Quote of the day (on the prospects for impeachment):
“As long as Republicans choose to stay relatively united, either in denying evidence of Trump’s malfeasance or claiming that there’s nothing wrong with it, then Democrats will be unable to generate enough constituent pressure to change their minds. Whatever evidence is turned up, Republicans probably can brazen it out if that’s what they really want, regardless of the damage it does to U.S. democracy. So that leaves one question for them: Is this really what you want?” – Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg
- Is this really what Republicans want? That’s what I’m betting on for the foreseeable future.
- And, if that changes between now and November 3, 2020, I’ll wager that it won’t be a July 2019 phone call, or a Justice Department cover-up of that call, that prompts Republicans to recalibrate their support for Trump. It will be something else (almost certainly a number of something elses). Congressional Republicans, with relentless air cover from Fox News and the conservative media, haven’t budged from Trump’s corner up till now, willingly shrugging off the consequences for democratic institutions and the rule of law. They can weather this episode as well.
- Instead, we’ll see little more than baby steps to placate critics – such as McConnell’s sudden reversal yesterday on election security funding.
- On the column that Bernstein didn’t write: while Democrats “can’t do much about this by themselves,” it has been disheartening to watch the hapless efforts of the House Judiciary Committee to tell the story of Trump’s corruption. (I had such high hopes in early June. Now, not so much.)
(Image: Gage Skidmore, Flickr.)