March 2019 poll: 35% support impeachment, 59% against. Edit: added new poll: 40%.

[TwilightZone]

Even though 64% of respondents think Trump committed a crime before taking office and 55% disapprove of his job performance.

58% said Congress should do more to investigate Trump post-Cohen.

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2603

It will be interesting to see how those numbers change in the coming couple of weeks.

Edit: new poll

40% for, including 67% of Democrats, poll released today, taken 4/18-4/19.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142305141

[Dan]

1. Old poll

And a poll should not determine whether or not Congress impeaches the president.

The Mueller report demonstrates that the actions that Trump has taken is about the rule of law.

If the Congress is not prepared to defend the rule of law; if the Congress is not prepared to protect the institutions of our nation; and if the Congress is not prepared to defend the Constitution - then what purpose does it serve?

If the Democratic Party in the House are only concerned about polls; worrying about the next election; maintaining their seat at the table - then we are no different than the GOP. A GOP Congress concerned only about avoiding a primary and willing to sacrifice the Constitution to maintain a seat.

My opinion.

[Cosmocat]

2. The senate will not convict

Not a chance.

None.

The House bringing up articles only to have the senate not find him guilty would be a BIG hit on dems.

[maxsolomon]

3. Lay out your logic. How will it hurt if the Senate is proven to be traitorous cowards?

Tell me what consequences the GOP suffered for Impeaching and failing to Convict WJC.

I'll give you a hint: none.

[Blecht]

15. Exactly

None of our Democratic leaders are spouting this nonsense.

What they've said has been misinterpreted or intentionally misrepresented by many, mostly Republicans and other pundits out to "help" us from hurting ourselves politically.

Anything our leaders have said was always qualified with "at this time..." or something similar. And this was before any of them have had the chance to read and digest the heavily redacted report.

I happen to like the way things have played out over the past 24 hours.

[Cosmocat]

16. Proving my point

Ds and Rs get treated differently:

See, a morally corrupt psychopath getting elected POTUS over a decent, highly competent public servant.

See, Rs losing the minds over democrats passing THEIR version of healthy care reform, and winning the biggest mid term victory in mid term history for doing it.

Ds bring up articles of impeachment and the senate does not convict, or McConnell does not even bring it up, and 45 and the republicans will scream that proves it was political, and Ds would take the hit for it.

Because, that is how this country rolls ...

[maxsolomon]

19. Cynical conjecture.

Can McConnell actually ignore an Impeachment trial?

[TwilightZone]

20. He could (and would) certainly try.

Here's a good synopsis of the rules, etc., and how McConnell could decide to circumvent them.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-senate-decline-try-impeachment-case

[marylandblue]

5. In other words, we should impeach this President even if it costs us control of the House and,

gets him re-elected, thereby proving Congress actually is totally useless, popular opinion doesn't count and it results in a dictatorship by a narcissistic idiot with dementia?

[maxsolomon]

11. how will it do that?

as I've noted previously, the GOP did the same thing to WJC and won the WH and Congress.

[marylandblue]

12. And as I've noted previously, this is not 1998 and Trump isn't Clinton

There is no American historical precedent for our situation so quit trying to look for it. We are in a situation where almost the entire Republican Party and a large percentage of the American people live in a totally different reality where no evidence of wrongdoing is likely to reach them. When this happens in other countries, it leads to authoritarianism. Based on books like "What is Populism" and "How Democracies Die" the institutions we rely.on to protect us stop functioning and direct assaults like impeachment are often ineffective.

I'm not totally against impeachment at this point, but we really need to be aware of where the real danger is and deal with that. The danger is in our fellow citizens and the Republican Party who will continue down the authoritarian path with or without Trump.

[maxsolomon]

13. Of course there's risk.

There's also opportunity.

Trump is LESS POPULAR than Clinton.

Trump deserves that stain on his Presidency, conviction or not. The GOP Senate deserves that stain on their legacy as well.

[Dan]

14. YES,

Sometimes there is a cost to doing the right thing.

If doing the right thing cost us the House, then so be it.

Doing nothing is a greater harm.

[marylandblue]

17. I mentioned more than just losing the House.

If we lose the House, we lose the country. And we are not doing nothing. But what to do in this situation is really not that obvious. I find people who are ra-ra for impeachment no matter what the consequence thing that real problem is Trump. He is not our real problem, he is a symptom of something much more dangerous and insidious, that will continue no matter when or how he leaves office.

The fact that so many people are so focused on Trump that they can't even see it is itself disturbing. But not unusual.

[Dan]

18. I understand what you are saying

And I always come back to my original post - somethings are more important than the narrow ‘win, win’.

Smile

[marylandblue]

21. If you think I'm talking about a "narrow win-win" then you don't understand what I am saying. nt

[Dan]

22. Sorry,

What I should have said or started with was.....”...but”.

[triron]

6. Lucky congress didn't use that criteria during the Nixon years.

[TwilightZone]

8. "a poll should not determine whether or not Congress impeaches the president"

I agree that it shouldn't, but it was a driving force in Nixon's case. There wasn't enough support on the R side until Nixon's ratings tanked and they were afraid he was going to take them down with him.

It's unlikely there will be a repeat in Trump's case. The Rs are all in for the duration.

My point is that public support for impeachment isn't the solid factor that many would like to believe. The argument being made is that we will undoubtedly lose support unless we impeach and that the vast majority are in favor. There's no evidence of that, thus far, though as I noted, it could certainly change. We'll know shortly.

[TheRealNorth]

23. If you don't impeach

Then you can forget using obstruction of justice as a campaign talking point. Furthermore, you are going to be cornered into saying either Trump didn't commit a crime, you don't know, or that you didn't think his obstruction warranted impeachment. Because, what are you going to say - yes Trump committed a crime but we let him get away with it because we fought it was politically expedient?

Rather than wasting energy debating whether to impeach it, we should be using that energy on how we are going to sell it.

[uponit7771]

4. Why post a poll from more than a month ago? Also, so what if Senate wont convict or remove? tia

... please don't start with the debunked Clinton false equivalency

[TwilightZone]

7. Newer polls.

March 20th: 36%. Democrats at only 68%.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/20/politics/cnn-poll-impeachment-trump-russia/index.html

March 30th: 16%, with 33% saying Congress should investigate further before deciding.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/30/special-counsel-mueller-russia-probe-findings-have-little-impact-on-views-of-trump-nbc-newswsj-poll.html

My point was that the claims that many are making that an overwhelming majority of Americans support impeachment are false. It's a common talking point here, but so far, it's not true. That could certainly change - we'll know in the next couple of weeks.

[snpsmom]

9. 40% for / 42% against as of today

[link:https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142305141|

[TwilightZone]

10. Yep, just saw that. Thanks.

It's been between 35-40% for a while now. The next few polls will be interesting.