The Democrats Game Plan for Impeachment and 2020 Election

A lot of people are wondering what the Democrats are doing.  The GOP clearly is still supporting President Trump and in order to remove the President, 20, yes, 20, out of 53 Republican Senators (more than one third) have to vote against him.

That is not going to happen.  Not unless a real surprise comes forth.  Maybe if  Rudy or Mulvaney or someone similar turns on Trump, admitting their crimes.

So why are the Democrats doing this?   To take the Senate back.

There is more then enough evidence to convict President Trump of multiple crimes - not just extorting/bribing (a technical legal distinction, and both require what is known as 'quid pro quo') the Ukrainians into an investigation of Biden's son.

Worse, most of the population has already realized this.   Look at polls based on impeachment (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/)

But don't look at the Democrats, they don't matter.  Nor do the Republicans matter.  What matters are the Independents.   Honestly, even they don't matter - not unless they are in the swing states. It doesn't matter what the people in Utah and California think, their states are solidly behind one party.

But there are 18 Senate seats up for election in swing states.(https://www.270towin.com/2020-senate-election/)

Twelve of those seats are currently held by a Republican.  Two of them are not running for re-election.  They are retiring, most probably because they have too much honor and ethics to stay in Donald Trump's Republican party.

If the ten that are running again vote to remove Trump from office, that would piss off their base.   They likely will lose without their base and still not be enough to remove Trump.  If they vote not to remove Trump it will piss of the majority of independents and 'crossover' democrats (People that vote for a Democrat for President but vote Republican in local elections.)   Once forced to vote, they are in a no-win situation.

They will have a much harder time staying in office this November.  If (as I suspect) we do not remove Trump from office, this will create enough outrage to help keep those six Democratic Senators in Swing States in office.  Which will push the independents to vote democratic.  Yes it will enliven both bases, but they cancel each other out.

Which means of the 45 Democrat Senators + 2 Independents vs 53 Republican Senators could become 55 Democrats + 2 Independents vs 43 Republican Senators.

Some people are saying a failed Impeachment helps the President's part, mainly because they looked at Clinton.  But That was a failed impeachment on sex, something most Americans dismissed as purely a partisan attack.  While the GOP has pushed hard on this idea, that does not mean they have convinced the country.  Yes, their base believes it, but that does not matter.  What matters is have they convinced the independents and the crossover Democrats that it was a partisan attack.

Their arguments have been really bad, so I believe they have failed to do this.  They  tried Cohn/Trump's tactics of deny, deny, then ADMIT but claim it is not wrong.   That works with the base, not the country as a whole.  Which means this failed impeachment will help Democrats, not the GOP.

Yeah, the GOP will likely win some of the swing seats.  We may not get it all, but I bet the DNC ends up with at least 51 Democrats in the Senate, on top of the two independents.

Giving the Democrat President (whoever he or she is) effective control over the country once again.

How to Predict the 2020 Presidential Election

People routinely attempt to predict the presidential election the wrong way.  They look at popular polls over the whole country.  Those are meaningless.  It also doesn't matter who all your friends are voting for.   Mainly because if all your friends are voting the same way, you live in a state that is already going 100% for one candidate, and all you have done is predicted how one single state will vote.

Nor is the economy the be all and end all.  Among other things it can turn on a dime.  And it isn't the best predictor.  Most importantly, President Trump is more divisive than most - some people want him impeached while others think he is god's gift to mankind.  


We use an electoral voting system.  As such, you need to look at polls by each state, except for the two states that split their vote.  For those two states, Maine and Nebraska, you need to look at polls by Congressional district.

Most states (and districts) are forgone conclusions.  Even if the the Democrats pick a dead horse, they are going to win New York, California, etc. etc.  Similarly, even if the Trump kills and eats a person on national TV, he will win Mississippi and every state that touches Mississippi.

There are only five states and one district that are "Swing States" - they are too hard to predict and could go either way.   There are also another six or seven states and one district that are "Long Shots".  The rest are already set in concrete and it will take a jackhammer to dislodge them.

The five real swing states are (in order of how many electoral votes they have):

1. Florida (29)
2. Pennsylvania (20)
3. Michigan (16)
4. Arizona (11)
5. Wisconsin (10)

If you win any 3 of them (even the bottom 3) you are almost certain to win the electoral election and take the Presidency.

