easily win electoral college votes. I dont know if there are enough swing districts yet to shift senate vote, but VA , NV are instructive. Its no longer a swing state. CO, NC should follow in 4-8 years, then AZ. Republican on the hill will change their votes when, and only when, the risk of a general election defeat outweighs a the risk of being primaried. As long as dems dont go crazy (bernie, Liz warren v 2.0) eventually the demographics (secular, colored, young) the dems will prevail. Ands when they do we will see a decade of dem ascendancy Teh likes fo which we havent seen since the 1920’s.
Hemmer says: “One of the two major parties no longer feels beholden to public opinion. And that’s why, even though an October Fox News poll indicated that 51 percent of voters favor both impeachment and removal for Mr. Trump, we shouldn’t expect Republicans in Congress to fall in line.”
Hemmer has not dug deeper. A cabal of billionaires now runs 30 State Legislatures, the Senate, the GOP, the Trump Administration, and half the Supreme Court. It took not just money but careful planning over decades. And it took mesmerizing almost half of voters with a propaganda machine based on the principles employed by Goebbels in WW II: division, racism, the “other”, control of media, rabble rousing rallies.
When will the Mercers, the DeVos, the Kochs, the Spencers, the Wilks, etc be dragged into the blazing.light and their actions and their objectives made plain? When will Trump be clearly identified as a marionette, along with Mitch, and a raft of GOP politicians?
2
After the 2016 election I have vowed to never pay attention to polls again. People lie!
2
While impeachment seems certain, any rush to judgment regarding the evidence that the Senate will actually hear - upon which they SHOULD base their decision about whether or not to remove President Trump from office - is premature.
Impeachment remains a POLITICAL decision, a pragmatic way of dealing with the abuse of power. What constitutes an impeachable offense has never been clearly defined; many are ready to excuse any of Trump's actions. Republicans should know one when they see it, but "[g]iven that not a single House Republican voted yes during the public impeachment inquiry vote that they themselves had requested," the prospect for that happening appears dim.
There is another scenario, however: evidence takes an unexpected turn which damns Trump and makes him for all practical purposes unelectable. Now the Republicans have all the ammunition they need for a palace coup and the prospect for open primaries (for which more than one Republican Senator has had hitherto thwarted ambitions) is too great to resist. Such a move must be successful or incur the wrath of Trump. Yet he planted the seeds of the GOP's destruction when he picked off his opponents in the 2016 primaries one by one.
Final question: does removal from office by the defection of just enough courageous Republicans in a razor-close vote prevent Trump from running again for vindication from the electorate? Will he bring down the Republican party?
Or will Republicans come clean, regain our respect?
1
The GOP is a mob, not a party and their supporters are are living in a Fox News bubble of distortions and out and out lies.
2
The Republicans want to keep power...by any means necessary... and the American people are going to have to get up off their comfortable sofas and, like the Bolivians today, fight off these president-for-life wannabes.
1
What “minds”? Today’s GOP and its followers have ceased independent thought and have perverted language to mean its opposite.
2
As long as the economy appears to be doing well, Republicans in Congress will continue to back Trump. As soon as the economy appears to be headed south, people start losing jobs, and Republican voters become restive, Republican leaders will pivot on a dime and support removal.
1
YouTube:
Would the Founding Fathers Impeach Trump? with Robert Reich
Well worth the watch!
2
You just perhaps are overstating things a bit, because there are many who just don't care anymore. They voted for Obama and not much changed. Many voted for Hillary and she stupidly blew her chances to be president. Those who voted to "drain the swamp" are disillusioned, angry and disgusted. They think of all politicians, from any party, as nothing but worthless bad actors. Their only goal is to fill their pockets.
1
All the GOP needs to do is to keep coming up with bigger lies. The more outlandish, ridiculous, and absurd they are the better. When facts no longer mean anything, you got 'em right where you want 'em.
The weather is a hoax! The law is a hoax! The news is a hoax (except Fox!). The majority of voters are a hoax! Taxes are a hoax! Racism is a hoax! Poverty is a hoax! The truth is a hoax!
Good luck with that because it takes you exactly nowhere but backwards and down.
2
The Republicans "refusing to budge under the weight of public pressure" can be restated.
Congress is in thrall to campaign donations, the public be damned.
As long as corporations control government, the public welfare will be a distant second in the calculus.
We need mandatory public campaign financing. Disclosure is not enough. When the UK calls an election, they do it all in six weeks.
In this country, we spend a hundred billion dollars over two years feeding an election-industrial complex that includes the media. Once again, the public welfare comes in way back in the field.
5
This is all a matter of regression to the least common denominator of personalities. Politics are high level constructs that usually carry a level of sophistication beyond the primal, (think Reagan era GOP) but given enough time, personality types eventually filter into specific groups. In a two party system such as we have in the USA, this means Republican or Democrat. Authoritarian traits are associated with right-wing thinking (just research it for yourself, rather than try to argue otherwise), so after decades of this regression, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the GOP is now blatantly anti-democratic. They started with anti-science, then anti-education, then devolved to outright anti-fact.
Authoritarians are fear based by nature. When threatened, they will resort to animal instincts. Conservatism is essentially selfish by nature. This is the current state of the GOP.
4
Maybe polls don’t influence Republicans, but media does. In the 50’s to the 70’s Paul Harvey was the number 1 radio show for conservatives. In the 80’s to today they listen to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. The difference between Harvey and Limbaugh says it all.
5
While it’s true that Republicans are institutionally advantaged it’s a sad fact of life that
1
Trump contributes to republican dominance by accenting the racism of most white Americans. How does that fit in this argument?
2
Republicans represent the mob and not the majority and that seems to be working for them.
2
The vote in the house can’t be seen as an indicator. They know the vote is symbolic. Why stick their neck out for Trump to slice? The Senate is where it matters.
1
The GOP - overrun by Trump Toadies - is disgusting to me, particularly to me as a United States Citizen.
Take a poll on that one.
The people who voted for Trump would - YET AGAIN - end up far outnumbered.
2
The Democrats are doing some poll-denying of their own, on immigration and medi-care for all.
This essay is spot on. Fascist dictators and oligarchs the world over have never actually been concerned with popular will beyond a militant groundswell of hatred and fear. They thus develop private security and paramilitaries to protect them in exchange for a few crumbs off the master's table. Putin and the rest of the world's brutal despots are certainly getting their money's worth out of the US republican party, FOX Newstainment and the NRA.
5
Since when should going against public opinion be called incorrect? In many states pubic opinion is negative on impeachment. Does that mean Dem reps in those states should vote against it?
1
Somehow Bonanza became The Walking Dead
This column is the first to explain the inexplicable nature of the Republican party. Thank you, Ms. Hemmer. As an oldster who was attentively well-versed in the Nixon debacle, I just can't understand today's Republicans. It's imperative that they be thrown out of office en masse and that a new major party with an appreciation for American democracy emerges.
6
Sadly most people I talk to say whats the big deal? Folks think Trump went too far but no far enough to impeach him. Will the smoking gun come in the open hearing to cause the public to want Trump dumped? I doubt it. Nobody on the Right really cares and and the Lefts the hatred of Trump is blinding their rational minds.Trump is going to get acquitted in The Senate and play his favorite role of the Left is out to invalidate his 2016 win. Open hearing will only reinforce what everyone already knows.That is Trump watched too many Godfather movies and hired Rudy to play his bag man. .
1
Amazing photo showing the diversity of the Republican party.
6
@wyatt Great observation!!!!!
1
Thanks for highlighting the dismaying disconnect between the majority of people and the Republicans. But you skipped over the chief cause — it’s well-documented that the party is largely controlled by the big donors and the highly organized special interest groups they support, such as the NRA. (To a lesser extent, it’s similar for the Democrats.) The wealthy and powerful will continue to get their way until people rise up to force meaningful campaign-finance reform.
1
This article is based on the premise that polling data is irrefutable when the reality may be that it is presents a numerical calculation based on flawed methods of collecting information. The Republicans themselves seem to assess it this way as they continue on ignoring their plunging popularity as reported by pollsters. To them it don't seem to mean a thing. Their embrace of the right wing over long years, an extremist faction once relegated to their margins, they obviously feel has served their Party well. This may represent what may come to be their own miscalculation of public opinion and up ahead for them validation of what it really means when pollsters say you're unpopular. A message loud and clear that America won't put up with it any longer. The Republican Party carrying on as a threat to operational democracy.
Statistical Anomaly. When you have a large state like California with only 2 Senators, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why things worked out the way they did in the last 30 years. Nationally, the Republican's policies may not have been popular, but locally they were for them. That said, I would argue the Republicans have done a much better job at getting their supporters out to vote. If the opposition stews on the couch and don't vote, it is not the Republicans fault.
1
The Constitution is a flawed document for the 21st century because it no longer impedes the President from wrongdoing and has created permanent gridlock in Congress because of no term limits. The GOP now supports foreign interference in our elections and dismissal of the toothless emoluments clause with no consequences because their supporters only believe what Trump and Fox tells them. The "supreme law of the land" is not supreme or even law any more.
3
I have great respect for the framers of the Constitution, and the co-equal branches of government. I honestly believe if they lived today they would support a popular vote election for the country as a whole in national elections. The need for the electoral college doesn’t exist anymore. We’ve long past the need to deliver a state’s results on horseback a week or two after the election.
Republicans stopped caring about majority rule during the Clinton years in the 90’s. What can’t be easily quantified is during that time is the alliance between the Republican Party and Evangelicals. This was also the time of Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America.
These changes to the Republican doctrine set the party on a course of religious schools seeking taxpayer money for funding, breaking the long held tradition of separation of church and state. The ramifications are widespread, and still playing out 25 years later. The party became tied to social structure and belief that promoted the past over the future.
7
The premise is nonsense. Mitch McConnell will read one poll, and follow it, above every other political indicator. That will be the poll which shows electoral prospects among the weakest Republicans senators up for re-election.
McConnell will not let prospects for that poll slide too low, because that would mean no more Senate Majority Leader for Mitch McConnell. McConnell would dump Trump, which he has the power to do, before he let himself be swept from power by loss of the Republican majority in the senate.
That means the real threshold for impeachment and removal is not an impossibly high 20 Republicans voting to remove, but instead an arguably-within-reach total of 4 or 5 Republicans defeated by voters, which would give the senate majority to the Democrats. If and when polls make it seem likely that will happen, McConnell will act swiftly. He will try to contain impeachment damage to Republican electoral prospects by announcing a principled stand against Trump, and organizing senators to defend their own power by installing President Pence.
Democrats ought to organize their impeachment politics accordingly, but show no sign of even noticing their opportunity. They should threaten to prolong the process, not cut it short. Every count should get thorough investigation. Every contested subpoena should be fought in court. McConnell will help Democrats put the nation's nightmare behind them as soon as he gets the message.
68
@S.P.
Interesting take on the man who is actually running the country by bringing to a vote legislation that will get his colleagues re-elected and holding back legislation that won't.
To my mind, getting control of the Senate is more important for the Dems than winning the White House.
Exhibit A for above is the eight years of the Obama administration.
19
@S.P.
Excellent analysis, and yet more reason for the Republican obsession on closing ranks, and not permitting even one dissenting opinion. And yet, Mitt Romney is already one. There must surely eventually be one or two others that will be sorely tested by the Senate trial.
8
@S.P.r
That assumes that installing fake Christian Mike Pence is a better alternative. They should both go along with Pompeo, Barr, and Mulvaney
4
Ms. Hemmer confuses national polls with local ones. While 51% of Americans favor impeachment and removal nationally, representatives are only interested in the sentiment in their districts, and senators look to polls in their states. My congressman doesn’t even care about the views of this Democrat in his own district because he knows that his Republican base will crucify him if he deviates from the Republican position. The real issue is that the country has sorted itself into incommensurable political districts that are relatively safe for one party. Just as Trump only answers to Republicans because his election in 2016 was dependent on only an Electoral College perspective of the United States, so Congressional Republicans have no interest in discordant voices because they know that they are safe in their districts. Until we break up this structural impediment to bipartisan government, the US will continue its increasingly dysfunctional politics.
218
My Congresswoman doesn't care about the views of Democrats in her district. In fact, given how seldom she actually talks to constituents, I doubt she cares what any of us think. She's got her hard-core Republican base and loads of money from the NRA, the Kochs, and other big money GOP funders who have never set foot in our district. We are working hard to ensure that she goes elsewhere in 2020.
22
@Ockham9 - Here in Utahstan, I'm registered (R), just so I can call my Congress Critter's office and begin w/, "I'm a registered (R), and blah, blah." Not that they care about voter opinion - since UT's an American Theocracy.
9
@Ockham9 Couldn't agree more. I am unlucky enough to live in a moderate/liberal corner of the district currently represented by Jim Jordan. That man couldn't care less what the majority of the nation thinks -- he has his rural, non-college constituency to think about. They are in that camp of followers who would vote Trump regardless of anything he said or did. And so he feels emboldened, regardless of the popular sentiment of the nation, to continue engage in deceive and deflect politics. Even to the detriment of our national interests.
14
Polls are nationwide.
Republican politicians only have to win in their districts and states.
Polls in those districts and states show a lot more support for many of the Republican stands.
And those attitudes are driven by Fox News.
In the end, those voters put Republicans in office who then cut taxes for the wealthy and run up our deficits and debt.
Deficits went up under Reagan and W Bush. Deficits went down under Clinton and Obama.
And now Republicans have done it again. The deficit will go from $600 Billion to $1 Trillion.
To be paid for by us, our children, and grandchildren.
Every Republican senator voted for it. Not one Democratic senator voted for it.
125
@Independent
Deficits did NOT go down under Obama. He ran up the biggest deficit of any president in American history during his tenure.
3
@Independent The disinformation Fox passes off as "news" is essential to GOP support. Were it not for Fox and RWNJ radio outrage, there's no way the GOP could have continued its anti-democractic goals over the last 20-30 years. The Fox/GOP marriage has also proven to be the perfect inroad for Putin to get right into the Oval Office.
4
@Ian Nessary to rein in a financial crisis created by Bush. I remember the panic. It was palpable. The republicans were running around with look of pure terror on their faces. McCain was speechless.
5
Ahem.
As someone once said, "if all your friends were walking off a cliff would just follow along too?".
The correct, adult answer would be No.
Simply because there was a poll and responses collated does not mean the majority is correct or should be considered as appropriate.
People who make money off of pills seem to think they have more value that they really do.
I'm not buying your polls.
1
Now why frame the republican fighting facts with lies and with red herrings as a matter of polls and public opinion?
Why?
Why?
If you worked for them it would make sense. You just catered to them.
Forget that they fight truth with lies. That they violate their oaths to the constitution. Let’s talk about polls. Great red herring. Thanks a lot. Give them their out.
How learned.
It would be better if they did what was right not what various polls might indicate they should do. If all our elected officials simply did what polls indicated they should do we wouldn’t need them.
16
It's really sad to read the comments attached to this opinion, and then to read the comments attached to articles in the Wall Street Journal. Each side thinks that they have all the answers and it's "their way or the highway." There is plenty of blame to go around concerning the condition of the United States. There are plenty of "sell-outs and stooges" on both sides and plenty of opportunists in both parties waiting in the wings looking for power and money. This is the reason so many have given up and don't vote. They are tired of choosing the "lesser of two evils. If both parties would stop putting politics before country we might have a fighting chance, but all I see from both sides is partisan propaganda. It appears both parties have "drunk the kool-aid."
(My apologies to the Kool-Aid people)
1
This article should form the north star of Democrat strategies, not only in the 2020 campaign but going forward in the future. The Republican Party simply does not exist to represent the wishes of the majority of its voters, let alone the country.
It never did. The Republicans are owned by the likes of the Kochs. As a result, they have been stiffing their own for a half-century or more. To expect things to change now is ludicrous, especially with the counter-programming at Fox.
The only thing that will change behavior is soundly defeating Republican candidates. The way you do that is by mobilizing Democrats or independents to vote. Forget the Trump base. It is a yesterday business.
The only thing that counts is removing Trump from office. Nothing else matters because Trump, and the Republican Party, are existential threats to democracy. The appropriate candidate for the Democrats must satisfy one over-arching criterion: which candidate can send Trump packing. Nothing else matters.
90
Might I suggest a counter-argument? In my view, it is absolutely crucial to remove as many of his enablers as possible from the levers of power.
at least as important - if not more so - than removing the Don himself.
Otherwise the democrats are set up for failure from the start which will, inevitably, lead to the next iteration of Trump promptly...
26
@Boris Yes. The Republican Party is now completely taken over by authoritarians who are determined to undermine and destroy democracy in order to run the entire country for the profit of 750 billionaires. Their greed for power has no limit. There will be more Trumps, and some of them might be a lot smarter. Nikki Haley gives me the willies.
10
Republicans have been impervious to public opinion for years and have rarely suffered politically for it. However, things finally appear to be changing. A reckoning, which is long overdue, is coming in 2020. Unless his Republican support collapses, (which is unlikely), the Senate will acquit Trump regardless of the facts and despite majority support for his removal from office. The structural barriers that have prevented them from paying a price for their intransigence are collapsing as well, however, and they will be tossed out of office in 2020. The electorate is energized and will no longer stand for a Party that represents a minority of the people to govern this country. The elections of 2018 and 2019 are harbingers of what will come in 2020.
68
@Lisa Post The only thing Republicans care about is staying in power, period. They could care less about public opinion or even about the Constitution. They are destroying American democracy one vote at a time.
