Friday, March 29, 2024

FROM THE RIDGE: US political drama is far from over

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Is that the last we are going to hear of Donald Trump? I doubt anyone thinks that. His impeachment for incitement of the insurrection which saw the mob of his followers storm Congress and lead to five deaths has been so surreal that no script writer could have written anything that bizarre. He becomes the first president to be impeached twice.
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Most of us can remember the drawn-out process as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton in 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice.

The Senate acquitted him as happened to Trump in 2019 when he was impeached the first time.

Clinton’s impeachment backfired on the Republicans as Clinton had one of the highest approval ratings ever at 67% at the end of the impeachment process and when he finished his eight years, he was still polling at 65% approval by Americans.

The only people to lose their jobs were Republicans who lost seats in both the House and Senate, although regained the presidency when George W Bush beat Al Gore by a wafer-thin result that hinged on those hanging chads we learnt about.

The other president to be impeached was Democrat Andrew Johnson in 1868 who constantly vetoed the Republicans who finally reacted when he fired one of his own Cabinet members without approval from the Senate.

The fired guy then locked himself in his office and refused to come out, showing now is not the first time US politics has had weird twists.

Johnson, however, did do the deal of the century when he bought Alaska off the Russians for a meagre $7 million. Who would have thought all that ice and snow hid such riches?

The Republicans then impeached Johnson in the House but narrowly failed to adjudicate or pass sentence in the Senate by one vote.

Richard Nixon was in the process of being impeached over the Watergate break-ins but when the tapes of him ordering the deed were released, he resigned before being impeached. He remains the only president to have resigned.

So, let’s return to our mate Trump.

This impeachment business will now go to the Senate for adjudication sometime in the next few months when Biden is president.

The Democrats will have a one-vote majority because Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris has the casting vote but as we know, a two-thirds majority is needed to complete the impeachment process.

Ten House Republicans voted for Trump’s impeachment with one of them, Adam Kinzinger saying, “If this is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable.” That very well sums up the whole sorry business.

We know that some Senate Republicans plan to vote against Trump as well, but 17 are needed to get the two-thirds majority.

If the Senate adjudicates the impeachment, then the Senate can pass a simple majority vote barring Trump from ever holding any sort of public office. This includes being a librarian, dog catcher or president.

It’s quite possible that the Republicans may see this as their chance to cut Trump adrift and make sure he doesn’t seek the nomination again next time around causing chaos and further dividing their party.

But then again, doing this will infuriate millions of Trump-loving and Republican-voting supporters and split their party anyway.

But what will Trump do now?

I doubt he’s going to disappear and just keep working on that dodgy golf handicap of his.

It’s possible that he will set up a news channel to rival Fox News for the right-wing conspiracy theorists, which would get several million followers. He would use that to keep himself in the public view and continue to fan his lie that the election was stolen, which continues to erode American’s faith and confidence in their own democratic processes. Or he might set up some sort of exile court down in Florida and continue to behave as though he is still a president.

The Chinese, Russians and other totalitarian states, which have much to gain from a weaker and destabilised US, are loving this sad state of affairs.

There is more theatre to come on this, so fear not that just because calm, old Biden is president, things will become boring in the States.

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