The swing district is Omaha district 2 of Nebraska.  The Republicans are going to take the state of Nebraska, but either party can win that district for a single extra electoral vote.  Worth at least 1% of your total ad budget.  Probably 2% if it is close, and if it is not close, your ad budget doesn't matter.

The long shots are (some people think Ohio is set in stone, but I disagree):

1. Ohio (18) - most likely Republican
2. Georgia (16) - most likely Republican
3. North Carolina (15) - most likely Republican
4. Minnesota (10) - most likely Democrat
5. Iowa (6) - most likely Republican
6. Arizona (6) - most likely Democrat
7. New Hampshire (4) most likely Democrat

The long shot district is the rural district 2 of Maine.   The Democrats are going to take the state, but while the Republicans will likely win the rural district, it is not impossible for the Democrats to pull an upset and take all of Maine.

But the thing about the long shots is that usually they can not be won unless your candidate is strong enough to win the swing states.  In which case, they do not matter.  But not always.  The reasons the Democrats lost in 2016 was in part because they thought they had Michigan and Wisconsin in the bag.  They had them as Long shots, not swing states.  Granted, Donald Trump did win the 2016 swing states as well, but still.  The Democrats paid too much attention to national polls that correctly predicted Hillary winning the popular vote, and not enough to state polls.


For those reasons, if you want to predict the 2020 Presidential Election, you need to concentrate your data collection on the 5 swing states plus Omaha metropolitan area.

If you know what people in those areas are thinking, you know how the election will turn. Whoever wins three of the five swing states will almost certainly be the president. 


As a a side note, if I were running the a presidential election, I would spend more than 1/2 of my money and time in those five swing states (plus Omaha).  Probably less than a 1/4 of my money and time on the seven long shot states and rural Maine.  That leaves less than a 1/4 to be spent on the remaining 33 states (and territories) of the US.

Why spend any time or money on the foregone conclusions?  To help Congressman and Senators that have a chance of getting elected with your help.   You may lose a state but gain a seat in Congress.  Also, Puerto Ricans may not vote for the President, but they are citizens of the US (Citizens but no vote, is that not the vile?) and can move to the mainland US (Florida perhaps...), where they can vote.  Quite a few of them did that after the last horrible storm when President Trump failed to respond in sufficient force.  Those citizens will be voting, and I suspect few will vote Republican.

Quotes and the 2020 election.

There is a quote, which I don't quite remember the exact details or who first said it (Hard to be sure of any quote's authors in the age of the lying internet).  I will attempt to paraphrase it:

• Under normal circumstances, conservatives should outnumber liberals.

This is based on the real definition of political conservatism: "The inclination, especially in politics, to maintain the existing or traditional order."    If the government is not totally screwing up, then most people are complacent and will be more afraid of losing what they have than of gaining benefits.

(The rest of these bullet points are my statements, not paraphrased quotes.)

•   Liberal political parties will correctly identify a problem that needs fixing, that Conservative party is ignoring.  Their solution might not work, but they will identify the problem.

This is part of the definition of a liberal party - they are trying to fix things that a conservative party is willing to ignore because they are afraid a solution will mess up things that are working well.

• Conservative ideals of today are identical to liberal ideals 50 years ago.

This again is the result of the definitions.  Liberals try to solve problems, conservatives stick to tradition.  Once a liberal solves a problem, 50 years later their solution becomes a tradition.  The liberals may try to improve upon it, but the conservatives like their parent's solution.  Hence conservatives went from being for slavery to against it but in favor of separate but equal, etc. etc. etc.

Some people mistakenly think the first quote (conservatives outnumber liberals) means most Americans are Republicans. Not true.   

•  Under normal circumstances, a moderate political party will outnumber any extremist party.

That includes conservatives, liberals, greens, hawks, doves, libertarians, monarchists, communists, or authoritarian.   This is true because a moderate party has a greater pool of voters.  It can draw from all sides, and the independents in particular. Extremist party, can only draw from their own extreme and some of the independents.  How do the Extremists win?   enthusiasm.

