Last week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would launch a formal impeachment inquiry in response to allegations that President Trump pressured Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden’s son in what appears to be an attempt to influence the 2020 election. Whether Hunter Biden’s behavior was ethically dubious is a fair question (it was) or if President Trump’s actions were an abuse of power (they were) is a discussion for a different day. Yesterday according to most whip counts, the House has the votes to impeach the President of the United States and it looks like they will. So, what might come next?

1. The House votes to impeach and Majority Leader McConnell refuses to hold a trial in the senate.
   • As of the writing, there are reportedly 221 members of the House who are prepared to vote for impeachment which is a couple votes more than the majority that the constitution requires. The transcript and the whistleblower report don’t look good for the President. In fact, everything looks very bad and probably worse than the Mueller report because these new documents actually make a value judgement about the President’s behavior. We should not be shocked if the House votes to impeach because this is likely as close to a smoking gun that Congress is going to get. This charge is particularly damaging because we already litigated this issue and we already decided that foreign election interference is bad. It would still be a historic move for the House to vote to impeach the President, it’s only happened once every century, but this kind of corruption is historic. But of course, that’s not the end of the impeachment process, the Senate also plays a role and they are meant to hold a trial. If these were normal times then we’d expect it to happen without question, but after Majority Leader McConnell held the Supreme Court hostage in 2016 then we really have no reason to expect McConnell to respect constitutional norms. Although McConnell has said that he will follow Senate rules if impeachment makes its way to the Senate, trusting Mitch McConnell has never been a well-reasoned decision. It’s easy to imagine McConnell just refusing to hold a trial but it’s unclear if that would actually be beneficial to Republicans. President Trump would not be able to claim he had been acquitted because he literally wouldn’t be, he’d just be in some state of impeachment limbo. Furthermore, impeachment is polling a lot better than it was a few weeks ago and the imagery of Republicans refusing to even acknowledge their constitutional duty probably wouldn’t play well with voters. That doesn’t mean it still won’t happen, McConnell has continued to gamble with the constitution, and he continues to win so maybe he can win again.
2. The House fails to impeach because some moderates change their votes
   • It took around 80 days for the House to decide to launch an impeachment inquiry to actually voting for Impeachment in 1998. If we assume that we’re looking at a similar timeframe for President Trump, then we should expect a vote sometime in December. A lot could happen between now and then and given the chickenshit like nature of some Democrats I don’t have too much confidence in our caucus. I’m especially concerned about the New Democrat Coalition, which is made up of moderates, centrists, and your assorted third-way types. Many of these members come from purple districts and are rightly concerned with their electoral prospects. As a very likely hypothetical, let’s say that by December Elizabeth Warren is leading in the polls in the Democratic primary and is followed by Bernie Sanders while Joe Biden has slipped to a distant third. What is going to go through the minds of members like Sharice Davids of Kansas or Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey or any of the newly elected Orange County Democrats? Many of them have made clear that they’d rather Biden were the nominee. Will they feel like they’ll be able to run as a moderate with a progressive or a leftist at the top of the ticket and vote for impeachment? I think it’s an open question.
3. The House votes to impeach and the Senate acquits the President without Republican defections
   • Maybe the Democrats will impeach the President. It’s been a long time coming and we’ve probably crossed the Rubicon on impeachment. The evidence against the President is pretty damning and the timeline of events shows a pattern of corruption that is hard to ignore. Well actually it may be very easy to ignore if you’re a Republican senator and live in a perpetual state of fear because of your constituents cult like devotion to the President. Donald Trump has an approval rating among Republicans that is probably in the high 80s which means something. The President in the past has successfully rallied his supporters to oust incumbent members of Congress and there are a number of elected officials who if not for Donald Trump would not be in Washington. Also relevant is that the GOP lacks any ideological mooring and seems to exist solely for promoting the interests of corporations, Christians, and caucasians. This has produced some senators who are genuinely from the Republican base and are not rational actors and may actually believe that the President is acting in good faith. Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, and Cindy Hyde-Smith come to mind but there are certainly others. Then of course there are the so-called “profile in courage” Republicans that liberals love. I’m talking about Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rob Portman. These are the Republicans who are always “deeply concerned” about the President’s behavior and are “reluctantly” voting for some evil multi-billion-dollar legislation to torture immigrant children. They’ll go on MSNBC, they’ll furrow their brows, and they may even cobble together a joint editorial and send it to the Washington Post. Then they’ll vote not to convict because they are cowards.
4. The House votes to impeach and the Senate acquits the President with several Republican defections
   • We’ve established that the Democrats are going to impeach the President and that Republicans are cowards. However, this time may actually be different because there are a lot of Senators who are still waiting to go on the record and haven’t instinctively jumped to Trump’s defense. Of course sycophants like Josh Hawley have but his senior counterpart Roy Blunt has not. That’s notable because for several reasons. First, Blunt was only narrowly re-elected in 2016 (underperforming Trump by 15.7 points) and likely would’ve lost if not for Trump’s landslide victory in Missouri. Second, Blunt played an integral role during the 2017 inauguration and commenced the ceremony. Finally, Blunt is the number four Republican on the Senate Leadership team. If anyone was going to defend Trump immediately it was going to be Blunt, yet he’s still “waiting and seeing”. If Blunt is a barometer for other Republicans, then maybe we can expect some Republicans to actually vote for impeachment which isn’t to say that Blunt won’t in the end vote to acquit. There are a lot of Republicans who have made clear their distaste for the President and although the votes to remove him from office likely aren’t there (Joe Manchin and Doug Jones are Democrats who might vote to acquit), we may still be looking at as many as a dozen Republican defections. If I had to guess who might vote to impeach, I’d look at retiring senators and Bush Republicans like Lamar Alexander (retiring), Pat Roberts (retiring), Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Lisa Murkowski.
5. The President is impeached and removed from office
   • This is the least likely outcome. I would sooner expect an Andrew Yang nomination than a Trump conviction. But it could happen, we may still be missing a piece of the puzzle. Donald Rumsfeld famously said “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know”. There is almost certainly an unknown unknown out there and it could be one that is so repugnant and disturbing to the conscious of the nation that Republicans will literally have no choice but to impeach. I was tempted to lay out an addendum to this scenario because perhaps the Republicans could convince the President to resign in a similar fashion to what happened to Nixon. But we know Donald Trump and we know in our heart of hearts that he is not going to resign. Unlike other politicians who can be compelled to act by fear or shame or threat to their future in the party, Trump exists outside of conventional norms and he knows it. Trump has captured the racist zeitgeist and will have millions of followers no matter what happens next and that’s enough for him. The only way the President is leaving the White House is through impeachment or at the end of his term, whether that’s 2021 or 2025. There may come a point when Republicans begin to ask themselves, “Is this worth it? Could we achieve the same ends with Mike Pence?” and then the President will be in trouble.

