I don't entirely agree with ALT, but I agree that most people probably won't buy it. I don't think they'll think any better of him as a result, it's just the Dems haven't really sold impeachment outside of their existing support base. There doesn't seem to be any really solid to charge him with, or if there is, it's drowned out by the hundreds of inane or unsubstantiated charges the media pelts him with on a day-to-day basis.
ALT you are assuming that impeaching Trump will have the same aftermath as Clinton's impeachment, that it would cause Trump to be viewed as a victim of circumstance and a scapegoat.
First, as someone who actually lived through it, your telling of the story differs vastly from my actual experience. I don't remember him ever being portrayed as a victim or scapegoat. The most common portrayal of him during that time was as a pervert and a liar.
Second, I think the public's reaction is probably more tied to the DNC and their media partners' inability to sell a plausible reason for charging him.
See, with Clinton, there was something really obvious they could point to: he lied under oath during the course of an investigation. More than that, he
admitted to it. As a result of both lying under oath and admitting that he lied under oath, he was charged with perjury (lying under oath) and obstruction of justice (purposely doing things that interfere with an investigation). He was acquitted (on paper, at least) because all 45 Senate Democrats and a smattering of Senate Republicans bought the argument that lying under oath didn't constitute the sort of high crimes that would justify an actual impeachment conviction. In reality, that was about 10% of it; the other 90% was that he was a Democrat and all the Democrats and a couple Republicans voted for him. If he was a Republican, all the Republicans and a couple of Democrats would have voted for him. I think the courts should handle impeachment proceedings.
Anyway, with Trump, there's no admission of guilt, so that's a harder fight from the start. As far as what to charge him with, that's also going to be harder to sell to the public because the most popular media organizations have successfully deafened a lot of people to any potentially credible claims against Trump by constantly blowing out of proportion everything he does. There's a lot of people, both in the media and out, just latching onto whatever negative stuff they can find about him and going "SEE!? SEE!?" without really looking into it any further than that. They already have a conclusion and they're just looking for evidence to suit it rather than doing it the other way around. It's like how people who didn't like Obama latched onto the birth certificate thing because the situation was complex enough that if you looked at it at a glance,
you couldn't immediately dismiss it, even if in reality it was just a bunch of nothing. Again, maybe there is something concrete, but with the media in the state it is, it's hard to reach that conclusion; they're doing a bad job of presenting their case to the public. The reason Trump's been successful deflecting criticism by saying "witch hunt" is because the media hunts him as though he were a witch. They need a better strategy.
First, Clinton was, despite demonization by his detractors, a very popular President.
He
was very popular, at least until he had an affair and lied about it. If there was a saving grace for him, I think it's that most people didn't really see it as that big of a deal. He lied, but all politicians lie. He had an affair with an intern, but where today people would see that as a powerful man taking advantage of a woman, the overwhelming sentiment at the time was that Clinton was just a pervert. If it had happened now, I think it would play out a lot differently.
lying about a consensual act of sex, a type of lie that I am sure every American male has told more than once.
No? Why are you stereotyping American men (or men generally) as being pathological liars or sex-obsessed animals? Do you not realize how awful what you just suggested is? Please don't stereotype people like that.
His detractors will try to counter that and say it was perjury, but let's be honest, this was a deliberate political move to get rid of him.
The two are not mutually exclusive. He was not acquitted because he didn't commit perjury; in fact, by his own admission, he did exactly that. Perjury literally means lying under oath. He
admitted he lied under oath. He was acquitted, at least on paper, not because he didn't do it, but because that perjury did not rise to the level of high crimes of the sort that would justify impeachment. In other words, he broke the law, just not bad enough to be kicked out of office in an impeachment hearing.
That does not exclude a political motivation, though.
Of course the impeachment was politically motivated. That goes without saying. If it had been a Republican President doing the same thing, the vote would have been the exact reverse, even if the circumstances were identical. However, political motivation or not, he did commit a crime, even if that crime did not rise to the level of impeachment, and bringing charges against someone who commits a crime is a valid thing to do.
