If the impeachment managers hope to win this persuasion argument, they must speak to how Republican senators can stay in power – or recover their lost power – or protect themselves from the loss of power. They need to demonstrate that the actions of the defendant threaten the ruling authority of these Republican senators.
As we await the trial phase of the impeachment proceedings, it’s apparent that many members of the U.S. Senate are jumping past the first question – the question of fact – and starting on the question of punishment.
Were they walling people in? Or out? Both, it seems. As much as they tried to keep people in, they also tried very hard to keep western influences out. Jeans, rock’n’roll, Coca-cola, all the symbols of decadence that Americans thrust at them. The Berlin Wall sent a message. Like a giant billboard, it shouted out to us. We heard fear. We heard weakness.
We all remember that kid — the one on the playground who threw a tantrum when he lost. You called him a “Sore Loser”. And even though you were just kids, you knew — everyone knew — that nobody likes a sore loser. The Republican Party is the party of sore losers.
The current combative format and style of these so-called “debates” is exactly Trump’s wheelhouse. If that style continues into the general election, whoever is running against Trump will get crushed.
We need to answer emotion with counter-emotion. If we don’t trigger an emotional response, our facts won’t matter because they won’t be heard.
As if on cue, a defender of the White House rushed to respond…. Yes, Benghazi. Still. Clearly, and unsurprisingly, this passionate defender missed my point (and, by doing so, reinforced my point).
Nothing that is going on now is about President Obama or Secretary Clinton. What is going on now, and in the future, is about Trump – no one else is making the decision about what we do next.
Yet he could not resist. He cannot speak unless he is attacking someone – he must always attack, always denigrate, always demean, and always cast himself as a victim of that other person’s failings.
We elect people to do one thing only – to make decisions.
But we never ask them the fundamental question: ”How do you make a decision?”
What gets me is that people say that he has to be expelled IF he is convicted of a crime.
Why is a criminal conviction required?
It is enough that he defrauded the voters. Actual election fraud is reason enough for expulsion.
Where is the caucus that railed about election fraud?
Saturday night would have been the time to shift to a wholly-positive campaign. To inspire voters. To call them to “Yes, we can”, “We Dare to Dream”, and “We have before, we will again”.