There’s also a number of wild card scenarios that we should be prepared for because the moment we’re in is very fluid and it’s hard to predict anything anymore.

1. Clarence Thomas resigns or some other Supreme Court Vacancy
   • It’s probably time we stopped pretending that the Supreme Court isn’t partisan. It is. We don’t select justices based on merit, we select them based on reading their rulings, so we understand their judicial philosophy and ideology. There’s a reason that liberal and conservative groups create lists of preferred nominees, it’s because they know where they stand on the issues. The Supreme Court is a broken institution and it can be manipulated for partisan purposes. Enter Clarence Thomas, who has a very conservative world view and witnessed first-hand the kind of mobilizing force a Supreme Court vacancy can have on an election (see 2016 and to a lesser extent 2018). Clarence Thomas has served on the Court for nearly 30 years and hasn’t exactly hidden his conservative leanings, his wife Virginia worked for the Heritage foundation and currently contributes to Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller. He may just decide to announce his resignation at the end of the 2020 SCOTUS term and that would probably be enough for Republicans to circle the horses around President Trump. If the worst should happen, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Stephen Breyer (or both) should die, then we’d be faced with a more significant realignment of the Supreme Court that actually would likely mean the realization of many conservative goals like outlawing abortion and same-sex marriage. That would almost certainly mean either impeachment would be completely abandoned by Democrats or Republicans would engage in some historically ugly campaigning.
2. President Trump Resigns from Office and then continues to run for re-election