6
Sadly, for this country, the Republican Party's ability to win with losing policy stances, is the reason, in the last two decades at least, there has been no real legislative body to serve the common good. Our main policy body is either serving special interests concerns or their reelection prospects, but, nothing to do with those issues Amerians care most about---health care, climate change, gun control, pre-school education ---the list goes on. Presently, the Democrats have a number of bills that would address common good concerns, but Mitch McConnell has bottled all of them up-and he does this with impunity.
88
Don’t Expect Polls to Change Republican Minds. That's true. What else is true that they do not deliver what the majority of Americans want with respect to climate change, gun control, health services, infrastructure, education, tax reform for the lowest 80% and international affairs. So far their biggest achievement has been to get a significant portion of their base to vote against their better interests through a drum beat of cultural wars and fear mongering. Ultimately the demographics are against them and they know it but they're going to stack the courts and blow up the bridges on the way out.
96
@Realworld: "...they're going to stack the courts and blow up the bridges on the way out."
Essentially, the political equivalent of a scorched-earth withdrawal. If true, difficult days ahead.
4
Campaign finance reform and an end to partisan gerrymandering is vital to break the GOP stranglehold on power which allows them to ignore the will of the majority. SCOTUS ruled that the Constitution does not bar extreme partisan gerrymandering and that it is up to Congress and the states to deal with the issue. This, along with decisions like Citizens United, are what we can expect from a GOP handpicked court. After the GOP did well in the 2010 election and had control of many state legislatures, they oversaw redistricting after the 2010 census to insure Dems were packed in a minimum number of districts, guaranteeing GOP electoral victory. In her dissent, Kagan wrote of egregious partisan manipulation which is an infringement on individual rights. A bedrock of democracy is trust in the integrity of free and fair elections.
We have one-party rule, a party that favors corporations over labor, vilifies the empirical evidence of climate change, has no plan for healthcare reform, adheres to conspiracy theories, delegitimizes and degrades the free press, cages children and stands silent while their vaulted leader spews violent rhetoric and betrays our allies, resulting in the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds by the Turkish troops.
Trump can win a second term by losing the popular vote and winning the 270 electoral college votes. The will if the people is ignored and invalidated. That is taxation without representation. Revolutionary reform is needed to restore trust.
85
Well, I think this essay misses the mark. Republicans don't care about popular politics because they don't have to. As pointed out by the author, Republicans have so commandeered the election process through gerrymandering, voter suppression, the electoral college, and media brainwashing techniques, that they don't need a majority to rule. So long as they have a lock on their minority base, they remain in power.
However, that base is cracking. A huge portion of it is comprised by suburban conservatives, and they are sick of Trump. They are sick of school shootings. They are sick of trade protectionism. This is the section of the minority that is being cleaved off.
Then add in the growing influence of the younger voters who are sick of the social conservative prohibitions against gays, attacks on the environment, ridiculous levels of college debt, and also getting shot dead in school. These people will also desert the G.O.P.
The end result is that the remaining Republican legislators are hanging on by their fingernails. In time, they will be voted out to the point that their party will be rendered powerless.
If that doesn't change their minds, then soon there won't be enough Republicans in office to matter. Fitting.
4
The Republican party is no longer driven by truth, reality, or sanity. They trade only in lies, hypocrisy, and theocracy. They must be expunged from the political landscape for the USA, indeed for the world, to move forward once again. Taking down Trump, their icon of ignorance, will go a long way towards rebalancing the ledger.
2
What happened in the mid-1990s? Fox News. Now Rupert Murdoch drives the Republican agenda, regardless of what American people want.
6
The Democratic voters created this mess, not the Republicans.
They allowed radical leftist ideologues to gain control of their party.
These people are not interested in governing.
They are interested in ruling.
Their childish and incessant whining about a lost election, and their relentless and absurd hatred of Donald Trump, will go down as the reason the Democratic Party dissolved and disappeared.
2
One reads all this with incredulous anger.
Not that I don't think you have a point, Mr. Hemmer--no indeed.
I have lived to see conservative pundit, George Will--sakes, he held the right wing line for a long long time--
--urge voters to vote for Democrats.
He's not the only one. There are others. And I agree with them. I finally changed my own party affiliation last August--after years of dithering.
I cannot but think, Mr. Hemmer, the American people will get wise to the fossils and dinosaurs in the Republican party--
--and throw them out.
It happened to the Federalist party almost two hundred years ago. History does indeed sometimes repeat itself.
I pray it does right now.
I really do. These guys are (at bottom)--if not outright crooks, at least unrepentant oligarchs. And my ears are still ringing with what's his name--Mr. David Jolly's vigorous excoriation of the party he left. "Unprincipled" he called them--and that's not the worst of it. Dear me, no--he used harsher language than that.
Vote 'em out?
I hope so.
I really do.
47
Here is what I don't understand: we're told that Republican policies often disregard popular opinion and even the Republican base, but when we mention this to Republican voters, we're told that we're being condescending. How are we supposed to react to or debate with people who support politicians who don't support them? How can we meet someone halfway if their stance has little in common with their vote?
This issue often comes up with the supposed 'Progressive' candidates. Are Warren and Sanders "leftists" because they have little in common with the Republican Party, or because they have little in common with Republican voters?
It seems to me that we shouldn't bother with the Republican base. They ignore the false promises of their leaders: fixing the coal industry, fixing infrastructure, fixing health care, fixing the economy for the majority of the people. You can't debate with people who don't follow through on their beliefs.
Maybe they're the ones being condescending. I'm tired of hearing that I'm not part of the real America, or that I'm more like Hugo Chavez than George Washington, or that I'm an east coast liberal. We're told that we're not listening; maybe they're the ones who aren't listening. They tell us that it's our fault that we don't get them. If they don't get themselves, how are we supposed to get them? 'What's the matter with Kansas?' Hell, what's the matter with 42% of the country?
6
The photo says it all - white men who want to dominate this country and are trying to hold on to their concept of what we should be, a white Christian nation, demographics and multiculturalism be damned. Win elections by any means possible. And when you don't, claim voter fraud and use every means possible, however nefarious, to retain control. How low will the corruption of the modern Republican party take us? If Trump somehow "wins" the 2020 election, we will soon find out.
4
"(A) troubling feature of modern American democracy: It’s not that democratic" Exactly! Unless democrats make electoral reforms the top priority it deserves, we will slide further and further towards authoritarianism.
2
I am Pretty Damn Blue and this article is generally accurate, but we Dems have some litmus test policies ourselves, do we not?
Some of them are not all that popular, like any abortion at any point of the pregnancy for any reason at all.
We too obfuscate certain issues, like pretending that the Roe trimester system is still the Law.
We ignore other problems- like the border. Do we not?
This article also misses the point that GOP policies are actually popular in Red State America.
I think that the Right might try to seize power and that they are dangerous guys. But let’s not pretend that all of this arises in a vacuum, shall we?
2
With Fox Inc. messing up the air waves with selective reporting, republicans enjoy a state propaganda arm unmatched by any other US political group.
When the electorate is kept ignorant, culture wars sway voters into voting against themselves. The republican politicos are disciplined, march in lockstep, and are intent on keeping their power and their money, even if means the destruction of the society that spawned them.
The 13,000 trump lies are not accidental. When you can create your own reality and have it broadcast in the media, it becomes difficult for anyone else to try to use facts to win an election.
5
The author should just cut to the chase: the constitution is a dumpster fire. It’s a terrible document now, just as it was in 1787. Why do Americans worship a document that so intentionally disenfranchises millions, while giving wildly disproportionate representation to a few people in small rural states?
I’ve asked a lot of people this question, and the ensuing conversation follows a pattern. First there is surprise that anyone would question the sainted founding fathers. Second, there are attempts to rationalize ridiculous institutions like the Electoral College and the Senate. Finally, there is an exasperated, “Well, it’s not going to change, so we need to make the best of it.”
This is the real reason we revere the constitution: we are hostages to it. It’s a disaster, but we’re stuck. We all have constitutional Stockholm syndrome.
5
@Alex Kovner The greater fear is what the new constitution will look like when red states representing a small minority of citizens draft articles that further advantage empty land and greedy pols over needy people.
This article, "Don’t Expect Polls to Change Republican Minds," should be subtitled.
The second line should read, "Republicans Seem to Have the Ability to Think for Themselves."
That's something the R's can be proud of.
"Republicans didn’t win every election — in fact, they’ve won the popular vote for president only once in the last 30 years. But they’ve commandeered the government repeatedly despite their unpopularity."
does that make Republicans much smarter than DEmocrats or much more corrupt.
"It was a pattern that would repeat itself over the next two decades. Republicans didn’t win every election — in fact, they’ve won the popular vote for president only once in the last 30 years."
Remember: this is the party that has convinced itself, and wants to convince America, that people willing to testify under oath are liars and people who are unwilling to do so are telling the truth.
2
America is a place where poor whites see themselves as rich people who are temporarily down on their luck -- mostly due to the other "freeloading" poor people they see all around them (whereas the corruption and freeloading of the rich is invisible to them.)
Republicans are selling the American Dream: that anyone can be successful as long as government doesn't stand in their way. It's an incredibly powerful, inspiring dream. People desperately want to believe it's true: they want to blame slightly worse off poor people, whose lives they hate and fear, rather than the rich they admire and identify with. And they will vote against their practical interests to keep the myth -- and the pride -- alive.
4
Myths trump's facts any time of the day
This piece mischaracterizes and distorts the way that Republicans have won votes since the time of Nixon. White working people's votes have been bought through the implicit support of racism. This and some fortuitous economic and international events are what gave the winning margins to Reagan, not any commitment to Democracy. Reliance on racism and now xenophobia were becoming greater even before Trump - he has mostly just made them more open. The big-money interests that dominate Republican economic policy have never been interested in real democracy - their aim has been to subvert it.
3
A cult-like fundamentalism is now the predominant force in the Republican Party. Even the few remaining traditional Republicans are on board because it’s their last and only chance at a semblance of influence. They are waging political jihad on Democrats and democracy.
This is news. The Republican Party of Trump has a mind and thoughts? We knew it had hate but, there’s more beyond that? Real news.
1
I've sold out, and so have you. For the kids. For the family. Because life is short. And it isn't worth the bother. Because it was worth the trade off. Because we just had to.
If a Senator likes the job, they have to get elected. And if they're Republicans, it's unlikely without money from the Republican National Committee. Whose leader is appointed by Trump and can be fired by him.
Folks who tell you that Republicans in Congress are immoral, irresponsible and despicable for siding with Trump ought to tell you that those who don't sell out are history, and are replaced by someone else willing to sell out. Those who choose to defy their President usually make little difference and are never heard of again. Where's Jeff Flake? I'm an Arizonan and I haven't a clue. I'm glad he can sleep at night. But Martha MacSally, our new Senator, is at least as bad as Flake, and worse by me.
This sell out thing is routine. These Republican Senators are doing what we do writ large. But like you, those Senators have their limits. Asked to acquit a guilty President, a lot of these despicable Senators are likely to ask themselves whether likely they signed up for this and whether they will be able to face their kids if they vote not guilty, because they're a lot like you and me.
1
Its' been the party of a Republican club members for a long time. What I have wittnessed from club members so far are those that choose not to run again our are retiring. A call both running away.
The Senate and the People's House of our America is represented, (rather held hostage at the moment) by a club of unpatriotic cowardice.
End it in 2020 VOTE
Republicans report to billionaire bosses upon who they depend for a living. They take orders from them and from the lobbyists who wine and dine them in D.C. (aka the swamp). Since their bosses and lobbyists seek outcomes that are at odds with what the majority of Americans want, they take "unpopular" positions. Sadly it is working for them. Enough "hoodwinked" voters accept their lies or keeping voting for them out of habit. No need to them to change their minds or their ways.
1
The Republican Party today is nothing more than a cult of personality. And that cult of personality is based on the non-negotiable positions of the base: Oppose abortion, immigration, minorities, gun control, any increase in taxes, and anything that impinges on the "rights" of the base. Anyone who deviates from that line will be summarily driven out of the party. Their slogan is victory at all costs and by any means necessary.
Give up on expecting anything from the GOP. The only solution here is to overwhelmingly defeat them in 2020, for every office.
3
I'd like their vow to support the Constitution and our laws and the truth to matter.
Whether the president committed a crime has a factual answer.
Yes. That's why when Republicans say they are doing "what the American people want" we cringe.
One can infer from this is that the only good Republican politician is an unemployed one. More and more it appears that the Republican pols are simply sellouts and stooges. Even their national loyalty is suspect. As representatives of giant multi-national corporate interests, they simply represent those who wish to pillage and plunder for short term gain. The real conservatives are the Democratic party supporters. They want to conserve. They want to conserve the environment, the humanity of women and minorities, the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and the American dream.
2
Thanks to the author for pointing out the problem with our country.
Trump keeps being surprised that Lincoln was a Republican and tells everyone his discovery. Well, he probably didn’t know that he, himself, is partial proof of Lincoln’s quote: “You can fool some of the people all of the time...”. The cult of personality has finally found their face, swallowed the Kool-Aid, and became those “some of the people”. I don’t think it would be possible without the propaganda machine of Fox News and the far right radio shows feeding a constant stream of lies and conspiracy theories to their fooled audiences.
Facebook’s decision to allow blatant lies in political advertising ensures the continual gaslighting of a large portion of our electorate.
We are in trouble! We can only hope that more people who are not brainwashed will be alarmed enough by what’s happening to go en masse to the polls and vote these evil clowns out of offic.
The take home is that the Republican party represents its funders, whom it bamboozles and traduces for the benefit of its funders, corporations and the very rich.
2
Great piece---and ultimately very scary.
These extremist Republicans have hijacked our democratic processes.
What will it take to get our democracy back?
While reading this excellent and enlightening column, I noticed Ms Hemmer is the author of “Messengers of the Right: . . . ,” about conservative media. I must report that I was shocked when I inadvertently discovered that late at night, the CBS affiliate in Austin, owned by Sinclair Comm. was broadcasting, under the CBS logo banner, a “news” program filled with same disinformation, distortions and lies found on Fox, or espoused by Limbaugh. Conservatives may not pay attention to polling, but they sure know how to spread their foul storyline.
4
I don't expect anyone to change their mind. I don't expect Republicans to abandon Trump and I do y expect Democrats to spend one second on Hunter Bidens corruption.
Since Biden has done nothing corrupt, Democrats not humoring Republican conspiracy fantasies is a good thing. Part of the country has to remain sane while Republicans slowly descend into madness.
Was the Republican party ever driven by public opinion?
Think not.
If decency, the Constitution, respect for the law, and patriotism won't change Republican minds, the polls won't either. Republicans are in the same mental state as Alfred E. Neuman, when he said: "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with the facts."
1
The GOP senators won't turn on Trump unless their GOP voters do, too. Their voters stick with Trump for a lot of reasons, many noxious, but thwarting Democrats is a big one. Get Republican voters to think Trump has betrayed them, and his support will collapse fast.
I do not expect any trump supporters to change their minds and I do not expect to stop avoiding such people at all costs or experience any less visceral loathing.
1
The best solution we have is to vote them out of office.
2
It's all about the money. And about what Lincoln didn't say: that, if you have enough money from the ultra-rich, you can fool enough of the people enough of the time to keep them voting for policies that hurt them.
It ain't rocket science. Republican politicians do what they're paid to do, because they're really well paid.
I don't necessarily feel that politicians who don't blow with the winds of popular opinion are all terrible. We depend upon those we put into power having both information and perspective that may not be available to the general public and to act according to their best judgement.
The fact that far too many politicians, Democrat and Republican alike although far far more prevalently GOP, get into office without electoral support is more concerning. They are bought and sold by vast wealth, personal and corporate, that is usually not even from their own districts, using the kinds of lies and voter suppression mentioned in the article rather than permit themselves to be exposed in the marketplace of ideas required by democracy.
The biggest tragedy of the ironically named Grand Old Party is its abandonment of any fealty to the national good or the rule of law. Mitch McConnell's refusal to permit Merrick Garland's nomination to proceed ripped any remaining claim to fulfill the Senate's Constitutional duty. And he claimed it as his proudest moment.
Today's Republicans do not care that their president was not elected, is a raging incompetent, is in thrall to our most dangerous national enemy, is a bigot, a misogynist, a bully, a liar, a tax evader and probably at least somewhat mentally compromised. They have and will continue to throw the country under the bus in their striving for personal power and money.
They all need to go.
2
"Of the people, by the people and for the people." Long forgotten and set aside. The Trump "cult" has proven more attractive to them. Rather than the improvement of our Democratic Republic.
The G.O.P. is not longer driven by the public. Period.
The G.O.P. chooses its voters, and grooms them using fear, hatred and lies.
1
The Republican Party is a radical, dangerous organization. They serve only their greed and their radical agenda, ignoring their constituents because they don't want democracy. They've been working on their propaganda for 40 years with the help of fox news and now Facebook. They are destroying our society and our planet.
1
Or buoy up Democrats' minds. There is a mathematical comfort in polls that gives us a certainty that reality completely messes up -- Hillary, Donald, and the '16 election should be emblazoned on everyone's rearview mirror as a reminder.
Logic, scientific evidence, graphs, and CNN analysis -- all of which I try to follow as a lifelong Democrat -- reinforce our bubble-effect as we seek to unseat a crazed autocrat and his loons. But it's like predicting the path of a tornado -- good luck with that.
Far right Republicans have taken over a plethora of state legislatures, filled courts, and despite some blue tint, still have a hold on huge swaths of America. We can vilify them all we want -- let's never underestimate their power to keep their hold on power, by hook, crook, and the biggest crook now of all.
1
In the end, what do Republicans get for all of this?
Tax cuts for the rich.
Republicans are hurting the country.
The rich are hurting the country.
And all for what?
A few more billions that the will never even spend.
