No, impeachment is not good news for Trump. Look at the numbers.
by digby
Fox News poll shows 54% want Trump impeached; 41% oppose it. https://t.co/eobPPCal1B pic.twitter.com/zLsOWV5Rr2— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) December 15, 2019
That’s Fox News, folks.
Only in Trump Bizarroword can 54% of the people being in favor of impeachment and 31% opposed — a 13 point spread — be considered good news for Trump. Here are some more pesky numbers:
1) A new high of 45% of independents favor impeachment, up from 38 in late Oct.
2) By a 16-point margin, voters are more likely to say Republican lawmakers just want to protect Trump politically than think Republicans truly believe what he did is not impeachable
3) By a 6-point spread, more believe congressional Democrats really think Trump committed an impeachable offense than that Democrats just want to hurt him politically.
4) Over half of voters, 52%, say the Trump administration hasn’t cooperated enough with the impeachment inquiry.
But if you were to tune into the cable shows or read the New York Times you would assume that Trump’s only concern about impeachment is that he’ll have an asterisk next to his name. Otherwise, there’s no political peril in this for him at all.
That is incorrect. Sure, it’s a year until the election and we don’t know who he’ll be facing but seriously, people. Being impeached is going to be an albatross around his neck. Sure, his cult followers are shameless and they will support him to the end. But if the consensus is that he’s in great shape for the upcoming campaign, then our democracy is even worse off than we thought.
You will note that after everything that had happened, on the day Nixon resigned 57% of the public wanted him impeached.
Trump is at 54% already. Just because the Republicans are acting as his criminal accomplices doesn’t mean the public will not see what’s going on. The media needs to stop assuming that Trump is Teflon Don. He is not. He has a base of about 42%. Keep in mind that 38% of the public voted for Herbert Hoover in Roosevelt’s “landslide” election in 1932. Nixon himself won 60% in 1972 with 37.8 voting against him. In other words, no matter what, each party has a base of around 40%. Trump can’t get above that which, it seems to me, argues that he incredibly weak and the media is just ascribing to him magical powers because the GOP is so afraid of him.
They are afraid of him because they are cowards. If they stood up together and did the right thing for the country, they could change the dynamic. They simply choose not to.
It’s not Trump’s strength that’s driving all this, it’s the Republicans’ weakness. Someone needs to alert the media.
It’s holiday fundraiser time. If you can help support this old blog, I’d be very grateful — digby
Happy Hollandaise!
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