Moderates tend toward apathy, extremists have enthusiasm.  The DNC has tried to be a moderate party since Bill Clinton, explaining why they lose the midterms (voter apathy) but do better in the presidential elections (Since 1992 there were seven  elections, and the Republicans won the popular vote only once - George Bush's 2004 re-election.   Democrats won the popular vote all six other times, despite losing the electoral college twice)

• The Republican party, while it was a conservative party with libertarian tendencies for most of the past 70 years , has moved to a rural party due to successful  gerrymandering policy pushed by Karl Rove.

They knew they could not win the popular vote against a moderate party, so they ignored it and concentrated on other methods - gerrymandering the vote to gain rural seats.

• The Democratic party, while it started as a liberal party, is being pushed into an urban party by gerrymandering.  

If you can't win the rural areas due to gerrymandering, the party leaders become all urban, pushing the party that direction.


Now back to the 2020 election.  Remember the Karl Rove Gerrymandering plan?

• Trump undermined the gerrymandering movement, first managing to steal a whole bunch of suburban voters via a social media plan, but new trends show him losing them.  (https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump/)

What is going to happen next?  Will the GOP return to it's rural based gerrymandering policy?  The Supreme Court could end that - they may be conservative but they are mostly honest and see the real undemocratic effects of gerrymandering. 

Will Trump leave a lasting mark on the GOP, turning it into a Social Media Party?  I don't think that will last.  It might work for him, but no one else seems to be able to duplicate his style of ignoring facts. 
 
I see the DNC regaining most of the electoral votes in the Great Lake States  (Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan).  When you lie (show his taxes, Mexico will pay for the wall, save the dreamers, etc.) you make short term gains but suffer in the long term.  That will give the Presidency to the DNC candidate.

The GOP may keep the Senate - though it is not certain.  They have enough seats up for re-election in states that are leaning against Trump.  They will almost certainly lose Arizona and Colorado.  The Democrats need to pick off at least one of Maine, Iowa, or North Carolina - all of whom dislike Trump. If the right presidential candidate brings out the voters and the Democrats pick good Senate Candidates for those three states, the GOP loses it's majority.


If the DNC gains three total, it's a tie.  Four and the DNC controls both the Presidency and Congress.  Ginsburg and Breyer will almost certainly be replaced by the next president.   If the Democrat does not screw up and get's re-elected, that means Alito and/or Thomas are likely to be replaced as well, giving the liberals a majority unless the GOP pulls some evil maneuver like they did to get Gorsuch into office.   (Obama should have had the choice, and the GOP got lucky Hillary - who won the popular vote - did not win the electoral vote)

Why Government SHOULD get bigger every year.

In America, the conservative movement has an accepted axiom that "Big government is bad government".

While there is a germ of an idea here (there are a lot of  government rules and regulations that are either a) regulating things that don't need to be regulated or, worse, b) stopping good things and/or allowing bad things), the essential idea that more government = worse government is false.

Once upon a time, we were ignorant.  We did not know the dangers of radiation, mercury, foreign money on our politics, dioxins, asbestos, tobacco, Facebook political ads, cocaine, Oxycontin, pay day loans, global warming, thalidomide, AIDS, etc. etc. etc.

Back then, it would be foolish to regulate them.  We could have outlawed bananas for their radioactivity while encouraging the use of x-ray machines to measure your foot size.    But over time we learned enough about radioactivity to make good regulations about them.  Once we knew enough about radioactivity, it would have been reckless to NOT regulate them.

The thing is, our current society is VERY good at learning things.  Every year we learn why certain things kill you, and how to avoid them.

As such, every single year we need NEW regulations.    When we prove that CBD oil helps certain epileptic seizures, we need new laws allowing the cannabis derived drug to be included in medications for epileptics.   We don't want to to simply advertise that, because it will not become an effective treatment without the regulations.

That does not mean we should not eliminate the bad regulations.  But no matter what, every year:

1. Government will grow larger
2. This is a GOOD thing
3. Some jackass will complain about how government is getting too big.

 

 Are there bad government regulations and laws?  Yes.   Many.  I can even give you a list to help identify them.

1. Made by the top officials, rather than the mid to low government officials.  Congressmen, Presidents, Agency heads.   They have less expertise in the data, more expertise in how to appease others. 
2. Based on politically ideas rather than verified new discoveries
3. They have not solved or even reduced the problem.  If the problem still exists and is not shrinking,that is a bad government.
4.  

