Quite possible.
In 1974, the GOP was a party. It is now a cult. So none of this matters. Thanks to the Kochs et al, a far-right cabal took over the GOP, and members were programmed to believe anything they hear from officials and from Faux News, a lot of long-debunked economic and social theories. With a dollop of theocracy. Of course Trump won't be convicted. A dismissal will just eliminate the sham that a Senate trial would be (a sham in the sense that most GOP senators will only pretend to hear evidence and pretend to consider it). The real question is how many independent voters have drunk the Fox/Koch/Trump tea-flavored koolaid.
Yesterday the Dept. of Justice IG charged with looking into the origins of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump Campaign issued a report that had a very
clear top line conclusion; while the FBI agents charged with justifying surveillance of the campaign made mistakes, those were not born out of any political bias, and that the investigation itself was properly predicated and justified.
Trumpworld’s reaction: AG Barr declares that he doesn’t agree with the conclusions, at the same time saying it justified his opinion that the investigation was overly intrusive and not justified. Nunes says his memo is vindicated. Graham accused the FBI of criminal behavior, setting out to purposefully defraud the FISA court. Scalise claims the report proved Obama abused his power, and tried to rig the election against Trump. Hannity says all their reporting has now been shown to be true, and of course Trump is now saying there was an attempted COUP against him, and has issued threats against his own FBI Director for accurately portraying the reports contents.
This is instructive to the impeachment effort today vs. 1974. Who knows, in the end Barr and Durham may come up with magical evidence that shows that all of the FBI was out to get Trump and prevent his getting elected in 2016 (they just apparently forgot to tell anyone about the investigation until after the election.) Sure, could happen. But this report says
absolutely nothing of the kind and yet here are high ranking members of the Republican Party and their most trusted media apparatus blithely, without any concern for any repercussions,
lying about what it says.
I don’t know exactly where it started or if the Kochs have something to do with it, but at some point between 1974 and now Republicans figured out that their power and policy goals benefitted in a world where there were no agreed upon facts, that things like evidence and truth don’t matter, and that outright lying to the American people were justified means to the end of granting tax cuts to rich people.
The response to the impeachment articles was previewed yesterday on a different but related matter. They will lie however blatantly that requires. And no Republican or their supporters can now even
pretend that their reaction has anything to do with the evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing.
Poll
5 (45.5%)