MSNBC Pushing the LIE That Rs Suffered in Elections After Impeaching Clinton

[stopbush]

Saying that Pelosi and others look at what happened to Rs and are convinced they will lose the House in 2020 if they impeach tRump.

Wrong!

See here: https://psmag.com/ideas/impeachment-will-help-republicans-and-other-myths

[uponit7771]

1. K&R, "suffered" means Republicans won the house and senate by a little less than expected. That's...

... flat earth logic.

Also, Clinton was relatively popular with republicans in 98 so republicans attacking him didn't sit well. On the other hand Red Don is less popular than syphilis with democrats right now.

There are few if any cogent ... POLITICAL ... reasons against voting for impeachment

[renate]

2. It's completely different

Impeaching someone for lying under oath about a consensual affair is not the same as impeaching someone for obstruction of justice.

I’m not saying that what Clinton did was perfectly fine, but he didn’t use the power of his office to break the law... he just broke the law in regard to a personal situation that wasn’t a matter of national security.

[Hortensis]

6. Right. VERY different situations. The entire nation

except for cultist-level believers knew the Clinton impeachment was a bogus, malicious attempt to take down a popularly elected president without cause. A failed one, and Republicans were among those who punished the Republican Party for it.

Between that major loss to the party and personal corruption and ethics charges, Speaker Newtie effectively self-destructed -- as so many sociopaths (and he's believed to meet many criteria) do.
He resigned as speaker and then ended up having to resign from congress, and has been a grifter selling fake cancer cures etc ever since.

The only similarity in these situations is the word "impeachment."

[spooky3]

3. Once again: no Dems have said this. It's the pundits once again

trying to appear as though they are insightful, but are being irresponsible.

[dalton99a]

4. +1

[NewJeffCT]

5. Stephen Lynch

Democrat from Massachusetts

"With President Clinton, the impeachment proceedings became a proxy for the election," Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts told CNN's Dana Bash on Monday. "Clinton's popularity went up."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/23/politics/donald-trump-impeachment-nancy-pelosi-democrats-bill-clinton/index.html


I thought I remembered a sound bite where Pelosi herself said similar

[spooky3]

7. Thanks. Yes, several have said that Clinton's popularity

Increased, but that’s not quite the same.

My primary concern is that this is NOT the reason why the Dem leadership is taking the approach that it is, and that they are being mislabeled as without principle, too concerned about elections, etc., when I have NOT heard Dems saying this. What I HAVE heard, and what seems obvious to me, is that because the Senate will not vote to convict, a different path must be taken to accomplish the objective of holding Trump accountable. (Jamie Raskin said something like this on LOD last night).

[NewJeffCT]

9. The problem with that is

it's not true - his popularity was 63-66% before any sort of impeachment hearings.

The impeachment vote was in December 1998 and it also followed a 4 day bombing campaign in Iraq that was extremely popular.

He was at 73%, but was back down to mid 60s soon.

After he was acquitted, he went up to 68% immediately, but within 30 days was down to 62%, which is below where he was for the last half of 1998... then, by April 1999, he was down below 60% and was never above 60% for the entire rest of 1999.

So, while there were immediate week-long bumps in popularity, it was net negative for Clinton and Democrats.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. Nobody knows for sure how it would play out

The counter example I keep hearing is that Republicans stuck by Nixon until impeachment hearings were underway in the House and those eventually encouraged most Republicans to abandon him and press for his resignation. Of course, this was back in the 1970's when Republicans weren't quite so ideological and monolithic as they are today but it's possible that enough Republicans might abandon ship as hearings go on. But I don't think we should launch impeachment proceedings based on what we *think* might happen with the Senate. If the House conducts Impeachment Hearings and votes to impeach Trump, they've done their job and then the Senate will have to do it's job and the chips will just fall where they may.