Trump is very different. Again, while some will deny this, he is NOT as popular as he claims. Even the Rasmussen Reports (known for a clear Republican bias) give him a current Approval Rating of 46%, nearly 20 points lower than Clinton's was a month before he was impeached.
Clinton was at the end of his presidency and his impeachment happened in a very different political atmosphere to what we have today. And it's not like he was completely unfazed by it, it's just that most people didn't really think too much of it. It didn't lose him much popularity, it just kind of made him into a pathetic national joke. That's a completely different situation to what we have going on here, so I don't think that situation is relevant. That said, I also don't think impeachment would make Trump any more popular, but I do think a lot of people would buy his inevitable argument that it's a partisan witch hunt. Again, you have the media (and possibly DNC strategists) to thank for that; Trump's just doing a good job of capitalizing on their utterly stupid behavior.
While Trump and his supporters insist that there is political bias due to "sore losers" upset over the 2016 election, there are actual many impeachable offenses Trump could be charged with, including refusing to comply with court ordered subpoenas, witness tampering, witness intimidation, bank fraud, wire fraud, tax fraud, conspiracy, accepting illegal campaign contributions, embezzling money intended for charity, nepotism, perjury, money laundering, and falsifying documents.
You didn't substantiate any of those claims, so they hold no weight. Even if you did, I suspect they'd be references to some biased media source editorializing a report that doesn't say what they're suggesting it says. It'd take too much time and effort to actually research each and every one of those (to the tune of hours and hours of my week that is already shortened by 40 hours of work, which is probably what the media's banking on when they raise the points to begin with), so I'm just not going to bother.
For argument's sake, though, let's assume they're all true (and that's quite the assumption). I'm relatively certain none of these can be directly tied to Trump himself (or the Democrats wouldn't be so wishy-washy about impeachment to begin with), and even if they could, you'd have to tackle the same arguments Clinton's prosecution faced: what constitutes "high crimes?"
There's also the case that Trump, unlike Clinton, is starting to lose what support he has in the media (insulting Fox News for their coverage of Mayor Pete was unwise) and Justin Amash's very public condemnation is only getting him renewed support from his own state.
Clinton didn't exactly have the media on his side during his impeachment hearings, but again, I don't really think that's particularly relevant. As far as Trump's current popularity or lack thereof, I don't really have any strong opinions, but I don't think impeachment proceedings would make him look any worse. Nobody's going to change their mind over this. The people who hate Trump will still hate Trump, the people who love Trump will still love Trump, and the rest of us will realize it's just more political theater.
And to top it off, Trump's speech today in the Rose Garden was, IMOHO, rather... undignified.
I don't think that's really relevant; we're talking about the general public's perception, you'd need to show how that affected his polling numbers.
There's also one thing most everyone forgets, and that is Clinton was not the first time a President was impeached. The first time was in a case where the President was unpopular, unethical, and a blatant bigot.
Again, I don't really see the relevance. Nixon was also impeached, I don't see what that has to do with anything.
Yes, I'm calling Johnson a bigot, cause he WAS one. He was a bigot even by the standards of the time. He had plans for ethnic cleansing of non-whites, which fortunately, he never had a chance to enact.
Even though Congress impeached him on a technicality, and it was clear they had political motives (meaning, everyone despised him) nobody cared. The unsuccessful push to impeach him didn't help his career at all. Much the opposite, it resulted in him losing what little influence he had as President, and the Republicans who voted for acquittal also lost reelection.
Woah, strong words for our 17th President; be careful or you'll get hate mail from all of his fan.
I don't really think there are any raging fires about Andrew Johnson, the guy's been dead for 144 years. If you want to call him a bigot, I don't think anyone really cares enough to challenge it.
So, what does all this mean? Personally, I do not think impeachment will gain Trump sympathizers or supporters among the voting public, although I do think he's likely to lose some positive media support.
I don't think it's really going to make much of a difference regardless of what happens. If they go through with it, it'll look like a witch hunt, he'll call it a witch hunt, and no one's going to change their mind because that doesn't make him any better, either. If they don't go through with it, no one's going to change their mind then, either.