1
Republicans, in their total embrace of and surrender to this amoral, divisive, incompetent, corrupt, and criminal narcissistic President, have unequivocally demonstrated that the party they represent is more than deserving of going out of political existence. Let the elections of 2020 be a final historical rejection of this dark institutional outlier, embodying a total disregard of democratic governance while undermining national norms, traditions, and values. It and they continue to ignore public opinion at their existential peril and, hopefully, the upcoming elections will be the last time that the opportunity to do so will be available.
1
Miss Hemmer seems to have delusional ideas about the Republican party under Reagan. In the wake of the civil rights movement of the sixties it became the party of ignorance, hypocrisy, and hate. Donald Trump did not take it in that direction he followed it in that direction.
2
@zb
I agree.
50 years ago The Republican Party created the Southern Strategy, the conscious effort to appeal to the segregationist Strom Thurmond and George Wallace Democratic voters.
In the 1980’s the Republican Party gave us the culture wars and Reagan and the dog whistle politics of welfare queens and States Rights and created the Reagan Democrats.
In the 1990’s we got the Newt Gingrich House of Representatives take no prisoners confrontation, Whitewater, the Clinton impeachment, and Vince Foster murder conspiracy.
With Obama, they created the Tea Party and gave us the birthers, death panels, and support of the Confederate flag.
And all these years, the Republican politicians have been using the Reaganomics talking points of small government and tax cuts for the job creators coming from the right-wing think tanks.
For thirty five years, the rising tide of Trickle Down Economics has increased inequality so it is now what we had in the Gilded Age.
1
The Republican Party does not pay attention to polls because it is profoundly anti-democratic. You can't be a Republican these days without buying into an elaborate belief system that has as much to do with reality as a 'reality' tv show.
David Atkins at Washington Monthly has put together a partial list of things a modern conservative must believe. Here's a sample:
1. The belief that 10,000 climate scientists all around the world are either stupid, or engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy to concoct bad science in order to receive…more government grant funding. And that no other scientists are exposing it.
3. The belief without evidence that there is a giant conspiracy across local, state and federal elections officials all across the country to engage in mass wide-scale voter impersonation fraud. Needless to say, this would be insanely complicated, incredibly risky and hugely inefficient.
8. The belief that a tiny group of obscenely rich industrialists are the only truthtellers, the only ones looking out for the “forgotten man”, while millions of middle class professionals and civil servants are corrupt liars. This one is particularly ironic, as it represents a twisted funhouse version of Marxist theory.
See the list here: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/11/10/the-conspiracy-theories-a-republican-must-believe-today/
2
How long can Repubs vote against their own best interests...
Are they so clueless as to decry socialism but still want to keep their social security or their food stamps? Or their Medicare.
We shall soon see - cannot wait for KY and Moscow Mitch to answer that question..
1
The question for anyone claiming to be a Republican or a TrumpCultist is, are they more a member of the GOP or Trumpian or are they more American? Answer that question and they will know what the right to do is, and the rest of us, will know who they actually are.
I stopped looking at the polls when this same paper had Hillary winning all the way up to ~10:30 the night of the election. It may be the G.O.P no longer trust them.
When you no longer have the ability to win through playing by the rules, and winning becomes more important than abiding by democratic principles, you do whatever you can regardless of any ethical or moral consequences. That’s where the Republican Party has been for a long while. Even Reagan and Bush I employed racism (welfare queens and Willie Horton) as a tool to attract the underbelly of society to their cause. This has been the playbook of amoral power hungry individuals forever.
2
Republicans in Congress are so corrupt they are trying to quash impeachment by claiming that all illegal acts by this administration are not crimes, not impeachable, everybody does it, if we don't do it big government and the undeserving will win. True blue Conservatives believe it's the way to preserve their (white) power and the Koch brothers will pay for them to do it.
Public opinion is like a cloud--nebulous- sometimes signifying fair weather, sometimes uncertainty, sometimes foreshadowing a destructive storm. National polls are at best a weather vane twisting in the wind. State polls are more reliable and correlate better with caucus goers, and among those who actually vote in primaries and choose delegates to state party nominating conventions, as well as to the Electoral College.
Public opinion is also subject to mass media and corporate owner pressures as well as social media mischief and fraud.
1
I get it. Democracy no longer works for them. Neither do science, truth, common decency, norms, guardrails and the rule of law. So to alternate reality, individualism, deregulation, fragmentation, paranoia, white identity, authoritarian rule, they go. To its end -- the take power road. With Putin as the model. And the "too-incompetent to control" Trump at the controls.
1
I disagree somewhat. While republicans in safe districts will put getting elected and blind loyalty to an accused serial criminal like Trump over country, public opinion can sway some.
If public opinion in purple states goes over 50% for impeachment, look for a few republicans to renounce Trump before now and Election Day.
Also look for a few to declare they are not running since they see the writing on the wall if the democrats look like they will sweep the election.
2
Oh the polls! Democrats have don't great in recent years depending on the polls. Forget all about one of the biggest upsets in presidential history in which the Democrats were defeated by Trump in 2016.
Trump has proven positively that one can defy the rule of law based on United States code and the Constitution with success. And ignorance of the law is strength. Those who voted for Trump often did so out of a childish overpowering spirit of revenge for having had to endure 8 years of a person of color in the White House. They won't be satisfied with anything less than a full-blown race war if someone dares to remove their wonderful 45 from office, and the GOP leadership is longing for the day when "emergency powers" can be proclaimed to suspend the Constitution.
2
Large sections of the Democratic party aren't driven by public opinion either. That's why the center is so important.
How ironic that a Trumpist party that is itself truly Republican in name only claims to be populist on the one hand yet, on the other, is unpopular and anti-democratic. They even punctuate this paradox by mockingly referring, ad nauseum, to the Democratic Party as the “democrat” party. From Trump’s losing the 2016 popular vote by three million to his party’s gerrymandering and voter-suppression tactics, he has perverted “Republicans” into a movement of what might be called nihilistic elitism. The good news is that like all self-defeating, masochistic activities, from cigarette smoking and boxing to cockfighting and football, this last-gasp fear of the other shall pass, not with a bang, but a whimper, as Eliot would say. The bad news is that, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the evil that these men do will live long after them. Although we have gone from founding fathers in search of “a more perfect union” to a pseudo-president straining for a more “perfect” transcript, this tyranny of the minority will, sooner rather than later, give way and cave to the power of facts, the truth and, blessedly, the people.
1
Only two things matter: what Republicans think and what voters in swing states think. To date, not that much
1
Trump might not be removed by the Senate but there is certainly a chance that he could be removed by the people. Ask Virginians. They seem to be fed-up with a self-serving GOP.
1
I dare say nothing will change the mind of a significant majority of Republicans.
1
Let's look at facts...
In the last election only 46% of the nation voted.
Hillary won the popular vote by 3 Million.
Half of the voting population would be 23%.
That would mean that Trump only received LESS than 23% or approximately only 20% of the general populace.
Trump was put into office by the electoral college which only represents .00051% of the nations populace.
Now we know that Russia, the Kochs, the GOP and media platforms such as Twitter, FaceBook and Instagram were used to feed anti democrat propaganda (Russia funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner investor...TheGuardian)... why would anyone believe that the electoral college wasn't manipulated (deals they couldn't refuse).
Electoral College Members Can Defy Voters’ Wishes, Court Rules [NYTImes]
2
Evolution took two paths; those with the ability to Reason, and those that only Rationalize.
Evangelical indoctrination certainly makes the matter worst, but the party of McCarthy, Nixon, Gingrich, Cheney, the Freak-Show Caucus, and old Bone-Spur himself; are a party of slander, a party of corruption, a party of lies.
In the 1930s, the evangelical followers forced Prohibition on the Country. Today the evangelical followers are attempting a new prohibition, but this is a prohibition of the Truth.
One and One ain't three, no matter how angry Lindsey Graham gets.
Stop the lying. We want our Country back.
1
Message to pollsters and their employers: no poll has ever changed anyone’s mind about anything. Ever.
1
And then there's money. Candidates are first identified by their names followed by the size of their war chests. Policy? maybe a sentence or two somewhere in the article.
Why would anyone expect polls to change republican minds when facts, appeals to ethics, the law, and the constitution don't?
2
Good article. The GOP should never have been allowed to play it's dirty trick gameplan. From ALEC in the states to the theft of a SCOTUS seat for Kavenaugh/Trump they have cynically plotted to either rig the system or exploit loopholes that they work to create.
They have known so long that democracy is their true enemy that they even worked to eliminate critical thinking in public schools while disallowing student ID to be used for voting purposes. (your NRA membership was fine tho)
As citizens we must reassert our rights to govern ourselves. If we don't we will not only lose ourselves, we will give our world a unique gift; A nuclear superpower with worldwide reach under the command of an unaccountable tyrant.
1
Republican Senators will turn on Trump the instant they decide he is a threat to their jobs and their majority power, regardless of poll numbers. Moscow Mitch already has a looming threat in Kentucky. No doubt there’s small groups of Republicans gathering in some of Mitt Romney’s “quiet rooms” to discuss the benefits to them of removing Trump from office and/or preventing him from running again. House Republicans are irrelevant at this point and Senate Republicans will do anything to avoid a similar fate.
1
Between FOX news spin and speculation dominating the airwaves, trollbots spreading misinformation online, and a giant war chest to plaster misleading ads across TV, Republicans have learned it doesn't really matter what you do, it only matters what you say. With a voting public that doesn't pay close attention, it's style and saturation over substance.
But the cost is a loss of soul. If you have to lie, spin, omit facts, mislead, hide what you really stand for, than you don't really believe in what you are doing.
1
My takeaway from this article is that Republicans are bolder, stronger and more unified than Democrats, even though Democrats hold the values of the majority of Americans. So conversely, Democrats are not very effective at enlightening Americans?
1
The GOP works for the rich and the oligarchs. They have their own state TV (Nixon's idea) that seems to be the only news available in many key states.
I guess wait for the big economic collapse for the American voters to figure it out.
Why would anyone expect polls to change republican minds when facts, appeals to ethics, the law, and the constitution don't?
3
I am old enough to remember when Republicans were pro-FBI and anti-Putin.
That seems so quaint and a long time ago.
Circa 2016.
5
The Republicans lie, gerrymander and do an excellent job of exploiting the cultural issues of guns,gays,god and abortion. Voters are apparently unable to comprehend they are voting against their best interests. They do that because Republicans do a great job of delivering the “ other” for them to look down on and blame for all their problems. The Democrats on the other hand do a terrible job of messaging even though they are on the right side of most issues. Until voters pay attention and actually vote for their personal best interests and best interests of the majority of Americans I fear we may have continued Republican rule.
4
I hate to say it but trump was right when he bandied all over the country flapping his lips saying the system is rigged. By gerry mandering, voter suppression and hateful branding, the Repubs have co- opted a system that locks out the Dems very effectively. Dems always win the popular vote tallies nationally and can’t grab the seats necessary to govern because of where they are located
and who is encouraged to stay home.
With the powerful lobbies tackling every issue so that the right wing and its moneyed power base wins the day, I wonder why we even bother to vote.
"It was a change in philosophy [for the Republican Party], from welcoming the heterodox newcomer to kicking out Republicans who didn’t pass their litmus tests on ...you name it."
Right. Sort of reminds you of Elizabeth Warren telling Joe Biden he's running in the wrong party's primary, doesn't it?
It began with Newt Gingrich, who began the notion that the Dems were their enemies, NOT, the loyal opposition. It continued with GOP control of state legislatures, to draw districts that guaranteed GOP majorities even when the vote was not in their favor; and with vote suppression, the most recent case being Florida's referendum to allow former prisoners to vote, with administrative impediments. As the older white person becomes a distinct minority, as the Dems take over more state legislatures, the principles that have the GOP has used to maintain power will dissolve. With each swing of the pendulum, history reverses. I pray I see the day when it all crashes down, where all the evil ways will be useless, and perhaps, just perhaps, a party might re-emerge that has a core value of integrity and respect for all. I am not holding my breath.
5
The religious base of Trump's most fervent supporters suggests that any compromise on any culture-based war issue is a betrayal of God and Jesus. It makes it very easy to have someone like Jerry Falwell, Jr., to say that Trump is our last best wish for morality and salvation.
4
I note that Sen. Graham is proud to state that the refuses to read the transcript. Yet, republican operatives are selling t-shirts that command "Read the Transcript." djt recently appeared at a rally in front of a backdrop of audience members bedecked with those t-shirts. Doesn't Lindsey realize he is hurting t-shirt sales and depriving the party of funds desperately needed to fund the Nation's march to right-wing dictatorship and the move to make djt president for life?
6
The Republican Party has progressively sought to undermine democracy because most of the issues which most people support do not accord with its principles or policy positions. So it is hardly news that it ignores polls which reflect precisely that support. Since that majority of people includes Republicans as well as Democrats, The Republican Party does not want to hear even from its own supporters. Indeed, it does not even want to hear from some of its elected officials, like senators from Utah, Maine, and Alaska. Forget "hear no evil, see no evil"; the Republican Party does not hear or see.
3
In 74, the GOP still had a moderate and even liberal wing. Today's GOP has neither and its base is far more unified and aligned with Trump, whose appeal is more tribal and cultural than issue based. That is why the only polls that count in this process are those of GOP voters and as long that their support for Trump remains at current high levels, it is very unlikely that most GOP house and senate members will turn on him. To do so would leave them with the worst of both worlds---the anger their base and no goodwill from Dem or independent voters. By staying with Trump, they doing what the base wants and will have its votes and resources next year.
1
@Want2know And yet, there's a lot of crossover between Trump and traditional GOP values. The American Dream for the left is about equality and everyone having their basic needs met. On the right, the dream is that everyone who works hard and wants it badly enough can be successful -- as long as government doesn't get in the way with its social programs to help "lazy" poor people. The working class whites who make up his base believe with all their hearts in that dream, and admire and identify with Trump as the embodiment of it. Try to point out that welfare and social programs aren't a big enough part of the budget to bring anyone down and they will beat you back. They NEED to believe they are being held back by government because otherwise they would have to conclude that their reduced circumstances are their own fault. Of course neither is true, but they don't want to give up on the dream.
2
Don't forget, Trump's base is huge and passionate in red states.
Why would a Republican elected official from Florida or Alabama care what the national numbers look like?
6
Superb, and depressingly accurate.
7
All of this is tragically true, and is precisely why Obama and Holder have been working to battle the GOP gerrymandering antics that have so disrupted our elections. The GOP is well aware that if honest elections were to take place, they would handily lose the vast majority of them. I've said for a long time that the GOP for all practical purposed is dead, and it has been replaced by a shadow party focused on greed, money and power.
28
@Lisa Rogers
Greed Over People
1
My "hope" is that the members of the Senate of both parties will NOT be driven by the polls, nor by party politics; my hope is that they will live up to their oath of office to defend the Constitution and to the oath they will take at the beginning of the trial:
"I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that
in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment
of [_________], now pending, I will do impartial justice
according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God.’’
It is, to use a cliche, my hope that both Republican and Democratic Senators will put country over party and politics.
7
Republicans know that they can ignore the polls because come election time they can tap into the primal fears and hatreds that exist in the collective unconscious of their voters. Those hatreds and fears include bigotry, misogyny, racism, inferiority complexes, and threats to their race and tribe. Republicans know that as long as they can tap into these deep rooted history long primal feelings they will get re-elected even if they tirelessly work against the interests of those who vote for them. Democrats, on the other hand, naively are still trying to win elections through rational argument and economic programs that benefit the many but doesn't move them and then write books about 'What's the Matter with Kansas'. The answer is that one hour with Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or Dennis Prager on a radio talk show gets all of those voters to quickly forget any rational argument and return to the feelings of rage and hatred that lurk within their human souls. We are, in the end, more animal than not even if we have smartphones.
13
@Wayne Fuller
Yeah it amazes me that the mainstream media still doesn't understand the power of Fox news and talk radio. This article dates the changes in the Republican party to the nineties but if fails to mention that was the decade Fox news started and talk radio blossomed. I know people who never showed an interest in politics at all until Fox news came on the air. Now Fox news defines their lives.
Tobin Smith has a book out called Foxocracy. He worked at Fox for 14 years and he explains the whole operation and how it works. It's propaganda plain and simple and they don't play by the same rules as the so called mainstream media.
The unpopular politics of the GOP is assisted by a conservative Supreme Court (Bush 2), a conservative-leaning judicial system, and a Senate structure that puts less populous states on an equal footing with more populous states. Also the GOP has a greater tendency than the Democratic Party to cross legal lines in campaigning and governing. These factors help to compensate for their shortfalls in the popular vote.
13
If we no longer have a two-party system that operates democratically then the people have few choices...and none of them are good. Most of us are no longer going to be "bought off" by the "trickle down economics" mumbo jumbo of the oligarchs and plutocrats. If the Democrats win this next election there needs to be major structural changes made to the economy and the electoral process. Failure to do so could very well spell the end of the American democratic experiment for good. I am not optimistic.
7
This points to I think a crucial difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans drive the polls. Democrats are driven by the polls.
I think the Democrats can afford to be a little more cavalier.
3
There is a delightful irony in this account. In the Business section of the Sunday Times, the CEO of American Airlines describes how, as a college student working in a union warehouse, he was pressured by other workers to strictly follow the rules of the union contract (in this case, taking a break when the break horn sounded). The Republican Party, which abhors unions, nevertheless has adopted the same mindset and tactics. They have a "contract" that all members are expected to follow and members who violate the rules are sanctioned.
6
I look at the photo of these guys and I can't help but wonder: what else besides their seats do they know they will lose when their constituents come to their senses?
This helps me to understand why they are trying so hard to keep their constituents from coming to their senses.