• • Donald Trump did not win the Republican nomination because he had institutional support from the party. He won in spite of it because he was what Republican voters wanted, an anti-establishment figure who was willing to be unorthodox and dress down an elite that they loathe. If he needed to, he could probably do it again and if impeachment looks likely then that’d probably be a viable path forward. Would Mike Pence be willing to lead a caretaker government while Trump campaigned for President? He might have to because his choices are pretty limited. Would Pence defeat Trump in a Republican primary? Doubtful because even with the unlimited resources of the RNC, Trump is still Trump (ask Jeb how far $140 million will get you). Does Pence want a future in Republican politics? Probably, and he’s tied his fortunes to Trump and needs to stay in his good graces and for Trump to remain popular. That’s the thing about Faustian bargains, the Devil always gets the better end of the deal. Trump may well reason that he’d have a better chance of staying in power by giving it up. Trump appreciates a good story and the populist president who promised change is stymied by the Washington Establishment and is running an insurgent campaign on behalf of the people…that’s pretty good.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but we shouldn’t be surprised if it’s something we don’t expect. I wouldn’t hold my breath for the more outlandish scenarios that involve “President Pelosi” or “Hillary Clinton 3.0” but there’s a lot that could happen in the coming days and weeks. The President probably abused his office and attempted to have a foreign power influence our elections. That’s serious not just for President Trump but for our democracy. It’s time to see the full extent of the Article One powers in the Constitution.

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Nancy Pelosi has done what no other Democrat has seemed to be able to do. She has befuddled Donald Trump, gotten under his skin, and essentially made him impotent in her presence. Is she using Kryptonite?

For a number of reasons, Pelosi is not going to run for the Democratic nomination for President in 2020. Tops among them may be that she is too valuable where she is as Speaker of the House.

In three words, here is why the Democrats need a presidential nominee who can get under the skin of not only Donald Trump, but also Mitch McConnell and other Republican congressional leaders: Carter, Clinton, Obama. None of the last three Democratic presidents have been able to master Congress, even at times when there were Democratic majorities in both houses. There used to be this breed of Democrats called “Blue Dogs” who were a lot like Republicans. Between them and those who were also Republicans-in-name, there wasn’t been much budging that could be done by Democratic presidents. So, when it comes to legislation, Carter, Clinton and Obama were essentially not successful.

No matter how good each of these men were at talking about a progressive agenda, none had much success when it came to passing meaningful and sustainable legislation. If we want to see that in a Democratic president, we need to go back to Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, and before him, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s and 1940s.

Presently, there are twenty-three announced major Democratic candidates for president in 2020. There has been no lack of punditry handicapping the race. Generally, each Democratic voter is told that he or she has a binary choice to make. Does he/she want (a) a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump, or (b) a candidate who most closely aligns with one’s political philosophy.

But suppose that whoever is selected has the legislative power and finesse of a Carter, Clinton or Obama as opposed to an FDR or LBJ? Then the Democrats could win the 2020 election and once again have a Republican leader like Mitch McConnell say that he wants the new Democratic president to be a one-term president and he would do everything in his power to make that happen.

Considering that possibility, it becomes more and more imperative that Democrats nominate a man or woman who comes closest to Nancy Pelosi in neutralizing Republicans like Trump or McConnell. Democrats need a candidate who carries an ounce of kryptonite wherever he/she goes and sprinkles it in the vicinity of any Republican who is unreasonably obstinate and counterproductive.

It will not be that simple, but the Democrats need a president who can irritate the hell out of Republican leaders, just the way that Pelosi does to Trump. Such a candidate will likely have the best chance of unrattling Trump during the campaign and perhaps showing to his supporters that the emperor is missing some of his clothes. In a conventional sense, Hillary Clinton was an outstanding debater in 2016, but she never rattled Trump the way Pelosi has. The Dems have to nominate someone who can do that and more.

If that feisty candidate would win, then he or she would have important leverage in dealing with Republicans in Congress. To progressive America, other than Trump, there are few fools as nasty as Mitch McConnell.  The new president will have to shine a light on McConnell that lets others see what a literal and figurative dirty old man he is. He is like Dr. No out of a James Bond thriller.

So, the question remains, who among the current twenty-three may have the special skill to throw Trump, McConnell and other Republicans off their game.

Just to get the conversation going, I’ll suggest someone who others might disagree with, even mock. Elizabeth Warren. In her mild and even meek way, she seems to be fearless. She is quick with comebacks. She can take a punch. She is not a bully, but a very good counterpuncher. In her own way, she’s about as close to middle America as any of the other candidates. She just may have the magic touch.

Just a thought; we have time.

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We all know that Donald Trump neither wrote “The Art of the Deal” nor has much of an idea about how to really negotiate. He may know how to bully, but that won’t work when dealing with strong Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

In the current government shutdown standoff, Pelosi seems to be taking the position that Trump and other Republicans must fully concede, and then the Democrats will join Trump and others on negotiations about a “wall” and other immigration-related issues.

