11 February, 2021

Democrats Pound the Table

Impeachment managers appeal to Senators’ emotions, not their reason | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

On making their case to the Senate, the House impeachment managers are focusing on the Capitol riot itself rather than on Donald Trump’s responsibility, if any, for it. Yesterday, Senators watched video of a mob going after Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and others, injuring police officers in the process.

The video seems to have made an impression on Republican Senators, most of whom, I’m sure, were already disgusted by what happened at the Capitol. If the House managers could show that Trump is culpable for the rioting — that he advocated or desired it — they could probably win additional Republicans over. Perhaps they could even approach the two-thirds majority required for conviction.

But showing video of the rioting won’t accomplish this. Nor is it likely to sway many Americans. The public, I believe, has moved past the rioting even if, understandably, those who experienced it directly have not.

Where is the evidence that Trump advocated or desired the rioting that took place? It’s not in the House impeachment article. That document focuses solely on Trump’s claims that he won the election and won it in a landslide — claims he had an absolute right in a free country to voice — and his statement that Americans need to “fight like hell” to keep their country.

Political columnist Patrick Buchanan understood the Democrats approach, way back in 1975:

There is an old trial lawyers’ saying “When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on you side, pound the table.”

The Democrats are pounding the table hard.

1 comment:

  1. (The impeachment is legal) / (the impeachment is illegal). Two sides of the same coin, if you ask me (which you didn't). The lawyers can argue and argue away. The legal arguments are terribly insignificant compared to the actuality of what's happening in our nation. It's all political theater, calibrated to make it appear as though something consequential is happening.

    Mollie Hemingway gets it right, in my rarely humble opinion. “I don’t think people realize how horrifying it is for many people in the country to see their Capitol surrounded by troops, while the previous president is paraded in front of cameras for a show trial. This is something that you think of as banana republic or Third World-country stuff.”

    What *is* significant is what's *really* going on: it's a full-court-press to permanently intimidate the political right, to thoroughly emasculate it and ensure it never regains a foothold or even a significant voice ever again. Part of that is the political theater, and the legal arguments are popcorn for the performance. This is the left's long-awaited-for moment and by golly, they're glorying in it for all it's worth.

    https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/09/hemingway-troops-around-capitol-and-show-trials-of-political-opposition-are-banana-republic-things/

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