5
@The North What make you think their constituents will come to their senses?
Unless Fox news comes to it's senses then it's viewers won't either. So long as ratings are high Murdoch will follow the money. And he has a figured out the formula for high ratings.
1
Echoes of David Frum, one-time speechwriter for George W. Bush, a senior advisor to Rudy Guiliani, and clearly no liberal. Not long ago, Frum wrote that if conservatives can't gain power democratically, it will be democracy, not conservatism, that they give up on. We're seeing prescience realized.
20
"When it comes to impeachment (and pretty much everything else), the G.O.P. is no longer driven by public opinion." Or facts it is apparent, and because of that possibly the end of our Republic. Will they reflect on that when it's gone?
1
There are 2 types of republicans. Those who understand the message and rule the narrative of this closed society of movers and shakers, and then there's the other republicans who only hear the distorted message of buzz words and fear. The fallout of years of compromising our educational system is showing up in people believing everything they hear. Asking the questions because we understand the rules no longer exists with so many voters who are too lazy to move beyond the buzz words that guide their lives.
5
From Reagan on it has been completely about a bait and switch, about identity politics and about coded messaging around identity politics all the while handing the keys to the kingdom to big money (witness the current session of a legislature that did nothing but a tax cut.) It worked. Union members marched out and voted enmass to cut their wages, end their health care and end their employer sponsored pensions. It’s amazing how easy it was for Fox News and the Republicans to prey on Americans racial fears. It’s also incredible how long they have been able to to keep people fooled. It looks like the new generations aren’t interested in the con. One can hope.
11
The author forgets to mention the role played by the big donors of the libertarian right in determining the behavior of Republicans.
Withstanding the homage to the moderate or even liberal Republicans of the past, the GOP has been the party of the big business and the well to do for more than a century.
The goal of the this behind the scenes, Koch-centered cabal is to return the U.S. to the oligarchic nation it was prior to the advent of the New Deal.
Exploiting the constitutional flaws referenced by professor Hammer, playing to the nation's racial fears and economic anxieties, many of later that they are responsible for, this group knows how to win and keep power. Democracy, a government that reflects the will of the majority, and a fair shake for all is the last thing they want.
8
At first glance it looks like this ever greater anti-democratic tendancy correlates with the ever greater concentration of weath that has occured in the US over the last thirty years. To say it brutally, the payoff (money!) for espousing this philosophy is greater than it's ever been.
Hopefully your article will trigger some serious studies of these assumptions.
8
Republicans are no longer beholden to polls because their backers are hacking the elections. Outcomes “defy the odds” because they actually defy the will of the people.
5
Finally someone who understands the fatal flaw of American democracy: it's not that democratic, despite what the propaganda has been telling you. In fact, the most important issues are not even part of the debate, they're too important for the public to have any say in.
3
@Laurel: Democracy varies directly with the distribution of wealth and education.
As the Republican Party proceeds to push people around, we need to find an appropriate word for such behavior. How about “authoritarian?” It’s clearly appropriate for Trump. Perhaps it’s just as clearly appropriate for the Party itself.
It even sounds like it’s time for a new Party.
7
It's uncanny. Just the minute before reading this article that was posted half-an-hour ago, I was talking with my mother. I was saying that the major, most determinative thing that is wrong with the United States right now, is the Republican Party. They are, essentially, a criminal organization, no longer a public body except nominally. Oh yes, there are a few exceptions, heretics such as Mitt Romney, but they are few and far between, and usually their stint in the Republican Party ends with their expression of disloyalty. It is clear to me and to so many of us what we need in this country. We need infrastructure repair and we need decent-paying jobs. It's as obvious as the nose on my face. But what did we get last year? A tax cut for the wealthy. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that somebody in this democratic republic isn't holding up their end of the bargain.
We need to reclaim our democracy. And it starts by getting rid of Donald Trump. Then if we can do that, we can start working to restore our democratic institutions to what they are supposed to be. If we can't get rid of President Trump, we are finished as a liberal democracy.
20
@Tulipano: Sermon aside, I agree. Trump needs to see justice. Meanwhile people are hurting.
2
To me, the notion that Republicans have ever based their agenda on what was popular is stuff and nonsense. At least during the time when I have been politically aware (more or less mid-1970's onward) the Republican agenda has always been to ensure that the rich and powerful remain rich and powerful. They succeed electorally when and where the delusional, fascist, but seductive-to-some narrative that they present to distract from their actual agenda gains traction.
To take just one of the ridiculous examples cited in the article as evidence of the claim that Republicans once responded to the popular will, Ronald Reagan did not adopt his policies because they were popular. To the contrary, he he was hawking those notions years before, and was part of the propaganda machine that made them popular. He loudly opposed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the creation of Medicare, and repeated various versions of "poor people deserve to be poor", and "government is the problem" until a lot of people came to accept them. And as president, he attacked popular environmental protections with a zeal unmatched until the arrival of Donald Trump, championing the fact-free notion that any limitation on corporate power is economically disastrous until that, too, began to gain currency.
Republicans have never bent to the popular will. They present a bogeyman-laced narrative to obfuscate their real agenda, and win elections whenever they get enough people to believe it.
11
It appears that the aim of the Republican Party is to achieve permanent minority rule over the majority. It seems to a coalition of white nationalists, extreme economic libertarians, evangelicals, and anti-government radicals. As was discussed in the article its strategy for obtaining power is based on the electoral college which gives proportionally more power to rural states, gerrymandering, and voter ID laws, bascially whatever can be done to reduce the votes of groups that are most likely to vote democratic. It also relies on disinformation campaigns to keep support. The Republicans also sow distrust in institutions commonly seen as dedicated to searching for the truth such as the press and academia. They don't seem to have any intention if trying fairly judge whether Trump should be impeached and public opinion will probably not matter because their strategy is based on representing a minority that rules the majority. It appears that Republicans now favor authoritarian rule in a society where democracy is really a sham.
9
Thankfully, it's (for now) still all about and only about just one voter at a time, standing in a folding ballot booth and picking a name from a list of names. The leadership and the members of the Repub Party have proven to be far better at controlling those 30-seconds, then the Dem Party. That is the challenge and the beauty of our Republic, and maintaining our Republic: who is going to control those 30-seconds. -C
1
It is no coincidence that the rise of Republicans ignoring public opinion tracks the rise of Fox News, and more recently the bot-infected and conspiracy infested world of Twitter and Facebook. As soon as there was a way around the filter of professional journalism, lying exploded as a tactic, and repeal of the Fairness Doctrine meant broadcasters could lie without rebuttal. The Constitution envisaged a free and vigorous press as a fourth branch of governance; now we have poisonous gases issuing from the Swamp...
5
I don't know if this is about polls or not per se. But, it is about truth, justice and the American way. And when it comes to American values and the American national interest, what we have here is a new chapter in American history: The Closing of the Republican Mind.
The best evidence that will move people when it comes to Trump is his financials. Once those tax returns come out, the country will arise to a rude awakening. Hoax, rube, con-man, racketeer and Russian tool. And, by then, what Republican leaders think, say or do will have become as irrelevant as they will be.
1
I lived in the midwest until I could no longer stand it.
Here's now "the rules" work according to conservatives:
The only time the matters is when it can be used to attack a Democrat or liberals. Anything else is literally going to be ignored, even in the face of overwhelming truth.
Wash, rinse, repeat since the 1980s and....you get Trump.
1
in the 1970’s the majority of Americans had a land line. Polling random people with prewritten questions via a telephone has failed.
Otherwise Hillary would be President. By 12 points.
In my memory, “Republicans” politicians have only been driven by the will of the wealthy elite who fund their re-elections, rather that the will of the American people.
7
This article tells part of the story. The other part is that the Republican party has been preparing for decades to govern as a minority party reelected by well-rehearsed dirty tricks and structural inequalities.
There's a reason why Matt Bevin is refusing to concede the loss of the gubernatorial election in Kentucky. This is a major part of the corruption playbook: accuse the other side of the kind of electoral cheating in which your own party is engaging. If not in the Kentucky election, certainly in others - North Carolina 9, for example.
The Republicans know that there is no way they can have power by majority rule or win fair and free elections. Distracting the electorate with cries and lies about how they were robbed of elections seems to be able to win the day with Republicans, and in the case of Bush v. Gore, to win an election by intimidation and lies. Time for our schools to teach kids deep civic education and critical thinking, not just how to pass tests.
152
@Nancy Braus
"Time for our schools to teach kids deep civic education and critical thinking, not just how to pass tests."
Unfortunately, we gave up on that teaching in this nation a couple of generations ago.
Meanwhile, the right-wing propaganda machine has finely honed its skills.
An electorate ignorant of civic knowledge and critical thinking consists of nothing more the pawns under the right's control.
15
@Nancy Braus Ms. Braus has accurately diagnosed the Republican mindset . I've said for the last several years that the unofficial Republican motto is, If you can't win fairly, stack the deck. If you can't stack the deck, cheat.
13
@Nancy Braus
"Time for our schools to teach kids deep civic education and critical thinking, not just how to pass tests."
Sounds like necessary qualifications for Congress, let alone the populace at large.
6
I would very much like to see statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, though only if a majority of citizens of these areas are themselves in favor.
4
The people drive the polls and it's not the other way around.
Increase terms in the House to four years, which will take some focus off re-election and make them do their jobs for a while. Then institute term limits for both the House and Senate. Two terms max. Period. A constitutional purgative.
It would be a start.
10
@Jasper Lamar Crabb: I have often thought that term limits should be multiples of 6s. One 24 year term for Supreme Court Justices. One 6 year term for Presidents. Two 6 year terms for Senators. Six 2 year terms for Congresspersons or perhaps increase House terms to 3 years and make it no more than four 3 year terms. We can argue over the details, but there is no doubt that term limits are necessary.
@Jasper Lamar Crabb Another good idea ... if the GOP ever again loses control of the executive and legislative branches!
This piece by Ms. Hemmer is fascinating and disturbing.
We didn't see it happening, this gradual loss of representative Republican power. Maybe we felt it without understanding.
Today, the GOP that once honored the will of the people now manages the people with stunning skill, as it stays in power and pursues agendas of its own.
In awful wonder we watched Newt Gingrich shut down the government. A new, far nastier political world was evident at that point.
Was it denial that kept Democrats from going after aggressive Republican gerrymandering all those years ago? (Or is it just that getting Democrats to work together seamlessly is an awful lot like herding cats?) That was a critical failure in our history.
The Republican Machine is moving very well now both for Trump and for the party. Democrats struggle to respond in the face of such power.
American political discourse has devolved into one that triggers Civil War-era attitudes of hatred, hopelessness and treason.
An image of Mitch McConnell -- sitting in an easy chair reading The NYTimes -- comes to mind: As Mitch finishes reading Ms. Hemmer's words, he smiles to himself and quietly chuckles.
64
@Reliance Couldn't agree more. One problem is that the 2010 election brought to power "tea party" activists who wanted nothing more than to tear everything down. They've now spent nearly a decade doing so and Trump is the result. We have to take control in 2020, so that they don't have the power to complete their disastrous march to destruction.
4
Public opinion has been driven by mainstream media outlets who despise Trump. And even though the only issue is whether Trump committed a high crime or misdemeanor that justifies impeachment, the MSM’s constant drumbeat, it’s continued breathless reports of nothing new as if it was meaningful news, has impacted public opinion. But a hard rain is gonna fall on Democrats. The secret hearings are over and the GOP—even if Schiff prevents House Republicans from calling witnesses he does not want to hear from, is going to expose the very simple fact that there is no impeachable offense. They will also show that the Dems have been trying to impeach Trump since Election Day, show the bias of the Dem’s witnesses, show that even a quid pro quo is pretty common with the political class, and perhaps discuss the IG and AG investigations, should they happen to get release during the impeachment nonsense. This is going to bite Dems badly. And if the economy stays strong, this winter stays bitterly cold, and they nominate a radical like Warren, the Dems are in deep trouble in 2020.
1
@ehillesum: No Impeachable offense, except it is a Crime for a US President to Ask or Solicit a Foreign Government to investigate and dig up dirt on a political opponent, and thus have a Foreign government affect, influence or interfere with a US election, which Mr. Trump has repeatedly done and has admitted doing. It is not easy to be as blind as you have chosen to be.
1
Democrats were doomed when they didn't pay attention to Gingrich in the 1990's. They have no system in place to counter balance the Republicans and will continue to pay for their folly for the foreseeable future given the court packing by Trump courtesy of Harry Reid . It is now the party of Trump and the populists, over promising and under delivering, reliant on an ever smaller portion of the voting public to maintain their power aided and abetted by right wing media outlets that only require listeners to believe. Facts are optional. Unless and until Democrats stop lusting after the coasts and the cities, the balance of power will remain in place.
2
The Republican Party long ago left the concerns of the public and the ideals of America behind. It's just about getting and keeping power, by whatever means necessary. Power to protect their white privilege.
3
Re” Don’t Expect Polls to Change Republican Minds“
My teachers often said, “ the mind is a terrible thing to waste”.
Well, leave it the Russo- Republicans to take fact fighting and truth-busting to a new level.
They are under a spell and won’t change their minds until suddenly, all at once, the spell is broken. We await this moment with great anticipation.
1
The Fox poll you sighted had a +10% oversampling of Democrats in it, so it was an outlier in terms of "favoring impeachment". Most polls still show that even a portion of moderate to conservative democrats along with the vast majority of R's are against impeachment. The news media and liberal twitter of which you say is excited is a different story. Travel the country a bit and you will find that reporters today live in a coastal media bubble.
1
Missed in all this noise was a comment by Mitch McConnell, something to the effect of "we'll look at the CLINTON Senate trial to establish rules should Trump impeachment occur and move to trial in the Senate. CLINTON. Yes, he lied under oath to a Federal prosecutor, was impeached, but NOT removed from office in the Senate. So this Senate will respond the same way, and not remove Trump either. (And he didn't lie under oath! Clinton much worse!)
And then hopefully, a blue wave in November 2020.
1
@M Harvey Rules lawyering. I have played Dungeons and Dragons for years. The player everyone hates the most is the one who knows all the rules well enough to skip around, bend, and break them with impunity. That is Mr. Trump and the Republicans since Gingrich.
The real club used to beat Congressional Republicans into line is the prImary process. They know that only the most fervent supporters vote in primaries and that group is now in mad love with Donald Trump. One negative tweet from King Donald can sink a career faster than the iceberg took the Titanic. So they do whatever he says and he does whatever that narrow base wants...guns, an abortion ban, freedom to discriminate, hatred of immigrants, etc., etc. Combine that with voter suppression and gerrymandering and we have a DINO. Democracy in Name Only.
3
Oh, I have no hope or desire for Trumpsters to change their minds in response to public opinion. If they're depressed, fine. If not and in a fine fettle for a bonsai charge at the polls in 2020 that'll be fine too. What I most want is for them to go back to the shadows of public life, back to muttering at the TV news. To have a return to a cap on public displays of incivility, hatred, and statements of banal cruelty will be fine.
2
These republicans did not appoint them selves,they were elected. Many, over and over. Until the electorate says it has had enough of republican obstruction towards a new direction, nothing will change. Even with all the failings of the a Trump administration, many will turn a blind eye or disbelieve the truth. We are still and will continue to be a divided country for the foreseeable future.
2
I would say that Mitch McConnell is the poster boy for not caring about "We The People". He has ruined our Courts for two generations.
3
Righteous indignation is really over - a long time ago. I am concerned about:
1.Should we leave the US to avoid all the yelling, screaming, until after the election? (absentee ballot, continued financial support)
2.I am elderly (75). If Trump is re-elected, it will take beyond my reasonable life expectancy to see the catastrophes he and his loyalists have inflicted on American democracy, world order, and our economy.
1
Americans pay attention to their pocketbooks. Everything will change after the economy goes south.
I think it will be interesting to see Newt Gingrich's ultimate place in history. I read this article and thought almost exclusively of him. He was a human fork-in-the-road. I truly believe his ascendance was the beginning of the end for the GOP with any semblance of actual purpose.
1
My hope is that the demographic shift will be come strong enough that no amount of gerrymandering will cover it. The progress in suburban areas is a sign of this.
Remember, the strongest Republican demographic is literally dying every day. The strongest Democratic voters are turning 18. That has to catch up with the GOP sooner or later.
And, even with acquittal, the Republicans will likely show themselves as the corrupt oafs they are. It is hard to see how they avoid it.
The GOP has so completely tied themselves to Trump that if he falters they go down with him. And their problem is that their hero has a disordered personality. And they are nowhere near the bottom of his self dealing and corruption.
2
Our goal is not to sway Republicans. It’s to poison the brand for Independents.
1
The Boys Club, aka GOP haved pulled one stunt after another to win and stay on power. The aka GOP - "the win no matter what" boys club will come up with a new, fresh "Stunt of the Week"
This week it was: didn't read report.. Last week: 20 repubs storm the witness room.. before that: claim Extortion and Solicitation are done "all the time"... before that: what transcript?
Make no mistake, at the public hearings coming up, we will see distractions and stunts on a scale like never seen before. House gop'ers will drop to the floor and set themselves on fire if necessary to stop the hearings!
Why would anyone expect polls to change republican minds when facts, appeals to ethical norms, the laws, and duty to the constitution don't?
