The impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump starts soon. Maybe. Probably.<\/p>\n
Since there\u2019s little chance the Republican Senate is going to give into Democratic House demands, eventually the Articles of Impeachment will be conveyed to the Senate and a trial will start.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written on this blog and elsewhere that Donald Trump deserves to be impeached<\/a> and he technically deserves to be removed<\/a> from office \u2014 though many of his offenses occurred before he was even elected.<\/p>\n My fear has been that impeachment helps Trump.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I dislike Trump, and my moral compass tells me impeachment was deserved.<\/p>\n My academic, scholarly, research-based analytical compass? It tells me this is a win for Trump, no matter how much I dislike that.<\/p>\n As background, I study behavior, biases, and decision making. My doctorate is in rhetoric, scientific and technical communication. My passion is the rhetoric of economics, which led me to create this blog. Why is it that good economics are seldom adopted as public policy?<\/p>\n Well, it turns out that logic, reason, and even moral decency aren\u2019t how we make decisions.<\/strong><\/p>\n We (as in \u201chumanity\u201d in general) are a tribal animal species. We are born into or join a tribe and then defend that tribe. You can reject the theories of evolutionary psychology, but they seem to be proved again and again.<\/p>\n Donald Trump knows he is the symbol of the Trump GOP Tribe.<\/strong>\u00a0He has the instinct of a showman, a good con artist. A salesman. Let\u2019s be honest: that\u2019s what wins in politics, too often.<\/p>\n Republicans in the House and Senate are afraid of their voters. The voting base, the primary voters in the GOP, follow Trump. If a Representative or Senator turns on Trump, the base voters will take this personally.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t doubt some Republican officials have developed a genuine loyalty to Trump and believe their strange defenses of him. We do this with friends and family all the time: rationalize evidence against someone we want to protect.<\/p>\n Attacking Trump is perceived as an attack against his voters, by those voters.<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s the reality Democrats have no accepted. As a result, they haven\u2019t used framing that appeals to GOP, moderate, and independent voters. They\u2019ve allowed everything from election night 2016 onward to be about Donald Trump. His supporters take that personally.<\/p>\n This was how Clinton voters approach Bill Clinton, too. They rationalized and defended him. The excuses offered by Clinton supporters should now be looked back upon with shame.<\/p>\n Trump plays the\u00a0victim, on behalf of his voters.<\/strong> Trump is no victim of anything but his own hubris. But, some of his follower are victims<\/em> of biases, hatred, and stereotypes. They hear attacks on Trump and relate to those.<\/p>\n Trump is going to ride impeachment right into the 2020 election. It\u2019s going to energize his base. They will be there for him.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure the dead-end impeachment will energize Democrats and it certainly isn\u2019t energizing independents in polling data.\u00a0Trump fatigue could actually help him win again.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t seem that Democrats have handled the impeachment well. They should have let subpoenas work through the courts. They should have been more patient, building a case to use during the election. Instead, they rushed. That rush to impeach could prove costly. Polls now suggest a majority of voters consider Democrats to be acting out of partisanship instead of national interest. Yet, most also believe Trump did something wrong. Reflect on that. Democrats had a chance to demonstrate they weren\u2019t merely being partisan. They lost that chance.<\/p>\n Appealing only to their base leaves Democrats right where they were before impeachment.<\/p>\n Trump has to be pretty pleased, so far.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump starts soon. Maybe. Probably. 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