Trump’s impeachment: Republican senators’ verdict will determine party’s future

It is estimated that if the vote on the offices in the Senate takes place after January 20, when Democrat Joe Biden takes office, the impeachment of Trump will be supported, of course, by all Democratic senators.

But it will also require the support of at least 17 Republicans who lost a majority in the Senate after two by-elections in Georgia.

It will not be easy, because the right wing is currently in an unenviable position. Several Republican politicians, both publicly and privately, condemn Trump’s rhetoric, which prompted fans to attack the United States Capitol, but he must also take into account several very important aspects.

For one thing, some more moderate Republican voters would like politicians to distance themselves from the Trump camp, which is said to be detrimental to the party. That way, Republicans could start looking for a new way forward.

But polls show that tens of millions of right-wing Americans believe the conspiracy theories spread by the president and vow to exact revenge on Republicans who allegedly betray Trump.

As a result, there is a risk of losing popularity and revenge, and not just at the polls. Members of the House of Representatives who have doubted have already been notified of threats from fans who support Trump.

M.McConnello’s decision is important

“It really seems like a good last chance to resist that guy while he’s still important,” says Liam Donovan, a lobbyist and former Republican official. “Republicans can talk or go the path of non-resistance, but one day they will have to look at themselves and it will cost them.”

The political calculations, as mentioned, are complicated because the majority of Republican voters believe that Trump and his allies unfoundedly claim that they stole the victory in the presidential election.

For example, after the assault on the Capitol last week, a Quinnipiac poll showed that 71 percent and 73 percent of Republicans rate Trump’s work positively. He believes it does not undermine American democracy, but rather protects it. In general, across the United States, both rates are 60 percent. The evaluations of the respondents are unfavorable.

“Republican members of Congress, especially in the Senate, cannot ignore the opinions of the voters. But now is the right time to react,” said Rory Cooper, a former House aide who is critical of Trump.

“The public reaction to the Capitol is universal, it is negative. Critical comments about the Corto can stick to those facts and thus mitigate the political coup. The assault on the Capitol becomes a kind of shield.

The elections will take place only after two years, so the risk of suffering today is low, ”added R. Cooper.

During the debate in the House of Representatives, many Republicans supported Trump, although ten voted in favor. Paradoxically, even after the storming of the Capitol, the right wing blamed the Democrats for dividing America.

“Why did the Democrats set fire instead of trying to put out the flames?” Asked Andy Biggs, an elected House of Representatives in Arizona who recently joined attempts to overthrow voters in Pennsylvania and in the same state of Arizona where Biden won by a small margin.

After all, the Senate is another matter. Obviously, let’s say Mitt Romney will vote on the impeachments against Trump, but the most important thing will be the opinion of the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell.

The New York Times announced before the House vote that McConnell believed Trump’s actions were to blame and that his impeachment would help topple the Republican Party. triumph.

The senator himself said Wednesday that he has not made a decision yet because he wants to hear legal arguments. If McConnell supports the accusations against Trump, more Republicans are likely to follow suit.

It smelled of a fragmentation seen for a long time

If Trump were found guilty, the Senate could also, by an additional vote, bar him from holding any future positions in the federal system. That would immediately change the situation before the Republican primary elections in 2024.

But again, the opinion of the electorate cannot be ignored. According to analysts, the Republican Party must now decide which votes – moderate voters dissatisfied with Trump or actively supporting the president – need it most.

So far, the two are drifting apart, Reuters notes. For example, Paul Foster, 65, a painter from the state of Maine, is furious with party leaders who oppose Trump, who claims they stole his election victory.

“The party will completely collapse if it moves away from Trump,” Foster is convinced, and predicts that Trump’s most loyal supporters will split up and form a new party. The new polls really show that many activists are determined to leave the Republicans if they don’t support Trump.

But Marc Cupelo, who lives in upstate New York and has been voting Republicans since his youth, just regretted voting for Trump in 2016. The man who watched the Capitol storming with horror would like the party to throw at Trump overboard.

“The distorted values ​​must also be modified. I just want him (D. Trump, ed.) To run with his tail turned,” says M. Copelo.

Now there are many of those contrasts in the Republican Party. Observers say there has been no such internal division in the right wing since the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon to resign.

No matter which path, more support for Trump or his isolation, party strategists choose, Republicans will still lose their votes. On the other hand, it may now be possible to take risks because Republicans will control neither the White House, the Senate, or the House of Representatives.

Trump won about 74 million votes in the presidential election, more than any other Republican candidate in the history of such votes. That number is impressive.

But critics immediately deny that Trump’s ability to attract votes was second only to his talent to repel them; after all, Biden was supported in the election by more than $ 81 million. Americans voted. That’s a record, and both the majority of independent voters and some frustrated Republicans voted for the Democrat.

These right-wing voters have been particularly important in volatile states and are now confident that they will never vote for a party that will remain dependent on Trump.

According to former Republican strategist Matto Mackowiak, the key question for the Republican leadership to ask is: “We can’t win without a Trump support base, so how can we keep it up without Trump?”

By the way, other indicators are unfavorable for Republicans, regardless of Trump. In the past 30 years, the right-wing candidate has garnered more votes across the United States than the Democrat once in 2004, and other victories have been driven by the ability to take advantage of America’s strange electoral system.

Big corporations are angry

So far, voters like M.Cupelo are a minority, although increasingly. And Americans who faithfully support Trump make no secret of their anger at Republican politicians who dare to condemn the president.

“Invertebrates are being driven away from the president and his tens of millions of his supporters by the actions of a couple hundred people on Capitol Hill,” said David Wallace, 66, of Pennsylvania.

Interestingly, even after the Capitol riots, 139 House of Representatives and eight Senate Republicans heeded Trump’s call not to acknowledge the Vinkikai College verdict, proven despite power challenges in court, which Biden defeated in November.

It is true that it is possible that the opinions of these Republican politicians will soon be replaced by a new reality, not only political but also financial. After all, several large American companies have already announced that they can no longer allocate funds to various Republican politicians, especially those who refused to confirm Biden’s victory.

This intention has been announced by Amazon, General Electric, Dow, AT&T, Comcast, Verizon Communications, American Express, Airbnb, Cisco Systems, Best Buy, Mastercard ”.

Large American corporations often distribute money widely in Washington, but now the postal giant Hallmark has already asked Senators Josh Hawley and Roger Marshall, who were reluctant to confirm Biden’s victory, to return financial support.

Of course, after the election, there is always a pause in American politics: there is nowhere to spend the money, so there is no need. But there appears to be an attempt to pressure Republicans.

The Dow has even announced that it will not allocate money to Republican lawmakers until the end of their term. Other companies are suspending funding or discontinuing support for both Republicans and Democrats, such as Ford, Microsoft and Facebook.

True, some analysts believe the boycott will not last long because corporations need access to MPs on Capitol Hill in immense terms, and the benefits outweigh the damage they can do to ties to politicians who are undermining democracy.

“It’s very easy to stop campaign funding two months after the election. The question is whether all of these gestures will survive,” says Nathaniel Persily, a professor of law at Stanford University.