Just because impeachment proceedings backfired on Republicans doesn't mean that it will

[Hortensis]

44. We shouldn't mistake media plays for more than they are.

By far most of the big stuff is happening out of our sight.

Right now, sure, impeachment has zero Republican senate support. Big surprise with 95% of their voters against impeachment? The Republicans are already fighting ferociously for control of the nation in 2020, no way they would cave at this point.

There's so much going on that we don't know about. We do know that a bunch of top Republicans took money from Russia legally (they wrote the law making it legal) Will this alone make them fight to the (nation's) death to protect Trump as a way to protect themselves, does it create opportunity for a deal they really can't afford to pass up, or...?

Link to tweet

The news about Butina made me think of this article from last summer. The press talk very little about the religious right in politics. They should, of course, but they're understandably afraid to take Big RW Religion on.

How the National Prayer Breakfast offers foreign lobbyists a chance to “pay to play”
Journalist and author Jeff Sharlet on the National Prayer Breakfast, Maria Butina, and the group that calls itself “the Family.”

The New York Times broke a story last week about the degree to which the National Prayer Breakfast has become a “pay to play” event. At the gathering, foreign dignitaries and lobbyists pay thousands of dollars for access to the event itself and — perhaps more importantly — the week of meetings and events surrounding the breakfast. According to the Times’ Kenneth P. Vogel and Elizabeth Dias, “the annual event has become an international influence-peddling bazaar, where foreign dignitaries, religious leaders, diplomats and lobbyists jockey for access to the highest reaches of American power.” ...

At the 2016 and 2017 breakfasts, Butina allegedly met with unnamed American officials and “very influential” Russians, and seems to have successfully attempted to broker meetings between figures in these groups.

As evidenced by the Times report, something more insidious than prayer has been understood to be taking place at the breakfast, says Jeffrey Sharlet, an associate professor of literary journalism at Dartmouth College.

In his 2009 book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, Sharlet chronicled the influence of a Christian organization known publicly as “the Fellowship” (and internally as “the Family”), the founders and administrators of the National Prayer Breakfast. The Family — of which Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are members — is an intensely powerful organization, whose specific vision of Jesus as the ideal “strongman” governs their political theology and who have found, in strongman-sympathetic President Trump, an ideal vessel for their beliefs. ...

Sharlet says the Family often uses the National Prayer Breakfast, and the events surrounding it, as a backdoor recruiting and diplomacy tool for between lobbyists and foreign governments that organizers feel share its “strongman” approach, without formal government oversight.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/18/17586516/jeff-sharlet-maria-butrina-national-prayer-breakfast-the-family