We should not worry about Republicans say, let alone think. Their actions speak for them. Their actions tell us everything we need to know. Those actions tell us why we need to vote. Truth, decency and facts are our strengths against greed, ignorance, and hypocrisy. Republicans vote for tax cuts for a wealthy few. They do this because they are paid to do it. And when your paycheck depends on it, some will lie, cheat and betray what we used to refer to as our shared American values. Unfortunately, they are no longer shared or practiced by Republicans. I may have disagreed with evangelicals over reproductive rights but I thought their positions were based on values. As they unabashedly supported a man who lies to Americans on a daily basis, has committed adultery more times than we can imagine, defrauded and cheated people, and has in my opinion committed treason, I can now say I was wrong in my original assessment of evangelicals. They are merely a tribe of hypocrites who do not practice what they preach in spite of their Christian teachings. They judge everyone else but themselves as less than deserving of government assistance. So progressives should not waste their time trying to change their minds and just work to put these deplorable people out of office. We believe government can help provide the basis for a fair and just society. The outcomes of the last 40 years shows their path is wrong for America. Increased inequality, debt and loss of decency are not "winning".
2
Trumpy, the Hater President, gave himself, his family and friends a million dollar tax cut. He, the billionaires, and millionaires made millions and they don't pay taxes. The middle and working classes are awaiting their millions and they pay taxes. The Hater President is working to undo Obamacare and take away health insurance from the middle and working classes. Once reelected, he intends to abolish health insurance for working people. He intends to give billionaires and millionaires another tax cut, including tax cuts for himself and his family.
1
I hope you are wrong. I think you are wrong. Ralph Waldo Emerson said in 1869, "when you strike at a king, you must kill him." Normally if you are going to kill someone you do not advertise it. Moscow Mitch, whether one likes his politics or not, may be the most effective senate majority leader since LBJ. He does not speak very much, but the last few times he has, he has quietly disagreed with Trump on Syria and the whistle blower. I do not believe there are more than 5 Republican senators who like Trump or think he is doing a good job. If I am right we will all be surprised when they take the conviction vote. Thereafter they will quickly take the disqualification vote and disqualify him from ever serving in any office of the US.
Back to Emerson. He wrote those lines the year after Andrew Johnson survived by one vote in the senate.
Among the top Democratic candidates for president are those who would take away private insurance in the name of "Medicare for all," even though polls indicate that is not what most Americans want, among other policies that show most voters are not on the far left, but the leadership is trending that way.
The New York Times has reported on this developing trend. This matter of ignoring polls isn't limited to one political party.
2
Who has said they would "take away" private insurance? Candidates have certainly floated the idea that creating a more nationalized system would lessen the power of the current insurance industry, but eliminate private insurance?
By the way, most Americans want health care reform. If they truly want things to change, how exactly is that supposed to happen? By making insurance companies more powerful and expensive? By giving employers more power over their employees?
And does anyone really believe private insurance would disappear? Even in Europe, people can seek out private care if they wish.
2
@Barbara: Following the polls isn't necessarily good or bad. When it shows leadership, it can be a good thing. When it entails defending unconstitutional and potentially illegal actions, it can be a bad thing. And the polls change over time, as we've seen with the issue of impeachment. Personally, I prefer a candidate who is capable of leading the polls rather than one who will only follow them.
13
National public opinion has trended Democratic for some time and the trend is accelerating.
The trick has been to win without a majority of public opinion, Republicans have been working at it since even before the southern strategy, and by now they've become really adept at it.
2
Left out in this article is the most important factor of all as to why the current Republican party no longer cares about general public opinion: a toxic and hyperbolic self-righteousness that claims not only that all the party does is correct by definition, but that all opposition is illegitimate and un-American. They get away with it because there are enough in the base that feel this is good old-fashioned aggressive support for their policies, when in reality the very concept of "policy" has been replaced by "self-serving arguments to remain in power".
12
@Michael Ando
Well said. Thank you. In particular your phrase:”hyperbolic self righteousness ‘’ says it perfectly.
Republicans have walled themselves into thinking that nothing and no one has anything to say that is worthwhile.
Thus, it’s useless to waste a breath to even seek a worthwhile measured conversation.
When the tide turns against this smug self-satisfied Republican way of thinking, And It Will, and the shoes of civility and fairness are on the other feet, they will come begging! Ah ,then, we can turn off our hearing aids and watch their blabbering to a deaf audience!
Yes, the old GOP has become a party that caters to a population that wants the status quo of the 1950s & 1960s. This segment of the population is afraid of becoming irrelevant as are the elected GOP officials. The GOP, now POT (Party of Trump) has succeeded by voter suppression, gerrymandering and messaging that has little relationship to the truth. The Dems have been unwittingly complicit in the POT takeover by not listening to those who feel ignored and by being terrible at messaging. The impeachment hearings is a case in point. "Quid pro quo" should be "extortion" to make a foreign gov't an accessory in an illegal, unconstitutional act of interfering with our elections in contrast to usual "tit for tat" in foreign affairs negotiations between gov'ts; Biden's statements should be clearly identified as projecting the foreign policy of the US administration set by President Obama and supported by the EU gov'ts, IMF and world financial institutions and did not threaten withholding funding already agreed to by congress. While it is highly unlikely that any message would change die-hard Trump supporters, those who feel threatened y our changing national demographics, a better message could resonate with those voters who are concerned with Trump's overall behavior and lack of respect for the Constitution, and could accelerate the shrinkage of the POT base. One party rule is never good for a democracy; we need a strong, truthful, GOP and a DEM party that forces truthfulness.
4
The basis of Republican Congressional support for the President is simple.
IN THE DISTRICTS AND STATES THAT THE CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS REPRESENT A MAJORITY OF THE VOTERS ARE TRUMP SUPPORTERS.
Trump lost California by 4 million voles and the country by 3 million votes. The majority of the voters outside California, New York and Massachusetts support the President’s policies and conduct. Of course, the congressional Republicans will reflect the views of the people who elected them.
4
@DESKCHAIR
Yes let's just remove three of the most populous and richest states in the country accounting for about 30% of the population from the count of votes. The pretzel like logic is rather funny.
Not in Illinois, @DESKCHAIR
The republican party is composed of evangelical Christians who are blind to the good in others of different faiths, and the harm that has done throughout history; and defenders of military-style weapons in the hands of civilians making our schools and churches into a shooting gallery. They're egged on in this mischief by Trump, a consummate huckster.
And the billionaires defending the Chicago school dictate that the sole duty of a corporation is to maximize profit. Enough profit that you can buy judges and congress and bend the law to your wishes. And you can buy media to bend the public to your wishes.
Then there are the democrats. They're being pulled between the progressive policies put forward by Sanders and Warren and the Green New Deal, and wealthy investors in the status quo. Some democrats are afraid to vote progressive for fear of the midwest conservatives who might be taken in by the "socialist" warning and re-elect Trump. We have a little time left to take the sting out of "socialist" and promote our message of affordable healthcare and education for all in a cleaner environment with good jobs.
From the small donors who have contributed to Bernie Sanders, I know we have momentum. It's a contest between us and the billionaires
4
Why should the GOP be driven by polls. The Democrats aren't. Also, polls are a candid snapshot, more like a "what if".
The proof is in the ballot box. A citizen thinks more carefully when their voice might mean something.
3
Neither party cares about polls per se. Polls are important to politicians only because it's a sign how the electorate will vote in the next election. If a politician is in danger of being voted out, he wants to know about it.
2
There is no Republican vision or program that has ever worked. Repeating the same mistakes of the past does not make for good new ideas.
4
When the GOP ignores voters' opinions, and yet they remain in power, by definition we do not have a functioning democracy.
17
These are specious arguments at best. You write as if the Democratic Party is one marvelously inclusive big happy tent for all (it ain't) and as if the entire media apparatus sans Fox News is a bastion of unbiased truth and justice for all (need I say more) reflecting how most correct-thinking people really feel. And we all know about polls, to wit 2016. This is a comfort-pill essay.
6
@Ken There is no comfort for Democrats in the last line: "Trump may well find himself its greatest beneficiary".
2
@Ken I own the Brooklyn Bridge I can sell the whole thing for a billion dollars.
Maybe now democrats can understand McConnell’s determination to capture the courts. It’s how conservatives can lose elections in the coming decades but still have popular and progressive legislation (health care, education, banking, climate, guns) invalidated by the courts they stuffed and stole. If conservatives can’t win elections, it’s not conservatism they will abandon, it’s democracy. They want one party autocratic rule despite lip service to “democracy.” Why else would they work tooth and nail to minimize and marginalize the votes of brown people? Truly, Moscow mitch doesn’t give a hoot about popular consent. He’d rather win with Russian help than lose without it. It’s power for his party that he aims for.
50
It’s the money. When big wealthy and corporate donors have interests not aligned with voters interests, you get a system where the voters are not represented.
Get the money out of politics before what’s left of our democracy fades away. Vote for candidates who don’t take corporate pac money. Heck, vote for candidates who take no pac money if possible. Reform the election cycle and the FEC. Sorry media outlets, this will result in less revenue to you, which is why we never hear that efforts are being made to achieve this.
17
Excellent article although the author leaves out two key components of GOP messaging: racism and misogyny. White male voters will continue to support policies that actually undermine their well being if they think the GOP is with them in opposition to the interests of women and people of color.
29
@Tracy Without the dramatic transition of almost all southern states to the Republican party following the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Republicans would not have been a national party for the last half century. So, the very existence of the modern Republicans as a national party is based on their capitalization on southern racism. Whatever it takes, I suppose.
100% agree. So many of my Republican friends wear their contrarian positions as a badge of honor.
17
The author is right. Polls have been dead wrong in the past bordering on fraud they are unlikely to change not only Republican minds but also independent minds. What will change minds is sound proposals promised that enabled the democrats win majority in November 2018 a year ago. Unfortunately the Democrats have been unable to pass any meaningful legislation. Contrast that to Trump who has done everything within his power to keep his promises including creating millions of jobs for our previously unemployed fellow Americans. Most importantly than the promises kept has been promises not to tinker with some popular programs. Trump promised not to tinker with Social security and Medicare for all above 65 and he has kept that promise too.
6
@Girish Kotwal Trump's proposed 2020 budget makes cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Look it up.
The fact that unemployment is low has nothing to do with Trump. None of his actions have created jobs, he just got lucky that the unemployment situation improved while he is in office.
21
@painfulcase from NJ. Napolean said give me a lucky general over a an able one. If you want to attribute the good results of Trump presidency to being lucky thats fine. Be happy but some day history will have to give credit where credit is due.
4
Bringing history as a judge might be a very bad idea. Perhaps looking backwards in history, the 1920’s come to mind, might give you a glimpse as how this President might be judged. I’d also point out that things didn’t work out so well for Napoleon in the end either.
2
Is everyone tired of having the same argument over and over again? The perpetual stagnancy that we find ourselves in is a direct result of our flawed election process. Until we create substantial requirements and qualifications for the people we elect to govern us, we will continue to implode.
In the midst of a growing climate emergency, if we don’t all wake up soon, it’s going to be too late.
13
Is it now finally fair to call Republicans a cult instead of a political
party? If so, should the same term be applied to Democrats? If so, are both binary? Regardless, the result is stagnation, dysfunction and dystopian. In other words, we're all complicit in blaming others while ignoring others who are blaming us. Call it a stalemate, call it 'playing chicken,' call it making the other person blink, whatever you call it, the longer you practice it, the sooner you're no longer living in a democracy. Compromise is not about defeat, it's about victory.
8
Are the Democrats any different? Many of the leading candidates for president are espousing policies unpopular with the majority of voters, Medicare for all with the elimination of private health insurance the most obvious among them.
10
@James Kriebel
Ah, the reflexive turn to the tu qouque. There's one big problem, however, with this particular resort to "they do it too." Candidates seeking a party's nomination are supposed to bring ideas to the electorate to consider and cast their vote for or against. Elected representatives, on the other hand, are supposed to act in light of the opinions of their constituents.
20
@Ruby
Have no doubt... the ideas that the Democratic candidates are putting forward for the electorate to consider are dead in the water nationally.
Outside the blue bubbles, they won't fly.
Interesting that the very first comment is from the school of “Whataboutism” AND features a false equivalency. How is wanting to provide healthcare for every American at all like asking a foreign government to intervene in an American election?!
One more example of why we need to get out the vote in 2020 to get the Republicans out of office. Their insistence that this president has done nothing wrong, their complacency, their theatrics or their silence depending on which side of the weathervane you are on... their general attitude to this constitutional crisis shows us that we do have a broken system of government: obviously this two party system, the electoral college, the filibuster etc.... are not working. Right now whatever the polls and the media say will not change the situation. In the long run this spineless GOP will obviously exonerate their president because he is too useful to them despite of what he is inflicting on us and the world every single day. Democrats have to keep charging and defending the country because we have less than 12 months to go till November and put a functioning adult in the Oval Office.
14
Should Democrat’s win control of the House, Senate and Presidency, the second thing they should do after admitting the District of Columbus and Puerto Rico as states is to enact legislation under which seats on the Supreme Court would rotate every 2-4 years among all federal judges. There is nothing in the constitution making a seat on the Supreme Court a lifetime appointment, only the federal judgeship. Supreme Court justices are not judicial gods, and the appointments now being made by republicans exclusively from the Federalist Society, which is nothing more than a club for Republican lawyers, are flagrantly partisan. This not what the Judiciary is supposed to be. The rotating selections could be drawn by lot (complete chance) or allotted 4 to the Senate Minority Leader and 5 to the Senate Majority Leader. The latter, being blatantly partisan, world recognize popular sentiment (assuming representation in the Senate actually did represent popular sentiment, which at present it doesn’t), would be tempered by the knowledge of those making the selections that what goes around comes around. Maybe extremism isn’t such.a good idea under those circumstances. Packing the Supreme Court as mayor Pete has suggested shows poor political judgment, is a non-starter, and only exacerbates partisanship. Rotation, if done in a reasonable and fair manner, does not. Judges would be less inclined to overturn established precedents and make extremist decisions if they knew nothing is in stone.
15
Our Founding Fathers were SO against political parties ("factions") that they inadvertently forced the creation of a 2-party system, where a 3rd party has displaced one of the two only twice--the Whigs displaced the Federalists, and the Republicans displaced the Whigs.
Even though the Democrats' dominance of the South has been replaced by Republicans' dominance of the South, what changed was the label, not the people.
A terrifying statistic about 2018 long ignored is that Democratic Senate candidates out-polled Republicans by 13 million votes, yet still lost 2 seats. 13 million votes is 10 million MORE than Hillary's advantage over Trump.
Worse, only one-third of Senate seats are contested every 2 years. Despite that, despite the HUGE popular disadvantage, the Republican hold on the Senate increased by 2 seats.
Something is very wrong because our system's insistence that states' rights outweighs one person, one vote has created this massive imbalance, and Republicans are far more afraid of being "primaried" (like Bob Bennett in Utah was by Mike Lee) by a teensy percent of their own party's voters than they are of being on the wrong side of history.
The real problem is Republicans fight dirty, really, really dirty, with dirty, even illegal tricks, but Democrats won't, counting on numbers. You cannot win a fixed game.
(that's why Trump's casinos failed: Players figured out his tables and slots were fixed.)
19
Another commenter suggested one way of decreasing the undemocratic structural features that drive this problem—the Senate—could be mitigated by the next Congress and President under unified Democratic control passing laws making DC and Puerto Rico states. As a DC resident, I wholeheartedly agree that that should be the top priority.
Another top measure should be passing a law raising the number of representatives in the House. The 435 cap benefits the “safe” districts that are not competitive for either party. Raising the cap to 500 or 600 would create another 50 or 100 toss-up districts. This would incentivize both parties to compete for them on the basis of majority support and would undercut the Republican Party’s current course of extremism.
19
The items pointed out in this article are true and a VERY bad omen for the future of this country. Sadly, if does not stop there as the courts are becoming beholden to politics as well. US democracy has a tough road ahead.
17
???
I wonder what will happen in the country if yet again the Dems lose even though they win still more of the popular vote, such as by 4 or 5 million or votes?
13
@Dart
Nothing will happen... our elections follow the Constitution.
We don't elect by the popular vote. That would disenfranchise most of the country by having NYC and California decide every election.
Any change will require a Constitutional Amendment. Good luck with that...
One of the reasons that American Democracy is not that Democratic is that the composition of the senate structurally favors a republican majority even though Democrats generally receive the majority of votes on a nationwide basis. If Democrats win a majority in the Senate in 2020 (that’s a big “if”) and hold control if the house, their first act should be to abolish the filibuster and admit the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states, which does not require a constitutional amendment, or even approval of the president, just a vote by the House and Senate.
This would effectively add 4 Democratic senators and give Democrats better representation in the electoral college. Once admitted, even if republicans won a majority in both house (now, a big “if” for them), they could not undo the admission of the two states.
Past cumbersome procedures requiring certain formalities, such as submission of a proposed constitution, while reasonable, are not required by the constitution and should be deferred until later in the interests of expediency.
In light of all the gerrymandering, voter suppression and gutting of the Voter Rights Act by Republicans, it’s the least Democrat’s can do to repay Republicans for stealing our country.
48
@Robert
Brilliant. If you can’t win elections, then what you need to do is change the rules until things are stacked in your favor. Madison and Hamilton would be so proud of their political descendants.
Republicans have become a kind of cult, and are threatening to take over the country. Democrats are still fairly normal, although stressed by the nature of the opposition they face.
That these two parties are basically the same is a belief of the cult and an essential part of cult propaganda. Any news organization that covers them as if they were is not covering reality and is instead siding with the cult. It is adopting the cult's view that it is normal and reality and that the other side is also a cult, and that both sides present boilerplate that should be covered by assessing its attractiveness rather its truth.
The cult is therefore using the mainstream media's belief in its own objectivity to shape its coverage into a distortion of reality. The only honest coverage of reality is done by people the media classifies as comedians.
The cult has captured all Republicans in Congress and most Republican politicians at all levels. Republican voters have no place to turn except to Democrats; the non-cult Republican politicians have been silenced (or swallowed by the cult).