Torture, the Weak Willed and Confusion.

First note, that I labelled this Crime, as in it is a crime to torture people.   Too often we forget that, and let the torturers off scott free.

One of the flaws in the US Legal system is that it has done a poor job preventing torture.  Basically we have two amendments, the 8th to stop the cruel and unusual punishments of convicted criminals, and the 5th allows us to refuse to answer questions.

These left a lot of leeway and the Courts had to make some tough decisions, both of which made the situation worse.

First, the Eighth Amendment.  The problem with this was the wording ''and unusual".   Which means things that were usual punishments, even if we later discovered they were particularly cruel, get grandfathered in.

Oh, "Solitary Confinement" drives people mad?  Too bad, it's been going on for so long, it is now considered usual, and not unconstitutional.  Oh, poisoning you with multiple poisons, one to stop the pain and another to kill may result in a painful death, where just filling you with heroin will kill you painlessly?  Too bad, it's been going on for so long, it's usual.  

It took a long time to get the right to be fed according to your beliefs/religions, because of this.  This was a bad wording mistake by either James Madison who wrote the actual amendment, or more accurately, the English Bill of Rights (1689), where Madison took the  words "cruel and unusual punishment" from. 

The Fifth amendment is more problematic.  The problem is that it doesn't outright outlaw behavior, but instead prevents the cops from compelling  you to speak.   The idea was that compelling you to speak implies torture, but the courts had to work with the language, so they set up complex rules defining what was compelling, rather than the behavior that was torture.  So the cops found ways to do things that was not 'them compelling you to speak', that reasonable people would call torture, but that they would not get arrested for. 


It wasn't until 1963 that they established the Miranda Ruling, and over the past 55+ years, the cops have found ways to abide by these rules about 'compelling' speech, but most would consider to be loopholes.  That is, they clearly compelled the speech, but can pretend they did not.


So let's talk about the the things cops do that should be illegal, but are generally still accepted in a court of law as acceptable.


1) Questioning before someone receives medical treatment - often with the implication or outright threat that the treatment depends on answers.  This may be the suspect or someone they care about.

2) Questioning after someone has threatened in a believable manner.  This includes the drawing of a firearm, actual physical assault, etc.  None of this needs to be done by the police, it could also be done by someone associated with them or under their control - including other criminals.

3) Keep questioning for more than 8 hours - upto 16 hours - a day, usually switching off cops (because forcing a single cop to question you for 16 hours a day would be torture to the cop, and they don't want the cop to break.)


4) Delaying, or limiting the quantity or quality of food or water. 

5) Questioning while you are under the influence of drugs, such as alcohol (some states regulate this, but not the federal government).

6) Questioning Children or those with similar mental capabilities.

7) Confessions obtained using a translator - particularly for sign language.  The person interrogating should speak the same language.  

8) Confessions where the police fed the informant ANY accurate details of the crime.  The details exist for one purpose only, to verify if the confession is true or false.  Feeding them the details only makes sense if you are looking to disguise a false confession as true.

These are common issues in many cases that were overturned.  They fall into three categories:

A)  Torture.  First few are examples of actual torture, even if no actual harm is done.   Here, the cops are using sufficient fear and stress that that even normal people become willing to lie to get out of the situation.    Different people have different levels of will power, and a cop that goes anywhere near his own will power will end up sending someone an innocent man with just slightly weaker will power to jail.
 B) Stress on a weak mind   A little less severe than torture, but peoples who minds are not working right - whether they be children the disabled, or the drugged, routinely make false statements that implicate themselves.  Throw in stress and you can get them to do it on command.

C) Confusion about what was actually confessed to.   Here, improper care, whether intentional or accidental is made over what was actually confessed to, and the court is presented false information as if it were true.


None of these should be allowed.  If for some reason they need to be questioned when the prerequisites are there by accident, the cops should get a defense attorney or call it inadmissiable.

Our legal system is one of the best in the world.  It jails a higher percent of our population that most other countries.  It is designed to work on tough, smart criminals.  The weak willed need more protection, and I assure you the legal system is more than tough enough to  convict a criminal kid, even if he has an attorney when questioned.