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What happens to the GOP (and Dems) after impeachment?
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What happens to the GOP (and Dems) after impeachment?


Jan 25, 2021, 2:32 PM

Back in the '60's, one of the more influential sci-fi/social critic finger-on-the-pulse-type writers was Norman Spinrad. I read a novel of his called Bug Jack Barron back in the day that actually got itself denounced on the floor of the English Parliament for its "offensive portrayal" of politicians - I actually think it maybe didn't go quite far enough - but whatever, it was eerie how far into the future Spinrad saw. In particular Spinrad saw the role television was going to play in shaping politics, and that TV anchors with big audiences would be able to make even the rich and powerful tremble before them.

The other thing Spinrad predicted was even more interesting: the breakup of the Republican party and the centralization of the Dems. The US in Spinrad's future had coalesced into three parties: the SJC - Social Justice Coalition - on the far left, the Dems in the middle, and the Republicans on the far right. The Democrats largely controlled politics; the SJC and Republicans had both largely become fringe third parties confined to the sidelines of California for the SJC and the Deep South for the GOP. And, fascinatingly, he predicted this coming in 1969.

The problem with fight-to-the-bitter-end opposition politics - which the GOP is presently engaged in - is that at some point: you lose. Politics As Usual died permanently on January 6th, when Donald Trump did not successfully overturn the US election...and now a new administration is taking charge, one with the power to force an impeachment hearing and vote that will force each and every standing Senator - the senior leadership of the Republican party - to answer a very simple question: are you okay with what Donald Trump just did?

Has anyone really thought through what happens in each scenario?

For instance...what happens if the vote to impeach is successful? Does that not split the GOP immediately?

Or probably worse...what happens if not enough GOP Senators vote to impeach...meaning, the GOP effectively has just said: "insurrection is fine"? How many key leaders - and worse - how many voters - does the party then bleed out?

Could Spinrad's vision of the future be upon us?

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Regardless of what happens,


Jan 25, 2021, 2:57 PM

Pubs retake Senate and possibly House in 2022, at which point Pubs Feel the Dems are done forever, much like the Dems thought the Pubs were done forever in 2008 and 2020. Rinse and repeat.

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Re: What happens to the GOP (and Dems) after impeachment?


Jan 25, 2021, 3:05 PM

The problem with fight-to-the-bitter-end opposition politics - which the GOP is presently engaged in

Uh... and WHAT exactly were those four years of non-stop 24/7 attacks by the dems? Sheesh, if that wasn't 'fight to the bitter end opposition' they don't make it.

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IDK, but Senator Portman's resignation is telling


Jan 25, 2021, 3:16 PM

He probably felt the impeachment vote was a choice between death or exile. Lot of hardcore Trump supporters in Ohio flooding is inbox with death threats, and I'd imagine he is exhausted fighting with them.

The party rebounded after Nixon and set the stage for a long, dominant run with Ronald Reagan eight years later. I'm sure it will survive but short-term there will be some churn for sure.

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Re: What happens to the GOP (and Dems) after impeachment?


Jan 25, 2021, 4:10 PM

Quo,

There will be a ton of smoke and mirrors involved in the impeachment trial - and some of it may work for the Reps who recognize the dangers to their party.

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Re: What happens to the GOP (and Dems) after impeachment?


Jan 25, 2021, 5:10 PM

I just think they're effed either way.

You could literally see guys like Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, even John Thune start calling themselves "Democrats".

At which point you wonder: is there really room under that Big Tent for all those conservative Dems plus the Baby Bolsheviks, or does that maybe nudge the likes of AOC and Bernie out into a genuine Social Justice/Socialist party of their own? Because Manchin and Murkowski have far more in common than they do with the far leftists and I just don't see the AOC's of the world living in peace and harmony with them until the end of time.



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Re: What happens to the GOP (and Dems) after impeachment?


Jan 25, 2021, 5:15 PM [ in reply to Re: What happens to the GOP (and Dems) after impeachment? ]

I just don't see the impeachment trial being a winner for anyone. The House effectively censored Trump harshly by making him the first and only President to be impeached twice. If he is convicted, he can't be removed any more than he is already removed. If there is a simple majority vote after a conviction, Trump could be prevented from holding office again. If I were the Dems I would love Trump being in the mix in 2024. Trump's ship has sailed.

I think this will make Trump more sympathetic than reviled.

Apparently Chief Justice Roberts is not good with being the judge of this potential trial? Why might that be? So now President Pro Tempore Patrick Leahy of VT will be the presiding judge. Will he therefore still vote, in essence be judge and juror?

I think this leads to more disenchantment of the public with Congress. The country needs to heal. I don't see how a Senate trial moves the country towards healing. I think the Dems lose, The Pubs lose, but more importantly the entire country loses.

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Re: What happens to the GOP (and Dems) after impeachment?


Jan 25, 2021, 11:14 PM



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and by last week you mean last year***


Jan 25, 2021, 11:18 PM



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sorry got stuck at Norman Soinrad


Jan 25, 2021, 11:19 PM

Wrote this in 1979?


A World Between (1979) tells of a mildly turbulent period on the planet of Pacifica, a eutopic, democratic electronically mediated society, on which lands a ship from each of the two factions in the "Pink and Blue War": the patronisingly paternalistic Institute of Transcendental Science on the one side, and the rabidly man-hating lesbian Femocrats on the other. Nobody suffers a worse fate than political embarrassment, and status quo is restored by the simple fact of Pacifican society being better than that of either of the off-world factions.

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