The cult immunizes its followers against reality by training them to listen to opponents only to find things to mock or be outraged by.
An electoral defeat will birth paranoid conspiracy explanations and a thirst for revenge.
We do not yet see how the cult's power will diminish. We are in trouble.
34
When your party has turned its back on the Constitution and actively undermines it in every possible way, you don't expect it to care about popular opinion. You expect it only to suppress opposing views and to seek power through constant lies, distortions and subterfuge that maintain its base, and through systematic disenfranchisement of all others. This is what the Republican Party does. This is what it now stands for.
44
Unfortunately, the Republican Party as we knew it ceased to exist more than two years ago and the people occupying seats in both houses of Congress as Republicans -- all of them -- are now nothing more than coconspirators in the Trumpist assault on the Constitution. When Democrats take control of the government all of these people who have assisted Trump and his followers in their attempts to undermine the Constitution, violate federal law, and destroy the federal government should be ferreted out and prosecuted for each and every crime they can be charged with.
25
The elections appear to be a contest between billionaires, not a selection by the people who vote.
So lets us join in with the billionaire contests. We have Steyer and Bloomberg on the Democratic ticket, Trump on the "other side". Any more in the sidelines?
3
@Mariposa841 Yet, you site 2 of the lowest polling candidates on the Democratic side. Bloomberg and Steyer would do better to team up and either buy Fox or buy Facebook and do Our Democracy some good.
The other major tenet of GOP action is their constant twisting of the facts with lying about direction and intent. What a wonderful method for confusing the issues for voters. Trump has become the defacto king of mis information to the point that many cannot parse fact from fiction in anything he says.
25
@DENOTE REDMOND, Those of us who are really paying attention can parse facts by understanding that almost anything Trump says is the opposite of the facts.
17
@Katherine Cagle
An overstmt even for Trump.
Republicans have convinced themselves that voter suppression, Fox News, foreign meddling and outright election theft will keep them in power forever. They have ignored the lessons of 2018 and 2019 at their peril....or perhaps they know that the fix is in, after all Ivanka holds the patents on electronic voting machines made in China (aren't they all) and in the end she will make whatever adjustments are required.
14
If I recall correctly, did not the polls in 2016 also state the HRC was going to win the election? In 1948, it appeared the polls also said Truman would lose?
7
@Carlos R. Rivera
Hillary did win the popular vote.
She lost the Electoral College.
Same for W Bush and his first win in 2000. Bush lost the popular vote but won the electoral college.
The deciding state was Florida where he won by 537 votes.
The result was the Iraq war which will be felt in the Middle East and Europe for two generations.
And the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, the worst recession since the Great Depression.
32
Actually George W Bush won Florida by one vote, a 5-4 decision by a partisan SCOTUS ending the recount while Gore was ahead.
... and a boatload of conservative judges.
This column begs the obvious question: how are the Republicans getting away with it? Once we answer that question, then maybe we can solve the problem.
22
@GSTD
The Constitution was built under the assumption that at all times, at least two of the three branches of government would function reasonably well - acting as a check on the third, whichever that may be at the moment, to keep us mostly out of trouble. This isn't really true for congress anymore and, with the Republican senate's packing of SCOTUS and now the rest of the federal judiciary, is undermining public faith in an arm that requires said faith more than the others to function properly.
For congress especially, our Constitution was created with the understanding that, in our bicameral legislature, both parties would act like adults.
However, the Republican party has, instead of examining its values (and adjusting them as needed and required) has instead:
A) increasingly rejected democracy over the past two decades and
B) refused to act like responsible adults in the room - in a constitutional framework that assumed they would do so over the long term - or suffer the electoral consequences
I hope this helped answer your question.
7
@GSTD
Easy. The answer to "how are Republicans getting away with it is:
Money, money, money, it's a rich man's world!
@GSTD
A few factors:
Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
The Electoral College.
Gerrymandering.
The Russian Republicans will stop at nothing to undermine American democracy. Voter suppression and gerrymandering are not enough. Witness the rejection of democracy in Kentucky. Refusing to concede in one election they clearly lost. Claiming voting irregularities in a state in which they control all mechanisms of power. They are extremists. They must be stopped.
42
@Joe B. Look at their gimmicks when Tony Evers won in Wisconsin.
2
This article is a somewhat ingenious way to get at a fundamental fact without saying it: Since the 1990s, the Republican party has been driven by right-wing extremist ideology. That ideology was there long before of course, but before the 1990s it viewed the world mainly through the lens of anti-communism. Then, after the iron curtain came crashing down, Gingrich et al. ushered in the "Republican revolution" (the right-wing's own term). With Trump, Republicans think they have finally won it.
Ideologues do not compromise. They project their own extremism onto their opponents, often convincingly (hence the comments here which claim that Democrats have moved to the left to become "socialists" when in fact Democrats are simply interested in constructive policies rather than ideological doctrine). Ideologues are purists who cannot be "reached across the aisle." Polarization and demonization are their stock in trade.
64
@. Most Cogent Analysis Award for thos post! Too many folks are totally unaware of the history of the GOP’s gradual infiltration by the most crazy right-wing ideologues. The John Birch Society of the McCarthy-era ‘50s was the proving ground...financed by the father of the current day Koch Brothers...and the many, many other wealthy donors that have been financing an entire sub-culture which has, alas, taken over the GOP. Yes, Trump is the result...and between Citizens United and the 24/7 propaganda spewed from Fox & Sinclair radio stations, our country is truly in peril. Propaganda WORKS, that’s why dictatorial regimes always use it. More Americans need to be educated about the extremist right-wing takeover, and its origins.
@JEB you mean the people dressed in masks, shouting at peaceful demonstrators, using violence and hate? Or maybe the cancel people, shouting down free speech on college campuses, or disrupting people in public spaces?
It has nothing to do with polls or democracy.
Republicans are beholden to fat-cat donors who are most interested in candidates who are willing and able to pursue unpopular policies.
For this generation of Republicans, it is a rite of passage to do something deeply unpopular, (overtly and publicly, bearing all the negative feedback that entails), in service of some fat-cat interest. Only then are you a "made" man (yes, most are men).
It's just like the Mafia: You're not trustworthy until you've killed someone, and cut your ties to normal life. Only then are you really committed to furthering their interests.
That's why Trump wanted Zelensky to make a public statement: Zelensky had to put himself on the line for Trump, and commit to his half-baked world view.
This extremism also has the beneficial (to the fat-cat) effect of dispiriting the opposition. What can you do when your opponent doesn't care about losing or being reasonable?
Note that the extremism of the Democratic left has entirely different origins: It's born in Russian propagandizing and divisiveness, internet screaming and impossible demands and moral purity, as if helping victims made heroes. Big Democratic money is overwhelmingly centrist, and perplexed about the party's direction, with all the major candidates pushing proposals that are decidedly unpopular to the country as a whole.
8
@we Tp "That's why Trump wanted Zelensky to make a public statement: Zelensky had to put himself on the line for Trump, and commit to his half-baked world view."
I don't quite agree with this statement. Trump wanted to Zelensky to commit to investigating corruption and then vet his findings through Giuliani and Barr. The purpose was to make sure that Zelensky produced public statements that Trump could use to attack his opponents here in the United States. Trump's MO is to us "alternative" facts to support an "alternative" reality.
Since the statements were Zelensky's statements and not Trump's statements, Trump could use them and deny them as necessary to smear his opponents. Trump has learned, from Roy Cohn, that it better to quote a false statement than be the author of a false statement.
4
Every significant poll leading up to the 2016 election, save maybe one in Los Angeles, had Clinton beating Trump. So why should anyone believe much of any political polling these days?
Let the facts take us where they will.
9
@Jack Sonville
They coudn't account for voter supression, Jack. Count the "provisional" ballots in key states and they were on target.
The current Republican Party doesn’t have policies, they have strategies. Giving up winning elections through ideas and programs, they turned to stirring up fear and malice. While Democrats are demanding detailed healthcare plans from their candidates, Republicans are offering to kill the ACA. Republicans tell voters they will lose their ability to choose doctors and lose their current policies. They understand Americans live in fear of losing everything in a single healthcare event and many take employment solely for healthcare access. Raising fear is much easier and more effective than developing complicated solutions. Republicans will turn to their only playbook for the impeachment hearings and coming elections; create fear and confusion which will lead to them keeping their jobs.
18
@DO5 Repubs understand what Dems don’t. Fear and hate are driving forces for voters.
The emergence of Christian Evangelicals as a major force in the Republican party was the dispositive event in the evolution of " no compromise" Republican politics. The basis of any religion is the acceptance of sectarian, non empirical dogma. Facts are subordinated to doctrine. Loyalty to the party doctrine is valued above ethical considerations. In that sense, support for Donald Trump outweighs impeaching him, regardless how egregious or mendacious his behavior. That reality is ominous for the future of American democracy.
38
Don't expect polls to change Republican minds? Really? Perhaps not the congressional Republicans, but clearly the voters. The midterms brought on the largest House gains in over 45 years for the Democrats. All despite Tump and Fox News propaganda. Perhaps not relevant. Still, the fact Speaker Pelosi is holding Trump accountable and defending our US Constitution says everything.
While Trump's spinmeisters want the world to believe their wacky statistics, the simple truth is a majority of the public want the incumbent president, in a great economy---impeached AND removed.
The simple math is Nixon had an approval rating in March of 1973 at 68.5% but by May, Nixon's ratings had nosedived to 44% just right before the Watergate's public hearings began. By October Nixon's ratings were 30% and by January 1974 25% where it stagnated right up until Nixon's resignation in August.
Ultimately, the fundamental question is can a US President commit bribery and not be impeached? I believe that once the hearings commence the public will hear the testimony and like with Nixon, seek to have Trump impeached in both Houses. Facts are stubborn things despite Trump's and Faux News' propaganda. Note that the impeachment inquiry vote wasn't the final vote, three Republicans did not vote, and Justin Amash, a former Freedom Caucus member no less is now an independent who did vote for the inquiry. In the end an impeached Trump is a powerless shell. Exactly.
12
@NeoPublius20's Watch Fox News. So far, none of the truth is getting through. It's a parallel universe inhabited by "Deep State whistleblowers", "Never Trumpers," and Socialists. It is beyond Orwellian.
Until reality gets through this media filter, nothing will change. Republican Senators are driven by their self-interest and their voters. Their voters are driven by Fox News and Trump's dominance of the national conversation. Trump is driven by malignant narcissism, amorality, and, perhaps, Russia.
Due to structural issues of the Electoral College and population distribution, I don't see a remedy.
3
@Jlasf
I agree to a large extent with what you are saying. The propaganda from Fox News, conservative radio and yes certain writers in mainstream media is immense. Each one telling us to ignore what our eyes, ears, and facts tell us.
My only glimmer of hope is the recent midterms where Speaker Pelosi won, she stood up to Trump and set the star for all others to navigate by. The largest gains in Democrats in the House in over 45 years bears recognition. That yes, despite Fox News, billionaires, massive propaganda---the voters revolted. While different results in the Senate we only lost two seats. Not bad.
It is precisely why the Democrats are now able to hold Trump to the Rule of Law. Republicans in both the House and Senate talk a mean game, but now the klieg lights and the truth will come out in pubic hearings. Watch Dr. Faith Hill; from her transcripts, she utterly destroys her Republican inquisitors with her intellect and cold hard facts.
Soon the truth will have Trumpians scurrying for cover. It happened to Nixon and it will happen to Trump. Remember, Tweeting and alternative news is there, sure Trump's base will never change, it didn't for Nixon, but independents and moderate Republicans who care about our US Constitution won't stand for letting Trump stay on. The heat and Trump's expulsion is coming despite what Fox News says.
I can see that commenters are virtually all of the same opinion, one of agreement with the column. I would caution them that the Republican party does in fact care a lot about public opinion, namely the opinion of the majority in states and constituencies where they own that majority, in other words, their base, which is maybe 40% of the country and declining. Unfortunately, the Democratic party is showing signs of following the footsteps of Republicans, by veering so far to the left that it too may be able to count on little more than a third of the electorate. And what that could mean is the end of the two-party system, which has happened already in Canada and the UK. The resulting proliferation of smaller parties would transform the American political landscape in ways Americans might want to avoid. Another possible result is that the Republicans might wake up and reclaim the centre, returning to the status of "natural governing party" that they had until 1932, also a bad result for the Democrats.
7
@William Benjamin The Democratic Party is veering to the left? Hardly. On the majority of issues, this so-called radical group is to the right of the conservative, populist and anti-immigrant party in a country like Norway.
10
It seems to me - from afar, that
1/3 of voters are scared of the future relying on the President to do anything to keep the markets from fluctuating as the President takes his advice from Hedge Fund executives. snd that thinking helps nothing
1
Trump's base is holding this country hostage and I am tired of putting up with their awful noise. They watch Fox News which can barely be called a responsible journalism. Their "news" is so biased it more closely represents propaganda. To save itself, Fox calls Mr. Hannity and the others "opinion commentators". Trump's base treats them like news broadcasters. They do not question what they hear. And Mr. Trump loves that. He tells his people that his genius will find the righteous path to success and greatness. His base buys into this because they have little world view and no understanding of any greater context. They do not care about the complexities of global politics. Mr. Trump and his propaganda posse have reduced everything to its most simplistic terms. This myopic thinking limits Trump's base's ability for even basic critical thinking skills. But they are a noisy bunch and they have gained a power that is out of proportion to their representation of America as a whole. The Republican Congress, attuned to the noise has twisted themselves into knots to appease them. Some in Congress are like minded people who were voted into office. Others in a desperate attempt to hang on to their jobs have simply deserted any semblance to the old Republican doctrine. So polls don't matter because Mr. Trump's base does not have the necessary information to form an opinion about the polls. They are so besotted by Mr. Trump that they simply have forgotten how to think.
32
Wisconsin is a microcosm of what the truth of this column. Despite a large majority of Republicans basic gun control measures like background checks, our GOP dominated legislature thwarted our new Democratic governor's call for a special session on gun control. They would not even allow discussion or debate. Their secure, gerrymandered districts assure them of maintaining power so who cares what the public thinks or needs? Corporate groups like ALEC literally write legislation for them. We keep assuming exposure of their hypocrisy will inspire change but it doesn't. The Mueller Report and now the clear evidence of impeachable offenses by Trump have no effect on these people. Fox News, Alex Jones and other right wing media continue to stoke the alternate reality of Trump supporters.
The Democrats need to nominate the candidate who is best able to defeat Trump but they also better make sure to hold on to the House and retake the Senate, otherwise this tragic destruction of normalcy will continue.
24
Impeachment and the subsequent trial are not everyday matters. So what happens when the question of guilt is posed is not what happens, as they say in Yiddish, every monek and donesh.
In 1868, when Andrew Johnson was impeached on matters mostly political, seven Republicans broke party and joined hated in voting no. It was political suicide and I believe that none were ever again elected to office. Edmund Ross cast the deciding vote and then went back to being a journalist. He was scorned by fellow Republicans but a century later he was a chapter in the Pulitzer Prize winning "Profiles in Courage".
If the case is made, any Republican who votes to convict will die on the cross. But when it's Profile in Courage time, the stakes are the highest. And what happens may have little to do with the past.
Here's a sleeper. Lindsey Graham has shamelessly aligned with Trump. But he once collaborated with Ted Kennedy on immigration reform. And he incurred the wrath of fellow Republicans for voting to confirm Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. Day to day, Graham marches in step with Trump Republicans, and is as maddening as any of them. But Profile in Courage time is different. And if not him, there may be others.
Maybe I'm starry-eyed. But human nature hasn't changed that much since 1868. And conscience still exists. When it's time to vote, all bets are off. And the only time this happened before, seven brave souls rose to the occasion. Abandon hope and all is lost.
9
@michjas I fear you are starry-eyed. Human nature hasn't changed, but the people elected on the right are a specially selected group bred of an ultra-corporatists, anti-democratic, and sometimes even militantly theocratic like Bill Barr and Pence.
When compromise is a bad word, when tears of your enemies is a refrain often heard, and when they realize that they win by being un-democratic you'll truly see why conservatism has always been closer to the autocrats than liberalism.
@michjas As much as I would like to think you are right, I won't be holding my breath.
In today's world where triablism rules supreme and people can be completely insulated in their own bubble of news, there is no way for any right wing Fox News watching, Facebook surfing people to get any sense of real, honest news. So, if they are not exposed to facts, there is no way they can ever change their minds. This is hugely different than in the 70s when there were only 3 major networks reporting the news relatively even handed and straightforward.
While I admire Democrats for generally playing by the rules, they have lost any ability to rationally strategize and come up with tactics to defeat Republicans. When you have a party that can win the general election and many state levers of goverment with ever decreasing minorities, that means Democrats just don't know how to win.
We can get the votes, we lead the polls... but we still ultimately lose. So why would any Republican care what the polls say when 40% of the electorate who will always support Trump is enough to win them most elections.
No. The path forward is to fight. We can't be dirty and cheat. But we sure can level the playing field. We can fix the gerrymandering and voter suppression. We can have a better ground game to get out the vote. We can stop fighting within our own party and stop degrading moderate and liberal Democrats and just work together to get as many people to turn out to vote as possible.
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Or by law either. What happens when Democrats and the country in general come to see that Congressional Republicans intend to join the obstruction of justice, not take part in fighting it?
6
But you have to assume that if the majority for impeachment gets over 60%, and especially if it reaches 70%, then SOME of them are going to have to give up on obstruction.
After all, not all of them are protected by gerrymandering or voter restrictions, or come from states that have only one Congressman.
This much was apparent in the 2018 election.