Democrats have traditionally been willing to negotiate, recognizing that to gain something you have to give something. You may not want to give anything away, but it is generally the price of reaching an agreement. In the case of negotiating with Donald Trump, it’s possible that they would have to give very little because (a) he is rarely locked into positions, and (b) he is becoming more and more desperate as his popularity falls, now down to 40% and sliding precipitously.

It can be very difficult to make Donald Trump look good to reasonable people, but Nancy Pelosi may be trying to do so. If she portrays the Democrats as the party of intransigence and inflexibility, she is giving Trump a gift that he neither deserves nor could ever earn. Rather than locking herself in a position of “no negotiations until ….,” she could offer something to Trump, just to put negotiations in motion. Suppose that she offered the following:

1. Two billion dollars for a wall, with the proviso that it be made entirely out of recyclable materials.
2. An Immediate re-opening of all government agencies, based on bills passed by the House in 2019 and the Senate in 2018.
3. An agreement to work on comprehensive immigration reform in 2019, with commitments by Senate Majority Leader and Pelosi to permit up-or-down votes in their respective chambers on all provisions of the proposed changes.

Trump may not agree to this, but he would be put on the defensive and it would clearly give her the high ground. He has a weak position to defend and that might wear and tear on him. If he doesn’t budge, what is the big deal of Pelosi changes her sweetener from two billion to three billion, and in return she gets something meaningful in return such as a start to an infrastructure deal.

There are many directions in which to go, but Pelosi is making it seems as though she is locked into only one. She is far wise and savvier than I am about the internal politics of Congress, but that does not mean that she can’t have a brain cramp at a particular moment.

Here’s hoping that she gives peace, er negotiations, a chance.

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When 28-year-old, first-time, Latina candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pulled off a stunning primary upset against 10-term Democrat Joe Crowley in New York, it was cause for celebration. At least that’s how I saw it. But, apparently, I had a different reaction than that of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill.

Pelosi downgraded Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise victory calling it a random outlier and saying, “It should not be viewed as something that stands for everything.” And McCaskill, asked what she had in common with Ocasio-Cortez, said, “Not much.”

I view these dismissals of Ocasio-Cortez as both offensive and counter-productive. I can’t understand why leaders of the Democratic party aren’t celebrating the success of a candidate who is doing precisely what the Democratic party should be encouraging: coming off the sidelines, getting engaged in politics, putting herself on the line for progressive ideas—and representing the exact demographic that the party needs to move forward and to regain its mojo.

Well, actually, I think I do understand why Pelosi and McCaskill are distancing themselves from Ocasio-Cortez, but the reasons aren’t  pretty. It’s all about the internal politics of the Democratic establishment. Ocasio-Cortez knocked off a big name, a party insider who was on the short list to replace Pelosi as House Minority Leader [or possibly majority leader, if the blue wave actually hits in November]. The party elite had a succession plan—it was Crowley’s “turn”—and now Ocasio-Cortez has messed up the pre-determined order of things. That’s a no-no.

I’m afraid, too, that Ocasio-Cortez also carries with her—in the narrow view of the Democratic party apparatus—the “taint” of being an organizer in Bernie Sanders’ bid for the Democratic nomination in 2016. His candidacy was viewed by the party power elite as an insurgency, an assault on democratic centrist orthodoxy, and a threat to the prescribed order of things, in which the presidential nomination rightfully belonged to Hillary Clinton. They’re still mad about that, apparently, even though Sanders’ ideas remain popular–as demonstrated by Ocasio-Cortez, who describes herself as a Democratic Socialist, like Sanders. So, while America retreats into the 19^th Century on social and economic issues under Donald Trump, the Democratic party seems to be re-litigating its 2016 internal battle between Bernie-ites and Clinton-ites—and taking it out on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

As the party of Trump increasingly moves to the right, espousing radical, retrograde ideas that were once too extreme to talk about in public, it’s clear to me that the Democratic party must offer a choice as the party of the progressive ideas that have made life in America better for a wide range of people. They should be standing up for the New Deal ideas that Republicans, in their current orgy or power, are assiduously tearing down, day by day, one by one.

Democrats are not going to win by pandering to the right—as McCaskill did in her dismissive comment delivered on a conservative, St. Louis-based talk show. [Question: Would she have said the same thing on MSNBC?] Hasn’t the Democratic party learned that we can’t out-Republican the Republicans?  Democrats need to go left, as Ocasio-Cortez did—and won doing it. Instead of putting Ocasio-Cortez down and downgrading as a “fluke” a victory that should be seen as an energizing event, they should be asking her for advice.

