Impeachment Hurt Somebody. It Wasn't Trump.

[flamingdem]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/impeachment-gave-trump-exactly-what-he-wanted/606172/

Another ratfucking..

The impeachment struggle is now over. Historians may one day vindicate Democrats for exposing Donald Trump’s abuse of power. But as of now, they have lost. Not only will Trump remain president, and not only does he appear stronger politically than before the impeachment battle began, but he has succeeded in doing precisely what he wanted in the first place: He tarred Joe Biden, who last year looked like Trump’s most formidable Democratic rival, with the kind of vague suspicion of wrongdoing that presidential candidates can’t easily shake.

When Trump called Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, he was trying to pressure the Ukrainian president into investigating Biden. Biden’s son Hunter had served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company. Trump saw an opportunity to create an aura of corruption around the former vice president and threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky announced an investigation. Whether the investigation occurred or not was immaterial; Trump just wanted the announcement. But when a U.S. government staffer exposed the call, Trump was forced to release the aid—and the impeachment drive began.

Yet, ironically, the impeachment effort and the Republican counterattack against it have largely accomplished Trump’s goal. By keeping Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine in the news, they have turned them into a rough analogue to Hillary Clinton’s missing emails in 2016—a pseudo-scandal that undermines a leading Democratic candidate’s reputation for honesty. The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee last fall launched a $10 million advertising blitz aimed at convincing Americans that Joe Biden’s behavior toward Ukraine was corrupt. After Trump’s lawyers devoted much of their energy in the Senate impeachment trial to demanding that Biden be investigated for corruption, Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming crowed that the attacks would be politically “harmful” to the former vice president “in November if he’s the nominee and I think even in terms of getting the nomination.”

Barrasso was right. Although Trump and his allies have proved no wrongdoing, the Ukraine story, according to an October Investor’s Business Daily poll, made 23 percent of Americans less likely to vote for Biden, and only 8 percent more likely to vote for him. A Hill-HarrisX poll that same month found that 54 percent of independents—and even 40 percent of Democrats—considered “Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine an important campaign issue that should be discussed.”

[mahina]

1. It sure did hurt Trump and the rest of them too.

[at140]

2. Rec'd and recommended..eom

[Mister Ed]

3. Premise is that impeachment helped Trump to tar Biden.

Hmmm. Imagine how much worse would be the tarring of Biden if if Trump had free rein, unhindered by impeachment.

[ismnotwasm]

5. Exactly

He got pulled up a bit. He was never going to be convicted.

[BusyBeingBest]

4. The framing of impeachment as a political maneuver that yields wins and losses

instead of what it REALLY is--a necessary act to uphold our constitution and government-- is so fucking corrosive. I hate when journalists do this.

[stopdiggin]

8. maybe, but ...

You don't think there are millions (both in and out of the halls of congress) that are employing exactly these thoughts and metrics? It IS about politics .. and power. And there WILL be real life consequences.

(I'm not seeing where "the media" is to blame for "framing" this in such a light .. when everyone else is seeing, and saying, the same.)

[BusyBeingBest]

9. Republicans politicized impeachment with Clinton.

Since then Democrats (at least leadership/Pelosi) have had an almost knee-jerk aversion to it, because they were so loathe to appear to be using it as a convenient political tool, instead of a grave but necessary process. It really took a lot of blatant misdeeds to get Democrats to the point of impeachment, and it's unthinkable that we would have turned a blind eye to what Trump has been doing. I know what you're saying, that it's kind of unavoidable to do some score keeping afterward, but I still bristle at the obvious win-lose angle.

[stopdiggin]

11. I agree with essentially everything you said

The Democrats HAD to do it .. as Pelosi said, "forced our hand." But everyone was aware from the very beginning that there was a political calculation involved as well. Sadly.

[h2ebits]

10. Thank you!!!

I am getting tired of the BS from the media with its 24/7 talking points and repetition of garbage and, of course, Trump's lies and those of his GOP cronies, fellow thieves, and con men.

It is truly sad and it makes me angry that the media, and it is basically all of it, has chosen to frame ALL issues as Team Republican or Team Democrat. What we are seeing is the good old boys network at full throttle where, if you are not with them you are against them; and clearly not a team player.

I choose to be on Team People of the USA and I want my government to re-emerge as upholding the rule of law and our Constitution.

We, as a nation, are in a dark place right now and the media is complicit in both words and deeds.

[oasis]

12. +1 million, billion.

[BusyBeingBest]

13. Agreed--dark times, and for the most part we don't have

media that are capable of any other framing besides whose team is up and whose team is down this week. That's all that seems to filter down to average people, anyway.

[Jarqui]

6. No surprise with those findings

But they're distressing and disgraceful.

Ignoring further back in time, the Republican smear machine has mortally damaged Kerry & Clinton and now appear to have knee capped Biden with false BS.

The media should expose this but they don't - not nearly enough.

I am pleased my favorite candidate is doing well but I'm troubled that some of it may come at the expense of smearing a very good man: Joe Biden, who I would be proud to support should he prevail.

[rockfordfile]

7. That's some of the stupidest crap I've read

Impeachment put a big red target on the corruption of trump and the gop Senators. Nobody really believed that trump was going to be removed by a corrupt GOP Senate?

For the poster, you're a Biden supporter but you posted a hit piece on Biden? why?

[Thomas Hurt]

14. He was never going to be convicted.

It has always been a trade off between exposing Trump's bad acts versus making the amoral pig a martyr.