5
Republicans poll very well among billionaires, a crucial consideration in comprehending the repeated frustration of the will of the people in post Citizen's United America.
23
I think the Republicans do care about public opinion and what they fear most is a primary challenge from the right. Therefore, they are mainly concerned about the opinions of voters who are more to the right than they are. A survey of Republican voters indicated that many voters feel the party has not gone far enough to the right. This fear of primary challenge from right drives Republicans toward the right wing extreme when they vote in Congress. This fear is not misplaced. A number of Republicans have lost to candidates on their right in primaries.
3
You mention the Republican "litmus tests on abortion, guns, taxes — you name it." Actually it's important to name a few others: climate change denial, in-person voter fraud, deficit reduction through tax cuts for the rich, and others that are not only litmus tests on policy but on fact vs fiction. The central, guiding principle for our era's True Republicans is that the truth simply doesn't matter. And yes, Trump is its greatest beneficiary. Our country, with aspirations of rule of law and governance through respected institutions, is its greatest victim.
21
The president deserves to be impeachment and we should proceed because it is our duty. However, impeachment does not give me hope at all. It always hurts the nation when a president must be removed. However, we already know that impeachment may well be a pyrrhic victory because the senator won't convict and it may end up helping Trump's reelection. Our focus must be the election in November 2020. If we can't win the Presidency and make gain in the senate, the rest are meaningless.
5
It may also hurt his re election. There’s a lot of damaging information that will be coming out.
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@Smilodon7
The same was said about Russian collusion. The country has already been dragged down by one democratic boondoggle already.
2
As long as the GOP holds the electoral college vote majority they don’t have to worry about the popular vote. They game the system, counting the cards, as it were. They don’t need millions to vote for them. They only need about 325 or so. And that’s what they’ll play this time around as well.
12
@JWB
Green Acres time Democrats!
This article leaves out the influence of the right-wing misinformation media. The GOP may have unpopular positions, but their spin machine is nothing short of Orwellian. Voting becomes a response to the constant conjuring of conspiracy, resentment, and fear and largely unrelated to real policy choices and implications.
Or perhaps I am the one untethered from reality? All I know is that my perception of reality and the perceptions of people who can still support Republicans in the age of Trump have almost nothing in common.
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@NJ Lambert Yes! The propaganda machine that has been blaring 24/7 for decades has been horribly effective. Propaganda usually is effective, that’s why authoritarian regimes use it.
4
The objective for the democrats in the coming election is to find the candidate that can beat Trump, but there is a greater issue at hand and the smart candidate will recognize it: this election needs to be a referendum on the republican party itself. It badly needs reform and if the party can't be reformed, it needs to be banned. There's more where Trump cam from. As a party, the republicans are becoming too great a threat to American democracy. Their intent is nothing less than to drag this country down the road to autocracy, plutocracy and theocracy.
29
Republicans care only about maintaining power - which they do through an Electoral College system that allows them victories even when they lose the popular vote, by gerrymandering and voter suppression as noted in this article. Because the majority of American's desires are not being met, we will become more and more fractured as a society. The Republican Party is anti-democratic. They have shown their true nature by the unwavering support for Donald Trump - a party that embraces lying and corruption in order to maintain power. This is scary and at some point could lead to civil unrest.
35
The Republican party exists in name only, and perhaps for not much longer. More accurately, it is the Fox Party. The opinions that drive it are those of Fox celebrities and right-wing radio personalities who can mobilize the support and funding to support a congressperson, or bring them down.
Combine that powerful incentive with a belief that only some people are 'real Americans' and you arrive at where we are today.
18
Not an entirely valid analysis. Republicans do care about public opinion. Their's. But as for the 60% of the population that disagrees with them, we exist merely as objects of contempt. Or worse, as enemies. I have been listening to the increasing tone of war time propaganda streaming from conservative media outlets and it is becoming, uncomfortable. And I fear this will not end well.
22
The bond between Trump and white conservative evangelicalism is now unbreakable. He owns them.
And given their dominance of the GOP—if not outright identity with it—they own it.
Therefore Trump owns the GOP and its leadership.
I see no signs of this ironclad linkage becoming frayed at any point, none whatsoever.
The only good news is that white conservative evangelicalism is not only a minority percentage of the electorate, it is a minority movement within American Christianity, however powerful it may appear.
It is time for the mainstream American church to speak out. Evangelicalism is not the gospel.
78
@Paul C. McGlasson - agreed.
And the best move by America's white conservative evangelists, in terms of Christianity, would be to sincere and just explicitly acknowledge that they're a political party activist group and not Christ followers. The false association and portrayal is not helpful, and the rationalization of Trump worship is irrational.
4
It is one thing to be "driven by public opinion". It is another to be driven by the fickle nature of polls to measure that public opinion.
Public opinion is fickle and subject to change at the drop of a dime.
Government by "public opinion" is basically anarchy at worst and unwieldy at best.
That is why there are elected officials and representatives.
4
The GOP is growing used to the status quo just like all human beings. We all without exception grow used to all things,
The status quo defines the GOP. The party is defined not only by what they collectively do but also what they fail to do.
This will not change instantaneously.
Most political parties are never a permanent feature in political landscape, The GOP will wither away so long as the members have chosen ostrich-like to have their heads in the sand. Reality will mock soon
Cry for the beloved country
8
GOP Senators will not remove Trump because his supporters, even if a minority, area significant chunk of their voters. It's Trump's party now, and few if any GOP candidates can win without his support, and maybe none with his disapproval.
So they figure, I can vote to remove Trump and definitely lose half of my voters, assuring my loss in a general election, if not a primary; or I can vote to leave him n office and MAYBE suburban voters sit home on election day, but maybe they don't.
Maybe I win beats definitely I lose to every one of these guys. Trump's guilt or innocence doesn't even factor into the equation.
7
But is the GOP strategy sustainable in the long term? I wish the author could predict the future as well as she analyzes the past.
3
@Patrick As long as they hold the USSC, it is. Without any claim that it was unconstitutional, the USSC overturning important parts of the 1960s Voting Rights Act. Republicans then used that to then purge voting rolls to ensure their continued control. Add that to moving polling places out of the reach of many Democratic voters they have not yet found an excuse to purge, and you can see a possible spiral into a world where fewer and fewer people who, in theory, should be allowed to vote legally actually CAN vote. Gerrymandering has been legal since the earliest days of the Republic, but modern computer modeling has made it far more effective.
A few years ago I was the accidental guest of enthusiastic Republicans. They openly talked about finding ways to prevent citizens who disagreed with them from voting. They wanted to re-instate wealth requirements and the men who were there agreed it would be good to end female suffrage.
41
Republican officeholders respond to the demands of their Big Money campaign contributors because they don’t want to be primaried. Actual votes against them driven by special interests have more influence than opinion polls that may or may not predict how people will vote.
5
Let's be straight about one thing. The Republican Party did not win the presidential election of 2000. The Party was gifted that election result by a GOP-dominated Supreme Court.
Granted, the politicized Supreme Court fell to the Republicans because they play the political game better, primarily by lying and buying foreign interference while the Democrats respect the rules, but let's not pretend that the GOP won the 2000 election, or the 2016 election for that matter.
113
Eventually, the GOP will try to broaden its appeal. The Electoral College, the Senate, and gerrymandering can only delay the impact of demographic changes that will turn Republicans into a party in exile, if they fail to shape up.
The question is whether they will broaden their appeal by moderating their positions, or by expanding the ranks of the aggrieved. High immigration levels, the disruption from pursuing M4A, and a cooling economy, all on top of the conservative vs progressive Christian schism - could see hard-right positions growing in popularity here, as they have in Europe.
I beg my fellow Democrats to temper their ambitions with realism. We must regain the trust of our compatriots, or matters will get worse for everyone, not better.
3
@Patrick R
Moderating our ambitions gave us the neo-liberals, which extended the stagnation of wages and fostered the massive wealth inequality that birthed the populist movement that swept Trump into office.
At rally after rally, the working class people waiting to see Trump said the same thing over and over, he's so rich, he can't be bought. That tells you what they think of the politicians on both side.
And what's the Democratic moderates answer to this problem? A working class turned wealthy guy whose son makes millions at least in part off his name and connections, a small-town mayor who used to work in trading, and now the great white hope is a billionaire New York big-gulp grabber who made his fortune selling information to stock traders that the average small investor couldn't afford.
Maybe progressives are too ambitious in wanted to close the income gap and stop the runaway destruction that debt (college, medical, and mortgage) have wrought, but what do the moderates offer but the same mistaken direction that brought us to Trump in the first place?
8
@Matt S.
Thanks for your thoughts. My broad brush answer to your question is that we have the ACA at all because of a centrist Democratic president and a maverick Republican Senator. And it's now quite popular. Running a high-percentage first down play again sounds smarter to me than insisting on an M4A hail Mary.
More specifically, I'm a Buttigieg guy. He proposes financial transaction tax and wealth tax (surprise?) alongside top marginal rate increases on the revenue side. And with that, funding a range of labor, consumer, voting rights, and education initiatives, and public option health care. Utopia in one step it is not. But it's very far from nothing, and seems to me to be precisely how one would turn the knobs of policy to direct funds toward the working class. Let's not mistake a soothing rhetorical style for a lack of purpose or passion.
A number of factors brought us Trump, I'd say, but "moderate Democrats" is surely not among them. "Pro-corporate" Democrats is a worry, but you'll note how quickly Delaney and Ryan washed out. Buttigieg is ambitious and data driven - I "trust" him to pick a feasible Democratic objective and deliver on it, so far as control of Congress allows. And to do so in a way that moves the whole population to the center-left, rather than further dividing us. Every third person on Facebook is already predicting civil war - we really need to moderate to turn it down a notch.
4
There is something wrong with the Republican Party for sure. It is far from what it was and what you can read about in history books. Hard to believe that the word "progressive" originally referred to a movement within the Republican Party.
20
@MKR I've been listening to Democrats and the media predict the demise of the GOP for many years, and yet look who controls the Senate, the Administration and most of the Statehouses. They keep losing because the GOP still stands for values and common sense that voters still appreciate. What they don't appreciate is being lectured by pundits and Democrats that they must be stupid if they support the GOP. This journalist even concluded that Republicans have been on the wrong side for decades----she really should get out of the city and meet some of these misguided souls that she so easily dismisses.
With the Electoral College, gerrymandering, watery and corporate money influence on election and voter suppression Republicans will never be concerned about polls and likely will continue their dominance in the House and Senate and the presidency for years to come.
11
@Hoshiar
I disagree. The GOP is already paying a price in states such as Virginia, and the Democrats show no sign of losing the House. Whether the GOP can keep the Senate is anyone's guess, but Trump is going to lose, and lose big. His record, except for a slew of anti-abortion judges and a tax cut that didn't benefit most of his supporters, he's achieved nothing positive.
23
@Vesuviano
I hope you are correct but Virginia change from red to purple to blue state is a consequence of change in demographic as was detailed in NY Times two days ago. These changes are very unlikely in many other states.
8
@Hoshiar
Demographics are changing all over the country in a number of ways, but one change is constant: that old people die and younger people arrive. The G.O.P. is more than ever depending on angry, frightened, older white people.
Texas used to be red - it is now a shade of purple. Kansas is still red, but the voters rebelled against a number of Republican measures that were ruining the state and voted in a Democratic governor and lieutenant governor.
History is on the side of the Democrats; change is inexorable. Cheers.
Good summary of what any sentient person could have observed, should they have chosen to. Now, why do you think it is that the GOP can float along on its plurality, apart from the EC and gerrymandering? Here are a few possibilities: 1) unlike the Democrats, they value accruing and retaining power over any semblance of political or governing norms and will do whatever they can get away with to accomplish these goals; 2) as a corollary, they go to extreme lengths to control the Supreme Court and the Judiciary generally, which has consistently ruled to their advantage in critical cases (Bush v Gore, campaign finance, Voting Rights Act, partisan gerrymandering); 3) they have developed, or at least benefited from, a media ecosystem, ranging from Fox to 8chan; 4) they have more money, from both licit and illicit sources; finally 5) the “mainstream” gatekeepers of political discourse turn a blind eye to 1 through 4.
The GOP is the disease. Trump is the (latest) symptom.
203
@JoeFF That last sentence says it all. Thank you.
6
There appears to me to be a direct correlation with the ascendancy of Fox News, which mostly supports those same policies that the broader public does not. I suspect that the Fox support not only enables extreme Republican policies, but that the Republican Party adopts many of those policies based on the view of Fox News.
65
"that as the polls go, so goes the Republican Party. That’s no longer the case,"
Agree. But some elements are missing from the article. Foremost, voter suppression tactics, and secondary, the Electoral College.
State after State in the south and elsewhere do all they can to keep minorities from voting. So why bother with polling results, just tweak the voter registration in your favor. They've been doing it successfully for years.
28
Thank you Ms Hemmer for reviewing this part of political history and shining a bright light on the true intentions of the Republican Party.
As you say in stark language, the goals of the republican machine have nothing to do with the wants and needs of their constituents but instead their goals are declared by a small group of very wealthy members. These elite billionaires really do not give one whit about our country, our laws or anyone’s well being except their own.
If eliminating the electoral college is the only way to level the playing field then so be it.
If we don’t take action soon, there will be no telling what havoc this president and his party will heap on our increasingly undemocratic country.
21
The GOP not only “no longer feels beholden to public opinion”, but they no longer feel beholden to acknowledge objective facts or truth. (Climate change or tax cuts, for instance.) They should all be removed from office. Every. Single. One.
389
The Republicans long ago gave up any semblance of respecting public opinion, outside of those they take direction from, or pander to.
They've distilled their base into mostly rural and exurban voters, from predominantly low population, rural southern and western states where they safely have a lock on the electorate.
Their donors have bought and paid for the GOP legislative agenda, and the social conservatives and evangelicals blindly vote GOP provided they have the judiciary rigged to provide rulings that uphold their worldview regardless of how deeply unpopular or unconstitutional their positions are.
These groups couldn't care less about the constitution, bill of rights, the unpopularity of their positions or fairness.
They demand the GOP .....'stay the course, at any cost'.
They know this window to rig the government will close demographically if not inevitably...and they do not care what gets trashed, destroyed or compromised.
The GOP services only their donors and voters, and everything else is just collateral damage in pursuit of their agendas.
29
Exactly.
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” - David Frum, former Dubya speechwriter
'Individual-1' and his Complicit Crowd want to continue down the path of "the laws don't apply to us" or "we have different rules", furthering the same meme which undergirded their newly discovered assertion that they had no constitutional duty to vote on filling Scalia's seat if it was past the 85th month of a 2 term Dem POTUS's 96 months in office - and the GOP held the Senate majority.
More to the point, in Nov. 2016, these very same GOP'er Senators said that if Hillary Clinton were elected and sworn in, the GOP'ers would still refuse to consider any SCOTUS nominee by her for Scalia's empty spot.
Clear & Present Danger 45* must be re-elected to keep his stay out of jail card; his worst nightmare is that a Senate impeachment trial vote would come after the GOP spring primaries, when he could not mount rage tweet primary campaigns against GOP'er Senators who vote for his impeachment.
However, no one should be confused these GOP'er Senators represent anyone but their donors, as was seen in 2018 in the House, where 30+ representatives quit rather than ever again face their constituents at the ballot box - after having voted with the White House for the 2 previous years.
"The state of our union is lawless." - Eric Swalwell (D-Ca) Jan. 30, 2018
31
@Michael Smith - I see most of politics, Democratic and Republican politicians as you described people behaving as if they are stuck in Middle School. I would like to see people work together to help Americans realize their dreams and stop wasting time listening to what’s wrong with the other side.
2
@Mytwocents I'm so tired of the fallacy of 'both-siderism' -- that they are both equally bad. They are not. There are grownups in the Democratic party and they are taking responsibility and doing the right thing in impeaching Trump. If they hadn't, this kind of Trump-type corruption would become the norm in future administrations.
19
This goes way beyond political differences here. We have a president willing to extort another country, holding up military aid appropriated by Congress, so he can get dirt on a political rival. That’s a serious crime.
"Not every policy that parties pursue is popular. But for the modern Republican Party, almost all of its major policies and political strategies have failed to attain popular support."
if I read this correctly, Republicans stay in power through a toxic brew of extreme tribalism, voter suppression, gerrymandering, court packing, and of course, the infamous and antiquated Electoral College.
in fact, at times it seems that America is not that far removed from the aristocratic gentlemen farmer founders who bent over backwards to design a republic with safeguards against too much "mob" (read, Democratic politics) influence.
In fact, while the Democrats actually widen their tents, Republicans keep theirs locked up in storage, behind the rarified bars and restaurants where they can continuously plot how to keep themselves in power by satisfying the needs of the megawealthy and white rural Americans.
No they don't give a hoot because their formula is fairly simple: keep the rich happy with tax cuts and deregulation; and the poor happy by pursuing culture wars that make them feel good--and superior.
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@ChristineMcM
I read a lot of your comments, and I concur, but at the end of this one, I was reminded of something I heard Elizabeth Warren said recently about people who were opposed to gay marriage--she basically insulted them for being retrograde, and implied that they were insecure about their own sexuality.
And I've been reading a lot lately about how "ordinary Americans" in "Fly-over states" feel like liberals are condescending, and this worries me. There is tribalism going on, but it seems as if a lot of working class whites have come to expect liberals to look down on them, and whenever they get evidence of it, well, its not good.
I wonder if a lot of the people WE look up to make a lot of ordinary voters feel inferior, and left out. I've heard all the nonsense about how men supposedly "hate the sound of her voice", but still. There have to be MORE ways to widen the Democratic tent, no?