Pelosi, McCaskill and other higher-ups in the party hierarchy are wishing for blue wave in November. They’re desperate to find strategies that will increase voter turnout, especially among younger voters. So, here’s a candidate who has the potential to do exactly that,  who may be a role model for others, and whose improbable victory could offer an object lesson in the perils of complacency. Dissing her is just plain dumb.

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Progressives are all too familiar with Barack Obama’s desire, upon assuming the presidency, to want to work collaboratively with Congress. Indeed, he did have some successes with the 111th Congress (2009-2010).

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a victory, at least half a loaf. An economic stimulus package was passed, although most progressives wish that it had been for a greater amount or that there had been a follow-up to the 2009 one.

But as time went on, it was clear that the President was not in a position to effectively work with  Congress. Even in 2009-2010, when Democrats almost had a veto-proof Senate as well as control of the House, Republicans were successful at thwarting most of the President’s policies. Between their forcefulness and the president’s timidity and continuous backing away from previously strong positions, he lost the ability to legislate with Congress.

The current Congress has defined gridlock. Not only has the Republican-controlled House voted against virtually every piece of legislation that the President has supported, they have openly stated that their primary legislative goal is to undermine the President so that they can defeat him in the 2012 presidential election. That strategy actually was first stated in the Senate, where  Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stated several years ago that his view towards legislation would be dictated by what would be most effective in allowing the Republicans to win the 2012 presidential race.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi may have more political acumen than anyone in either chamber. Additionally, she supports a progressive agenda. With a lock-step Republican majority in the House, she fully understands that no legislation that either she or the president strongly support will pass the House. So her advice to the President: run against Congress.

She stated this on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, January 8. Host Candy Crowley was somewhat taken aback by  Pelosi’s words.  Pelosi clearly repeated that it is her feeling that, because this Congress has been so ineffective and obstinate, Obama’s campaign strategy should be to counter the grid-locked Congress. Congress is not gridlocked because of her; it’s because Republicans have openly stated that they would rather defeat President Obama than do the business of the country.

It’s hard to know of anyone who has more credibility about how President Obama should conduct business with Congress than Pelosi. In the 111th Congress, when she was Speaker of the House and Barack Obama was president, she was able to steer through the House virtually every significant piece of legislation that the President proposed. She not only had to deal with the Republican minority, but also with the Blue Dog Democrats, who purportedly preferred fiscal discipline over progressive reforms. The Blue Dogs did cause her frustration, particularly Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), who was largely successful in forming a coalition between Blue Dogs and Republicans to remove all direct and indirect references to abortion in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But Pelosi was able to steer a meaningful bill through the House, even though the President had backed off numerous essential progressive components of the original legislation, most particularly the public option. Additionally, she had to overcome the direct sabotaging of the bill that came elsewhere from the White House, specifically from then chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel.

One of the “what-ifs” of the difficulties that President Obama had in dealing with the 111th Congress was if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had been as savvy as  Pelosi. Reid was  captured by absurd requests for pork from many of his fellow Democrats. Among them were Ben Nelson, (D-NE)’s “Cornhusker Kickback” and Mary Landrieu (D-LA)’s “Louisiana Purchase.”

If Reid had been as strategic as Pelosi and possessed her the negotiating skills, it’s quite possible that President Obama would have had more confidence in Congress, would have recognized at an earlier time that time spent negotiating with Republicans was time wasted, and would have successfully steered more progressive legislation through Congress. With a clear message and record, Democrats might have stood proudly by a progressive agenda in 2010 and not been steamrolled by the Republicans in the Congressional elections.

It’s still open-season on President Obama by both the Congress and the GOP’s presidential candidates. Following his victory in the New Hampshire primary, Mitt Romney denigrated virtually everything that President Obama has done over the past three years. Humorist Andy Borowitz facetiously mocked Romney by stating, “In a rousing victory speech in New Hampshire last night, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney vowed to undo everything Barack Obama has done as President, promising his supporters, “I will make Osama bin Laden alive again.”

Nancy Pelosi has been a frequent target of Republicans because she is a threat to them. She knows how the political system works, and she is committed to advancing the needs of lower and middle income people.

When Pelosi said that President Obama should run against Congress, she was not being flip. Regrettably, President Obama has sought advice from numerous Democrats who have not been helpful to him. There are even accusations in Ron Suskind’s recent book, Confidence Men, that President Obama has not given equal respect in the White House to women and men. Listening to Nancy Pelosi could be the key to his winning a second term.

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