10 Predictions on the Eve of the Second Trump Impeachment Trial
by Diana Goetsch
I’m publishing this before the first day of the Senate trial on the merits. I promise not to make any changes to the predictions below (so we can check back here to see how I do)
1. The inside-the-beltway expectation, that there’s zero chance of conviction, is wrong. A lot can happen—especially in the public square—to affect this trial between now and the end of next week.
2. A significant majority of the electorate — 56% — is currently in favor of conviction. That means millions who voted for Trump now want conviction, and it’s a number that can grow, depending on…
3. Depending on how the House Managers, and the news media, tell the story. This will be all about storytelling. The trial can be brisk and fast (because it’s an open and shut case) but it needs to be vivid and indelible in its imagery and narrative of Trump: 1) inciting insurrection; 2) attempting an authoritarian takeover; 3) ending American democracy.
The verdict is about whether or not Republican Senators think ending American democracy is a good idea.
4. If that happens the trial will bestow on the US electorate the rarest of commodities: a memory. Though the American public has the attention span of a puppy, the overwhelming majority correctly remembers Joe McCarthy, George Wallace and Richard Nixon. And if the overwhelming majority can be trained to put Donald Trump beside them, the election math will change and…
5. If the election math changes, it will force Senate Republicans to worry about their livelihoods. The same unprincipled cowardice that made them susceptible to Trump, can win their votes for convicting him. We’ve already seen this in Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, who, post Jan. 6, have already shifted positions like a flea between two dogs. Cruz, Rubio, Collins, Grassley, Cornyn, Ernst & others — all are identical in their spinelessness and willingness to say anything in order to stay in office.
6. Misgivings I: My biggest misgiving has to do with bad storytelling. The “team” approach, with nine House Managers, will give us too many narrators. (In the last impeachment trial, Nadler was a catastrophe due to his histrionics; Lofgren was deadly boring as a storyteller, as was Garcia.) The House Managers ought to shorten the bench to just a couple presenters, and if there are witnesses, make sure they’re compelling, people who uniquely say what only they can say, with a visual component, and unexpected detail. (The #1 tool of effective narrative: surprise.) Instead, I fear hours of plodding analyses “covering all the bases,” by a tag team of too many House Managers.
7. Misgivings II: Mistaking the audience: The House Managers, and news media, need to present a shocking story to an inadequately shocked American public, who in turn need to register their outrage in a way that will change the electoral math for Senate Republicans. This is a bank shot, and the primary jury is the American public. There’s no need for House Managers to tame what they say to those across the aisle in the Senate chamber; far better to incite (I said that) public outrage at them should they fail to convict.
As Norm Eisen said on CNN: “It’s the Republican Senators who are on trial.”
This is a bank shot, and the primary jury is the American public.
8. Misgivings III: Incorrect Framing/getting lost in legal debate. An impeachment is about UNFITNESS FOR OFFICE, and in this case future unfitness for office, for Trump, and anyone who resorts to his tactics. It is not a legal trial, and shouldn’t be allowed to get lost in legal minutiae, or turn on legal/process grounds. The verdict is about whether or not Republican Senators think ending American democracy is a good idea. (They do of course, and have been pushing since Reagan to turn democracy into apartheid, through “small government,” which is code for corporatocracy & income inequality; also through voter disenfranchisement, through gerrymandering, through obstructionism, through posing as fake deficit hawks, through diabolical tactics to control the judiciary; the current makeup of the Supreme Court, compared to the makeup of the country, is an emblem of apartheid if ever there was one.) The point here is the GOP will not publicly say they are against American democracy when it is put to them in stark terms, which is how the Capitol riot and impeachment must be framed.
9. Final prediction: If the House Managers and news media do better than I think they will do, and the national polling gets to 65% for conviction by the end of next week, the Senate will convict. However, I predict there will be 60-65 votes to convict—falling short of the 67 votes needed— and it will be the demise of the GOP. Note: Impeachment trials have never been about conviction. (Romney’s vote to convict Trump in the last trial was the first time in the history of the US a member of the same party as the president voted to convict.) Impeachments are, rather, about the future. The previous impeachment trial was aimed at affecting the 2020 presidential election, and the Democrats were wildly successful at pulling independent voters from Trump. This trial is about the 2022 midterms, and could well have a major effect on them. Which leads us to…
10. Next up: The surging GQP cult, with the same approval numbers as Sarah Palin, will hand Dems a massive victory in the midterms, followed by the 2024 candidacy of Trump, if the GA and NY attorneys general don’t successfully prosecute him first.