8
@ChristineMcM
Yes, and the new "aristocratic gentlemen" are building a new class of extreme wealth. They will be the only ones who can afford healthcare, education, and permanent housing.
How long before they give themselves titles?
11
There is no way Democrats are going to win back white rural voters. Stop chasing those voters to the exclusion of everyone else. If the Democrats motivate enough minorities and young people to come out to vote, they will win.
How many Puerto Ricans who moved to Florida after Maria will support Trump? My guess is not too many.
14
A party that doesn't respond to its constituents public should not exist in a democracy. After all, exactly who are they serving? It should be the public and the public good. That the Republicans haven't been driven to extinction reflects a serious problem with our government.
122
@LH - "...and whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government." If only that were true of political parties, huh?
5
@LH
The "party" is beholden to and run by the evangelical Christians and orthodox Catholics. That's who they are serving. Not the public or the public good. The only way for the GOP to revive itself is to renounce those who would turn America into a theocracy.
1
Maybe Republicans wisely do not believe the polls given how sampling bias is well known to distort them as we saw in the famous Trump win in 2016 election.
But if you like polls and you are a Democrat and you claim that polls show that your policies are viewed more favorably, then you will need to explain why Trump has significantly better Favorability Ratings than Schumer and Pelosi according to the Real Clear Politics average currently.
So much for the claim that polls favor Dems.
3
Current RCP leaders' favorability ratings:
Pelosi: -11.2
Trump: -12.0
Schumer: -13.7
McConnell: -23.4
So much for the claim that polls favor Republicans. (I really don't understand why anyone would reference the RCP figures just to be obviously wrong. Perhaps Dan thinks that "Favorability" can be considered independently of "Unfavorability"--you can't do it legitimately, but cherry picking that way will elevate President Trump over the others, because more people have an opinion of him one way or another, and then if you just leave McConnell off your list the false illusion will be complete.)
1
@Dan
The 2016 polls were correct; Clinton won the election.
3
They not only refuse to be swayed by public opinion, but in my state, both GOP representatives — Steve Daines and Greg Gianforte — refuse to even meet with their constituents. They literally call it in, expecting Montanans to listen in on a one-way conference call.
And so far they apparently will not pay a political price for that either, both being rich enough to buy themselves another Senate seat (Daines) and, for Rep, Gianforte, a ticket to the Governor’s mansion.
This is pure monied corruption and why I hope we see some real reforms after 2020. And we might, but only if we can send some of these non-representatives home.
77
@avrds
Bullock for Senate!
2
It is obvious to me that if trump had a 10% approval rating, as long as that 10% comprised 100% of republicans, then the elected republican will never change. Why?
Gerrymandered districts.
Because of that there are not enough non-Republican voters in their district to elect them should they follow facts and truth against this nightmare of an administration.
After this dark time in our country has passed, (and I pray for the better) many things will need to change. Partisanship will never go away, but a fair distribution of voters within any given district has to come first.
107
"The party has been practicing unpopular politics for decades,"
Give 'em another 15 years max and the GOP will vanish from political landscape.
Everything is working against them.
75% of Americans under 30 are pro liberal policies. AOC and Joe Kennedy III generation will dominate Congress-supermajority in both Chambers- by 2030-2035.
The GOP will lose at least 60 more House seats in 2020.
And the Senate will flip.
Even Moscow Mitch will lose his reelection bid.
32
@morGan
You are assuming that we will still have a democracy 15 years from now. Not a good assumption if Trump is re-elected. And with Trump leading us into climate change Armageddon, we may not have a livable planet either.
19
@morGan
And guess what: in 15 years those under-30 liberals will have mortgages as well as bills to pay (including tax bills) and will be Republicans.
3
@morGan I hope you are right. I also believe there is no way Trump will be removed by the Senate, but perhaps if he is re-elected, he will be facing a majority of Democrats in the House and Senate. That may force him to curb some of his behaviors. Nikki Haley’s book states that Rex Tillerson and General Kelly tried to recruit her in an effort to stop, according to them, Trump’s actions to destroy our country. She said no, which is troubling, but they all ended up leaving anyway. It seems it doesn’t pay to be the adult in the room in this administration. Well, it would be nice if one of the adults in the room is the president.
4
The variable unmentioned here is money. Ever since the Supreme Court decided that corporations are people, the Republican Party acquired an advantage that the Democratic Party will never enjoy--the advantage of unlimited campaign contributions. The Koch brothers alone gave over $400 million to Republican candidates and right-wing causes in 2018.
Democracy, in the sense of one person, one vote, perished on the 21st of January, 2010. How can it be otherwise? If one group of partisans can spend an unlimited amount of money advancing its particular ideological perspective and the other cannot, then the idea of political equality is gone. Information sways voters--money buys the power to sell a point of view, no matter how false.
One hopes that a new president will cause a reconsideration of this most disastrous and unconstitutional of decisions.
398
@G. O.
As I have said many times before, the single biggest reform we could make to our political system--the one that would make many of the others possible--is making our campaigns publicly funded, with no organizational (corporate, union, religious, or five-oh-whatever aggregators) contributions allowed, and a very low three digit limit on individual contributions per campaign.
As we have all ruefully noted, it is impossible for our representatives to represent anyone other than their major campaign funders under the current structure.
71
@G. O. Otherwise I agree entirely, but are you sure you don't mean the 21st of January, 2001? Or, more exactly, December 12, 2000: the day the Supreme Court, in a 5:4 decision, gave the Presidency to George W. Bush.
31
@G. O. Money is always at the foundation of corruption, and make no mistake, corruption is the core principle of modern Republicans. Dirty oil money, dirty Wall Street money, dirty gun maker money and dangerous tobacco money all drive the GOP. Even dirty Murdoch FOX News money pollutes the base and drowns legitimate ideas on the Republican right.
9
Trump and the GOP have become so corrupt that they are trying to sell to the public or at least their base that these actions are "normal", everybody does them, acceptable actions... including the GOP.
--2 U.S.C.A. § 192 CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS
--Congress has the authority to hold a person in contempt if the person's conduct or action obstructs the proceedings of Congress or, more usually, an inquiry by a committee of Congress.
--Contempt of Congress is defined in statute, 2 U.S.C.A. § 192, enacted in 1938, which states that any person who is summoned before Congress who "willfully makes default, or who, having appeared, refuses to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry" shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a maximum $1,000 fine and 12 month imprisonment.
--Before a Congressional witness may be convicted of contempt, it must be established that the matter under investigation is a subject which Congress has constitutional power to legislate.
16
@Pray for Help I believe the Constitution gives the House the right to “legislate” on impeaching the President.
Trump and the GOP have become so corrupt that they are trying to sell to the public or at least their base that these actions are "normal", everybody does them, acceptable actions.
18 U.S.C. § 1503 OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
--Defines "obstruction of justice" as an act that "corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice."
--Someone obstructs justice when that person has a specific intent to obstruct or interfere with a judicial proceeding. For a person to be convicted of obstructing justice, that person must not only have the specific intent to obstruct the proceeding, but that person must know (1) that a proceeding was actually pending at the time; and (2) there must be a connection between the endeavor to obstruct justice and the proceeding, and the person must have knowledge of this connection.
--§ 1503 applies only to federal judicial proceedings. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1505, however, a defendant can be convicted of obstruction of justice by obstructing a pending proceeding before Congress or a federal administrative agency. A pending proceeding could include an informal investigation by an executive agency.
6
Well, yes, Republicans embrace the "unpopular" if that is defined in terms of individuals' opinions. But that isn't where the power is. The power is in the states. The Senate majority is determined by state, not by population. A majority of state legislatures belong to the Republicans, and they gerrymander like crazy, making it very hard for Democrats to win the House districts. And even if the Republicans fail to convince a majority of individuals, the Electoral College gives Republicans the presidency because more states, not more people, belong to the Republicans. It's not so crazy for them to abandon the appeal to the people. They don't need them.
70
So the Republican Party won't change its position regarding Trump is something new in American politics? How is this any different from the Democratic Party refusing to change its position regarding Bill Clinton's impeachment? If my memory serves me correctly, Democrats stood by Clinton during his impeachment and trial. Don't expect anything different from Republicans during this political process of impeachment and trial.
4
@John Q Public: Agree the Democrats closed ranks exactly as the Republicans are doing now. The stakes and gravity of the behavior I question is very different. If the Russians decide to help Ms Warren in the 2020 election, I expect my fellow Republicans to become born again anti-Russian.
29
@John Q. Public This comment implies that the sins of Mr. Clinton are equal to those of Pres. Trump. That's like saying that if you get run into and knocked to the ground by a bicycle and the cyclist apologizes, it's the same as if you got run over by a truck, nearly killed, and the driver sped away. Yes, there is some slight similarity between the two incidents, but why would anyone equate them?
212
@Gnirol
Great comment, Gnirol.
It may help also to recall some specific and quite profound differences:
1. The Republicans, goaded on by Faux News, attempted for FOUR years to find high crimes and misdemeanors and did not find a single one committed by President Clinton.
2. Kavanaugh (yes, the same one) was then brought on board and specifically pushed to get Clinton into a bind where he would most likely legally perjure himself for something that was LEGAL.
In contrast, we already have over 1000 prosecutors (liberal and conservative) who identify at least 10 illegal acts (obstruction of justice) in Mueller's report.
But you don't need a report to know that Trump has committed at least a half dozen illegal actions in just the last 6 months.
Yes, "slight" difference.
7
Or any sense of ethics or intelligence, apparently. Which is rather ironic since it was conservatives who always used to argue about morality and logic. Not that their version of those things held much water but at least they understood that those concepts meant something. Now the only thing they understand is “winning”.
13
Sitting at dinner with my in-laws tonight, I cautiously asked them about their favorite president. "He thinks outside the box. He has novel ideas. He is willing to talk directly with leaders without going through diplomats and ambassadors." I kept my head low (they brought over dinner). I couldn't even muster up a response. I blame the liberal elite for this mess. They made my in-laws feel like second class citizens.
6
@Midwest This conventional wisdom that "elites" made red state voters feel like "second class citizens" does not hold water for me. I think that the right-wing media on Fox and a.m. radio have sold them grievance for decades. My Conservative relatives, neighbors, and co-workers are angry that the cultural zeitgeist moved past them. They can no longer be sexist, homophobic, and racist with impunity (which they claim is "Political Correctness" taking away their freedoms). They sense that fewer and fewer believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior: they intuit correctly that the free expression of their religiosity is no longer appropriate at work and in non-religious social settings. Their hatred of all things Climate Change is expressed with a fragile and brittle anger that reveals a deeply buried realization that they are wrong.
Right wing media successfully packaged this being out of step with the zeitgeist as an attack by "elites". In any other country, they would be relegated to a minority position. The Electoral College and gerrymandering have given them an asymmetrical power that allows them to believe that there is such a thing as a "real American" and that they are it.
262
@anon Bingo. It's not the elites, it's the propaganda that makes these people feel marginalized. It's Fox News and Hate Radio, and now, targeted social media paid for by rich people both domestic and foreign. Propaganda convinces people to believe ridiculous things:
There's a war on Christmas.
Health care for everyone is scary.
Addressing climate change is too expensive.
Going to war with Iraq is a good idea.
Trump would be a decent president.
19
@Midwest Nothing about Trump is “the elites” fault. Trump was chosen by his supporters, who have the full responsibility for their votes. At least “own” it.
3
"An Information cascade is a phenomenon described in behavioral economics and network theory in which a number of people make the same decision in a sequential fashion. It is similar to, but distinct from herd behavior ... Social perspectives of cascades, which suggest that agents may act irrationally (e.g., against what they think is optimal) when social pressures are great, exist as complements to the concept of information cascades ... Information cascades occur when external information obtained from previous participants in an event overrides one's own private signal, irrespective of the correctness of the former over the latter." (Wikipedia) So, probably many in Mr. Trump's "base" know that he is not working for the country, but rather for himself. But they see others, such as Fox News pundits, giving Mr. Trump glowing reviews, so they join the cascade. Or maybe parade, which Mr. Trump is always keen to find and get in front of.
6
The Republicans have fooled some of the people all of the time (the irredeemable base we are all sick of); and all (or an electoral majority) of the people some of the time — notably November 2016. But if you look at the 2018 midterms and the recent results in Virginia and Kentucky, you’ll notice that they’re not fooling all the people (or a majority) all the time. In general over time the true majority will be heard from. And woe to the anti democratic Republicans when that happens. Electoral interest is at an all time high on both sides. But one side is much bigger. It will prevail.
235
Absolutely. But Republicans who have never supported Trump, and those Blue Dog Dems who voted for him b/c of his giving them hope re: jobs, are likely to be swayed by the impeachment hearings.
15
@Aimee Pollack-Baker Maybe "republican" voters will be swayed-- but not the senators who pretend to represent them. Oh well, there's always a good job lobbying for foreign oligarchs and terrorist militant organizations once you leave Congress.
Someone tell me why middle and working class Republicans cannot be persuaded by public health insurance.....
If Warren or Sanders wins the Democratic primary, the party HAS to go ALL OUT in selling the benefits of Medicare for All in red states.
Make it crystal clear.
37
Because a significant number of them are afraid it might also benefit people who don’t look like them, and we can’t have that.
9
@Elisa Working class Republicans are afraid that someone might get something they "don't deserve". Working class Republicans would rather starve. It is exactly that simple.
7
The Republicans have spent the last decades trying to figure out how they could have Nixon get impeached but not removed from office. Republicans try to make what is, or should be illegal, legal. They downplay the role of ethics and morals in government service and private industry. The party has truly become illiberal in the sense that it no longer embraces the form of government established by the U.S. Constitution. Its politicians and constituents prefer the strongman, the oligarch, the plutocrat, and maintaining power is the only thing that matters, like any petty kleptocracy. The Republican Party as an American institution no longer exists.
176
@Ghost Dansing
The fundamental basis for the Republican party becoming one of the "strongman, oligarch, plutocrat and maintaining power is the only thing that matters" is that the GOP was taken over by the evangelical Christians and the orthodox Catholics.
Such religious extremism - as with the strict orthodox Muslim nations and al Qaeda and ISIS - lends itself to the creation of a theocratic monarchy. And that is what Trump aspires to become.
The ultra right religious extremism was first brought to the GOP with Reagan and became the party mantra in the 1992 Houston convention when Pat Buchanan, Phyliss Schaffly, Pat Robertson made their influence known. That was the end of the GOP as a conservative small government business oriented party.
The hold that the religious right have on the GOP is reflected in the support that Trump has among the rural and undereducated white Americans - both men and women. The electoral college does not represent America's population fairly or evenly so until this is changed the GOP has the edge despite its unpopular politics.
8
@Mimi
So accurate, Mimi.
For a more inclusive and quite horrifying assessment of our situation, I highly recommend "Fantasyland" by Kurt Anderson.
Read a copy today, it will make this week one of the best in our times.
5
@Ghost Dansing Even my Republican friends wonder at
all the levels of corruption in the Republican Party of today.
3
The Republican Party was, once upon a time, driven by ideas. Those policies may not have been popular across a wide spectrum of Americans: the coziness with banking and industry and commerce and its hostility toward labor unions, for example.
They once postured as a party of ideas and patriotism and small government, the latter an appeal to those who may have been affrighted by a changing social environment beginning in the 60's. Now, Republicans make absolutely no pretense in forwarding ideas for popular review.
It's not really a party anymore; it's an ideology that's constructed around a cult, one in which they dredge up out of a swamp (pardon the imagery) of divisive cultural issues and use these (abortion; gun control; gender orientation; policing; welfare and entitlement programs) as battering rams to scare (mostly white) people into fearing that the America that they once knew is disappearing under a wave of immigration and a Democratic Party that, to hear Republicans tell it, has listed dangerously to the left, promising universal healthcare and other policies that run counter to the "small government" mantra that once fueled Republican candidates.
Now, with Donald Trump on the edge of impeachment, the party's representatives on The Hill are deathly afraid of crossing the president. They fear his tweets. They fear his wrath. They are held hostage to the 40% of MAGA nation that drives the GOP's polling.
Republicans make no pretension anymore to fairness.
437
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
Every once in a while David Brooks writes a breathless column about the new wave of innovative conservative thinkers, their intellectual ferment, and bold proposals, as if such quaint notions play any role in today's GOP. These scholars are paid to burnish the credentials of the same plutocrat funded think-tanks that bolster the actual retrograde polices the GOP sponsors, and their ideas, good or bad, will never see the light of day in this or any alternate universe. If the GOP needs an intellectual figurehead, it should be Jefferson Davis.
119
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18. You describe what happened. That is the easy part. You haven’t but glossed on why. Your description suggests it was simply degeneration, for no apparent reason. But folks in Congress act out of self interest first and foremost. And being bottom dwellers serves no one’s interest.
What you describe happened between 2008 and today. And the Intransigence of the Tea Party and the rise of Trump were the principle factors that put the Party on the defensive and then led them astray.
The big question is what happens next. I would like to see a rapprochement and a restoration of sanity. And that’s not going to happen if we persist in treating them as bottom dwellers. The Democrats have a say in this. And we should make it clear that if they can demonstrate that the recent past was an aberration, we are willing to play ball with them Wayward children and all that
11
@michjas Wayward children? I don't think so. This has been happening since Raygun took the reins of the mule team, they are mule headed, and drove it out into the desert and expected everyone to follow. If they want to rejoin the community meet us in the street, I'm not going to their house and drink the Norquist Koolaide.
9
"My side loses but we're still more popular" sounds like middle school cafeteria drama.
8
@Michael Smith
As does "Republicans ignore their voters but keep getting re-elected." Can they really be so obtuse that they haven't figured out that republicans win precisely because they listen to their voters?
3
Sometimes the win is in the long game