Impeachment Today: Sorry, Republicans, People Do Care
It might surprise people who watch the naysayers at Fox News and elsewhere to learn that Republican leaning voters care more about impeachment more than their Democratic counterparts.
A “Nationscape” survey conducted by UCLA in partnership with the Democracy Fund asked more than 110,000 people across the country in 10 different ways to select a bucket of four issues that they hoped to see come to fruition.
Republicans ended up settling on impeachment as their top issue, and they were 45% more likely to choose a bucket that included "don't impeach Trump." In second place was not banning guns, with "no slavery reparations" and "build a wall" listed at Numbers 3 & 4.
Democrats thought ending family separations at the border was in first place, with impeachment as the second most important issue. They were almost 40% more inclined to pick an issue bucket when impeachment was part of it. Democrats' Number 3 and 4 issues were "no ban on abortion" and "don't build a wall."
In other words, people aren’t buying the “distraction” argument. There is a bi-partisan consensus that says resolving the legitimacy of the President’s actions is key to progress on whatever their agenda may be.
A New York Times article, penned by some of the UCLA researchers, concludes:
Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, reflected recent G.O.P. sentiment when he said that impeachment “crowds out a number of issues” and stops “really important work we need to get done for the country.”
But our data suggest an ordering of priorities that indicates people care about issues that the president plays a role in. That they want to make sure he stays in office — or is removed — is one way voters can bring about the policies they most want to shape their world.
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While the House of Representative moves toward a vote on articles of impeachment, the President’s ‘free lawyer’ is overseas, trying to drum up ‘witnesses’ in hopes of changing the narrative about who’s corrupt.
Think of this like the exchange between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the third 2016 debate when, in response to her accusation that he was Putin’s puppet, the Republican nominee countered “no, you’re the puppet.”
Here’s Mark Sumner, with the lowdown on Rudy Giuliani’s Ukrainian foray:
So it seems only right that, in the midst of impeachment proceedings in which the main concern is Donald Trump’s attempt to solicit false information about political opponents from Ukrainian officials, Giuliani is … in Ukraine, soliciting false information about Trump’s political opponents. And no one should be surprised to learn that he’s bragging about it.
Giuliani is meeting with corrupt officials who lost their posts in past anticorruption efforts and pro-Russian legislators who oppose Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to create a “documentary” that openly supports the conspiracy theories that Trump was demanding of Zelensky. But he’s not waiting for that documentary to mount his attacks.
In a series of tweets on Thursday night and Friday morning, Giuliani unspooled a series of attacks on Vice President Joe Biden, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and President Barack Obama.
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While the President’s activities and motivations may be at the center of the Congressional showdown currently underway, a Washington Post article says his phone conversations with Giuliani and others have been vulnerable to monitoring by Russian and other foreign intelligence services.
“It’s absolutely a security issue,’’ the former aide said, saying foreign intelligence agencies could be listening in on the president’s unsecured calls with Giuliani. “It’s a bonanza for them.”
Former officials said Trump has provided his private cell number to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but it’s unclear whether he has had conversations with those leaders on his cellphone. Four people in communication with him in recent months said that he continues to use that device routinely.
Former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly and intelligence officials made a concerted attempt in 2017 to get Trump to use secure White House lines, even after the president had retreated to the residence in the evenings, officials said. But when Trump realized that this enabled Kelly to compile daily logs of his calls, and the identities of those he was speaking to, Trump became annoyed and reverted to using his cellphone, officials said. “He was totally paranoid that everyone knew who he was talking to,” a former senior administration official said.
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Finally, I remind people to be careful about how you approach the fire hose of misinformation coming from Republicans.
https://twitter.com/DHStokyo/status/1202762516675219457?s=20
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