At this point what everyone predicted in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump has already come to pass, even though we’re still in the “opening statements” phase. My personal view, for what it’s worth, is that there will not be a single Republican vote to convict. Not. A. Single. One. No matter what comes up in the actual trial.
That’s not because the facts establishing that Trump is guilty of attempted extortion and attempted bribery to warp the 2020 election in his favor were ever in serious dispute. In fact the Republicans in the House of Representatives—really just “mini-me’s” of their more stodgy and pompous counterparts in the Senate-- already showed the nation, very clearly, that they weren’t at all interested in the facts of the case.
And it’s not because Donald Trump, who will be emboldened after his acquittal by Senate Republicans in the next week or so, is already crowing about getting away with his “perfect” crime. By taunting Democrats with jibes confirming that he has the evidence they need but will not turn it over, he is playing the part of a perfect bully, dangling the lunch money he stole over his victims’ head and daring them, gloatingly, to try and grab it. For anyone who has ever experienced the behavior of a bully who cannot contain his glee, that is proof positive that he is guilty, as if any further proof were needed.
No, the reason, in my humble opinion, that there will be no votes to convict—not from any so-called “moderate” or swing state Senators or any other Republican--is based on sheer political calculation. Because their careers depend on the good graces of a voting base zombified by Fox News, they’ve reasoned—quite correctly—that any votes they gain among purported “moderates” in their states by voting in accordance with their oaths will be offset by the sheer barrage of hatred they receive from their Republican constituents.
That hatred, which will be amplified exponentially on social media, will result in voters they would normally count on registering their protests against them by not voting at all, or voting third party. And they are well aware that Democrats will be energized against them no matter how they vote. If you think there is a mythical Maine Democratic-leaning voter willing to vote for Susan Collins at this point, assuming she votes for impeachment, then I will show you ten hardcore Republican Maine voters who will not vote for her at all assuming she votes to convict Donald J. Trump. And that holds true even if she gets a “hall pass” to cast a meaningless vote for conviction by Mitch McConnell, which is typically what she’s relied upon to salvage her career up to this point.
But let’s start with the obvious facts. As Frank Rich, writer at large for New York Magazine explains in one of his freewheeling weekly interviews:
The prospect that the Senate’s Vichy Republicans will convict Trump is as remote as the zombies in the Charles Manson cult bolting from their dear leader’s compound in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Still, as Rich notes, even with the result pre-ordained, there is plenty for folks like Cory Gardner, Susan Collins, and Martha McSally to ponder over as they try out interesting new campaign strategies to gin up that Trumpian base (McSally’s recent, deliberate insult of CNN reporter Manu Raju in order to inflame that base already shows how she will vote, by the way).
Perhaps the single most important point Schiff has made thus far was his impassioned end-of-day reality check for the Senate: “More emails are going to come out. More witnesses are going to come forward. They’re going to have more relevant information to share. And the only question is, do you want to hear it now? Do you want to know the full truth?” Translation: This trial may be over in two weeks, but there are another nine months until Election Day during which more White House rocks will be turned over and more rot will be revealed. If you are a Republican up for reelection in a tight race, are you ready to be held accountable for your passivity, inaction, and cowardice in these proceedings? Your behavior, much of it captured on camera, will be sliced and diced in campaign ads paid for by the bottomless bank account of Michael Bloomberg.
(emphasis supplied)
Majorities of Americans, including, now, apparently, solid majorities of likely voters, want Trump removed from office. And the one thing we know about Donald Trump is that he’s the gift that keeps on giving. So this impeachment thingy isn’t the end of the road for these Republican Senators, by any means, even though they may think it is. No, how they vote in the next week or two will be weighed against whatever new revelations about Trump and his sordid crime family surface over the next nine months.
One imagines that majority is not so slim in the suburban districts that will determine the fates of such embattled incumbents as Maine’s Susan Collins, Colorado’s Cory Gardner, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, and Arizona’s loathsome Martha McSally. If things really go downhill, the reelection campaigns of Iowa’s Joni Ernst, Georgia’s David Perdue, and even Texas’s John Cornyn could be rattled, too. And by downhill, I don’t mean further revelations about what happened with Ukraine — that story is already fully known — but fresh crimes that will stalk senators who played possum this month.
Rich specifically mentions the recent news regarding the hack of Trump nemesis’ Jeff Bezos’ phone by the Saudis, and the relationship cultivated by Trump’s son-in law Jared Kushner to the Saudi prince and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But he might as well have been referring to what appears to be blatant theft by Trump and his daughter of inaugural funds inflated and steered to the Trump crime family business. Or the continuing defamation action by E. Jean Carroll who credibly says Trump raped her.
Or...well you get the idea. After Trump is acquitted he will naturally feel himself unbound by any law, and he will do what all criminals do when they feel unbound by any law: he will proceed to commit more crimes. The corruption we will see over the next nine months will dwarf anything previously imaginable in American politics. And those Republican Senators who vote to acquit Trump of his Ukrainian extortion scheme will be facing attack ads from Democrats that encompass far, far more than the facts of that particular crime. As Rich says, their votes to allow his crime spree to continue will be “sliced and diced,” over and over again.
So Republican Senators shouldn’t assume this is over in February; in fact, the coming summer is going to be just as interesting, if not more.
I wouldn’t want to be walking that tightrope, if I were them.